Emily was 35 years old when she signed up for Quantify, after struggling for years with fatigue, depression, brain fog, constipation, and weight gain, and not getting anywhere with conventional medicine.
Despite hallmark symptoms of hypothyroidism, her thyroid tests had always been normal, so her doctor didn’t think she had hypothyroidism, and thus didn’t have anything to offer, other than a prescription for a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), for her depression.
Reluctant to start taking medication that she knew would be palliative at best, and that wouldn’t address the underlying causes of her symptoms, Emily decided to pursue a more data-driven approach.
In her first appointment at Quantify, Emily’s health coach recommended a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) stool analysis and gluten sensitivity test, to test for parasites, bacteria, fungi, and viruses, and evaluate intestinal permeability, inflammation, the health of her microbiome, and immune reactivity to gluten, a protein in wheat, barley, and rye.
Test results
Her first time conducting a comprehensive evaluation of her health, a careful review of the many thyroid tests her doctor had ordered over the years showed that Emily’s thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), while technically within the reference range and considered “normal,” had actually been elevated for years, indicating compromised thyroid function, despite not meeting the standard criteria for a diagnosis.
Providing an additional clue as to what was going on, Emily’s qPCR stool analysis showed increased intestinal permeability (or, more colloquially, leaky gut), which commonly contributes to hypothyroidism, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and other chronic conditions.
Further revealing the causes of her symptoms, Emily’s gluten sensitivity test was also abnormal, indicating that while Emily didn’t have celiac disease, she did have a significant sensitivity to gluten, and that her regular consumption of foods containing gluten was likely compromising the integrity of her intestinal barrier, causing leaky gut, immune dysregulation, and, ultimately, her hypothyroidism.
Recovery
Emily was understandably frustrated that her doctor had missed her hypothyroidism, but she was also thrilled to finally get answers, having been told for years that she was “probably just stressed.”
She had known that something was wrong—her symptoms had reminded her of that every day—so her test results not only provided the data she needed to recover her health, but also the validation she’d been searching for that her symptoms weren’t in her head.
Working closely with her health coach, Emily eliminated processed foods, sugar, and grains from her diet, started drinking at least 64 ounces of water per day, and took certain supplements, such as ginger, amla, and digestive enzymes.
Within a few months, as she replaced bread, pasta, cereal, crackers, cookies, and other high-carbohydrate, high-sugar foods with fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beef, chicken, fish, and eggs, Emily reported that her fatigue, depression, and brain fog started to improve, an encouraging indication that her thyroid was coming back online.
Within a year, her symptoms had completely resolved, her TSH was normal, and a follow-up qPCR stool analysis showed no indication of leaky gut, further validating the work she had done to address an often overlooked cause of hypothyroidism.