Free thyroid quiz
Hashimoto’s supplement quiz: find the best supplements for you
Hashimoto’s quiz
Find the best supplements for your Hashimoto’s
Answer 5 quick questions and I’ll tell you which supplements to focus on.
Question 1 of 5
Which symptoms are bothering you the most?
Pick up to 3.
What’s your #1 goal right now?
What thyroid medication are you taking?
What’s your TPO antibody level?
Optional, but it helps me figure out how severe your Hashimoto’s is. If you don’t know, pick the first option.
Do you prefer pills or creams, oils, and powders?
Answer 5 quick questions and find out which supplements will actually help your Hashimoto’s:
Written and medically reviewed by Dr. Westin Childs, D.O. Last reviewed: August 25, 2026.
How it works
How this quiz works
Step #1: Tell me about your Hashimoto’s
Two thyroid patients can both have Hashimoto’s and need completely different supplements.
One of them can’t lose weight and crashes every afternoon, while the other is losing hair in the shower and can’t hold a thought. Same diagnosis, and the supplements that help them are not the same.
So the quiz starts with your symptoms, your #1 goal, and the thyroid medication you’re taking.
Then it asks for your TPO antibody level, which is the question almost every other Hashimoto’s quiz skips.
Why?
Because a TPO of 60 and a TPO of 900 both get you the same diagnosis, but they are not the same problem. The higher that number is, the more active the attack on your thyroid is right now, and the harder you need to push.
It’s optional, so if you don’t have the number you can skip it. But if you have it, use it.
Step #2: Get your recommendations
You’ll get 3 products, what each one does, and how to take it.
Antibody support is in every result, no matter what you answer. That one isn’t negotiable, because the antibodies are what’s damaging your gland.
The other 2 spots depend on what you told me. If your antibodies came back moderate or severe, one of them goes to red light therapy. If they came back mild, or you don’t know your number, both spots go to your symptoms.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Watch 3 things over time, not 1.
Your TSH climbing back above 4.5 after it had been controlled, your free T4 trending down, and your doctor needing to raise your dose again are all signs that you have less working thyroid tissue than you did last year. A rising TPO antibody level points the same direction.
The catch is that you can’t see any of that from a single lab draw. You need at least 2, ideally 6 to 12 months apart, and you need to compare them. Ask for copies of your results every time and keep them somewhere you can find them.
Yes, and it’s common.
Your TSH measures how hard your pituitary is pushing your thyroid. Your antibodies measure whether your immune system is attacking it. Those are 2 different questions, and the attack starts years before the TSH ever moves.
What that means for you is that a normal TSH doesn’t rule out Hashimoto’s. If you have thyroid symptoms and your doctor stopped at the TSH, you don’t have your answer yet. Ask for TPO antibodies and thyroglobulin antibodies specifically, by name.
If you want to check the rest of your labs against optimal ranges instead of the standard ones, use my optimal thyroid lab test calculator.
Give it 3 months before you retest, and 6 to 12 months to see what it can really do.
In the selenium trials, the antibody drop showed up at the 3 month mark and kept going through month 6. If you retest at 6 weeks and see nothing, that isn’t failure, it’s just too early.
Something else to expect: your symptoms usually move before your numbers do. Energy, brain fog, and mood often shift in the first 4 to 8 weeks while the antibodies are still on their way down. So don’t judge whether this is working purely off the lab result.
Fewer than you’ve probably been told, but there are 3 worth knowing about.
Immune-stimulating supplements are the main one. High-dose echinacea, elderberry, and some mushroom extracts are sold specifically to rev up immune activity, and your immune system is already working overtime on your thyroid.
Ashwagandha needs some care, not avoidance. It helps a lot of thyroid patients and it’s in some of my formulas, but it can raise thyroid hormone levels. If you’re already well-medicated and sitting near the top of your range, adding it can push you into feeling hyper. Start low and check your labs.
Biotin won’t hurt you, but stop it 2 to 3 days before any thyroid blood draw. It interferes with the lab assay itself and gives you falsely abnormal TSH and free hormone results. I’ve seen thyroid patients get their dose changed over a lab error that was really just their hair supplement.
What about iodine?
You’ve probably read that you need to avoid it. You don’t. Iodine is what your thyroid uses to make thyroid hormone, and you’re already eating it in eggs, dairy, and seafood. The real issue is megadose iodine taken without checking anything first, which is a different thing from iodine itself.
It depends on how much thyroid tissue you have left.
If you were caught early and your gland is still mostly intact, bringing your antibodies down can slow or stop the damage, and some thyroid patients do lower their dose or come off medication entirely.
If you’ve had Hashimoto’s for 15 years and most of the gland is gone, supplements can’t rebuild tissue that isn’t there anymore. You’ll still need hormone replacement, and that’s not a failure on your part.
But it’s still worth doing either way. Even late in the game, lower antibodies mean less inflammation, fewer flares, and better symptom control on the same dose you’re already taking.
If you want to know which group you’re in, take the Can I Stop Taking Levothyroxine quiz.
Take your levothyroxine first thing on an empty stomach, then wait at least 4 hours before anything with calcium, iron, or magnesium in it.
Those minerals bind to levothyroxine in your gut and cut how much of it you actually absorb, so you end up on a smaller dose than the one your doctor prescribed without either of you knowing it.
The pattern that works for most thyroid patients is simple: medication in the morning, supplements at lunch or dinner.
Selenium, nigella sativa, vitamin D, myo-inositol, and B vitamins are all fine alongside levothyroxine as long as you keep that window. Creams, oils, and red light therapy skip your digestive system completely, so they don’t need to be timed around anything at all.