Perhaps you have almost no energy most days and it is almost impossible to drag yourself out of bed. This can make life extremely difficult, especially if you have a family to take care of. Your problems could be a thyroid gland that is under-active (hypothyroidism) and a San Jose thyroid doctor that practices functional or natural medicine, may be able to help you.

Perhaps you have visited your family doctor lately, because you suspected that you may have hypothyroidism. This problem is more common than most people think but it often does not show up in standard tests. When this happens, your physician may think that the problem lies elsewhere, and you could go on suffering for years.

Many endocrine system problems are immune related. In other words, the immune system sees one part of the human body as a threat and literally attacks it. If this is the case, the usual therapy involves suppressing the immune system, but this can lead to a host of other health problems.

When you suppress the immune response in the body, simple infections can become something serious. For example, you may come down with the flu and it could get much worse, because there are not enough white blood cells to combat the flu virus. A serious bacterial infection may develop, and it can be hard to get rid of.

Autoimmune problems may sometimes be a result of toxins that poison your body, and the digestive tract is one of the most common places for this to happen. Once digestion is slowed down (due to toxins), waste may sit for days and rot in the colon. Over time, infection may result and this can disrupt your entire system including the immune response.

When the thyroid is not functioning properly, the first reaction may be to address it with medication. However, many problems affect this important gland, but are rooted somewhere else in the body. Functional medicine directs therapy at the actual cause of the problem so it can be eliminated naturally, and it may not return.