So the question is what high or low antibodies mean in terms of um hashimoto’s thyroid symptoms. This is a great question. It’S a question. I have gotten a zillion times. It’S not actually a question. I’Ve gotten a zillion times.
Basically, what happens is this person comes in with their with their laps and and and and then they’re, opining or agonizing over whether their antibiotics have gone up where they’ve gone down? My antibodies won’t come down, but i got ta get my antibodies down, um and, and – and none of that is exactly well – it’s not correct at all.
So here’s here’s kind of the skinny on antibodies so antibodies are. They are made by your system to to alert your immune system to attack something that’s bad like a virus or something like that and then, unfortunately, for a lot of us, we have the genetics that say that once you’ve developed a certain trigger and your immune system Flares up your immune system might look around and go.
Oh that person’s genetics say i can attack their thyroid tissue okay, now, there’s and and – and this is interesting because everybody talks about the thyroid peroxidase antibodies. So there’s two different types of antibodies: there’s an antithyroglobulin antibody which almost nobody ever talks about and then there’s the anti in the thyroid.
Peroxidase antibody, the infamous tpo, and so these antibodies are attacked. Are these antibodies when, when a trigger is introduced into the system, a food or toxin or stress or you over exercise or whatever your triggers are okay, then then this trigger will set off an immune response and then and then that immune response will will cause the Antibodies to go up because you have the genetic propensity and your antibodies have been tagged by your immune system.
So now, every time your immune system goes up, your thyroid antibodies will go up and then and then that will call your your your your white blood cells to come in attack, okay and so basically the antibodies i’ve had people come in here with antibodies of twenty Thousand or more now the range is zero to nine and for those of you say it’s zero, thirty, two zero to sixty four and zero to sixty and all that, it’s not it’s zero to nine, okay, and, if so, so, if so i so, if somebody comes In here anybody’s at twenty thousand they’re freaked out of their minds – oh my god, they might be sitting there and not even feel that bad, maybe their only symptoms are that they get occasional heart palpitations for no reason at all and they got the hypothyroid symptoms.
Of of being overweight and their hair’s falling outside, which has nothing to do with their antibodies, has to do with them being hypothyroid, because their thyroid’s been beaten up and it’s not working well, and so so there’s not a correlation really between numbers of antibiotics.
Why is it different for everyday? Everybody has different immune systems. Everybody has different plasticity of their immune system, in other words everybody so who’s whose immune system is on a hair trigger who’s, not who’s.
Uh um, whose microbiome is is, is, is working properly and whose microbiome is not working properly and who’s in a chronic stress response to ptsd. All these factors factor into what, where your, where your antibody levels are, the better approach to understanding antibodies is to um the first couple of times you get your antibodies taken, let’s just say, they’re at let’s just say, they’re at um, whatever, let’s just say, they’re at 500, okay say the antibodies are 500.
, probably to some degree. It’S useful to to use that as a baseline for you, and maybe your antibodies are going to go up and down as you get better or not, but they’re not and you might be able to use that as a baseline and go.
You know, i think your antibodies are 500 and now they’re down to 350, and that’s then, and so it shows that what we’re doing is working, but it’s not a reflection of how much tissue damage you have. The reflection of how much tissue damage you have is the old fashioned thyroid, stimulating hormone marker, the tsh.
That’S what tells you if there’s damage if your tsh starts out at eight and then you go to the doctor and they give you medication or you go to us and you and you get all the other things fixed and and your thyroid and your and your And your thyroid goes uh, your thyroid antibodies stay the same, but and but your tsh goes to normal you’re in good shape.
If you are taking thyroid medication and you and and you go to the uh doctor, you should go once a year. If you have autoimmune thyroid disease, once you’ve gotten established, uh baseline um and your tsh keeps going up, they have to keep giving you more like.
I started off with 25 micrograms of medication. Now i got to give you 50. Now i get to be 75.. Your thyroid is being damaged, you’re missing a lot, whether you’re experiencing a lot of symptoms or not.
Your thyroid is getting damaged if your thyroid’s getting damaged you’re missing triggers so really that’s a better way of assessing your thyroid than looking at the antibodies. Your your thyroid, your entire antibodies, going up and down you can almost argue, means nothing other than the fact that you have autoimmune thyroid disease and there’s so many things that can cause it on a certain day.
You can be stressed, and your thyroid antibodies can go up, doesn’t mean you’re getting more attacked it. Doesn’T it doesn’t mean any of that? It just means that. Well, i honestly once i’ve seen the antibodies once on a person if that, if there are anybody’s like 75, i’m like you have hashimoto’s, that’s the last time i ever test them.
I never even test them again. It doesn’t matter. It really has no effect on whether they get better, but i test tsh, i test their t3, their free t3, their t4, their their. You know their t3 uptake. I test those all the time, because those are the ones they’re going to tell you how you’re doing once you start eliminating the triggers.
So that’s kind of the answer on on on antibodies. You
