Thyroid disease - your symptoms explained (part 2)

Continuation of the article: "Thyroid diseases - explaining your symptoms (part 1)" .

Metabolic problems

The concept that metabolic problems are the driving force behind weight gain or loss is a myth. It's a very broad and outdated term that distracts from the truth that there's still not much medical knowledge about why people suffer in this area. If you've been told you have a faulty metabolism, don't let that stop you from your path to healing. You don't have a faulty metabolism, and you're not defective either. There's a real reason behind your struggles, and it can be addressed with the help of this article. To help you pinpoint the true source of your problem, check out the explanations for the next few symptoms.

Mysterious weight gain

Mysterious weight gain is a common symptom that leaves many people feeling frustrated, to say the least. You watch what you eat, you exercise regularly, and the number on the scale keeps going up. You may have heard that it's the result of hypothyroidism, that you have an underactive thyroid that fails to produce enough metabolism-boosting hormones to keep your weight in check. That's not true. Metabolism is one of those broad terms that masks the fact that not much is known about the true mechanics of weight gain. If underproduction of thyroid hormones were the real explanation for it, then how do we explain all the people with hypothyroidism who don't experience this symptom?

Here's what's really happening. By the time the Epstein-Barr virus was in its second stage, hiding in the liver, it had weakened the organ and put so much strain on it that it was sluggish and sluggish. Then, even after the virus moved to the thyroid, some EBV cells remained in the liver, where they could continue to cause problems, feeding and thriving on the organ's stores of antibiotics, other old pharmaceuticals, pesticides, herbicides, toxic heavy metals, solvents, and more. In addition, the presence of EBV in the body results in a constant presence of viral byproducts, dead viral cells, neurotoxins, and dermatotoxins in the body, which causes the liver and lymphatic system to have a constant cleansing job so that they continue to be strained. In addition, the adrenal glands, which compensate for the underactive thyroid, flood the liver with excess adrenaline, which further burdens it with toxins. Eventually, the liver becomes “seasoned” with toxins, “marinated” with adrenaline, and can no longer do its job properly, transferring what it can to the lymphatic system. (You don’t have to have adrenal fatigue to have a liver that’s saturated with adrenaline.)

It is the overloaded and sluggish liver and lymphatic system that are at the root of the tendency of hypothyroid patients to have difficulty losing weight or to gain weight for no apparent reason. So both hypothyroidism and the weight gain are caused by EBV , not by the hypothyroid gland itself.

It is not uncommon for someone with hyperthyroidism to also experience weight gain. In fact, more people with hyperthyroidism struggle with gaining weight than with losing it. The fact that most patients with hyperthyroidism are overweight has puzzled the medical community. This is not taken seriously and is often overlooked because it goes against the generally accepted rules that define hyperthyroidism. In fact, it makes a lot of sense. The types of EBV that cause hyperthyroidism are just as destructive to the liver as the types that cause hypothyroidism. Eventually, the livers of patients with hyperthyroidism also become congested and overworked, and the result is trouble maintaining weight.

Much of the mystery weight gain is related to fluid retention. For example, if you think you’re 130 pounds overweight, it’s likely that only 90 pounds are body fat, and the other 40 pounds are fluids your body is holding on to—a proportion that the medical community still doesn’t fully understand. Why does this fluid retention happen? Because when your liver reaches the point where it can no longer protect you from toxins in your bloodstream, your lymphatic system has to step in to become the filter that the liver was meant to be. Your lymphatic system is designed to be a post-filter for your liver, handling micro and nano-sized toxins and waste. But when your liver becomes congested, fatty, sluggish, and sluggish—conditions that your doctor may overlook—and can no longer do its job, your lymphatic system has to take on all the macro-wastes that the liver can’t handle. Because this sludge is denser than the waste that the lymphatic system is designed to handle, it clogs the lymphatic vessels and lymph channels, so that the lymph fluid cannot flow normally. To accommodate this, the lymphatic system tries to push the lymph fluid around itself in order to create pressure to wash away the large debris; however, overall, the lymph still cannot flow freely through the passages, so pockets of fluid begin to collect. The result is that you retain fluid, which leads to inches around your waist and pounds on the scale as hidden, undiagnosed lymphedema develops.

It's important to note that even if you haven't been diagnosed with thyroid disease, a viral thyroid infection and the effects we just described could still be at the root of your weight loss struggles. As mentioned earlier, thyroid testing isn't what it could be, so thyroid test results won't always show whether your hormone levels are low.

Many alternative-minded doctors, including functional or integrative doctors, are now investigating the thyroid more than ever because they believe it is the explanation for mysterious weight gain. They carefully examine blood test results and, even when the tests show no signs of thyroid problems, offer certain patients thyroid medication based on all the other data about their health. This is a step forward because patients are getting the attention they deserve, rather than simply being told that they are overweight because they are lazy or that stepping on the treadmill will solve their problems. Yet thyroid medication to solve the problem of being overweight is still not the answer, because the problem is not an underactive thyroid in the first place.

If you’re taking medication for thyroid disease and still struggling with your weight and wondering why, it’s because the medication isn’t treating the underlying viral infection, thyroid damage, or liver problem. Additionally, thyroid medications are hard on the liver and adrenal glands. They make the adrenal glands work overtime, which overloads the liver, which is already working hard to process the medication itself. This further slows down the liver, meaning that someone’s weight can increase even more over time while on thyroid medication, or that the medication can cause weight gain if it wasn’t a problem to begin with. (More on thyroid medications in a separate blog post.)

The reason some people experience weight loss when they start taking thyroid medication is because they have changed their diet and started a new exercise and supplement regimen (a combination that is very helpful in rebuilding a sluggish liver), while often eliminating some of the foods that fuel EBV . (There is an extremely small group of people who experience weight loss while taking thyroid medication without taking any other measures. This is due to the initial shock of being given a foreign steroid hormone compound. Eventually, these individuals will gain weight again because the viral problem has not been resolved.) If the underlying viral and liver problems are not addressed, weight gain continues, and is usually attributed to menopause in women, which is not true at all. (For the specific complications in women related to thyroid problems, expect a special article on the topic on our blog ).

You can read more about this symptom in the article: “Bile, Intestinal, and Obesity Problems” .

See also Anthony William's video: "Are you struggling with unwanted pounds?"

Mysterious weight loss

The mysterious weight loss that some people with thyroid problems experience is not due to hyperthyroidism. There are thousands of people with hyperthyroidism who gain weight or are overweight. That's right! Although you may have an overproduction of thyroid hormones, it's not those hormones that are making it difficult to maintain or gain weight. Once again, this is a viral symptom. Some strains of EBV release toxins that are allergic to the body, which causes a constant rush of adrenaline, and in some people this translates into weight loss because the hormone basically acts like an amphetamine. (Very often, along with this rapid weight loss, there is also difficulty sleeping due to the excess adrenaline in the body.) Most people who have trouble losing weight eventually experience the opposite - a year or ten years later, as adrenal fatigue sets in and their symptom turns into weight gain instead.

Constant hunger

Although this symptom is usually associated with hyperthyroidism, most people with hypothyroidism also experience periods of compulsive, constant, or almost insatiable hunger. That’s because this symptom is not related to the thyroid gland. It’s caused by a lack of glycogen (stored glucose) in the liver and/or brain, and EBV is to blame. When EBV spends a long time in the liver, it demands a lot of energy from the organ, which means the liver burns fuel and glycogen depletion can easily occur. The virus also causes weakness in the central nervous system, and since the central nervous system also needs sugar to function, it quickly uses up glucose stores. The result of a lack of glycogen in the brain and/or liver is a feeling of hunger as your body cries out for more of it. (Note that a high-fat/low-carb diet only makes things worse, as healthy carbohydrates contain necessary sugars, and too much fat in the diet interferes with the body's conversion and absorption of these natural sugars and weakens the liver.)

Mysterious hair thinning and hair loss

Mysterious hair thinning and hair loss are also symptoms of the harmful presence of EBV. It’s not low thyroid hormone production that’s causing strands of hair to fall out of your head. It’s excess adrenaline and cortisol. The adrenal glands are the most important glands in the endocrine system. They are the body’s messengers. As we’ve learned, when the thyroid gland is struggling, the adrenal glands kick in to produce extra hormones. Every now and then, that’s a good thing. However, when the thyroid is constantly struggling due to a viral infection and the adrenal glands are constantly replacing it, the repeated influx of stress-causing chemicals is hard on the body and can lead to thinning hair and/or hair loss.

These hair changes aren't always immediate. Since it takes a while to see the effects of stress-hormone-laden hair follicles, it can be six to nine months or even a year after EBV has reached your thyroid before you start to see differences in your hair.

If you have no other symptoms, it could be that you don't have a thyroid virus at all, and the mysterious thinning or loss of hair is due to an experience months ago that caused a surge in stress-related chemicals. Breakups, other relationship upheavals, and the birth of a child are common examples of when you might find your hair falling out months later. This is due to the same lag time it takes for hair follicles to thin out.

On the other hand, if you are constantly under stress or have nutritional deficiencies, this period of thinning or hair loss (whether caused by viruses, stress, or both) can be much shorter. People who are prone to eczema (read more about this skin condition in the article “Eczema and Psoriasis” ) tend to suffer from more severe hair loss due to their already irritated scalp.

Another common cause of hair loss is the use of thyroid medication, antibiotics, or other pharmaceuticals. There are hundreds of cases where women began losing their hair soon after starting thyroid medication, even though these medications were given to them in part because of thinning hair that was thought to be caused by thyroid disease.

Sometimes it seems like thyroid medication initially stops hair loss. This is just a coincidence. As we said, it's not uncommon for a woman to go through a stressful period in her life that results in hair loss months later, seemingly out of nowhere. Her doctor will suspect a thyroid problem, put her on thyroid hormones, and lo and behold, her hair loss stops. In reality, it wasn't the medication. The patient stopped losing hair because at that time her adrenal glands were starting to recover from the stress, giving her hair follicles a break so they could recover. The hair loss would have stopped without the medication. The medication masked the body's natural healing process' ability to cope. If the patient continues to take the medication, there is a high probability that a few months later her hair will start falling out again, which will confuse both the patient and the doctor because they thought the medication was the solution.

And in some cases, exposure to radiation can cause hair thinning. A single dental X-ray can be enough to thin your hair for about a month or two.

You can read more about this symptom in the article: “Skin, Hair, and Nail Health” .

Change in hair texture

The change in hair texture, making it more brittle or coarser than usual, is usually due to EBV in the liver releasing internal dermatotoxins that reach the scalp, combined with long-term nutritional deficiencies and adrenal fatigue. Another reason hair can lose its luster is that while the body is fighting EBV, it diverts nutritional resources, such as trace elements, vitamins, and antioxidants, that would normally go to maintaining healthy hair, to helping the body fight the virus.

You can read more about this symptom in the article: “Skin, Hair, and Nail Health” .

Insomnia

As with the other symptoms you’ll find on this list, insomnia is not a symptom of thyroid problems. Although you’ll find a trend in the recent literature linking the thyroid gland to insomnia, the truth is that a compromised thyroid does not disrupt sleep. Insomnia can accompany thyroid problems if a virus disrupts both this endocrine gland and your neurotransmitters, which is common. Or your troubled sleep could be due to a number of other underlying causes of insomnia and sleep disorders, including emotional trauma, digestive sensitivities, liver problems, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) , anxiety, and monosodium glutamate (MSG) toxicity. In the book “Healing the Thyroid” there is an entire section called “Secrets of Sleep,” which we expect to offer you soon as articles on our blog, dedicated to helping you understand the cause of your individual case of restless sleep so that you can begin to use sleep to heal yourself - in part by becoming familiar with the unknown laws of sleep.

You can read more about this symptom in the article: “Insomnia and sleep problems” .

Fatigue

This common symptom can occur at different stages of EBV development. Initially, during the monophase, fatigue may occur as your immune system puts its energy into fighting the first active, available, and ready-to-go viral blood infection.

Once EBV has established itself in the organs, a second type of fatigue—neurological fatigue—can occur from the virus releasing its neurotoxins. Neurological fatigue is often confused with adrenal fatigue, although they are actually different. Neurological fatigue and adrenal fatigue can occur separately or simultaneously, as one is related to the nervous system and the other to the endocrine system.

Adrenal fatigue is a real and legitimate condition—it’s no coincidence that Anthony William devotes an entire chapter to it in his book The Medium Healer . However, we must be careful not to label every case of fatigue as adrenal fatigue, which is what happens all too often in medical circles these days. Doctors, various specialists, and the latest books point to adrenal overload as the explanation for so many things. This is not the entirely new discovery that it may seem. In an attempt to explain why so many people experience these problems in their lives, this information, which is actually decades old, has been reworked and refashioned as new. Adrenal fatigue as a universal answer distracts from the truth, which is that the late-stage Epstein-Barr virus targets the central nervous system of countless people. Viral neurotoxins flood their bodies, creating an undetectable viral encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) that creates irritated, lethargic, sensitive nerves throughout the body and can disrupt normal lifestyles in devastating ways.

The practical difference between these two types of fatigue is that with adrenal fatigue, people can still function. They can work, hold jobs, socialize, exercise, and take care of their family, although they may not feel particularly vibrant while doing all of this. Neurological fatigue, on the other hand, is devastating. The fatigue is so severe that you are virtually unable to function normally. While it is possible to have severe adrenal fatigue, and adrenal and neurological fatigue sometimes occur at the same time (when people suffer the most), neurological fatigue alone is the most common type that accompanies advanced EBV .

Even with a mild case of neurological fatigue, you may feel extremely tired after driving a short distance, have a feeling of heaviness in your legs, experience weakness in your arms, feel extremely confused, and have difficulty finding the strength to shower or cook dinner. In more advanced cases of neurological fatigue, when neurotoxins flood and saturate your brain, you may feel as if you can't get out of bed even if your life depends on it. Such severe neurological fatigue is the reason an estimated 17 percent of college students drop out of school and fall into despair.

You can read more about this symptom in the article: “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” . Also watch Anthony William’s video on the topic: “Do You Have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Don’t Know It?” .

Fatigue

A feeling of fatigue that can't be explained by overwork or stress and that you can't shake off, even though you're getting enough sleep. This is a milder form of fatigue that can be caused by EBV . In this case, it's a low-grade viral infection that strains your immune system and organs while depleting your energy stores.

Changes in energy levels

Sometimes fatigue, exhaustion, and weakness come and go. Usually, this can be a sign that you are in the early stages of a low-grade viral infection that hasn’t had time to develop yet, or it means that you are detoxing fairly well. On a bad day, your body has become overloaded with neurotoxins from EBV and other viral debris, and they are making it difficult for you to function. On a good day, your body has cleared the toxins and you can go about your life normally. In most cases, this is accompanied by underactive or overactive adrenal glands due to stress or factors in your life that have caused adrenal instability. This usually prompts the doctor to ignore everything else that is wrong and diagnose you with adrenal fatigue or cortisol problems as the underlying problem. If you were in a worse condition, with a congested liver and a toxic digestive tract, you wouldn't experience major fluctuations in energy levels – your energy would remain consistently low.

See also the article: “10 snacks for healthy adrenal glands” .

Brain fog and difficulty concentrating

The feeling of confusion or fogginess that keeps you from thinking clearly occurs when EBV feeds on its favorite foods, which include toxic heavy metals like mercury, as well as dairy, eggs, wheat, corn, excess adrenaline, and prescription medications. As EBV feasts and thrives, it produces more waste products, and these neurotoxins travel to the brain and disrupt neurotransmitters. When focus issues are a contributing factor to your brain fog , it’s usually due to an excess of heavy metals in the brain, combined with this short circuit. This can often lead to misdiagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), leaky gut, parasitic infections, Lyme disease, or a thyroid disorder.

Memory loss

Memory problems are caused by the same underlying cause as brain fog , as EBV eats up its favorite foods in your body and loads you up with much more destructive waste. In this case, the cause is higher levels of mercury and other toxic heavy metals, which give the virus extra fuel, and it releases extra neurotoxic waste that disrupts neurotransmitter activity. Furthermore, when these heavy metals oxidize in the brain or liver, the toxic waste saturates brain tissue, stifling electrical impulses and preventing proper memory function.

See the continuation of the article: “Thyroid Diseases – Explaining Your Symptoms (Part 3)” .

The article uses materials from Anthony William's book "Healing the Thyroid Gland" . More articles on the topic are coming soon to our blog!

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