4 Surprising Symptoms of Thyroid Imbalance Your Doctor May Overlook

Beyond the Thyroid – Episode 33:  4 Surprising Symptoms of Thyroid Imbalance Your Doctor May Overlook

In this episode of Beyond the Thyroid, Dr. Dana Gibbs explores four unexpected symptoms—hives, vertigo, frozen shoulder, and anxiety or depression—that may indicate a hidden thyroid imbalance, even when your lab results look “normal.” If you’ve been dismissed by doctors or told your thyroid is “fine” despite ongoing symptoms, this episode is for you.

Dr. Gibbs explains the biological connections between thyroid dysfunction and these surprising signs, highlights what most mainstream labs miss, and shares how advanced testing and the Thyroid Clarity Checkup can uncover the real root cause of your symptoms.

Also in this episode:

• Why “normal TSH” doesn’t always mean normal thyroid function
• The role of immune dysfunction and autoimmunity
• When to suspect deeper thyroid imbalance
• How to join Dr. Gibbs’ next free thyroid program!

📑 Join the The Thyroid Clarity Checkup Priority List! 

📲 Follow Dr. Dana Gibbs on the Goodself App!

🩺 Interested in a Discovery Call with Dr. Dana? Click here!

📺 Watch on YouTube

Episode Highlights:

00:00 – Introduction to Episode 33
00:10 – Overview of the Thyroid Clarity Checkup Program
01:45 – Determining if the Program is Right for You
02:08 – Meet Your Host, Dr. Dana Gibbs
03:21 – Surprising Symptoms of Thyroid Imbalance
04:46 – Symptom 1: Hives and Allergies
06:45 – Symptom 2: Vertigo
08:16 – Symptom 3: Frozen Shoulder
10:22 – Symptom 4: Anxiety and Depression
12:13 – Bonus Symptom: Irregular Periods and Fertility Issues
13:42 – Conclusion and Next Steps
14:35 – Closing Remarks and Podcast Information

Even if your labs are “normal,” your body might be telling you something more. Tune in to find out what it is.

Let's connect! 🔔
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LinkedIn - Dana Gibbs MD
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✉️ Email Dr. Gibbs at drgibbs@DanaGibbsMD.com or visit https://www.danagibbsmd.com/ for more information.


Thank you so much for listening! Tune in on the next episode.


The medical information provided in this episode is intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider regarding any medical questions or concerns.

Transcript

dana-gibbs-md--she-_1_07-15-2025_141223 0:00

Welcome to episode 33. Our topic for today is four surprising symptoms. That can mean you have a thyroid imbalance, even if your doc said your labs are normal. This is a preview of a webinar I'm gonna be doing in a few weeks to introduce my new online program called the Thyroid Clarity Checkup, where we're gonna do a deep dive on lab tests for hypothyroidism that I do use in my practice every day. So in that program, we're gonna go over: what extra labs to get? What's the easiest way to get'em, even if your doctor doesn't agree? What the different ranges mean on the test results and what levels are actually ideal? Also we'll go into how I put that information together to design a custom treatment plan for each patient. Then we'll finish with tips on how to make the labs you do get more accurate and helpful to guide your treatment. So this is an integrative approach that was developed initially by my mentor and I that refined over nearly 30 years of medical practice, and I'm now bringing it to the public so that more people can learn what I've learned and make use of it. So this advanced testing and analysis method allows me to get far superior results in fixing people's energy levels and their other thyroid symptoms quickly, while I also work to get their Hashimoto's Disease antibodies and other triggering conditions under control. It's much easier to optimize your diet, your habits, and your lifestyle once you're not exhausted all the time. So if you're interested in this. Getting on the priority notification list is free. Just go to www.danagibbsmd.com/checkup to sign up. But first, how do you even know if this program is right for you? Well, either you have symptoms and you've been told your thyroid is fine, or you're taking thyroid medicine already and your standard labs look great, but you don't feel fine. But what symptoms am I talking about? Well, that's what today is for. So let's get started.

2:18

You're listening to the Beyond the Thyroid podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Dana Gibbs. I'm an ENT surgeon and hormone specialist. For years, I struggled with my own unrecognized thyroid problems before and even after I was regularly performing thyroid surgeries. Then, one day, I learned something that turned my health around and opened my eyes to the limits of mainstream medicine in treating more subtle thyroid abnormalities. I spent the next 20 years fine tuning my hormone expertise in disorders like Hashimoto's disease, perimenopause, and stress related illness. Come join me as I share this new approach to hormones that empowers you to take control of your own thyroid and hormone imbalances. Let's dive in.

dana-gibbs-md--she-_2_07-15-2025_141516 3:13

All right. All right. All right my friend. Hello and welcome back to the show if you're new here. I am so happy to have you here today. I wanna share a few surprising symptoms. That can point to thyroid imbalances. So in most patients who come to see me and in the surveys that I put out, the main symptom that I notice and that everybody complains of not everybody, but most, the main symptom we tend to think of for hypothyroidism is fatigue. There are also a few other common stereotypical things like weight gain, brain fog, cold hands or feet, constipation or hair loss, but you don't have to have those. And the thyroid does so much more. It affects your skin, your nervous system, your immune function, even your connective tissue. And when you're struggling with a health challenge, it's really easy to get resigned to tired all the time, or think it's just part of getting older. And this is especially true if your physician or your health provider has already checked your basic labs and told you that everything is normal. It's really easy to just sink into a morass. Because while thyroid testing and treatment recommendations haven't changed in decades, some experts like me now know that it could still be your thyroid. And there's a fairly simple way to figure that out. There's something more that can be offered to get you feeling better. So, if you've been told your thyroid is fine, but you're still struggling, these symptoms may help you connect the dots. Symptom number one, hives. Yes, and this surprises a lot of people, chronic hives or the medical name for that is urticaria can be a sign of autoimmune thyroid disease, especially Hashimoto's disease. In fact, there's a well-documented connection between Hashimoto's thyroiditis and chronic spontaneous hives, and up to 30% of people who have hives have detectable thyroid antibodies. But even if you don't, you could still have a thyroid abnormality that would show on the specialized lab tests that I run. So the connection here is inflammation. With Hashimoto's disease, your immune system is already overactive against your thyroid, and it can also become overly sensitive to histamine and other triggers, even your own tissues leading to itchy, recurring welts or hives that come and go without any particular trigger or reason. And in my practice, I have seen patients come in who had hives that cleared dramatically once we address their thyroid and calm their immune system response. Chronic allergy and asthma symptoms are the same. Because low thyroid tends to dysregulate your immune system. I used to see people all the time in my ENT and allergy practice who had chronic sore throats, chronic sinusitis, breathing problems, asthma, and more, and it would look like immune deficiency or allergy, but the test wouldn't really show a whole lot. And it would melt away once we got their thyroid tested and got them on the right balance of thyroid medicine. So if you're on antihistamines, but still breaking out in hives, or if you're tired of taking antihistamines every single day, especially if you have some other symptoms like tired or cold or gaining weight it's worth checking my full recommended thyroid panel, including the antibodies. All right, symptom number two, vertigo. Is vertigo related to thyroid dysfunction? Well, absolutely, but not all the time. I mean, there's other conditions that can cause vertigo, but thyroid is rarely something that doctors are gonna look for. And if they do, they're only checking the TSH, especially ENT doctors. So vertigo is a sensation of dizziness or spinning or imbalance that can show up in hypothyroid patients, especially when the condition has gone unrecognized for a long time. Even if the TSH is normal, why? Well, the thyroid effects your entire nervous system, and when thyroid hormone is low, it slows down nerve conduction and refluxes. You might feel lightheaded on standing or even like the room is rocking or spinning. It also affects your inner ear function where your balance is regulated. So in some cases, patients with autoimmune thyroid disease may also have autoimmune overlapping autoimmune inner ear disease. So it's a double whammy and I've seen patients misdiagnosed with minnie's disease or told they have idiopathic vertigo, and idiopathic is just a fancy doctor word for, we don't know what the heck's causing it, when it was actually related to low thyroid hormone signaling. So once we address the hormone levels and get them balanced and the inflammation, their symptoms got dramatically better. All right. Frozen shoulder. We're really going off the deep end here. Right? What does that have to do with thyroid? Well, frozen shoulder is also called adhesive capsulitis, and it's another underappreciated sign of thyroid dysfunction and some orthopedic surgeons know this and will suggest and say, Hey, do you have thyroid problem? And you'll say, well, no, my TSH is fine. But it might not be your TSH, it might be some of these other labs. Anyway, frozen shoulder is a condition where the connective tissue in your shoulder becomes inflamed and stiff leading to pain in a reduced range of motion, and the recurrence rate is really high if you don't figure out what's causing it and fix it. It is more common in women, especially in midlife, which is the same time many women start to develop thyroid issues. The thyroid plays a big role in the production of collagen and tissue repair. And when thyroid hormone is low, healing slows down and the tissue is more prone to inflammation. In some cases, it's not just about the joint, it's about how your whole body is responding to this low metabolic signaling. And some people with poor thyroid signaling hurt all over in their joints and muscles. Once again, this isn't the only reason, but getting that proper thyroid balance beyond just making sure your TSH is normal can also make this problem melt away at times. Interestingly, it has newly been recognized that low estrogen levels in perimenopause can now also contribute to this problem, but without testing, you don't know. Is it one, is it the other, or both? And you can't just test TSH. And again, this often overlaps with autoimmune disease because frozen shoulder may be one of the first signs your immune system is targeting your own tissues, including your thyroid. So if your shoulder's pain seems out of proportion to an injury or comes on gradually with no injury at all, it's worth looking deeper into your hormone and your immune profile. Alright, number four, anxiety. Anxiety and depression. Yes. And these are some of the most distressing conditions I see. Because when you're depressed and when you're anxious, it's very, very hard to take action and work on getting your own health back under control. We typically associate anxiety with hyperthyroidism and hyperthyroidism is usually pretty easy to find with a TSH test. But here's the twist. When your thyroid is underactive, your adrenal system kicks in to compensate and this can lead to unstable blood sugar, spikes of cortisol, spikes of adrenaline and rollercoaster of mood symptoms including anxiety, irritability, and even panic attacks. You might feel shaky, short of breath, like your heart is pounding and yet your labs say your TSH is normal. But if your T3/Reverse T3 ratio is off, or if your free T3 is low, your cells may not be getting enough thyroid hormone and your brain may be the first thing to feel it. I have heard people say,"I feel like I'm losing my mind", and that really breaks my heart because it is not in their head, it's in their hormones. So once we correct their thyroid function and support the adrenals in the nervous system, the anxiety often fades, sometimes dramatically. Also, if you have depression or if you've been told you have depression, this is a related thing, particularly if you've tried medications and didn't respond to them. Psychiatrists are actually some of the most clued in doctors about testing thyroid, but even, they typically don't know the kinds of testing and treatment that are beyond the guidelines, which is mainly just TSH. So this is why one of my missions is to train more physicians on these methods. All right. What about irregular periods or fertility issues? Whoops, I said four, but I've got five and I can't leave this one out. I'm sorry. So absolutely the thyroid and the reproductive system are closely linked when thyroid hormone signaling is low, the body downshifts reproductive function. So you may be skipping periods or having very long cycles, very irregular cycles, sometimes no cycle at all. It's one of the ways your body conserves energy under severe stress, but it can wreak havoc on your fertility. Low thyroid interferes with ovulation. It interferes with egg quality. It interferes with progesterone levels, and it can also dramatically increase the risk of early miscarriage, particularly in autoimmune thyroid disease where inflammation is high. I have seen so many women who were told that they had unexplained infertility or they were prescribed IVF without a full thyroid workup. So once we optimized their thyroid function, supported their adrenal health and addressed their inflammation, they were able to conceive naturally and carry to term. So if your cycles are off or you're struggling to get pregnant, you don't wanna just check TSH. You wanna get my full thyroid panel and if you want me to help you figure this out, come and sign up for the Thyroid Checkup. It could make all the difference. Any one of these symptoms could indicate a hidden thyroid problem that's just waiting for you to discover it. So if you're dealing with hives, vertigo, frozen shoulder, unexplained anxiety, or depression, or infertility, do not stop searching. These symptoms may be your body's way of whispering or sometimes shouting that your thyroid needs some help. And if you're already on treatment but you still don't feel well, it may be time to take a deeper look at your full thyroid panel. As I recommend at your immune system and at how your body is responding to stress. So if these things resonate with you, I invite you to visit my website to learn how we do things differently at Consultants in Metabolism. That's www.danagibbsmd.com, and that's all I've got for you today. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.

14:42

Thank you for listening to this episode of Beyond the Thyroid. If you found this information valuable, it would mean so much to me to take a few seconds and give the podcast a five star review. It helps other people who need this information find the show and it's really easy. Just search and click on the name of the show, Beyond the Thyroid, and scroll to the bottom to ratings and reviews. I truly do read and appreciate. Remember, when it comes to hormones, there will always be more to discover, so follow the show so you get the next episode as soon as it's released. And if you or someone you care about needs a caring doctor to help figure out how to heal hormone problems that other doctors have dismissed, check out my website at www. danagibbsmd. com. And if you're not a physician, please keep in mind, while I'm a doctor, I'm not your doctor. The content of this podcast is my opinion and it's for educational and entertainment purposes only. This is not meant to be individual medical advice and you should consult your own physician for any medical issues or diagnoses that you may have. I look forward to continuing this journey with you beyond the thyroid.