How to treat Hashimoto's thyroiditis

Some people find out that they have Hashimoto's thyroiditis during a physical examination, and they don't know what to do. Some people say that the main cause of Hashimoto's thyroiditis is iodine deficiency. As long as you eat more iodine-containing foods in your daily life, you can alleviate Hashimoto's thyroiditis to a great extent. Is that true? How to treat Hashimoto's thyroiditis?

Hashimoto's thyroiditis, also known as chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis (CLT), is a chronic autoimmune disease with one's own thyroid tissue as antigen. Hashimoto of Kyushu University in Japan first reported four cases in a German medical journal in 1912, so it was named Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT), which is the most common thyroid inflammation in clinical practice. The incidence rate has increased rapidly in recent years, and some reports suggest that it is close to that of hyperthyroidism. This disease is the most common cause of goiter and acquired hypothyroidism in children and adolescents.

Serum TSH level can reflect the patient's metabolic status. Generally, TSH is normal in people with normal thyroid function, but it is elevated in hypothyroidism. However, some patients with normal serum T3 and T4 may also have elevated TSH. This may be due to mild thyroid dysfunction, resulting in compensatory TSH elevation to maintain normal thyroid function. We call patients with normal thyroid hormones but mildly elevated TSH "subclinical hypothyroidism." In recent years, there have been more and more reports on subclinical hypothyroidism. The indicator for diagnosing subclinical hypothyroidism is an elevated TSH level, which mostly does not exceed 20mU/L.

1. Medication

(1) If thyroid function is normal, no special treatment is required, but follow-up is required.

(2) Patients with hypothyroidism should receive thyroid hormone replacement therapy using thyroid tablets or levothyroxine until the maintenance dose is reached. The indicators of the maintenance dose are improvement in clinical symptoms and normalization of TT3, FT3, TT4, FT4, and TSH.

(3) The course of Hashimoto's hyperthyroidism is the same as that of inflammatory hyperthyroidism. Most patients do not require treatment and go through four stages: hyperthyroidism, euthyroidism, hypothyroidism, and euthyroidism. Transient hyperthyroidism can be treated symptomatically with beta-blockers.

(4) Glucocorticoid treatment. Hormone treatment is generally not used for this disease. For some patients with painful chronic thyroiditis who have obvious thyroid pain and swelling, prednisone can be added and the dosage can be gradually reduced after improvement. The medication should be used for 1 to 2 months.

2. Surgery

Surgical treatment: only used when there is a high suspicion of combined cancer or lymphoma. Lifelong thyroid hormone replacement therapy is given after surgery.

In fact, after reading the above content, everyone should have learned a lot about how to treat Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis should not be afraid. As long as they actively take treatment, they can definitely alleviate the symptoms of Hashimoto's thyroiditis. However, you need to know that you must use the right medicine for the disease. Don't think that just eating foods containing iodine will be enough.