Hi,
I am a hypothyroid person. Apparently have been hypothyroid (with varying levels of adrenal compromise) for years---and it wasn't actually called hypothyroidism by my family physician until last year.

Since last year, I have been researching and reading everything I can get my hands on regarding hypothyroidism and adrenals. What I have read points to some recurring themes in every population and throughout the centuries:

Grains are implicated in a great percentage of thyroid problems! Gluten seems to be the worst offender. Granted, we live in a polluted world full of pcb's, xeno-estrogens, and perchlorates (and other chems) in foods---water supply---non-organic meats---non-organic dairy----etc. Chemical poisons/ halides/ and prolonged or severe stress can also trigger thyroid disease.

The point is that people were getting goiters and thyroid disease long before we had environmental poisons. The question occurred to me----what did people hundreds and even thousands of years ago have in common with 21st century folks?
Well, archeologists in the 20th century found 3-d (bas relief) carvings from ancient Egyptian times depicting people with goiter! The ancient Egyptians ate grains---a lot. And they had goiter! For that matter, my great-gramma had a goiter---she was born around the 1870's (and was the wife/daughter of wheat farmers).

There have been studies just within the past couple of years implicating gluten/ celiac disease as related to Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

Does anyone here have a family history of relatives/ancestors with goiter or some form of thyroid disease?

Hello! That is interesting that those egyptians had goiters! You'd think their vanity would have them removing them from the pictures of the day. Maybe it was a status symbol!

Apparently my father's side has a LOT of thyroid problems, so much so that they wanted to study our DNA, or some cousin said so. I had a cousin die of thyroid cancer in his 30's. I'm not sure who all has had what since we're not really close to the folks on the other side of the continent.

I wish I'd known about all this stuff back in my 20's when I got Graves disease *sigh*.

I was treated with radioactive iodine for a hot nodule in the late
90's. I was just visiting my sickly mom and dad. Mom is 76 and was hyperthyroid. She was very high strung, shaky, etc. She was also treated with the same radioactive iodine. Since I was treated in the past, I had learned about the gluten relationship to thyroid diseases. I know my mom loves to bake, her parents owned bakeries for most of her life. When I was diagnosed, it was after 5 pregnancies, and I was eating lots of muffins. I don't think that the treatment we both had is the only way, but for my mom, it seemed necessary, as she lost a lot of weight. She was under a huge stress from my dad's illnesses and those of a brother who is schizophrenic (although he is pretty functional, holds jobs sometimes), money problems, etc.

pmezak,
It sounds like there is a lot of thyroid-grain connection going on in your family. I think that stress is a trigger---and it triggers the dormant bad genes.

I know of three families where one-or-more siblings had severe mental illness (but medically treatable) and yet one or more also had thyroid disease---with parent(s) and/or grandparent also hypothyroid. There seems to be a direct connection to having thyroid-disease genes and mental illness in families.

There is a lot of interesting info on the www about the connection. I have some younger relatives with that seems to be on-going mental illness (treatable with meds) and celiac disease!!
They have never been tested for thyroid disease---but I betcha if they were tested for thyroid---is would show some form of Hashi's or hyper/hypo.

You know, I've read a number of articles linking schizophrenia and gluten too.