10 Tips To Reverse Hashimoto’s Hair Loss

There I was, standing in front of my bathroom mirror brushing my hair when I noticed chunks of it coming out. It was horrifying and depressing. After all, I was only 32 years old! This was not normal. If you’re dealing with Hashimoto’s hair loss, you understand the feeling. I would later discover that this was a symptom of my thyroid dysfunction. While my hair loss happened during the throes of Graves’ disease, it is one of the symptoms of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

If you’re curious how to reverse Hashimoto’s symptoms, including thyroid hair loss, you’re in the right place. While Hashimoto’s hair loss might not be one of the more dangerous symptoms, it can be one of the more disheartening. This is especially true for women. It can be a constant reminder that something isn’t right with your body. Thankfully, after a long journey to restore my thyroid function, my hair returned to being as full and healthy as ever. However, when I first meet with thyroid patients, they oftentimes struggle with thyroid hair loss even while on medication.

As with many health issues, this is often because conventional medicine doctors fail to identify and address the root cause of thyroid symptoms. Some of these root causes include adrenal fatigue, diet, or low stomach acid symptoms. Other causes can include hormone imbalances, insufficient labs, or incorrect medication doses. 

In this article, I’m sharing 10 tips for addressing the root causes of thyroid hair loss. Whether it’s Hashimoto’s hair loss or Graves’ disease hair loss, you’ll learn how to get your hair back to being full, shiny, and healthy! If you want to know how to balance the hormones naturally, I have something special for you at the very end. 

First, let’s get into the top 10 tips:

1. Make Sure Your Labs Are Optimal

If you are dealing with Hashimoto’s hair loss, have your doctor run a full thyroid panel. This ensures your TSH, Free T4 (FT4), Free T3 (FT3), and Reverse T3 (RT3) levels are all optimal (1).  Most doctors will only test your TSH and maybe your FT4 if you’re lucky. They also only rely on the “normal” reference ranges. It’s important to understand that you can still have symptoms of Hashimoto’s even if your TSH and T4 are “normal”. This includes thyroid hair loss. That’s why the first step is to have your thyroid levels tested. This gives you a path towards optimization. 

2. Make Sure You’re On the Right Type and Dose of Thyroid Medication

Once you know your thyroid levels, you can work with your doctor to make sure you’re on the right type and dose of thyroid medication. Free T3, the active form of thyroid hormone, plays a big role in the health of your hair.  Even so, the most commonly prescribed thyroid hormone is a T4-only hormone. Think of Synthroid® or Levoxyl®. Many thyroid patients have difficulty converting T4, the storage form of the hormone, to Free T3. This is why they do better on natural desiccated thyroid hormones such as Armour® or Naturethroid®. Both of these medications include both T4 and T3. Or, some people add in a T3-only form of supplemental thyroid hormone. Cytomel® is one example of this. Some people also get a compounded time-release T3 formula. Talk with your doctor to see which medication is right for you.

3. Optimize Your Diet

Diet plays a huge role in thyroid health. Ditch toxic and inflammatory foods and add in plenty of the nutrients for optimal thyroid function. The number one change you can make to your diet to reverse Hashimoto’s hair loss is to ditch gluten. Gluten is highly inflammatory. It causes a leaky gut, which leads to your immune system attacking your thyroid. Why does it do this? It happens because the protein sequence in gluten is so similar to that of your thyroid.

Dairy is another big culprit for thyroid patients. Dairy proteins react similarly in the body to gluten. That’s why both are so inflammatory for many people (2). Other inflammatory foods I recommend eliminating include corn, soy, and nightshades. Skip the eggs, nuts, and seeds too. This will help heal your body and reverse Hashimoto’s hair loss. 

Focus on eating real, whole foods rich in the nutrients. Iodine, selenium, and zinc assist with healthy thyroid function and detoxification. Iron, vitamin D, B vitamins, and vitamin A also nourish and support the thyroid. If you are low in these nutrients, your thyroid can’t do its job. That means it can’t produce hormones, convert T4 to T3, or get T3 into your cells. If that doesn’t happen, the hormones can’t attach to thyroid receptors on your cells. This can cause symptoms of Hashimoto’s. Yes, this includes Hashimoto’s hair loss. I recommend a diet with plenty of grass-fed, pasture-raised meat. Also, make sure to add plenty of leafy greens, starchy vegetables, organic fruits, and healthy fats to each meal. 

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4. Take a Methylated Multivitamin

Eating a diet rich in essential nutrients is an important step in maintaining your thyroid levels. Unfortunately, our soil no longer contains the nutrients it once did. That means our food is less nutrient-dense than previous generations (3). To help combat this, I recommend everyone take a high-quality methylated multivitamin each day. I developed a custom-formula methylated multivitamin that provides all the essential nutrients for thyroid function and general health. It includes all the vitamins and minerals listed above. Not only that, but they come in their most bio-available and easily absorbable forms! 

5. Increase Your Iron

All of the nutrients I’ve listed above are key for thyroid health. Interestingly enough, iron deficiency is a common cause of Hashimoto’s hair loss in premenopausal women. I find that most of the women I treat in my clinic have an iron deficiency. Ferritin is the protein that stores your iron (4). Iron deficiencies are also common in those following a vegetarian or vegan diet. That said, I see it in those following a paleo diet as well. If you are a menstruating female or your iron levels are low, taking a daily iron supplement can help.

6. Add in Collagen Protein

Collagen is a protein packed with amino acids. One such amino acid is glutamine. Glutamine gives your hair its strength and your skin its elasticity. It also supports healthy bones and joints, and helps maintain gut health (5). Your body produces collagen on its own. However, as you age your production of it decreases. Glutamine production also goes down if you have a chronic illness or feel stressed all the time. Adding collagen can help reverse Hashimoto’s hair loss by nourishing the roots and underlying growth factors. You can add more collagen into your diet by drinking bone broth or taking a collagen supplement.

7. Check for Low Stomach Acid Symptoms

I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying “you are what you eat.” Well, I prefer to say, “you are what you digest and absorb!” If you have symptoms of Hashimoto’s, you may not be digesting and absorbing nutrients well. This means your body is not getting what it needs for thyroid function and healthy hair (6). A primary reason for this is low stomach acid. Stomach acid breaks down your food once it reaches your gut.

How do you know if you have low stomach acid? Low stomach acid symptoms include acid reflux, gas, and bloating. You may notice an uptick in these symptoms after eating a heavy protein meal. There is a simple test you can do to find out if you are low in stomach acid. You can take one capsule of Gut Restore with Betaine and HCL with water before a meal. See how you feel after about 30 minutes. If you feel a burning sensation, your HCL levels are fine. However, if you feel nothing, you need to add Gut Restore with Betaine and HCL.

8. Balance Your Hormones

Some women develop symptoms of Hashimoto’s within the first few years postpartum. Others notice symptoms around menopause. Both instances are when our bodies are going through major hormonal shifts. If your estrogen levels are too high, the excess estrogen increases your levels of TBG, or thyroid binding globulin (7). This is the protein that allows your thyroid hormones to travel through your bloodstream. When thyroid hormones attach to TBG they remain inactive. So, T4 can’t store in your tissues or convert to Free T3. This can cause Hashimoto’s hair loss. If you’re wondering how to balance the hormones naturally, read on! 

9. Balance Your Blood Sugar

Eating too many carbohydrates and not enough quality proteins and healthy fats can send your blood sugar on a rollercoaster. These dramatic swings in blood sugar encourage your body to convert more T4 to Reverse T3. Reverse T3 is an inactive form of thyroid hormone. This conversion slows down all of your metabolic processes and can cause you to shed hair faster.

To avoid this, start your day with a high-protein breakfast. Pair your starchy vegetables throughout the day with grass-fed, pasture raised meat. Don’t forget your high-quality fats! I like avocados and coconut oil.

10. Address Adrenal Fatigue

You may already know your adrenal glands produce adrenaline. They also help manage your fight or flight response. While that’s true, they also produce hormones that impact your major metabolic processes (8). That’s right, your adrenals act very similarly to your thyroid! These hormones help to regulate blood pressure, electrolyte balance, and blood sugar. Adrenal hormones also support a healthy immune response, digestion, and more.

Chronic stress puts your adrenals on overdrive. Sometimes, this happens for extended periods of time, leaving you in a state of adrenal fatigue. The flooding and eventual plummeting of stress hormones has many negative impacts on the thyroid. It slows down thyroid production and reduces your ability to convert thyroid hormones to their active form. It also increases thyroid hormone resistance. You guessed it, this leads to symptoms of Hashimoto’s, including thyroid hair loss.

Stress also plays a major role in Hashimoto’s weight gain. Nothing like stress to keep you from losing weight! Did you know the 4 Secrets to Beat Hashimoto’s Symptoms Your Doctor Will Never Tell You tells you how to lose Hashimoto’s weight for good too? Squeeze into your favorite pair of jeans again by clicking here!