Hashimotos Thyroiditis: Can We Stop Talking about Gluten Now?

Easter Bread 1I heard Dr. Tom O’Bryan say in one of his interviews that he knows people are thinking that he believes everything bad is caused by gluten! I remember when I first heard about gluten sensitivity I was really annoyed. I honestly couldn’t believe the “staff of life” was being targeted as the opposite of life. It didn’t make sense. I remember completely dismissing the thought for a while especially since I loved to bake so much. After all, I still needed to perfect my sourdough loaf and my vintage recipe for braided egg bread must never be a suspect for dietary deletion. No way. Not EVEN going to think about it. Subject closed.

But then, it hit me months later. If the only thing so far that had scientific studies connected to it with the power to decrease and sometimes even completely eliminate thyroid antibodies was a gluten free diet, was it wise for me to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to it?

Okay, so all my problems have to do with gluten, right? Too tired? Gluten. Too fat? Gluten. Can’t think? Gluten. Autoimmune Disease? Gluten. Joint Pain? Yep! Gluten! It just can’t be that bad. Gluten is good! It is something I eat every day! I love it! I can’t live without it! I don’t want this to be the answer!

The solution for me was to stop questioning the accusations and defending gluten before I gave it a proper trial. If it was in fact innocent, perhaps I could prove it by doing a gluten free test. Okay, so I set out to do this test. I figured it shouldn’t be hard. Just cut out bread and anything that is baked with wheat. I’ll just replace it with cornbread, gluten free flours and no big deal. I’ll prove it works or doesn’t work that way. So I set out to prove to the world that gluten free either worked or not. I did that and recorded it in this post. Well, what I didn’t realize is just how meticulous a true gluten free diet is.

So, a few years later and many more new symptoms later, I decided to give it another try after a test which confirmed I was gluten intolerant. You can see the results of that successful attempt here. So, I no longer can deny the connection and I’m really sad to make such a big deal about how effective it is to go completely 100% gluten free. But at the same time, I’m really thrilled to make a big deal about how effective it is to be 100% gluten free. Why? Because it is the very first thing that has completely changed my life! Granted, there have been some additional measures beyond the basic gluten free diet that I needed to implement, but the main thing is that I am free of so many symptoms and all this healing because people like Dr. Tom O’Bryan, Dr. Kharrazian, and Izabella Wentz, are not afraid to speak out against gluten as a necessary step towards healing.

I was always hoping there would be other interventions that were as successful as going gluten free. Perhaps I can implement everything else experts are suggesting for healing but not do the gluten free thing. Perhaps just getting a better diet (I tried this too before going gluten free), exercising, sleeping well and on schedule, would be enough. And you can definitely find many interventions that are invaluable to helping Hashimoto’s as found in Izabella Wentz’ wonderful book (also now immediately available in eBook form). But unfortunately, unless this area of gluten is addressed, and the antibody attack is minimized, you will almost definitely still have a war going on inside of you.

In a special gluten expert panel interview from April 2013 with Tom O’Bryan, Nora Gedgaudas and Steve Wright from SCD Lifestyle, hosted by Ameer Rosic (posted below), a lot of great information was shared on gluten and since this is a fairly recent recording, the latest information is presented. For those of you who don’t mind hearing more about gluten, I will leave you with this interview (it is long so you might want to carve out some time to watch it). This also talks about how other food sensitivities are connected to gluten consumption. I never get tired of learning more on this subject. They touch on everything from fertility to food sensitivities and beyond. 

I am so thankful for this information. I hope you found it helpful too!

Disclaimer: All posts are describing my personal journey through health issues and are in no way meant to guide anyone towards any method in particular. I am not a medical practitioner or have a dietary or medical license, and this blog is not intended to be taken as authoritative advice. Please see your doctor, or health professional before making any drastic diet changes! Also, occasionally I find others to partner with whom I have had tremendous help from and therefore, there may be paid advertisements and links to support them and help me financially run this website.
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10 responses to “Hashimotos Thyroiditis: Can We Stop Talking about Gluten Now?”

  1. Lucie Avatar
    Lucie

    As a newly diagnosed Hashimoto’s patient, I am appreciative of these videos and am so happy to have found this blog and these doctors on Facebook. Thank you!

  2. maureen Avatar
    maureen

    You are welcome! Please come by our Facebook Support Group too! 🙂 You can find it on the right top corner of my blog. 🙂 Thank you for your comment!

  3. ByeByeHashiSymptoms80 Avatar
    ByeByeHashiSymptoms80

    Maureen- this was a great post. I too FOUGHT the gluten-free. But man, do I feel better, its only been a week. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s 11 years ago and not one single doctor recommended that I go gluten free. Last year my new and amazing doctor, Dr. Liz Lyster, recommended that I do it…I didn’t. I lost a few pounds from last May until February, just by her switching my medications, but really needed to make changes. Last week, she recommended soy free, gluten free and dairy free. A very sad day…I went home and had a cheese stick and a slice of bread and started the very next day. I am 3 pounds down and ready to drop more and feel great! Thank you for your post and making me feel normal about my thoughts…

  4. maureen Avatar
    maureen

    I am so happy it helped you! Sometimes I think us Hashi’s just need to feel we’re not alone! Although my blog tried to bring a lot of good solid information to help the sufferer, I often wonder if just the emotional connection to others is more healing than any of the protocols! LOL I remember feeling so alone and thought something was terribly wrong with my “personality” until I realized how much of the brain can be affected by Hashi’s and that really helps a person recover — when they don’t feel so alone and realize there is a reason behind the symptoms. Thank you for commenting and here’s to your continued healing! 🙂

  5. NoMoreGFHype Avatar
    NoMoreGFHype

    Congratulations on taking your antibodies from 3000 down to 172 and eliminating so many disabling symptoms! That is a huge success story that is a tangible promise to a huge percentage of Hashimoto patients and a discouraging tease to another percentage of us.

    This is the 3rd time I have gone 100% GF. That means preparing all of my own food and checking labels. I keep coming back to GF when the joint pain is so bad I can’t move. BUT if we want to compare labs, my antibodies were never higher than 140 to begin with. When I go GF, my inflammation markers soar, my iron plummets and my antibodies creep back up to that 140 number.

    When I eat normally – healthy, clean, organic foods; higher in fish & chicken, lower in red meat; and not worry about gluten that may be in a broth or a soy sauce, not stress about every morsel of food I consume – my iron is normal, my inflammation markers drop and my antibodies go as low as 48.

    My point to all of this is that we have three aspects of this illness to contend with, symptoms, gut healing & root cause. If you are someone whose symptoms are alleviated with a GF diet then you are in great shape. But if you are someone whose root cause is parasites and the symptoms are related to anemia & adrenal fatigue the going gluten free is one more burden that actually makes the symptoms & root cause worse.

    That said, I know that even though my symptoms are not improved with a GF diet and even though the stress of preparing 100% of my food worsens my adrenal fatigue & anemia… I also know that if I truly want to repair the damage that has been done to my gut and to reverse the attack that my immune system has waged on my thyroid, I need to remain GF for an extended period of time. However, it is incredibly disheartening to hear that we can “stop talking about gluten” when not everyone is supported by this approach.

  6. Kate Avatar
    Kate

    I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s ten years ago. I’ve had stomach issues for almost as long, and stated having acne problems 2 years ago. No doctor could figure out the problem behind either issue. After doing research on my own, I tried going gluten free and within a week started seeing signs of improvement. I’ve been GF since January and both problems has gone away! It really would have been nice if my doctors had known about the links between Hashimoto’s and gluten intolerance! Can we please start educating the educated better?

  7. Sandi Avatar
    Sandi

    Do you have to have a positive test for gluten intolerance for this diet to help? I have antibodies and was just diagnosed with Hashimotos but my primary doctor said it would only help if gluten test is positive.
    She also doesn’t think showing antibodies doesn’t mean anything and that Synthroid getting my TSH in normal limits will fix any symptoms I have. When reading others stories they match mine exactly – they are awful, debilitating but she seems to think my symptoms should have all gone away being on Synthroid for a month.
    Any advice? I don’t think I can live like this much longer. Feel like my body is ready to completely collapse

  8. maureen Avatar
    maureen

    Sandi – the common answer is “no” but we are all different in our approaches. I wanted to confirm my gluten intolerance before I chose to go off of it completely. I have links to the best testing for that here. I hope this helps…overall, most autoimmune sufferers just feel better without consuming gluten at the minimum. But I wanted to address the deeper issue of antibodies and get the testing done.

  9. maureen Avatar
    maureen

    Kate – thank you for your comment! It IS happening – 10 years ago NO ONE was listening about this connection. Now we have awesome Functional Medicine doctors and other professionals on board. Now it is a matter of all of us showing our doctors the results as we go! Good job on taking control of your own health! I would have never been better if I hadn’t! Keep up the good work!

  10. maureen Avatar
    maureen

    I’m sorry – I don’t see your name. (NoMoreGFHype). Thank you for your comment. You are right that just going “gluten free” is not enough for many, if not most, Hashimoto’s patients. This is because they are dealing with other issues in their body and I address that in this post.

    Granted, there have been some additional measures beyond the basic gluten free diet that I needed to implement, but the main thing is that I am free of so many symptoms and all this healing because people like Dr. Tom O’Bryan, Dr. Kharrazian, and Izabella Wentz, are not afraid to speak out against gluten as a necessary step towards healing.

    In my free 8 part gluten free series, I stress how important it is to address other aspects of healing as gluten free may only be the first step to better health. For you, gluten may not have caused your antibodies to soar after re-introducing it, but you had to first try the gluten free diet to know if it could be a major player in your health recovery. This is the point I was trying to make in this post….we don’t know if we don’t give it a fair try.

    It would be wrong of me to suggest that people not give this a try since the overwhelming majority can find incredible relief by this step alone, like it seems to help you when your joint symptoms flare – antibodies, although a good marker can sometimes be secondary to symptoms. It can be just a important to notice that, in your example, getting off of gluten helps your joint pain. For some people, this indicates that perhaps having the gluten in the diet to begin with might not be the best thing long term depending on their symptoms, not just their antibodies. We all need to approach this in the way we find the most helpful and you are doing it the way you feel best and I respect that. You have given it a full try and have seen first hand the difference it makes in your condition. That is what I hope others will do. Izabella Wentz describes all the other approaches, including the ones you rightly bring up in her fantastic troubleshooting book which I did a book review on last year. You will see all the references you speak about in addition to the gluten free diet in that reference confirming the gluten free diet isn’t the only step to healing many find successful.

    I hope you will look into my gluten free series so you can understand the process of elimination I am suggesting. I even mentioned that some people may want to experiment once they are healthy again with gluten, but that is an individual choice to make. It’s awesome that you can eat it and not have severe reactions from it. I am very excited for you and maybe I will be there myself one day but for now, I must refrain due to my symptoms. Thank you so much for your comment.

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