Emily was 35 years old when she signed up for Quantify, after years of struggling 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 was palliative at best, and that wouldn’t address the underlying causes of her symptoms, Emily decided she needed 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 abnormally low function of her thyroid gland, 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 the development of hypothyroidism.
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.
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.
To address leaky gut and improve her thyroid function, Emily’s health coach recommended that she eliminate processed foods, sugar, grains, and dairy from her diet, take certain supplements, such as ginger, slippery elm, and marshmallow root, and optimize her circadian rhythm, by getting to bed on a consistent schedule.
While Emily had never tried to make so many changes at once, the prospect of resolving her symptoms and getting her life back ultimately motivated her to follow her health coach’s recommendations closely, despite how overwhelming it was for her at first.
She had eaten the standard American diet for her entire life, so eliminating the foods she had grown so accustomed to wasn’t easy, but her health coach helped her to make the transition by recommending certain health-promoting foods that she could easily find locally and prepare at home.
Over the course of a few months, as Emily replaced bread, pasta, cereal, crackers, cookies, and other high-carbohydrate, high-sugar foods with fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beef, chicken, fish, and eggs, she noticed that her symptoms started to improve.
Six months later, Emily’s TSH came back only slightly elevated, indicating improved thyroid function, or that her thyroid appeared to be coming back online.
A year after that, Emily’s symptoms had completely resolved, her TSH was normal, and a follow-up qPCR stool analysis showed that she no longer had leaky gut, further validating the work she had done to address the causes of her hypothyroidism.