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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Today is relative to an inquiry on can I get Hashimoto’s if I wasn’t born with a thyroid? So the answer to that is I don’t know exactly for sure the answer to that because I’ve never met anybody who’s been born without a thyroid. Certainly have never treated anybody who’s been born without a thyroid.
But let’s follow this through because I’ve also way more frequently gotten the question of if I have my thyroid taken out, can I still have Hashimoto’s? The answer to that question is yes. The reason the answer to that question is yes, and this leads to the answer to the question of the day. Can I get Hashimoto’s if I don’t have a thyroid? The answer to the question of I’ve had my thyroid taken out, can I get it, the answer is yes.
The reason for that is because you still have thyroid tissue in there when you have it taken out. It’s interesting. Years ago, right before I really started getting into all of this, I was invited to be a member of a hospital outreach program where they had several of us. They chose several of us or allowed several of us to go in and watch surgeries. I remember watching a thyroid surgery and I used to do a lot in human anatomy and biochemistry and I used to dissect out a lot of dead bodies. That’s a whole nother story. Years and years and years and years and years ago.
But that allowed me to look at that and say after the doctor did his thing, I said, “It doesn’t look like, you got all the thyroid out.” He goes, “No, no, you can never get all the thyroid out because it’s connected here and there. You might change their voice.” At the time it wasn’t a big deal to me, I just was curious. But later on when I started getting people that came in who didn’t have their thyroid, but they had the antibodies and if they ate gluten, they would get all the exacerbations and the heart palpitations and this type of stuff. I started conjecturing back to that thinking these people still have thyroid tissue in there.
Then eventually, and it wasn’t until just recently I actually had that confirmed by a doctor who said, “No. No, this is rare that we don’t leave at least 10% of the thyroid in there.” So the whole thing for the person who gets their thyroid taken out is they still have thyroid tissue. If you still have thyroid tissue, the immune system still… Your genetics still tells your immune system you can attack it. Now the answer to if you never had a thyroid, I would assume that the answer would be, what are my chances of getting Hashimoto’s? I would assume that the answer would be zero and none because in my world, understanding physiology the way I think I understand it, you have no thyroid tissue to attack.
So let’s say you had rheumatoid arthritis and you rarely get one thyroid… You rarely get one autoimmune problem. So let’s say you got rheumatoid arthritis and you keep getting the rheumatoid arthritis and then whatever treatment you’re doing isn’t working. Then all of a sudden one day start to get a rash on your neck and you get it checked out and the doctor goes, “You know what? You have eczema now or psoriasis.” Okay, let’s say on your elbows so psoriasis. You go, “Oh crap. Now how can I get that?” Well, you can get it because you have the genetics that tells you you can attack that skin tissue because you keep flaring up the rheumatoid arthritis. If it’s not under control, it’s going to express the next one, the next genetic propensity that you have.
If you don’t have a thyroid, I would imagine you could have 50 thyroid cases in your family, but you have to have a thyroid that when the genetics say attack this to attack it. But if there’s no tissue to attack it, my rationale would be I don’t think you could get Hashimoto’s if you don’t have a thyroid. Again, I’ve never met anybody who didn’t have thyroid. I’ve never treated anybody who didn’t have a thyroid. But if I were on one of these buzz quiz shows and they asked me, “Can you do it or not?” That would be the rationing before I would say, “No. No, I don’t think you can get it.”
But that’s what I know, that’s what I know. So I’ll keep my eye out for that one over the rest of my career to see if somebody comes in without a thyroid. If they do and we treat them and we see what happens, then I’ll do another video for you at that point in time.
