Newly diagnosed with Hashimoto’s? (or any other autoimmune condition)

Receiving a diagnosis of any condition is hard, and it couldn’t be truer for an autoimmune condition. You’ve probably been told that you have to be on medication for the rest of your life, or that your symptoms, which will be ever increasing in severity, will have to be managed with medication too. And you should get on with your life as you have done so up until now as there is nothing that can be done. But what if I tell you that’s not completely accurate?

There is A LOT that can be done, and that YOU can do to feel better, improve, and even potentially live symptom free.

I know how you feel. I was in your shoes. In 2007, I was given a diagnosis of Hashimoto’s after years of gradually worsening tiredness and fatigue. I was relieved that I could put a name to what was happening in my body. I was also hopeful that the medication, the thyroid replacement hormone, was going to be the answer and I’ll be able to live and function as I used to. But that wasn’t the case.

Although the medication helped to some extent, I continued unconsciously to damage my thyroid and health by not paying attention to my diet or lifestyle. A few years later, I discovered that there are a lot of things that can be done to support those suffering with autoimmune conditions! If only I knew this at the beginning of my Hashimoto’s journey!

So let me tell you this, through changing your diet and lifestyle, and sometimes with additional interventions if needed, you can reduce the severity of your symptoms, or even stop having them. This is called being in remission. Your autoimmune condition could be put in remission, and you could live your life without the symptoms. This doesn’t mean you are cured though.

At the moment there are no known cures for an autoimmune disease.

But it’s possible to stop or at least reduce the attack of your immune system on your own tissues or organs. That means, however, changing and adopting a different way of living and parting with the old. Straying from the new path will result in the return of the symptoms, which is called a relapse. This happens to everyone with an autoimmune condition. Therefore, knowing and understanding what triggers you into a relapse is a part of the management of your condition.

Whether it’s Hashimoto’s or any other autoimmune condition you’ve been diagnosis with, don’t despair. Listen to your doctor and take the medication. However, if you want to have your quality of life back, if you want to do all the things you like doing in your life, you need to change the way you eat and live. There is no way around it – I’m speaking from experience.

It may be that your symptoms are not severe now, and your motivation to change is low, but here’s an interesting fact.

Having one autoimmune disease increases the risk of developing additional ones.

Autoimmune diseases affect 4 million people in the UK, and it’s estimated that up to 1/3 of them live with more than one autoimmune condition.

This should convince you that even if you don’t have debilitating symptoms to deal with at the moment, doing your best to prevent a second or third autoimmune condition in the future is defiantly worth it. You have no way of knowing what this other autoimmune condition can be. I personally think that Hashimoto’s is one of the easiest ones to manage, whilst some others such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Addison’s or Lupus can have very debilitating symptoms, require immune suppressing medications and can lead to a disability or even death.

I’ve seen what a life with MS, Addison’s or Lupus looks like, and I can tell you, I don’t want either of them, or any other autoimmune condition. I’ve been trying my hardest to get to the root cause of my Hashimoto’s and I’ve made tremendous progress along the way. I’ve learnt loads over the years, and tried various diets, supplements and interventions. Now my passion is to help others, just like you, to address their autoimmune condition and reduce, or even completely resolve the symptoms, but in a much shorter time than it took me to address mine!

If you’re scared and worried by your diagnosis, please reach out and let’s have a chat.

My promise to you is that I’ll offer you my honest advice, provide you with relevant information so that you can make your informed decisions about what you should do to manage your health going forward.