Thyroidy…somehow the word has integrated itself into a convenient and multi-functional part of my vocabulary. Thyroidy skin, I’m feeling thyroid today, my brain is thyroidy, the uses are endless for such an irreplaceable word. Anyway, this post is not meant to be about adjectives, it is to share with you a remedy for the extraordinarily dry skin that comes along with the symptom parade of a hypothyroid episode.

However, I would like to share a little update with you first. In my last post, I mentioned that I was undergoing a detox for heavy metal toxicity. I did complete the 6-month protocol of the heavy metal chelation by DMSA pills that I wrote about and was retested for metals and minerals. The good news is that my iron and zinc have returned to normal levels and the level of cadmium did go down. The bad news is that cadmium levels were not reduced quite enough and that mercury levels in my body had increased. Yuck. So now I am undergoing a series of IV chelations of DMSA, DMPS, EDTA, glutathione & vitamins. One down, five to go. I will update you as the process continues.

Back to my thyroidy skin. I have to admit it was my fault. I had A LOT going on and I put my health and self-care completely on autopilot. This was the absolute most wrong thing that I could have done when I had A LOT going on. I broke and fell apart, piece by piece, symptom by symptom. I didn’t even realize it was happening. Hair fell out, every single nail split and/or broke (ridges, anyone?), rash spread all over my torso, bruises didn’t heal, sinuses turned into the Sahara, total brain blackout, stressed, exhausted, achy, etc, etc, etc, and that lovely bone-dry skin representing that of an alligator.

Emergency NOURISH. My heart, my spirit, my body. Still working on recovery but my skin healed in record time once I started putting this lovely healing goodness all over. You can make as much as you want, although I like to make it in relatively small batches. Omit any ingredients that you don’t have – all but the coconut oil is optional. Whip the following ingredients together in a blender or food processor:

2/3 cup coconut oil (Good for all things thyroidy)
2 T olive oil
1 t vitamin E oil
lavender and cedarwood essential oils (Both so good for the skin. I used 30 drops each but adjust to your own liking.)

Store in a glass jar. Play around with the amounts to find what works best for your skin. Use often and generously!

How do YOU nourish yourself and manage symptoms?

Goodness from the web:
1. Thyroid Change is sooooo close to reaching 10,000 signatures on its petition for better thyroid care. If you have not yet signed it, click on over here.

2. Have you discovered Hypothyroid Mom’s site yet? Dana Trentini’s seriously awesome blog discusses many health-related aspects of our illness. I have learned more here about how the thyroid affects the rest of the body than I have on any other site. Dana is an advocate for patient’s rights and is passionate about the education that she is providing on her site. LOVE her!

3. Here is a link to a Deepak Chopra meditation from his latest 21-day meditation challenge, Perfect Health. I encourage you to take 15 minutes for yourself to relax and breathe. You deserve it. My world is infinitely better because of Deepak Chopra.

Hello Beautiful Readers! Welcome back for part 2 of my healing process working with my brilliant new doctor. Here is a link to part one if you have not yet read it.

Due to my particular set of symptoms and circumstances, I was (fortunately) tested for levels of minerals and heavy metals. Since I have been a vegetarian for 21 years, I was not too surprised when the tests revealed zinc and iron deficiencies. I have also done my best (to the point of obsession) to eat a diet rich in the nutritional spectrum but deep down, I think I knew that wasn’t completely possible after my initial hypothyroid diagnosis. The tests also showed a very high level of cadmium in my body. Cadmium?!? Really? Like from batteries? Wowza. Now the super crazy thing about cadmium is that is doesn’t show up very well in blood tests so the fact that it showed up as high on mine was kinda alarming. Heavy metal toxicity and mineral deficiencies seems to go hand in hand. Certain minerals seem to curtail the havoc that heavy metals can wreak. These minerals include zinc, iron, selenium, calcium and magnesium. Zinc is particularly helpful in protecting the body against cadmium absorption. At least the results were consistent.

So I got these results with mixed emotions. I was very relieved to learn about the heavy metal toxicity since there was no way my little-engine-that-could thyroid was ever going to properly function without addressing this major issue. The other side of the cadmium coin was that I would finally have to address my vegetarian diet. I will share my experience with this in part three of this three-part post. Anyway, the zinc and iron were pretty easy fixes – just another few pills in my overstuffed pill case. The heavy metal chelation needed to be handled with great care since detoxification is physically and emotionally challenging. It is dangerous if done wrong. Also, chelation (what pulls the metals out of the body) can remove important vitamins and minerals out as well. The chelating agents do not discriminate – their job is to simply flush. Luckily I am blessed to find an incredible doctor with lots of experience healing people (an important quality in a doctor). He determined the best route for me would be a long-term, low and steady dose of DMSA (the chelating agent) partnered with higher dosages of vitamins and minerals. The entire process would take six months.

As I tend to often do, I came up with a written plan. This plan was designed to supplement my detox to assist the metals in finding their way out and to make the experience as easy on me as possible. I was not feeling very well at the time and I was nervous how hard this was going to be. I scheduled a few colonics, spent time in a far-infrared sauna and hung out in the steam room at the gym. I made myself green juices of celery, cucumber, lemon, ginger and cilantro (tastes better than it sounds). Cilantro is supposed to help remove heavy metals. I ate spinach every day (still do – I LOVE it!) since spinach is a powerful liver cleanser and metals can build up here. I drank a buckets of liquids and popped a ton of vitamin C. I spent time in silence, visualizing my healthy clean body. I cried when I needed to and I leaned on my wonderful family for support (thanks guys).

I am now 4 1/2 months into my 6-month protocol and I am feeling soooo much better. I will be retested for just about everything in a month or so. Of course I still have the usual tough “thyroidy” times but it is different now. I am able to see actual healing going on. There is no doubt that my system is learning to function again. I am happy and excited to keep on healing. Yahoo! I am grateful to be on this path, grateful to be working with this doctor, grateful for the amazing online thyroid community that we are all a part of.

And while we are on the subject of our amazing community, the ThyroidChange petition calling for better care fo thyroid patients has over 8000 signatures! Please take a moment to sign if you haven’t done so already. Also, Carol Gray, the Crazy Thyroid Lady has written a new book which I have no doubt will be both hilarious and helpful. I just picked up my copy and can’t wait to read it.

Sending you love and thoughts of vibrant health.

Hello beautiful friends, family, thyribe and new readers! I hope that the past several months since I have written have been full of health, healing and joy for you. I have been doing some deep healing of my own. Generally, I choose not to be too specific about my treatment. While I hope to be a friend to others and listen to their stories, I can be pretty conservative when it comes to sharing my own details, both on the internet and in the flesh. However, in this space – OUR space of Zen Thyroid, sharing and openness and freedom and love is encouraged. I have experienced quite a bit since I have last written and want to share it with you.

When I hit bottom a year ago, I was unrecognizable as a normal human being as I morphed into a real-life, walking, breathing hypothyroid symptom checklist. I seemed to have nearly every symptom imaginable. I began working with a doctor who helped me with getting on medication. Things were progressing and I was able to start functioning a little better. This doctor was very nice but I wasn’t really getting much info from her other than prescriptions. After several months, I realized that I was no longer continuing to get better and my doctor did not seem to have answers other than upping my thyroid meds. I had been steadily increasing up to a fairly high dose of Synthroid and Cytomel and had certainly come a long way in managing my symptoms but had stopped moving forward. In fact, I was starting to feel worse again which sent a major red flag straight to my core. The symptom checklist was filling up again. Throughout my illness, I have learned to really try to hear (and actually act upon!) what my body and heart are telling me. I knew that to get to the next level of feeling better, I had to find a new doctor – one who could teach me things that I did not know, someone who would be able to find and correct imbalances in my body that had not been tested for, a doctor who listened and responded with wisdom, a doctor I trusted.

Thanks to an auspicious recipe of internet power, synchronicity, a bit of manifestation and a good dose of luck, I found the doctor that I needed to move forward. He is so in demand that I actually had to wait three months for my first appointment! Despite the fact that I am not exactly famous for my patience, I had no problem waiting. I KNEW this was the right path. My initial appointment was two hours long, featuring an entire hour just with the doc – wow. During this appointment and over the following couple weeks, many tests were taken, a variety of problems were identified and multiple treatments ensued.

The first and quite shocking bit of news was that I was completely overdosing on my thyroid meds. Buckle in…my TSH was 0.006! What?!?!? (Research shows that optimal TSH levels are 0.3 to 3.0, with many patients feeling best somewhere around 1ish) Well, no wonder I wasn’t feeling well, huh? And how OMG seriously holy cow incredibly dangerous for the body to be subjected to this kind of number. My heart, brain and bones were all at risk. So obviously the first course of biz was to lower my dosage. My new doc strongly suggested that I switch to desiccated thyroid (which comes from pigs’ thyroid), specifically NatureThroid. Being a vegan, this was a decision that I did many an hour of soul-searching over until I decided I needed to open up, let go and TRY. Within two months, my TSH had increased nicely to 0.235. Yes, still low but definitely increasing at a good pace. Currently four months in, I can definitely say that I have made the right choice – for me – for now. I will remain open to adjustments as necessary but I am feeling better, symptoms are manageable AND I feel awareness and hope (which could quite possibly be the most powerful medicine we have). I will be tested again soon and am looking forward to seeing where my TSH is at, along with my T3 and T4 levels.

I also had an ultrasound, which did show the thickening of the thyroid walls indicating Hashimoto’s. My antibodies blood tests had never shown Hashi’s, which happens in about 40% of the cases. In some way, I was almost relived to hear that I did have Hashi’s because now at least I know the cause of my low thyroid. Knowledge is quite powerful as they say, and quite a welcome partner in this healing process of mine.

We also tested those fickle hormones – yep, the usual suspects were all involved in the mix – estrogen, progesterone and testosterone – and I have been balancing those babies the best I can. I received testosterone shots for three months (which seemed to help with muscle and strength loss) and continued with my happy sleepy time progesterone cream (love that stuff!). The test results that I found most interesting, however, showed mineral deficiencies and heavy metal toxicities. SO grateful to have uncovered these crucial findings. My thyroid and the rest of my body didn’t even have a fighting chance with the heavy metals poisoning me. I will share my experience with that in part 2 of this 3-part post. In part 3, I will share how and why I had to make the choice to no longer eat a 100% vegan diet.

Sending all of you love. Many of my fellow thyroid bloggers have not posted in a while either and I hope you are all doing OK. I am thinking of each and every one of you.

ThyroidChange has a petition to sign which calls for better care from endocrinologists. Specifically, the petition asks for a more thorough testing procedure to determine thyroid disease, a broader choice of treatments and for doctors to stay up-to-date on current research. At the time of this writing the petition already has over 4200 signatures. Click here to read the complete petition and sign to support this important cause.

A big thank you to Michelle Bickford and Denise Rodriguez for bringing together so many people with the goal of optimal care for thyroid patients.

If YOU would like to join this “worldwide thyroid support network” (LOVE that!), email thyroidchange@gmail.com with the subject line MEMBER.

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The Zen Thyroid List to Managing Brain Fog
1. One of the strongest tools I have is acceptance. I spend a lot of time working to accept that this is part of my life now. I try not to think about how it used to be or how it could be. It is now and this is what is happening. It sabotages to my healing process to be upset for too long about it or anything else. If I need to be upset, I get upset, let it out and I try really hard to move on to healing thoughts. This is not always easy but I am making it a habit so it just simply becomes natural…eventually.

2. As always, I tell other people so they understand. (disclaimer: as always, I try my best to do this) I find that my relationships are smoother and more supportive when others know what I am going through. Even the most wonderful loved ones are not mind readers. Communication minimizes misunderstandings as well. I find this really works for me and my peeps (I love you, peeps!).

3. I set a bazillion reminders in my phone to do literally everything that I have even the slimmest chance of forgetting. Watering the plants, meeting a friend, taking my second dose of Cytomel each day…all things that I would forget. And, no no no, I definitely do NOT want to miss that Cytomel (and if you take it, you know what I mean). Everything goes in the reminders. Otherwise, well, it probably won’t happen.

4. Be diligent in my allergen-free, protein-rich, healthy diet. I try to eat plenty of healthy fats which nourish the brain. Giving my digestive system the best chance of doing its job ensures that toxins are removed from the body as quickly as possible. I keep my home free of toxic chemicals as well.

5. Practice patience and know that I am doing the best that I can to heal.

6. Meditate. Meditation, along with acceptance, has been the most powerful part of my healing process. It affords me focus, stillness, calm and the occasional moments of clarity. It relieves my physical and emotional stress and allows me to plant seeds for health and happiness. Sometimes I meditate for a few minutes once a day, sometimes longer and more often. Sometimes I meditate in silence, sometimes I listen to guided meditations, sometimes I meditate while I walk. Each individual’s meditation practice is uniquely their own. There is no right way or wrong way, only your way. Deepak Chopra and the wonderful Chopra Center have a 21-day meditation challenge underway now, complete with daily guided meditations and support. For more info and to try it out, go here.

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I am so grateful to each of you for choosing to read my blog. Sending YOU wishes for a beautiful and clear-headed day