Note: The text below is a transcription from the video above. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
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Okay. Today, we’re going to take it back to where it all began, Hashimoto’s and chronic fatigue. So years and years and years ago, I was part of a group that was one of the earliest groups in functional medicine and chronic fatigue was the issue. It was chronic fatigue, immunodeficiency disease, and fibromyalgia.
Chronic fatigue can be caused by a lot of things. Okay. Back then we were looking to see what caused chronic fatigue and the obvious main suspect if you will, was thyroid, because thyroid really, really is controlling your energy levels, and your mitochondria and your cells need a few things to work well. They need proper oxygen. They need lack of inflammation. They need proper blood sugar and they need proper T3, the thyroid hormone T3.
So if you’re not getting an… So as we started to explore that, it became apparent that a lot of the thyroid problems that people did have, who had chronic fatigue, actually were autoimmune thyroid disease, Hashimoto’s and then we started to see a big player in chronic fatigue, but it is not the only player. So Hashimoto’s will cause chronic fatigue for the reason I just said. It’s called Hashimoto’s hypothyroid disease. The vast majority of people who have Hashimoto’s have hypothyroid. There’s a small group that are the thin overactive Hashimoto’s patients, but 95% are hypothyroid. Overweight, losing hair, constipation, dry skin, everything slows down, including the ability to make thyroid hormone.
So you might not make enough thyroid hormone, or you might make enough thyroid hormone and it can’t get into the cells. As I just said, you need proper T3, so that’s the active thyroid hormone that is made out of your thyroid. A little bit out of your thyroid. There’s another hormone called T4 that’s made in your thyroid and that turns into T3 in your liver, in your intestines and at the cell sites themselves. Then that has to get in for your cells’ mitochondria, the little energy industrial factory energies in your cells that make energy. It doesn’t get in there, you got chronic fatigue.
That’s the relationship of Hashimoto’s to chronic fatigue. Again, I just want to make the point. Chronic fatigue can be so many different things. It can be chemical. It can be because of food sensitivities. It can be because of chemical sensitivities. It could be because of blood sugar going up and down. It can because of diabetes, it could be because of insomnia, sedentary lifestyle and more. Autoimmunity in general can cause it. So there’s a lot of things that can… Usually, it’s more than one thing, which is why I’m saying this. Usually it’s Hashimoto’s bad gut problem, blood sugar going up and down, chemical sensitivities. If you’re like, I am so fatigued, I am done, I can’t get up. I’m going to have to quit my job. It’s not just Hashimoto’s. It’s going to be four or five or six of those things put together that need to be unwound, the onion on that needs to be peeled and Hashimoto’s is a part of that. So that’s Hashimoto’s and chronic fatigue.
