I treat patients with thyroid and digestive issues and one of my new patients, a 51-year-old female with multiple thyroid nodules and Hashimoto’s disease, had gained over 40 pounds.
This patient also suffered from joint pain, hot flashes, brain fog, indigestion, and heartburn, along with many other symptoms. Having been to other doctors who said her thyroid hormones were fine, she came to us. I ordered testing that looked beyond simple thyroid hormones to five broad categories that help determine underlying root causes of thyroid nodules.
What Causes Thyroid Nodules?
The first step is to identify underlying causes, which may include thyroid hormones. However, my practice is to evaluate five broad categories. Those categories are deficiencies, toxins, infections, hormones, and food reactions.
I most commonly see in patients with nodules deficiencies in vitamin D, iron, zinc, and magnesium. However, this patient also suffered from an iodine deficiency–the most common cause of thyroid nodules and goiter. In addition, she had high levels of fluoride, which can interfere with iodine absorption.
Another common problem is food reactions and sensitivities. This patient had gluten sensitivity and a leaky gut. Gluten sensitivity often leads to a leaky gut, causing other food reactions, perpetuating that whole cycle. This sensitivity then can trigger autoimmune conditions, especially Hashimoto’s.
The FreeDiet® Solution
Once the underlying causes are determined, we begin with addressing diet. I developed and use the FreeDiet® because it’s not only free of gluten but free of gluten grains, sugar, yeast, dairy, eggs, soy, legumes, nightshades, and processed foods. It is free of those foods most responsible for inflammation, gut and thyroid, and other chronic health issues.
What Supplements for Thyroid Nodules
I recommend a list of specific supplements to help correct any deficiencies beginning with what I call the Functional Five. These are multivitamin, D w K2, fish oil, magnesium, and probiotics. And I test for iodine. If you are low in iodine, adding it can be beneficial since the thyroid needs iodine to function. However, if you are not low, taking it can be counter-productive. If you do take iodine, it’s essential to check antibodies and thyroid levels routinely.
I recommend Selenium for my patients who are taking iodine, as well as zinc, and iron if needed. This patient also took a digestive enzyme to help break down and absorb food. Methyl folate was also included in her routine. Curcumin helps with inflammation and immune support. Adrenal support formulas help with hormone balance.
Road to Improvement
As this patient followed the given routine over the following months, her symptoms began clearing up. Her energy increased, and fatigue decreased. Other issues that were resolved were indigestion and heartburn, brain fog, headaches, joint pain, dizziness, anxiety, and insomnia. Hair loss decreased. Hot flashes were gone. Heart palpitations, shortness of breath, itchy skin, acne–all of these improved over several months.
In a follow-up nine months later, I was thrilled to see that her larger nodule had shrunk by 95%, and the two smaller ones had shrunk by 54% and 82%.
If you have been diagnosed with thyroid nodules, I strongly suggest that you at least begin with the FreeDiet®. For a free copy of The FreeDiet phase 1 food chart, click here.
Including some of the common supplements listed above can also help. As always, check with your doctor.
Thyroid nodules do not just happen. There are underlying causes. The body has an amazing ability to heal itself. If you find root causes, you can then be provided the solutions.
Contact Us
If you would like personal assistance, we would love to help. Call us at 561-627-5800 or email us at info@nmcwellness.com.
I’ve seen over a hundred thousand patient visits after 34 years of practicing at the Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. More and more, I am noticing patients coming in with thyroid and gut issues, particularly thyroid nodules. With this increase, I’ve set out to discover what causes these and how to shrink thyroid nodules naturally. Many symptoms can be associated with thyroid nodules, such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, and brain fog. You can read more about these symptoms here. Treating thyroid issues is important, but finding the root cause of thyroid nodules is just as important.
Finding the Root Causes
I recently helped a patient shrink her thyroid nodule by 73% in the first three months of treatment. At only 36 years old, she had multiple nodules, one was over four centimeters or two inches, the size of a plum. Naturally, she was very bothered by it. Not only was it uncomfortable, but it also made it difficult to swallow.
Doctors did ultrasounds and biopsies, finding them to be benign thyroid disease, but said that the only solution was surgery, which she did not want. After finding my practice, she flew down for evaluation and testing. She wanted a natural treatment for these thyroid problems.
What Causes Thyroid Nodules?
What we found after testing were the root causes of her thyroid nodules:
Deficiencies
In her case, she had an iodine deficiency, which is one of the more common causes of this condition. And, while you may hear or read the information that says iodine is bad for the thyroid, it can be quite helpful with things like nodules, thyroid disease, and goiter if someone is deficient. It also aids in the production of thyroid hormone T3 and hormone T4.
This patient also tested low in other nutrients like vitamins B12, B6, and several minerals. A Vitamin D deficiency can also be a common cause of nodules.
Toxins
We also tested for toxins, specifically heavy metals, mercury, arsenic, and lead. Commonly, I see mercury, arsenic, and fluoride, and in her case, she had high levels of fluoride.
Fluoride can interfere with iodine absorption and worsen thyroid disease, conditions, and nodules. Because of this, I often recommend that my patients use a more natural, fluoride-free toothpaste, mouthwash, and dental floss.
Hormones
On top of that, we looked at hormones, as estrogen dominance is common with this condition. This patient had high levels of estrogen versus progesterone and high levels of testosterone. This can be associated with PCOS, an autoimmune disorder, which is another condition, but one that is commonly related to thyroid issues. It’s necessary to balance these by addressing diet and supplementation.
Infections
Next, we examined pathogens or infections by running blood and stool tests. The health of your autoimmune system is important for understanding the thyroid hormone levels and how the thyroid function is at the time of lab tests. Oftentimes, we’ll see bacterial overgrowth, viruses, parasites, and yeast, which are very common and cause inflammation in the body. Which in turn can cause an autoimmune response.
Nodules and goiter are caused by inflammation affecting the thyroid. And anytime you have inflammation, an autoimmune response is likely. Therefore, even if you remove this gland, you’re never really addressing the underlying issue.
Infections that are found must be solved individually. For this specific patient, she had a bacterial imbalance, or dysbiosis, in her gut, so we had to work to create a proper balance.
Food Reactions
After infections, we looked at food reactions. A big one for goiter and thyroid nodules is gluten sensitivity, which was also the case here. She was sensitive to gluten and other foods, and, like many others, she had a leaky gut. Therefore, we worked to remove the offending foods from her diet and increase the foods, such as turmeric, that can help shrink thyroid nodules.
Changing the Diet
The diet I use and recommend to my patients is The FreeDiet®. It is free of gluten, grain, sugar, yeast, dairy, eggs, soy, legumes, nightshades, and processed foods. I call it the FreeDiet® because the diet is free of the foods commonly responsible for inflammation. Which should help prevent thyroid nodules and disease.
My new book, The FreeDiet®, addresses this and explains the plan in a lot more detail. There is even a chapter about thyroid nodules.
The Results
As mentioned, after three months of addressing these issues, my patient was able to shrink her 4.3 cm thyroid nodule by 73%. Her fatigue, brain fog, headaches, and digestive issues were also resolved, which shows how her thyroid nodules were responsible for many of her symptoms.
After years of failed attempts to lose weight,she lost 23 pounds, and her hormones, including adrenal and thyroid hormones, were balanced. Furthermore, her inflammatory markers, which should be less than 1.0, went from 57 to less than 1.0 in four weeks. This was all able to happen thanks to the alternative medicine approach we used for the thyroid nodules and not the surgery previously recommended.
Finding the Root Cause
So, when dealing with thyroid nodules is important to address all five of these different areas to find out the root causes. The FreeDiet® is a great place to start as it works to remove the most common foods responsible for inflammation and, therefore, gut and thyroid issues.
As far as supplements, I recommend what I call the Functional Five™. These include a multivitamin, fish oil, Vitamin D, magnesium, and probiotics. Beyond that, I recommend iodine, selenium, B12, zinc, and iron depending on testing and deficiencies. Iodine plays a vital role in thyroid function and works with the gland to help make the thyroid hormone T3 and T4. Which all help aid in the prevention of thyroid disorders.
Seeking More Information?
For more information on natural remedies for thyroid nodules and goiter, feel free to check out my book, The FreeDiet®, here.
Another option is downloading and following The FreeDiet® Phase 1 food chart and starting the foundational supplements. If you have specific questions regarding the natural treatment for thyroid nodule problems, please reach out. I look forward to working with you!
Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Tom Rofrano from the Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida and today I’m going to be talking to you about how to shrink thyroid nodules in two weeks. And this is a follow up to an earlier video I did a couple of months ago on a patient, a very important patient, a VIP, who I saw, who happened to be my wife.
She woke up one morning with this huge nodule in her neck, she could see it in the mirror and it wasn’t there the day before. So, she was really understandably upset about this. You can refer to this video, it’s definitely a great story. If you go to our YouTube channel in early December 2017 you’ll see it so, we talked about it at length. And I wanted to do a follow-up video because we’ve gotten so many questions, so many emails, so many comments on our YouTube. So, we just don’t have the time to answer them all individually, so I thought I would do this video to answer some of the common questions and then clarify some things.
Thyroid Conditions
Over the last 30 years – more than 30 years now I’ve been practicing, and I’ve seen over 100,000 patients. One of the most common things patients come in with is thyroid conditions. Mostly, hypothyroid, Hashimoto’s and thyroid nodules are very common. So, there’s a specific protocol that we use, I built a 7-step protocol called Functional & Free™ where we determine the underlying root cause of someone’s health condition and then provide long-term permanent solutions. And part of this, one part of this is process is a proprietary diet I call The FreeDiet™.
Health Conditions and The FreeDiet
The FreeDiet™ is a diet that is free of the most common allergens, things that are most responsible for inflammation, pain, digestive and other chronic health conditions. So, we went over that in the earlier video and I’ll recap that today and then clarify some things that a lot of people had questions about. You have to understand there are some basic underlying causes for things like thyroid nodules and really almost all chronic health conditions. So it comes down to physical, chemical and mental stress.
As far as the chemical stress component, which we’re going to focus on today, that would be things like nutritional deficiencies, or toxins or pathogens; bacteria, viruses, parasites, and yeast. And I have to tell you almost all of my female patients that come in, and some male patients, have a chronic yeast overgrowth and this can really wreak havoc on your immune system and your entire body.
Phase I of The FreeDiet™
So, basically as far as some of the common questions people had, so first to give you a recap of Phase I of The FreeDiet™, which we’ll put a link here that you can go on and download a complimentary copy of that. So Phase I is the most important part because that’s where you’re eliminating those foods most commonly responsible for inflammation and a lot of these… inflammation is the underlying cause of say, thyroid nodules and lots of other health issues. If you’re in Phase I, the diet is free of not just gluten, but it’s free of gluten, grains, sugar, yeast, dairy, eggs, soy, legumes, nightshades , and processed foods. Basically 10 classes of foods it’s free of, and people will say well what can I eat? Just to summarize it and one of the common questions is, where do I start?
Where do you start is it’s very simple, lunch and dinner are very easy, it’s just protein with plenty of vegetables, salad, plenty of healthy fats; olive oil, and avocados. And breakfast is even easier, we usually recommend a smoothie for breakfast because the Phase I is free of gluten, grains, eggs is one of them. So you’re not really able to eat these breakfast foods, and a smoothie is a great option. We have a specific recipe. And if you refer to another video I have on our YouTube channel it’s my three-minute super smoothie recipe. It’s not the smoothie that’s high-end protein, essential fats, fiber and fruits & vegetables that are a great way to really start your day. Very nourishing, very cleansing.
Phase II and Phase III
So that’s basically Phase I, you know a two-minute summary and the sheet outlines the hundreds of different things you’re allowed and foods to avoid. And then a common question is what about Phase II & III? And how long do you stay in Phase I is another. I received an email from someone in Phase I and she already noticed 50% reduction in her thyroid nodule. So what about Phase II & III? If you’re getting great results and you’re seeing improvement, I would say that you want to stay in Phase I until that time where you’re at a point where a lot of chronic health issues are cleared up. And then with Donna, what we did was an ultrasound initially and her nodule was over 2 cms. And then she noticed within two weeks that it wasn’t visible at all anymore. This is two-weeks of being on The FreeDiet™. And then at 7 weeks, she was still in Phase I, we referred her out for another ultrasound and learned that it shrunk by over 50%. So it went from 2.1cm to 1cm, and that was in 7 weeks. And the other nodules she had all shrunk dramatically as well.
Staying in Phase I
So, basically you want to, if it’s working really well for you, you want to stay in Phase I. And it’s important to know you should deal with a doctor, you should follow-up, you should have lab works, ultrasounds. If you’re local and you want my help with it, feel free to reach out. We even have patients in other parts of the country, or even out of the United States that we do phone and Skype consultations with. But anyway, you definitely need to be under a doctor’s care for this and preferably someone who isn’t medicine minded. There’s functional medicine, nutrition, so they can kind of help you in these areas.
Adding Foods Back
Getting to Phase II, that’s when you start adding foods back one at a time every few days to see if you have any reactions. And we start with the foods that are least problematic. I’ll give you an example like there are different categories of proteins, vegetables. And what you’ll see in The FreeDiet™ is the different categories. So, for instance just to give you an example in Phase II, we bring back eggs, and you see if there’s a reaction. Some people might have no reaction whatsoever and others, it’s typically it’s their sinuses, digestive issues, brain fog, fatigue, sometimes itchy skin.
That’s all listed in Phase II as well, so those are common reactions that you would get. And then there’s a number of other foods we add back one at a time in the second Phase. And this way you can figure out, see what foods might be causing inflammation and your health issues and which aren’t. That takes typically about a month to get through every three days.
Adding More Challenging and Problematic Foods
So at the end of that period, you have a whole lot of other foods you can eat. And then with Phase III, we go to the more challenging things, the more problematic foods. Like, if you’re so inclined you can bring back in grains, say like rice, for instance, quinoa and other types of grains. And the last one – the most problematic – the last you’d bring back would be things like gluten, glutenous strains.
But most people, almost everyone that we deal with, most of our patients can’t handle gluten at all. We do a lot of testing and they’re sensitive to gluten still. I don’t really recommend that for almost everybody. I really just don’t recommend that at all, unless someone is the exception and it’s certainly possible.
Supplements
But anyway, that’s the basic rundown and we will be getting a complete resource on how to go through this very easily, Phase I, II & III, we’re getting our resources together. We’re getting a book going and we’ll have a group coaching program going to help you along the way. But to some other questions, people ask about supplements as well.
So that really depends on testing as well, the basic guidelines and the basic foundation is we have our Natural Medicine Formulas line of supplements that are free of all the common allergens and are pharmaceutical grade. So, the basic foundation is multivitamin, fish oil, magnesium, vitamin D, and probiotics. Then we have extra ones depending on your needs. Some might have adrenal issues. A lot of women are low on iron, B12, and need adrenal support. These are all extra things beyond the basics, and then iodine is a big part of the question, do you take it or not?
What About Iodine?
So, iodine is one of those things that can be really problematic. Taking iodine if you have knowledge of thyroid issues, can be really helpful. So how do you know? Well, there’s a specific iodine urine test, it’s a 24-hour urine test that can be done with a challenge. We usually do it before and after an iodine low. Now that’s what I find is the most accurate way to determine and with Dawn for instance, she was very low on iodine and supplemented her with rather high doses of iodine.
And in her case she needed it, and as you can see after 7 weeks her nodules shrunk by over 50% so obviously, it certainly wasn’t hurting like everywhere. You know, all these places you read online and it’s like ‘iodine is the devil if you have thyroid issues.’ Well, it’s not necessarily the case. Don’t just go on a ride and buy iodine because you’re assuming you need it. You should really be specific, that’s why I suggest that you be under a doctor’s care for this.
Fluctuation
So, one woman was asking, she’s hyperthyroid and has nodules and she’s taking this medication and now she’s becoming low thyroid and her doctors aren’t really doing anything about it. An answer to that, you really want to, again, be under the guidance of your doctors. The ones you work with should be really open and receptive to your needs. And really, seek out someone who’s more, there’s more focused on functional medicine that can really help you, guide you in that way.
What About Rice?
One last thing, a woman from the Philippines was asking ‘Rice is our mainstay but it’s not on The FreeDiet™. What are we going to do, is there a substitution? Well, and rice, the reason we avoid that, well grains can be pro-inflammatory, rice, in particular, is very high in arsenic. Most all rice that they found very high in arsenic, so that’s very toxic. That’s why you need to avoid that. One option is cauliflower rice, it’s widely available in the U.S, I’m not sure about other countries but, it tastes like rice and it’s made from cauliflower.
So that covered some of the questions and if you have any others just feel free to comment below. And typically on Fridays, we have Facebook live, you can like us there, I just want to get noticed when we’re on the Facebook live, and we’ll get to ask questions. Also, if you like this video, click like or a thumbs up below. Share it with someone you know who you think may benefit from it. Feel free to download The FreeDiet™ and we definitely look forward to seeing you next time, thanks very much for joining me today.
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Content on this website is based upon the opinions of Thomas Rofrano, D.C. and is not considered medical advice. It is designed to be a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Rofrano and his community. Dr. Rofrano encourages you to make your health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. Dr. Rofrano is a chiropractic physician and offers physical and nutritional support and guidance to those seeking alternative or complementary care to traditional medicine. His care is not meant to replace that from your primary doctor and specialists but rather to help you on your path to achieving life-long vibrant health.
Regarding any supplements mentioned: *These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your physician before using this product.