What to do about potential hyperthyroid?

[specialmom]

We had someone suggest that my son has hyperthyroid based on some things they've noticed. Not sure I believe it and will ask his pediatrician about it.  But he does have stomach difficulties.  Specifically, the mystery symptom of extreme nausea and sometimes vomiting during intense physical exercise.  Probably doesn't sound like a big deal but baby boy is on a Varsity team of runners working toward state.  Some of the guys on the team of 7 are doing 5K's in 15 minutes.  My son is over 17 minutes but we try to imagine how fast he'd be if he wasn't plagued with nausea and vomiting.  This is not a conditioning issue as he works out with the group and is highly conditioned.  Anyway, this happens DURING the race and we were approached that this was seen in one other athlete a few years back who turned out to have hyperthyroid.  My son IS thin but runs an incredible number of miles a week. He is highly anxious and always nervous.  He has trouble sleeping.  He does have a large Adam's apple.

Wondering if there is any supplements or vitamins I should consider that aid the thyroid?

[Paxiled]

First you want to get him tested to see.  Usually you see an endocrinologist for that, but make sure they do thorough testing.  Holistic nutritionists often do more thorough testing.  Your regular doc is unlikely to do thorough tests, but he can if you make him.  What he'll do is test for Tsh, which won't help you -- you need to get him to test for at least T3 and T4 for levels and conversion from one to the other.  A really thorough test would also test for T1 and T2, but usually only holistic nutritionists test for that.  Now, you can have borderline hyper or hypo thyroid which to a doctor isn't a problem but to a person can be a problem.  But it's hard to tell.  The symptoms of hyper and hypo are pretty much the same quite often.  I'm still guessing it's nerves, but that's just me.  But again, if he trains as hard as he competes and doesn't have this problem while he's training, it's very hard to see how it's being caused by his activity.  You explain him as being incredibly hard on himself, and it still sounds like a more reasonable explanation, but again, what do I know?

[Paxiled]

You know, you might try an experiment.  Hyland's makes a homeopathic diarrhea formula that actually works.  I've used it.  You can also try some DGL with him, a safe form of licorice that helps control both dangerous pathogens in the digestive system and controls inflammation.  Slippery elm does something similar.  And even if it doesn't work, if it is mental and your son believes it will work, maybe the old placebo will set in.  

[specialmom]

Thank you for these tips.  He runs faster in races than training but the training is for that and the same as others are doing.  Ya, I don't know.  I agree his mental attitude and anxiousness likely plays a huge role.  I don't really think he is hyperthyroid but will get it checked to be sure. but I'm going to experiment with what you mention. My dear friend is married to a man from Japan.  She's giving me pickled plums that she is wrapping in rice making balls.  No idea if I could ever get my son to eat that.  lol But I'm thinking of trying.

[Paxiled]

The umeboshi plums are widely used in Chinese and Japanese medicine to make the system more alkaline.  It may be the plums or it may just be that they are a fermented food.  It has a very strong taste by itself, but macrobiotics use it a lot and the Japanese use it a lot as well.  If you look at a macrobiotic cookbook you'll find a lot of ways to use it so it tastes good.  Miso soup is also used for the same thing, another fermented food.  The Japanese are very big on balancing acid and alkaline.  Sometimes it'll just be listed as ume.  But the quality has to be high or it won't work as well, fermentation has to be long enough.  

[Paxiled]

I also should say that I found a pretty good supplement that helps me since I messed up my stomach taking ibuprofen to try and fix my hips (it failed and left me with a bad stomach, just my luck).  It's called acid ease, made by Enzymatic Therapy, one of the most trusted and respected companies that makes supplements.  They get most of their ideas from actual studies.  It's a combination of slippery elm and some other things and some digestive enzymes, mostly pancreatic enzymes that do carbs.  Could help as well.  

[specialmom]

Thank you for these tips!!  I'll follow up.  

We went to my friends house last night had and the umebroshi plum with rice.  My son ate two because he thought they were good (weird). I ate one and I kid you not, had indigestion about an hour later. She served him cucumbers, celery sticks and broccoli stems and he ate them with chop sticks.  

[Paxiled]

Okay, but, not before he races, because broccoli and cucumbers can cause gas.  Unless they're fermented.  Pickles don't.  Sounds like your son is going to have fun eating as he gets older.  I can't say I ever really liked ume, but when it's made into a recipe, I liked it.  Used to have a macrobiotic chef who used our health food store to distribute to her customers.  As the manager, I got a free meal for providing the service, and my wife and I just loved that food.  But just downing a plum wasn't my cup of tea.  The owner of the store was macrobiotic, and so I had to learn a lot about it because she had a lot of the local macro community shopping there.  We carried about a dozen bulk barrels of differently aged miso (love miso soup) and a lot of ume and ume paste.  They used food as their main source of medicine.  I thought they were all on the hyper side considering my problems, so I never was attracted to it, and I love so many kinds of food and they eliminate a lot of foods from the diet, but I will say they had a lot of energy, seldom got sick, and were very thin -- too thin often.  But the basic ideas come from traditional Japanese medicine, which in turn came from China.  I hope you solve this, Mom.

[Paxiled]

Something else I just thought of you can ask your friend about is kukicha, or twig tea.  They say it balances acid and alkaline.