When one of our patients comes in needing help with fatigue one of the first things we look at is the tongue. Scalloped edges indicate what we, in Chinese medicine would call “spleen chi deficiency” or a lack of energy in the body.
Interestingly enough, a scalloped edged tongue is also a mark of an underactive thyroid. Fatigue is one of the hallmarks of hypothyroidism, so is “foggy brain”, constipation, feeling cold often, dry hair and skin, heavy periods, etc. If some of those symptoms seem all too familiar, but you’ve gotten a thyroid test and it came back normal, you were probably confused by the results.
What your doctor may not have told you is that thyroid hormone blood testing is often inaccurate. The reason that is, is because several factors can throw off the results, obesity, aging, stress, chronic fatigue, diabetes, etc.
And even if you have the right amount of thyroid hormones circulating in your blood your body might not be responding to them. So even though your thyroid hormones look great on paper, you could still be functionally deficient.
Looking at thyroid diseases from an Eastern medical perspective, our patient’s signs and symptoms determine diagnosis. Or in other words, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck. We say it’s a duck, and treat it as such!
Because Chinese medicine is the original functional medicine, we understand that the hormones in the body are most delicately balanced. They can be thrown off by stress, environmental chemicals, aging, diet, and other factors. One hormone imbalance, such as cortisol deficiency can quickly become another one, like hypothyroidism. Chameleon like, hormones even turn into one another, progesterone becomes cortisol, DHEA becomes testosterone, etc. So treating hormones is never as simple as replacing deficient ones. The whole picture of how each hormone is functioning and affecting the others must be examined.
If you’re feeling like “something just isn’t right” and you need some help getting back on track give us a call at Blue Jean Acupuncture. We will start you off with an extensive hormone health questionnaire, look at your tongue, pulse, and health history and we will go from there. Acupuncture and medical herbs restore natural balance to your hormones so that you can start feeling like you again.
