Are there any natural supplements someone can take for hypothyroidism?
Hypothyroidism can be linked to other endocrine problems and some to chemical exposure and can seriously impact daily function and general health, so it must be treated. I know a number of physicians that will use complementary medicine to encourage maximum recovery and function along side the prescriptions traditionally used.
It is dangerous not to do anything- so that is not an option. It can seriously impact even heart health so this is a diagnosis that must be managed by a physician. Some are better than others at making sure all options are explored. I have worked for a few that do make sure you are iodine sufficient and free of other antagonists before they jump to just a prescription. That is necessary in most cases anyway but is not the only way to insure optimal function. There are a few chemicals that are similar to iodine and will sit on the iodine receptor sites and sicken the thyroid. A few are; bromine, lithium, chlorine and fluoride. In the case of a diseased thyroid I would assess exposure to these chemicals in food, profession and daily activities.
I recently read that other goitrogens (foods that suppress iodine) need to be assessed in the diet for possible overuse. Another chemical that exists in some of these recognized goitrogen foods (that I've been aware of for some time) and that is in soybean and a number of other foods is thiocyanate. It decreases iodine uptake by competitive inhibition causing a negative thyroxin secretion and increased secretion of thyrotrophin which stimulates the gland.
In the 70's an animal science professor at a local university discovered that the calves they were raising off of their dairy herd were having adverse responses to their soy supplement. They had not had this problem before so they set out to find out what made this batch different from previous batches. The school had a grant for a mass spectrometer gas chromatograph that year, so they ran a chemical analysis of this supplement through the spectrometer and discovered that a few of the chemicals in the analysis were not just higher but thousands of times higher in the newer formula than the older readouts of previous years batches of supplements. They isolated one chemical in particular that happened to be phenylisothiocyanate and using the same dilution of chemical found in the supplement , challenged the calves in an intradermal test. They raised a positive wheel meaning there was an immune response to the particular concentration of the chemical found in that years batch. They then did the test again using the dilution found in soy supplements used in other years where they had not had a negative reaction. There was no positive wheel. Different dilutions of the same chemical were tolerated or not tolerated depending on the concentration found in the plant. They then checked the source of the two supplements. They found that the one that had been tolerated was not genetically modified and the one that was not tolerated had been genetically modified to make it more disease resistant by raising the phenylisothiocyanate. They had their answer and a new reason to be cautious about altering the genetic structure without taking in account the consequence to it's ingestability.
I make this case in point to show that recent evidence shows that soy has a negative impact on the thyroid. But was this so decades ago before we started altering it's structure? Food for thought!
There are some natural thyroid supplements that still remain under prescription but give your practitioner some choices. Standard Process is a line of glandulars that is physician dispensed and has a good track record. There are over the counter glandulars that can be purchase in a health food store. I would encourage you to do some educational research on the protomorphogen theory behind glandular therapies. It is a simple to understand theory and I have seen it do well for a large number of clients. This one is not a simple answer but will at least steer you in a direction of self exploration and education that will give you food for thought and some direction in identifying possible causes and treatments.