What Are Hashimoto's Disease Symptoms?

Have you recently been diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis and you're wondering if some of your symptoms might be related to this new diagnosis or if it's something else? In this video we look at what are Hashimoto's disease symptoms. Some of the symptoms can be hyperthyroid, some of the symptoms can be hypothyroid. We're gonna discuss both and also look at some of the non-traditional symptoms of Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

As previously discussed, Hashimoto's disease can present as hypothyroid symptoms or hyperthyroid symptoms. Most commonly though, it is going to be the hypothyroid symptoms. We'll cover a little bit of each in this video. Let's look at the least common first. So, hyperthyroid symptoms are going to be hot flashes and an intolerance to heat, rapid heartbeat, sweating, weight loss, tremors, anxiety. Think of adrenaline related, very hyperactive state, anxious, just overall not feeling good. Sometimes there can be headaches, digestive issues like nausea as well. The severity will determine how many of these symptoms and how bad they are.

One of the most common ways to pinpoint what's going on with someone clinically is just by checking their pulse rate. Now, this isn't always going to happen from hyperthyroid, but if your pulse rate is in the high nineties or even in the hundreds and you do have other hyperthyroid symptoms, the chances definitely go up that it's hyperthyroid.

So in the case that you have more of the hyperthyroid symptoms, that state is gonna be triggered by the auto antibodies that are stimulating the thyroid to make more thyroid hormone.

In that case, the more of those auto antibodies present, the more stimulation to the thyroid to produce more thyroid hormone. So when there's more of those antibodies around, there's more thyroid hormone and you're more symptomatic. These hashimoto's symptoms can ebb and flow throughout the day.

Hypothyroid hashimoto's symptoms are kind of the opposite. So it's gonna be more like fatigue, tired, generalized sense of malaise, muscle weakness, sometimes pain, and aches with that. Weight gain and an inability to lose weight, and then on hypothyroid instead of heat intolerance, you're gonna have cold intolerance. Sometimes there's depressed mood, which goes along with the fatigue state. hair, skin and nails can also start to become brittle, dry, and fall out. Other hypothyroid symptoms that are a little less common include constipation, swelling, and legs, and sometimes around the eyes. Can occur in some. Again, because there's an autoimmune component to hashing all those thyroiditis, the symptoms can fluctuate from one day to the next.

On the hypothyroid side, this is because the auto antibodies are interfering with the production of the thyroid hormone. And again, the more of 'em there are the more interference. For instance, one of the common auto antibodies used to track Hashimoto's disease is the anti-TPO antibody, also known as Antithyroid peroxidase antibody. This enzyme itself is responsible for making the thyroid hormone. An antibody against this enzyme is going to directly interfere with the production of thyroid hormone.

Now, if the production of that antibody was static, the amount of Hashimoto symptoms would be static as well. So since the production of those auto antibodies is not static, the symptoms are gonna vary as well. So one thing we do to take out these hypothyroid, hypothyroid symptoms and take out the highs and lows of that is to give thyroid hormone replacement. This will depend on where you're at in the disease process or progression. You may not really need thyroid hormone replacement.

Now, sometimes Hashimoto's thyroiditis symptoms takes on more of an autoimmune type of symptom presentation, like joint aches and things like this. It can be in hands, knees, elbows, can really be in any joint. These types of symptoms are commonly seen with autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. However, with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, because there is autoimmune activity, some of that inflammation or increased immune activity can be directed systemically and not just at the thyroid itself.

This is even the case when there's no other diagnosable autoimmune condition present. Usually once treatment begins, this systemic effect is greatly. How do you know when you actually have Hashimotos thyroiditis and not some other autoimmune disease or simply have hypothyroidism?