PreCare – estimate your risk to develop Hashimoto Thyroiditis

In the west we make medical diagnosis by following a process of determining which disease explains person’s symptoms. And this process works well in many instances. However, there are cases when symptoms can be nonspecific, do not make sense, come and go and the period before the disease occurs (subclinical phase) can last as long as 10 years. This is a feature of many organ-specific autoimmune diseases, as Hashimoto thyroiditis. Hashimoto thyroiditis is an autoimmune condition where body attacks thyroid gland. This can lead to hypothyroidism when body cannot produce enough thyroid hormones anymore. As for all other autoimmune diseases there is no cure available yet. During the period of slowly development of the disease (see the chart below: from phase 1 to phase 4):

• patients are often diagnosed with psychiatric disorders (phase 2) and many of the drugs prescribed can even trigger an autoimmune storm
• simply asked to come back after some time for new blood work and ‘wait and see’ approach is applied (phase 3)
• disease is often only diagnosed when severe damage to the thyroid tissue is done, when 75-90 % of the thyroid is destroyed (phase 4) . Keep in mind that Hashimoto thyroiditis is often not diagnosed at all and that above 95 % of hypothyroidism (slow function of thyroid gland) is caused by Hashimoto thyroiditis.