Gettit #3 - You didn’t get sick on the day your doctor said you did!  Disease is a continuum.

“I developed a thyroid problem when I was 42” and “I developed high cholesterol two years ago” are common utterances that reveal an understandable ignorance.  Ignorance, in this case, has nothing to do with lack of intelligence.  It has to do with a flawed medical system in which well-meaning doctors are taught to diagnose and medicate at the expense of educating and empowering.  The diagnosis allows for the doctor to issue a “code,” and with that code insurance companies may cover prescribed meds.  Unfortunately, in most doctor-patient interaction, there isn’t time to explain the disease continuum.  I have the time. 

You don’t “get” hypothyroidism like you “get” a cold.  It happens over time.  Your lifestyle habits impact your brain’s communication with the pituitary, and that relationship determines how active or inactive the thyroid gland may be in its production of metabolism-regulating hormones.  Calorie deprivation coaxes the body into a protective mode where it attempts to adjust to limited caloric intake.  A part of that mechanism involves the communicative network between the brain and endocrine system.  Much like “pancreatic confusion” leading to changes in insulin production, changes in endocrine communication with the thyroid gland leads to ‘thyroid confusion.”  Erratic eating habits can lead to thyroid concerns over time, and the erosive decay along that timeline is the continuum I’m referring to.  If you can identify the progression, and understand, accept, and implement an exercise and eating intervention that supports metabolism, you can move back along that continuum, back toward health. 

Conceptually, this continuum relates to heart disease, inflammatory disease, blood sugar irregularities, and hormonal imbalances.  You don’t “get” the disease in a moment, but you allow a condition to progress over time.  Take the reins and reverse the movement along the path that has disease on one end and optimal health on the other.

Click here for Gettit #4 or download the entire piece as a pdf