Every organ or gland in the body uses sugar (glucose) for energy production. If you don’t have glucose getting into your cells, you will suffer with low energy. Low energy for your cells but also low energy for you. If your cells can’t be fueled, that will definitely affect your overall energy levels.
If you have low blood sugar, either from not eating enough or from being on a blood sugar roller coaster with the dips of low blood sugar, then your thyroid will not have enough energy to do its job creating a sluggish thyroid.
If you are dealing with insulin resistance at all, (and many people are and don’t realize it) which is when your cells are resistant to the insulin trying to bring in glucose for energy use because there is too much glucose in the blood, then your thyroid will suffer. This is because it too will not be getting the glucose it needs for it to work properly.
In addition, having regularly high blood sugar causes damage to the lining of your blood vessels, your organs, your brain, and causes you to store fat.
High blood sugar causes inflammation throughout the body, including your thyroid so it can’t get all the nutrients it needs to produce thyroid hormones. This will lead to an increased TSH but it might not be high enough for your doctor to say, ‘Oh, you have hypothyroidism’. That said, you also might not need medication for a situation where your blood sugar is affecting your thyroid. You can make some diet and lifestyle changes and get things working better and then retest your thyroid labs. If they get better, then you know what you were doing is right.
Aside from diet, the things that can contribute to blood sugar imbalances are poor sleep. Even just one night of poor sleep can cause short term insulin resistance including in otherwise healthy people. I think of all the nights I slept poorly because my husband snored so loud that I was awake much of the night and if it wasn’t him waking me up, I was waking up because my blood sugar was so low in the night that my body used cortisol to raise it and that cortisol caused me to wake with a start and a racing heart.
Sometimes it still happens to me although very rarely and when it does there is some kind of dream involved that creates the racing heart to wake me up. Only now I can fall asleep pretty quickly rather than when my kids were younger and I was up half the night because of either the snoring or low blood sugar or a combo of the two. My poor kids. They took the brunt of my awful moods due to lack of sleep. Thankfully they have forgiven me and we have pretty good relationships. My life was a huge mess for years because of blood sugar. I don’t want that for you.
When you don’t sleep well, you get no growth or repair which is what is supposed to happen while you are sleeping. This is when your body fixes itself. With blood sugar problems like insulin resistance, you are dealing with a vicious cycle when you are not sleeping.
Stress is another issue related to blood sugar imbalances and poor thyroid function. I feel like a broken record because stress is huge. Again, emotional stress, physical stress, environmental stress. All of it is a problem if it is chronic. Cortisol is a stress hormone. When it rises temporarily, it triggers the liver to make glucose and it can even cause a breakdown of muscle tissue and there is some storage of fat.
If you have chronic stress in your life for whatever reason- it may not be in your control but it will affect you. Your brain senses stress, the pituitary gland sends a signal to the hypothalamus to tell the adrenal glands to secrete cortisol to manage the stress. The pituitary and the hypothalamus are also involved in thyroid hormone secretion. Do you think if the brain is dealing with stress, it can tell the thyroid to release just the right amount of hormones? The adrenals and the thyroid gland are very closely tied together when it comes to function and dysfunction. Very important that the adrenals are not having to deal with chronic stress whether it is from external sources or from imbalanced blood sugar.
When you eat in relationship to when you go to sleep is also very important as well as when you eat in relationship to exercise.
Eating right before bed, especially something that will spike your blood sugar which can raise cortisol which will then inhibit growth hormone (for repairing tissue while you sleep).
If you are not eating protein right away in the morning then your body will take it from your muscle. Protein in the morning is important for stable blood sugar all day long. This is a big deal as we age too because the older we get the easier it is to lose protein. Lifting weights is super helpful, especially as women enter menopause.
How many meals are you eating in a day? Not even meals though, it could just be a problem if you are a chronic snacker. Every time you eat, insulin is released. If you are eating/snacking every hour or two, you are releasing insulin. If you are insulin resistant, that glucose can be stored as fat. Your body needs a break in between meals to burn fat.
A lot of practitioners will tell you to eat 4-5 smaller meals throughout the day to deal with blood sugar imbalances. This is not necessarily helpful. It really depends on what is going on with you and what your blood chemistry says. There are a few different reasons why your blood sugar might be out of whack. Let’s figure that out so we know how to deal with it.
So you have all this imbalanced blood sugar, maybe insulin resistance. This has caused inflammation in the body. You are stressed which can also cause inflammation. Your diet is poor because you are stressed which can also cause inflammation. See how this works?
All of this can lead to gut issues like leaky gut aka intestinal permeability which can lead to food sensitivities and more inflammation and can also create the perfect storm for Hashimoto’s to occur.
Let’s review this quickly.
Blood sugar goes up, it can’t get into the cells because of insulin resistance. Your body senses that the sugar is still in the blood so it raises insulin even more. This leads to glucose to be stored as fat. In addition, when the blood sugar is reduced because of insulin you can get those crashes of low blood sugar which triggers cortisol to try to bring your blood sugar back up but the adrenals release too much which brings your blood sugar up too high and the cycle starts over.
It is vicious.
If you have leaky gut, we need to fix that, figure out what is causing it and fix that inflammation in the body.
You can get a glucose monitor relatively cheap. The strips for it are the expensive part but if you want to really see what foods set off your blood sugar, a glucose monitor is a good tool. You can even do a continuous glucose monitor that you hook up to your phone so it is monitored all the time. You will be able to see some really good trends in how your body responds to sugar. Normal blood sugar hovers around 80-90, 80-100 depending on who you talk to. If your blood sugar is higher than that first thing in the morning, then you have a bit of a problem with insulin resistance. There are other tests that are helpful for looking at blood sugar as well and when you work with a practitioner like myself, they can be good tools to see what kind of blood sugar problems you are having. You can be insulin resistant and depending on what your labs say will determine how you fix it. Even blood sugar issues are not once size fits all.
Other things to consider when looking at your blood sugar dysregulation:
Cortisol - is it low? I’m not talking about Adrenal Fatigue because that doesn’t really exist. What I’m talking about is low cortisol. Do you crave salt? Is your blood pressure low? Do you wake during the night- usually around 3am?
Are you deficient in certain nutrients? There are things needed to allow your cells to use glucose properly. If you have fatigue or weakness, poor cognitive function, insomnia, muscle cramps, inflamed and scaly skin, hair loss, pale skin tone.
Do you have stomach pain, nausea, no appetite, bloat?
Maybe you have antibodies to insulin?
Frequent need to pee? Hungry after meals? Frequent infections? Fatigue? Gaining weight around your waist? Higher blood pressure.
Excessive sweating? Tremors, palpitations? Mood disorders?
Body pain, joint pain, muscle pain, fatigue, insomnia, depression, anxiety, mood issues.
Any of these can be causing blood sugar dysregulation issues and should be fixed with a practitioner. I can help you figure out just what might be going on and give you the tools you need to fix these issues with ongoing support. I’m no longer doing one off appointments because this does not help you work through the overwhelm that sometimes comes with diet and lifestyle changes. When working with me you get bi weekly appointments for six months to help you overcome your chronic health issues. If you just need one appointment to send you in the right direction that is available too. This would be for someone who can take the info and run with it. I have found that longer term, having support over 6 months to a year is way more helpful in setting you up for success. If you are ready to figure out what is going on with your blood sugar or your thyroid problems, reach out. Book a discovery call to see if we are a good fit at www.helpforhashimotos.com.
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Wishing you a wonderful week. Thanks again for being here.