Hashimoto's disease

Pregnancy and Hashimoto's tyroiditis

Although pregnancy is the most beautiful period in our lives, and everything seems ok for us and our babies, there are so many changes that affect our bodies, including hormonal problems. After the baby arrives, we feel overwhelmed and we become tired, get some weight, sleep less, and all these together lead to serious problems, and the emotional stress is the main factor which causes problems with our tyroid.
As a mother of two little gorgeous girls, one of 1 year old and the other of 5 years old, I experienced problems with my tyroid after the second birth, more precisely, I've found about it by mistake, as my family doctor advised me that I should do blood tests for tyroid too, because, sometimes, after pregnancy, this kind of problems may occur. There are many symptoms that occur after pregnancy, but sometimes, if we do not know our bodies well enough, we can misunderstand it and put it on the stress and the lack of sleep. Personally, I thought everything was ok, but, you know, it was normal to be stressed when having two little babies. Mothers of two completely understand what I'm talkig about, I' m sure of it. So, it is extremely important to know better our bodies and the signs it sends us. It would be the first step to reveal the tyroid issues and only the doctor would decide what blood tests should be done, tyroid ultrasounds or, when worse, biopsy.


As a result of general blood tests, I've found my TSH was very high, so, my doctor asked for more blood tests, to decide what kind of tyroid problems did I have. The results showed I had high antibodies, so, the diagnosis was Hashimoto's tyroiditis, an autoimmune problem of the tyroid, in which the immune system gives antibodies that attack the tyroid. It's difficult to find out you suffer from tyroid problems, especially when you do not have symptoms, and you put the stress on the two babies you take care of (the only symptom was constipation, but I had it from pregnancy, so I put it on it, hoping that there was just a matter of time for the body to recover after pregnancy).
Now, if untreated, Hashimoto can lead to hypotyroidism. I remind that this made me to research about it, and I also took medical assistance from my doctor and specialists. I'm not a doctor, so, each woman has different symptoms for this disease. As for myself, I didn't get weight (this should be one of the symptoms), but, instead, I ironically lost weight.
Anyway, the next step is to find out when the disease occured, which is very difficult, and this is of high importance, because it could be genetic, and, in conclusion, your children could have the disease, too. Doctors say that pregnancy starts the tyroid problems in women who have a genetic component to this disease, or at least the symptoms occur after pregnancy.

Factors playing a role in Hashimotos's:

The causes of Hashimoto's are not known, according to the doctors, but there are some factors with high influence on the disease:

- Genes: if there's one family member who has tyroid disease or other autoimmune disease, then the genetic component has a high influence.

- Iodine: if you have an excessive amount of iodine in your body, than this could lead to serious autoimune diseases like Hashimoto's. It ia known that iodine is needed by our bodies to make tyroid hormones, but too much iodine affects us.

- Hormones: Sex hormones may play a role, that is why some women develop tyroid problems during the first year after pregnancy, and, even if it usually goes away, some women develop Hashimoto's years later.

-Radiation: People exposed to radiation develop a high risk to have tyroid problems like Hashimoto's.

Treatment for Hashimoto's:

The doctor is the only one who could advice you what medicine is benefic to each of you, but there are many studies who show that alternative medicine is successful, meaning that food has a great influence in our lives, but this is a topic that deserves a great attention.
In conclusion, as a person who has Hashimoto's, why shouldn't we treat the the real cause and not the effect?