Your thyroid gland is a small part of your body, but when it malfunctions, the impact on how you feel and how your body functions is not so small. Thyroid disorder can make you feel fatigued, disrupt your digestive processes, upset your metabolism, and change your body’s hormone regulation.
At Family Acupuncture and Wellness, Adam Lerner, L.Ac. specializes in the treatment of thyroid disorders. He takes a whole-body, functional approach, and develops a treatment plan designed specifically for you, based on your blood work, your needs, and your unique body.
There are two problems that people can have with their thyroid gland. It can produce too much hormone, called hyperthyroidism, or not enough hormone, called hypothyroidism. Of the two, hypothyroidism is more common.
Hyperthyroidism can cause your heart rate to speed up, cause diarrhea, disrupt your sleep, cause weight loss, increased appetite, nervousness, and increased sweating. Many of your body’s processes speed up when you have too much thyroid hormone circulating in your body.
Hypothyroidism, on the other hand, slows things down. If you don’t have enough thyroid hormone, you may have a puffy face, dry skin, weight gain, hoarseness, and constipation among other symptoms.
Through the lens of Chinese medicine, regardless of whether you have hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism, you have a Yin/Yang imbalance.
Conventional treatment for thyroid disorder is usually pharmaceutical in nature. You take a pill, and that is that.
At Family Acupuncture and Wellness, we take a much more holistic approach. Your treatment plan may include herbal medicine, acupuncture, a nutrition plan, an exercise plan, or other treatments, depending on your situation.
Because you’re unique, your treatment needs to be calibrated and customized to fit you, not someone who has a similar condition to you. Adam uses a battery of lab tests to identify if you have other factors that may be contributing to your thyroid disorder, then builds a plan for you based on the results.
One of the first and most important steps in your treatment is likely to be a detoxification program to help reduce the levels of toxic elements in your body. Cleansing your liver and restoring your gut health can be critical in treating your thyroid issue.
There isn’t a robust number of clinical trials studying the use of Chinese medicine to treat thyroid disorders. One, though, was conducted by the School of Chinese Medicine at Hong Kong Baptist University, and the results demonstrated that Chinese medicine can improve symptoms for people with hyperthyroidism.
Additionally, the World Health Organization advocates the use of Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, to treat thyroid disorders. A well-respected international organization is finally in agreement with more than 2,000 years of Chinese tradition!
If you’d like to learn more about the use of acupuncture, herbal medicine, nutrition, and supplements to treat thyroid disorder, book an appointment with Adam Lerner at Family Acupuncture and Wellness. If you’re a new patient, you can request an appointment online, or you’re welcome to call us at 603-556-8908.
