Hashimoto’s disease and Chinese medicine treatment

  Hashimoto’s disease, also known as chronic lymphatic thyroiditis, is an autoimmune thyroid disorder, and patients with this disease are now frequently encountered in the clinic, and its incidence has been reported in the literature to be increasing year by year. Since the cause of this disease is still unknown, there is a lack of better treatment for this disease. In recent years, the use of Chinese herbal medicine for the treatment of Hashimoto’s disease has shown better clinical results, expanding the application of Chinese herbal medicine for the treatment of some difficult diseases.  The pathological changes are diffuse enlargement of the thyroid gland, infiltration of a large number of lymphocytes and plasma cells in the tissue, degeneration of follicular epithelium, and extensive fibrous tissue proliferation, resulting in atrophy of the thyroid parenchyma, which often leads to hypothyroidism. The clinical manifestations of Hashimoto’s disease can be varied. Most people may have no symptoms of discomfort, while some patients may present with hypothyroidism such as fear of cold, weakness and facial and lower limb edema, and some patients may present with symptoms of hyperthyroidism. Based on typical clinical symptoms and positive serum thyroid antibodies, the diagnosis can generally be made.  Modern medicine does not treat asymptomatic patients, but only those with low thyroid symptoms are treated with thyroxine replacement therapy, while surgical treatment is not ideal. In traditional Chinese medicine, thyroid disorders are collectively referred to as “galls”, which are thought to occur when the body loses control of its diet and emotions, resulting in imbalance of yin and yang, loss of balance of qi and blood, stagnation of qi, blood stasis, and phlegm in the neck, resulting in enlargement of the thyroid gland and related clinical symptoms, which include “Qi galls (nodular goiter), meat galls (thyroid adenoma), and stone galls (thyroid cancer), etc. Although there is no specific name for Hashimoto’s disease in traditional Chinese medical writings, a number of clinical treatments for this disease are described in treatments related to other thyroid disorders. Modern Chinese medicine believes that Hashimoto’s disease is characterized by a mixture of deficiency and reality, the root of the disease is the internal deficiency of positive energy, and the external gall, combined with the Western view of immunology, so it is a difficult to treat the disease. The treatment can be based on the patient’s specific condition, taking both primary and secondary treatment methods, including tonifying the vital energy, relieving the liver and depression, activating blood circulation, resolving phlegm, eliminating galls and dispersing knots to improve the immune system, relieving discomfort and eliminating the enlarged thyroid gland, in addition to topical application of ointment to the thyroid gland to improve the therapeutic effect, generally the treatment cycle is about 3-6 months or longer.