Original email for context: I’m curious as to what or if your health issues are and if they might have anything to do with HCG? I am just about to start yet another round (7th?) and I never really think what the future consequences could be from this. Do you have any insight on testing about the future affects of HCG?
This is a very good question and I’m quite to see someone thinking more deeply on this level about stuff like this.
To answer your question about myself, actually I had all my chronic health issues many years prior to starting hCG. I started having the major symptoms that led to my hashimotos thyroid disease diagnose when I was 20 years old, which I think my lyme disease has been tied back to that time period too (many people with lyme get hashimotos- it seems to coincidental to not think they are linked with how frequently I see it). I didn’t even come across the hCG protocol until I was 29, 9 years later. By this time I had found out about the hashimotos (that was about 9 months or so after the birth of my son and about 8 months or so prior to starting the hCG Diet) and was recently on thyroid medication to treat the hypothyroid symptoms I had a result of the thyroid disease. I was on adrenal fatigue help prior to hCG as well.
Actually what occurred once I began the hCG diet was that I gradually needed to lower my thyroid medication – to this day, 7 years since I first started the hCG diet, I’ve never been on as a high a dose of thyroid medication as I was prior to the hCG protocol. So while I still need it because hCG didn’t make my thyroid condition go away, I haven’t needed nearly as much. I used to be on 87.5 mcg of t3 daily, and the past several years I’ve been on anywhere between none to 37.5mcg – so much less.
I have a full post that discuss this further here:
5 Myths About the hCG Diet – related to health stuff mostly!
So my own personal health concerns were not caused by this protocol.
That said, I do think if this diet is done in the wrong way- done too long or too frequently or too close together with other rounds, that it can indeed be taxing on the body to point of causing a hormone imbalance in some way. That is why I try to put out a lot of information on taking longer breaks from hCG even and not overdoing it on the protocol.
A few posts to help prevent having issues from the diet are here:
- Exercise and the hCG Diet – Cautions
- Why Not to Be Too Rushed on Your hCG Diet Journey
- Being Realistic About Expectations and what you are trying to achieve on each round
- MORE on being realistic! 😉
I hope this helps! Just as an additional point, I took very long breaks between my hCG rounds- like way longer than the Dr. Simeons dictated ones of 6 weeks, 8 weeks, etc- I took like more like 3-5 months off each time. I think for me with my health issues, this was a wise thing to do to make sure that the extremeness of the protocol didn’t overdo it for me.
