Thyroid diseases are becoming more common. The WHO announced that the annual increase in patients of different ages with such diagnoses is about 5%. Today, more than 670 million people on Earth suffer from thyroid pathologies. In Russia, according to various sources, from 20 to 40% of the population have some type of thyroid disorder.
Most often, these problems are associated with a lack of iodine in the diet and with a deterioration in the quality of food in general. But there are other reasons, psychosomatic ones. According to them, the disease directly depends on the person himself, which means that it can be cured by himself.
In the article we will tell you what causes of thyroid problems are considered by psychosomatic medicine.
What do doctors think?
The thyroid gland is an endocrine gland found in all vertebrates. It stores a substance like iodine and produces iodine-containing hormones (iodothyronines). These hormones, about which ordinary people, far from medicine and science, know little, participate in metabolic processes, and also ensure the growth of cells and the whole organism. Growth hormones thyroxine and triiodothyronine simply would not exist if the body did not have a small but useful thyroid gland.
In addition to the fact that thanks to it we grow, the gland is involved in many nervous processes, its hormones are important for the functioning of the cerebral cortex.
The thyroid gland is located under the larynx in front of the trachea. Its shape resembles a butterfly, spreading its wings, or a shield - hence, in fact, the name of the organ "thyroid".
The main diseases are hypothyroidism (decreased function of the gland), hyperthyroidism, thyrotoxicosis (increased function). In severe cases, a goiter develops, and the development of cretinism is also possible.
Psychosomatic causes of hyperfunction
Psychosomatics is a medical direction that studies a complex of causes of psychological and mental origin and their influence on the physiological health of a person. From the point of view of psychosomatic medicine, the thyroid gland is the very shield to which it resembles in its forms. This is security, protection, peace of mind.
Diseases of the thyroid gland are always a loud signal that a person is tormented by anxiety, fear of being defenseless. He has lost confidence, confidence in the future. Excessive function (hyperthyroidism) means that the gland is activating all of its resources to protect the body. As a result, more hormones are produced than necessary, which immediately affects the condition.
Quite often, hyperthyroidism develops in people who feel extremely insecure, unprotected, whose close people do not give them a sense of a reliable home front. Such people are tormented by doubts, do not trust their loved ones.
In some cases, anxiety reaches such a high point that panic attacks start. In this case, the subconscious mind picks up the signal that security is under threat and activates the "shield" - the thyroid gland.
In everyday life, such people are characterized by increased anxiety. They are so afraid of being left without protection that they begin to prepare themselves for the "coming apocalypse" - they make up a table of actions in their head, take on more and more responsibility, shoulder a bunch of responsibilities, begin to sincerely believe in the statement "If you want to do well, do it myself. " They are not accustomed to relying on someone, to entrust someone with part of their duties, and even if they do so, they have a strong need to control every stage of execution.
People with excessive thyroid function almost never ask for help, they are used to doing everything on their own. It is hard for them, they are tired, but they wait for those around them to guess about it and do something for them, because simply declaring their fatigue is beyond their strength.
Look around, read the medical statistics, and it will become abundantly clear that the majority of people with hyperthyroidism are women. If you talk to each of them, it will quickly become clear that they do not trust their husbands, adult children, partners or parents.
Hyperfunction of the thyroid gland also threatens women who are used to competing in their own family - to do something better than their husbands, to make more money, to find a solution to a domestic problem faster, and so on. The danger lies in the fact that a woman puts herself on the same level with a man and ceases to feel her feminine principle. What a beginning, if she has to work like a galley slave in order to earn at least as much as her husband!
Therefore, women with thyroid pathologies very often have problems with women's health and fertility. Officially, the cause of infertility is high levels of thyroid hormones.
If the competition between partners or spouses reaches a senile boiling point, then a woman may well develop autoimmune thyroiditis. He is a cry for help, a cry, a call to understand that she is in dire need of care and guardianship.
In this way, hyperfunction of the "thyroid" - an ailment that is created not only by the patient himself, but also by those who are in his immediate environment. The patient himself loses trust, and those to whom he has lost it, "warm up" the situation by their ignorance and unwillingness to change something - you must admit, this is very convenient when most of the responsibility and duties are taken not by you, but by someone else!
Whether the disease progresses depends on whether one of the parties decides on an honest showdown. The patient must tell that he really needs help, and the other party must understand and accept this and change his own approach to the division of responsibilities.
How is hyperthyroidism treated?
To cure hyperthyroidism, you need to clearly understand why it happened, as well as, without a doubt, resign from yourself unbearable voluntarily taken powers and duties, moderate the desire to take care and patronize those who may well take care of themselves.
In practice, the hardest thing is to get rid of anxiety, and without this, you can not even think about normalizing the thyroid gland.
Relaxation trainings, meditation, and the understanding that the future in our head is nothing more than our own fiction, which does not exist, and therefore it is at least stupid to worry about it, and at most a crime against our own health, will help.
The patient has to step on the throat of his own "song about responsibility and strength of character" and honestly tell his relatives that he "had enough", taking on responsibilities that he could not afford, that he was tired. You need not ask for help, but in fact put your loved ones before the fact - they will have to help.
Lack of confidence in a partner is the most controversial issue, especially for female patients. They are unsure, as a rule, in husbands who cannot find work, do not provide for their families, and do not decide anything at all.
Here, no matter how cruel it may sound, there can be only two ways out: to confront him with a fact, and to relax, let him spin as he wants, looking for work in an emergency mode and looking for a family's livelihood, or to break off relations and find another, more responsible and a reliable partner.
True, there is a third way out - to feel sorry for him, the unfortunate, unclaimed, "help" him, work again for himself and for three, expecting that he will finally change his mind, but in this case there will be no recovery. Even with medicines and under the supervision of a renowned endocrinologist. There won't be - period.
Women who cannot get rid of such a painful relationship very often suffer from the development of nodes in the thyroid gland. Nodes are no longer a warning, but a specific indication that the problem should have been solved long ago.
If your thyroid gland is functioning in excess, do not rush to extremes in treatment. Quite often, due to the lack of trust in their loved ones, such patients go in search of "truth" in religion, join sects. They are guaranteed there that higher forces will definitely take care of their future, the cyst and tumor will disappear, life will improve - which partially reduces the level of anxiety.
It really can get better for a while. But the understanding will come very quickly that you were deceived, and the disease will declare itself with renewed vigor. In addition, sects are different, and in some you may be left without an apartment, a car and a livelihood.
Psychosomatics view of thyroid insufficiency
The second common painful condition is hypothyroidism, in which the gland does not produce as many hormones as is required for the body to function normally. This is very common in people who have had increased function. The body sometimes itself has turned on the protection against hormonal overabundance and suppresses the function of the thyroid gland. A person at some point, having exhausted his strength, simply became a "do not care". And it's not just fatigue.
Excessive work of the "protector" gland, if nothing is changed at all, can lead to cancer of the latter, and malignant tumors are definitely not included in the plans of your body. Mechanisms are subconsciously triggered to prevent this outcome.
If there was no hyperfunction before, and the doctor immediately stunned you with the news of functional failure, then you should look for the root in excessive gullibility. There are people who want to trust with a pathological force, such people are always “led”, they seek to merge with the crowd and “disguise themselves” so that neither their own thoughts and judgments, nor their voice can be heard or noticeable. For them everything should be decided and done by others. Very often such people are quite childish, they cannot stand up for themselves. Among those suffering from insufficient functionality of the thyroid gland, there are almost equal numbers of men and women.
In collectives and states with a high degree of infantilism of the population, excessive gullibility, the incidence of hypothyroidism is always statistically higher. We have to carry out iodine prophylaxis at the state level. Remember, it was so in the USSR. When people stopped leaving their apartments unlocked, and the keys were under the rug in the entrance, investing in investment funds and MMM, the number of cases of hypothyroidism began to decline, and iodine prophylaxis across the country was canceled.
Hypothyroidism treatment
A person with reduced thyroid secretion must take a break, take a breath, and rest. If before this state the secretion was increased, excessive, rest is needed doubly. As you rest from unnecessary responsibilities, balance will come, and the state will surely improve.
It is more difficult to deal with excessive gullibility in psychosomatics. This will require psychocorrection, which should teach a person to take responsibility for problems on himself, to be more independent. The main thing is not to overdo it and not to take the treatment to the other extreme - hyperthyroidism.
To find a delicate balance in which the thyroid gland will be healthy, you can turn to a psychotherapist, he will help with the correction of behavior and perception of the world.
