When it comes to reversing your hypothyroidism and Hashimotos symptoms, supporting your liver is super important.
Your liver is where you convert your thyroid hormones and this is crucial to feeling good. Why?
Your thyroid makes the T4 hormone that doesn’t really do a whole lot for you. Its like crude oil. You don’t put crude oil in your car, it has to get converted to gasoline in order to make your car go vroom vroom, right? The same happens for T4, it has to get converted into T3. T3 is like gasoline, it gives you energy, helps with hair loss and even weight loss. It helps your body go vroom vroom!!
That conversion happens mostly in your liver (and in your gut which is why it needs to be healed and sealed, but that’s another story for a different blog post!)
It is very common for those of us with thyroid disease to have a sluggish or even a fatty liver and although it is downplayed often by doctors, this can make a huge impact on how you feel. So making sure your liver is working at it’s best is key to feeling good. It does a lot of other jobs that matter too, like filtering.
Some signs of fatty liver
High cholesterol
Elevated liver enzymes
Elevated glucose levels
Fatigue
Weakness
Pain in the liver area
Gallbladder issues
Brain fog
Itchy skin
Insomnia
Yellowing of the skin or eyes
You don’t have to have all of these to have a liver issue and fatty liver CAN be reversed.
Here are 6 tips to help your liver to function better:
1. Drink at least 2 liters of filtered water a day.
Water is important for your liver to make enough bile and being dehydrated means that isn’t happening like it should. Bile for your liver is like soap. It washes the liver. When that bile is stagnate, your liver isn’t getting cleansed. That leads to liver dysfunction and eventually, fatty liver.
The kind of water you drink is important as well. You want filtered water that has no fluoride or chlorine. Both of those displace iodine and iodine is crucial for proper thyroid function. In fact, fluoride use to be given to patients with OVER active thyroid to slow their thyroids down. This is bad news if you have hypothyroidism or Hashimotos since your thyroid function is already slow. And no, it isn’t needed for your teeth either. There are better ways to care for your teeth.
You also, do NOT want to drink water that comes in plastic. Plastic leaches toxins and that doesn’t do your liver or body ANY favors.
I use to use a Berkey water filtration system to filter my tap water, but they are currently in a law suit for their filters not working as well as they claim. So I now use this Berkey HERE because I already have it but I don’t use their filters any more. I use these Pro One filters HERE in it now.
They fit the Berkey system just fine, so if you already have a Berkey, use those. That way you don’t have to get a brand new system. Just be sure to get the right size filters for your Berkey system.
If you have no water filtration system yet, I recommend the Pro One System HERE. This system rates high for effectiveness and has a lot of excellent reviews. And best of all, its about half the price of a Berkey.
Drink your water at room temperature too. Cold or water that is too hot is harder on the liver to process.
Drink water when you first wake up BEFORE you eat or do anything else. That gives the liver a good flush. 8 oz is good but a whole liter is better. Do what you can.
2. Start doing castor oil packs on your liver.
A castor oil pack is when you take castor oil, which is a thick oil that has been used for many years to help with many ailments, and you put it on an organic cloth which you then place on your body to allow it to penetrate deeply into the skin and eventually the organs.
Castor oil packs fight inflammation and increase bile production which is incredible for your liver. This helps the detoxification process. If you’re having any pain in the liver area, these will be your best friend. You can learn more about castor oil packs, including how to use them step by step, on my Instagram highlights HERE where I explained which one I use and how. I also shared a link for you to get your own there!
You can even use them to help shrink nodules on your thyroid itself.
If you don’t have Instagram you should still be able to view it.
3. Add lemon juice to your diet.
Fresh lemon (and even lime) juice help to increase bile flow, which helps with detoxing and they are great antioxidants which help with inflammation. All that is good news for your liver.
There have been studies conducted on mice that were given lemon juice after they were given alcohol induced liver injuries. (You don’t have to consume alcohol to have fatty liver or liver issues but it is hard on the liver so this was a great way to test what lemon could actually do.) What they discovered was the it lowered liver enzymes and it not only slowed the liver damage, but it reversed it in some cases! That is extremely powerful evidence on just how great lemon is for the liver.
Adding lemon to your water each day is a great way to be sure to get it in your diet. You can also add it to salads and other foods when you cook.
4. Eat beets in some form.
Beets are another superfood for your liver. They help thin your bile so you have better bile flow. They are high in compounds that have been shown to reduce inflammation, protect against oxidative stress and reduce the risk of liver damage.
Beets are full of antioxidants and nitrates. They are great for many things like heart health, blood pressure, cognition, and inflammation. But when it comes to liver health, this red root also serves as a natural blood cleanser, purging your body of toxins and heavy metals. They are rich in glutathiones – a compound found in the phytonutrients betalains – which is potent for detoxifying the liver.
You can shred them and add them to salads, freeze them and add them to smoothies, or roast them. If you hate the taste of them you can also use a beet powder like this one HERE to add to smoothies or take a beet powder supplement like this one HERE.
5. Consume Dandelion Root
Those pesky yellow flowers that we hate to see on our lawn are actually extremely beneficial for your liver.
Dandelion root has long been held as a “liver tonic” in folk medicine. Preliminary studies suggest this is due to its ability to increase the flow of bile. Remember, bile to the liver is like soap, it washes it. We want that liver to be cleansed as much as we can, gently.
Naturopaths believe it means that dandelion root tea could help detoxify the liver, help with skin and eye problems, and relieve symptoms of liver disease. A study done in 2017 suggests that polysaccharides in dandelion may indeed be beneficial to liver function.
Ways to consume it
Eat dandelion greens in salads. Many grocery stores carry them. You can also grow them yourself in your own yard but you can’t spray for pests or allow pets in the area.
You can also drink it in tea form. Many people use it as a coffee replacement. I love the tea (which I get HERE) with a bit of organic honey like this one HERE.
If you don’t like eating dandelion greens or drinking the tea, you can get dandelion root supplements. I like these HERE. Follow the directions on the bottle for taking those.
Just get it in!
6. Eat an anti inflammatory diet
When you’re trying to heal your liver, diet absolutely must be addressed. The standard American diet is called SAD for a reason. It is destroying our bodies. Processed food is inflammatory so reducing it will help your body as a whole, but it absolutely helps the liver.
Eating an anti inflammatory diet in which you remove inflammatory foods and focus on nutrition is best and will heal your liver the fastest (although this will still take some time since healing isn’t instant!)
These are a few powerful tips to get you started on healing your liver. To learn more about an anti inflammatory diet, additional supplements to support the liver (and your healing overall) and tips that can help to speed up the healing process that are individualized to your SPECIFIC needs, apply for a one on one coaching session with me HERE and get a step by step plan for how to heal your liver and reverse your hypothyroidism and Hashimotos symptoms too.
I have very few coaching spots for one on ones since I am only available to do them one day a week, so don’t wait! Go ahead and apply now. (No worries about the application, it’s just some general information from you. That saves us time going into the session and lets me know if I can help you for sure. I only accept applications from people that I KNOW without a doubt I can help.)
There really is no reason to suffer with thyroid symptoms any longer. There is so much you can do to help YOURSELF! Let me get you going on my proven protocol (proven by over 1000 women to work) for reversing your symptoms NOW so you can go from feeling fat, frustrated and fatigued to feeling FABULOUSLY like YOU again.
Helping you go from feeling fat, frustrated and fatigued to feeling fabulous again,
Melodye ❤️
