Guest Author - Jim Lowrance

For the majority of anxiety sufferers, their disorder does not have a medical cause but is simply anxiety but for a relatively significant percent of anxiety sufferers, their symptoms have a medical root-cause. In this article, I will address one of the more common medical causes of anxiety symptoms, “Autoimmune Thyroid Disorders“.

Thyroid disorders are one of the more common causes of both anxiety and depression symptoms. The thyroid gland, regulates the metabolism of our bodies and affects every cell and organ. When a person’s thyroid gland becomes either over-active (hyperthyroidism) or under-active (hypothyroidism), the results can be both physical and emotional symptoms.

The vast majority of thyroid disease, is caused by an autoimmune process, where the immune system, becomes misdirected and attacks the thyroid gland, by sending “antibodies”, cells designed to eradicate and destroy other foreign cells that can cause illness in the body, such as viruses, bacteria and allergens. With autoimmune diseases, a natural part of our body, such as one of our endocrine glands (thyroid, adrenal, pancreas, pituitary etc…) is mistakenly attacked and slowly destroyed by the immune system, medical science has yet to understand the reasons why. With autoimmune thyroid disease, this antibody attack, will cause some patients to experience hypothyroidism, also called “Hashimoto’s Disease” and others to experience hyperthyroidism, also called “Grave’s Disease“.

When a person has hyperthyroidism, this means their body is operating at an over-drive level, with everything being sped up. This will cause the person to have anxiety symptoms, including panic attacks and extreme nervousness and co-existing depression.

A person who suspects hyperthyroidism, should also look for the additional physical symptoms that accompany it and would prompt them to seek testing to either confirm or rule it out as being the cause of their symptoms.
The symptoms of hyperthyroidism include; rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure, sudden weight loss, diarrhea, excessive sweating, increased hunger, fatigue, hair loss and swelling in the neck area just below the adam’s apple, called a goiter or nodule (nodules are smaller, tumor type growths).

Interestingly, a person with hypothyroidism, where the metabolism is slowed, can also experience anxiety symptoms, in addition to depression but there are also other physical symptoms to look for with hypothyroidism. These would include; feeling slowed down, fatigue, slowed heart rate, sometimes low blood pressure, constipation, weight gain, dry skin, hair loss and goiter or nodules.

If either autoimmune hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism are the causes of anxiety symptoms, treatment for either disorder, can help to reduce or eliminate the symptoms.