Birth-Control Pills Increase The Risk Of Autoimmune Diseases And Thyroid Conditions

The topic of this article will deal with thyroid dysfunction and estrogen dominance in traditional Chinese medicine or TCM. The thyroid is in charge of energy metabolism. For the past 17 years, I have treated many young ladies between the ages of 13 to 18 years old and I have noticed that a lot of them were diagnosed with hypothyroid conditions. They started taking Synthoid, a drug that treats hypothyroidism. I was kind of wondering what has caused their early onset of thyroid dysfunction.

I tried to trace the medical history of these girls and they all took birth-control pills for acne, to avoid pregnancy, to regulate their periods and for other reasons. Many of them have irregular period as teenagers, which is normal and then I read some books related to thyroid dysfunction.

One book was written by Dr. Steven Hertz and another book by a gynecologist named Dr. Carolyn Dean. They cast this word called estrogen dominance, which means that when you don’t ovulate or when your ovary function is not sufficient, you won’t produce enough progestin which causes the estrogen to be out of balance with progesterone.

In that condition, even if you have normal thyroid hormones, the body, particularly the liver, produces a kind of protein that binds with the thyroid hormones. This means that even though you can have normal blood tests, the thyroid hormone is actually not working.That is how the teenagers were observed to experience lower energy levels, weight gain and their periods to become even more irregular.

If they can find another way to reduce their acne or avoid pregnancy by using a condom, then I think their thyroid function will be much better. At this young age, I just think their body can fix or repair themselves if they eat right and sleep at the right time at the right hours. There is also a link about how birth-control increases the risk of autoimmune diseases and thyroid cancer.

Autoimmune disease is linked with an imbalance of the hormones, especially estrogen dominance condition, and the hyperactive immune function produces more antibody to attack different areas. In some people, the area affected would be the thyroid, which can lead to a variety of diseases such as Hashimoto’s disease or hypothyroid. Some people may suffer from colitis or Crohn’s disease. This will depend on what is the weakest point in your body.

For the young girls’ parents, I think at that young age, I don’t think Synthoid is the best treatment for their hypothyroid condition. I think if you really need to take that, you should take the lowest dosage and use other holistic methods such as acupuncture in Walla Walla and diet modification therapies to improve their thyroid function.

Actually, Dr. Steven Hertz thinks that thyroid hormone can be very low and even zero, which don’t necessarily lead to death. But if you put a patient on Synthoid and the dosage is a little bit higher than it should be, then the patient can have heart problems and suffer from metabolic abnormality. Hyper is always dangerous while in hypo, you don’t feel well but it’s not going to be life-threatening.

Another point is to take low dosage or avoid Synthoid altogether. At this early age, the thyroid has a lot of potential so if you use low dosage to supplement or compensate the thyroid function, then your thyroid gland can still work normally. If you run out of medications, then you can stop anytime. But if you are on a high dosage, your thyroid gland can completely shut down and that’s the time you will solely rely on medication, which is a dangerous thing.