What is Armour Thyroid? Episode 42.

Welcome to Episode 42. Thanks for joining me. We have a listener question today. I may have covered this in the past but we are going to discuss her question anyway. 

Before we do that I want to talk about your reviews on iTunes. I want to thank all of you who have left a review. It helps me help more people and it helps me know what I am doing well and what I can improve on. So, someone left me a 1 star review but didn’t leave any comments. Can you all help me out? If you think there is something I can do better, something to improve the podcast, please let me know. Send me an email at stephanie@outofthewoodsnutrition.com or fill out the contact form on my website. Thanks so much. 

Okay, let’s get started.  The question from a listener today is: 

What is Armour Thyroid? I have never heard of it before.  I take levothyroxine and been on it for years and I still feel awful... I'm curious if Armour is the best for Hashimoto’s. 

Shirley

Thanks for writing in Shirley. I appreciate you! 

Most doctors are going to prescribe Generic Levothyroxine or Synthroid which are T4 only medications. There are others but the only other one you are likely to hear about is Tirosint which is kind of considered a hypoallergenic medication because the ingredients are levothyroixine (T4), gelatin, glycerin and water in a gel cap. 

Synthroid ingredients are long but they start with:

• the synthetic or man made T4 along with

• acacia (binder, emulsifying agent, and a suspending or viscosity increasing agent)

• confectioner’s sugar with corn starch

• lactose monohydrate (used to keep the tablet formed)

• magnesium stearate (a water insoluble powder used as a release agent and as a lubricant or part of the production of pharmaceutical drugs and cosmetics. Hydrogenated cottonseed or palm oils are a common source for it)

• povidone (a synthetic polymer vehicle for dispersing and suspending drugs. It also acts as a binder) and

• talc (used as a binding agent). There are also a number of artificial colorings depending on the strength of your medication all of which contain aluminum and are produced from coal tar or petroleum. 

So nice for a medication you might have to take the rest of your life. 

These synthetic forms started making their way in to our lives around the 1950’s and the natural stuff was said to be unreliable and not as effective. So most doctors stopped prescribing it and started prescribing these synthetic forms. 

Synthetic means it is made in a lab. Doctors often have to go along with what their medical association says is best or face penalties. So don’t blame your doctor 100%.  Do be proactive in your own care and fight for what makes you feel best. 

Armour Thyroid seems to be the only widely available Natural Desiccated Thyroid hormone these days. 

All natural desiccated thyroid hormone pills come from a pig thyroid gland. This was the original thyroid hormone replacement back in the 1800’s. It has been around a long time and made a whole lot of us feel so much better than a synthetic T4 only medication like Synthroid or Levothyroxine.  Some people do fine on the synthetics but it sure seems like most of us do better on NDT. 

These “natural” thyroid hormones are called natural because they come from a an animal rather than a lab. They also contain all of the thyroid hormones that are available in our own tissue. 

You mostly only hear about T4 and T3 but there is also a T2, T1 and T0. There is not as much research on exactly what the other ones do for us but if they are there it must mean we need them. 

The word desiccated means that the thyroid gland removed from the pig, who is bred just for this purpose, in a special way. The pigs thyroid gland is frozen, minced, dried and turned into a powder. The fat is removed with chemicals and then many batches of thyroid powder are combined to keep the ratios of T4 to T3 more consistent. 

This means you are getting ratios more consistent with what your own body would produce. 

NDT has a naturally occurring hormone called calcitonin which is also produced by the thyroid gland and is used by the body to maintain bone health as well as blood levels of calcium. 

NDT products are often referred to in grains rather than micrograms or milligrams. This is becoming less so now but was quite common even just five or ten years ago. 

What is a thyroid grain?

One grain of NDT is 60mg in Armour Thyroid. It has 38mcg T4 and 9mcg of T3. Not all medications are the same. Every manufacturer will be different and your body will probably respond differently to each one so it is a bit of trial and error to find the one that is just right. 

Thyroid medication is often called the Goldilocks medication for this reason. 

The ingredients in Armour besides the thyroid hormones are:

• calcium stearate (a white waxy powder in lubricants, soaps and in some food products)

• dextrose (a form of sugar)

• microcrystalline cellulose ( refined wood pulp used as a texturizer, anti-caking agent, fat substitute, emulsifier, extender and bulking agent in food production most commonly used in supplements or tablets)

• sodium starch glycolate (used in pharmaceuticals to cause the tablet to disintegrate quickly or as a suspending agent)

• and lastly opadry white ( polyvinyl-alcohol film-forming polymer used to keep the pill from absorbing moisture). 

I did really well on WP Thyroid which is another NDT but it is tough to get. I cannot get it locally here in Minnesota. I also did really really well on compounded NDT which was just thyroid powder and cellulose. The one pharmacy I found her that could make it for me can no longer get the thyroid powder. 

Nature-Throid and WP Thyroid have an info page on their website about how you may be able to obtain their products through mail order pharmacies. That link is in the blog post for this episode at helpforhashimotos.com. 

getrealthyroid.com

Why is Natural Desiccated Thyroid Hormone better for so many people?

Let’s take a look at what this medication is doing for us.

There are two kinds of T4 in our body- a levo and a dextro and synthetic T4 has only the levo type. I’m not going to get deep in to science and will just leave it at that. 

Around 80-90% of T4 is made by the thyroid gland as thyroxine (so levothyroxine is from the levo type which is a left rotating isomer of the thyroxine molecule). 

T4 is converted to T3 in the thyroid a bit and in other tissues much more. About 40% of T4 is converted to T3 in the body and some is converted to reverse T3. 

T3 is more bioavailable or bioactive and is about 10% or so of thyroid hormone and most is made in tissues in the body by converting T4. 

Now Free T3 is what our cells are using and works better than free T4 according to some. We do know that Free T3 can get to our brain by crossing the blood brain barrier better than Free T4. So Free T3 gets to the brain easier and could be why so many find that our cognitive abilities and general brain function are so much better on NDT. 

What can help brain fog?

Being on NDT is a good place to start. Often synthetic T4 medications don’t convert as well to T3 in many people OR you just are not getting an adequate dose of your medication. 

I said earlier that there isn’t a lot known about the T2, T1 and T0 but what we do know is that T2 may be involved in enzyme production that helps us make T3 from T4. 

It is thought that T1 helps the thyroid function and play a role in heart health. 

I also mentioned calcitonin which helps our body regulate calcium levels in our body and particularly in our bones. It plays a role in prevention and reversal of osteoporosis.  It also helps us reabsorb calcium from bone storage and helps the gut absorb calcium from our diet. 

So gut health is pretty important for that. 

In order for our body to convert thyroid hormone we need to have this enzyme called a deiodinase. When someone is taking synthetic synthroid (T4 only) you must rely on your body (which is not functioning well if you have the need for thyroid medication) to make enough of these enzymes so your body can convert T4 to T3. 

With a NDT like Armour or one of the other brands, your body doesn’t have to do this because the medication contains the much needed T3. 

T3 is also absorbed in the small intestine much better than T4. T3 is bound by the thyroid binding globulin (TBG) which is a protein that transports the hormone through the blood. When they are no longer bound to the TBG, they are free hormones. 

Synthetic T4 does not have this type of protein bringing it through the blood and can be more affected by stomach acid, digestive enzymes or gut flora making absorption more difficult. 

The Wall Street Journal published an article bringing to light a scandal with Synthroid in 1996. The then owner of Synthroid paid a researcher to study the medication proving it was a better product than NDT. The research did not come out in their favor and the company tried to discredit the author and threatened to sue her if she published her findings. 

Synthroid has been has been recalled a couple of times by the FDA due to problems with doses and strength. It was actually sold in the US for years without FDA approval and in 2001 a new drug application for Synthroid had to be made. 

So why does your doctor or endocrinologist typically only prescribe synthetic thyroid hormone? 

Could be financial incentives due to financial ties between manufacturers and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists who create the guidelines under which your doctor may practice. 

A NDT like Armour or WP or Naturethroid have helped many thyroid patients feel better in a plethora of ways from fixing brain fog as mentioned earlier to being able to lose weight, better sleep, more energy and so much more. All because we are getting that missing component in something that is more biologically available to our body in its full form. 

When you take a NDT medication it can be helpful to take it in divided doses such as 2x a day with a dose in the morning and one in the afternoon. Personally when I switched to Armour I got heart palpitations (this did not happen on the compounded medication or WP thyroid for me) so I started with half a dose dissolved under my tongue in the morning then the other half a couple hours later and the second pill in the afternoon. I have to do this for a week or so until my body gets used to the medication and then I can take a whole pill in the morning without getting palpitations. 

Another recommendation is to do ⅔ of your total dose in the morning and ⅓ in the afternoon. T3 has a shorter half life and so taking that second dose in the afternoon can help keep you from feeling sluggish. Some people get too stimulated by a T3 medication and cannot take it at night, others have no problem. You just have to play around with dosing until you find what works for you. 

You also don’t want to take too much, remember I said this is a goldilocks drug and hopefully you have a doctor that will work with you on treating symptoms. You can end up with heart issues, osteoporosis, insomnia, and intolerance to heat, hyperthyroidism, tremors, too many bowel movements in one day and thinning hair. 

You will want to make sure your doctor orders a Free T3, Free T4, Reverse T3 test as well as TSH when taking NDT. TSH can be below normal but if Free T3 is in normal range and you feel great, it should not be a problem. My doctor does not prescribe to this idea but she is very good about supporting me in checking my symptoms first. 

Thanks for listening. Send my your questions at helpforhashimotos@gmail.com or fill out the contact form on my website. 

Please leave me a rating and review on iTunes, the more reviews the more people will be able to find the podcast and get help. I appreciate your help! 

You can find me at helpforhashimotos.com and you can join the facebook support group help for hashimoto’s. I’m avoiding social media still but will be checking for people who want to join the group. You can also get my ebook Five Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Hypothyroidism on my website by signing up for my newsletter. 

Need help figuring out how to navigate your thyroid health? I’m here for you and am taking new clients. I can’t wait to help you! 

That is it until next week. Take care! 

What do I eat for Type 2 Diabetes? Episode 41.

Welcome to episode 41. We have a listener question so let’s get started. 

Hi there. Thanks for your easy to understand information in your podcast. I have Celiac disease, Hashi's and now Diabetes! Do you have a sample simple diet plan? I just got diagnosed with the Diabetes..  I have no clue what to do about this. 

Misty

Hi Misty, 

Thanks for listening to the podcast! Sounds like you have a lot going on. I am going to assume you were diagnosed with Type II diabetes. 

A sample diet plan would look something like removing all processed foods, eating real whole foods. Meats, ideally from pastured animals, good quality fats like grass fed butter, coconut oil, olive oil and consuming lots and lots of veggies. 

This type of diet is very helpful to reset the body so it can reduce inflammation and your cells can become less resistant to insulin again. 

Often, having issues with insulin means you also have trouble with your weight. It is estimated that more than ⅔ of adults in the US are overweight. I am not saying that you are overweight Misty. 

Each year about 45 million Americans go on a diet and spend around $33 billion on weight loss products and programs. 

Let’s get something straight right now.

Diets don’t work.

Weight loss programs might work while you working them but they don’t work once you stop. This is why I am constantly preaching and teaching my clients that it is not about a diet. It is about changing your diet and lifestyle.

A diet is the kinds of foods that a person, animal or community habitually eats according to the dictionary definition. So we have a diet. We don’t go on a diet for a short time to get a result that we can’t keep when we go off a diet. 

Digging ourselves out of our chronic disease states is a JOURNEY and not necessarily a destination. 

You almost have to just make a decision to start doing the right thing by your body. Give it what it needs and craves to keep it in balance. Choose your health. 

When you are dealing with Type II diabetes, refined carbs are not your friend. 

Here is what happens to your cells when you consume too much sugar in the form of sugar itself or refined carbs like bread, pasta, cookies, cakes etc. 

Our cells need energy and they store in the form of something called ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Cells need glucose (sugar) to create ATP or they will die. 

Plants make glucose through photosynthesis, we do not. We have to get it from our diet. 

If your blood glucose or blood sugar gets too low, not enough glucose will get to our tissues and organs, leaving our cells unable to make enough ATP to work properly or function. 

Now too much glucose in the blood will make blood thicker (think of molasses and how slow that flows) and it won’t flow as well or as quickly which means nutrients, especially oxygen does not get delivered to cells and they will eventually die. 

When we eat something and digest it, glucose enters our bloodstream. Our cells need to adjust to that shift in sugar pretty fast so the cells can get the glucose they need to create energy.  

How does this happen?  Insulin. It is a hormone produced by the pancreas and it gets released just before we eat and while we are eating. It tells the liver, muscle and fat tissues to take the sugar out of our blood which lowers our blood sugar levels. 

Insulin goes to the receptors on our cells. I always think of receptors on our cells as little satellite dishes waiting to receive a signal.  When it gets to the receptor and attaches itself to it, the cell it is on (muscle, liver, fat) gets a signal to absorb the glucose/sugar molecule and store it as a form of glucose called glycogen which is a stored form of glucose or sugar. 

As your blood sugar level drops, insulin release will slow down or stop. Our body doesn’t want this level to get too low though so it will also stimulate the cells in muscle, fat and in the liver to to break down that stored sugar, glycogen, by releasing glucagon and sugar will be released. 

This is how the body maintains balance or homeostasis. 

Our body gets ready for the barrage of sugar we consume by releasing insulin before we even take the first bite. Just by us smelling some delicious food or drooling over the dessert tray at a restaurant, our body releases insulin. 

Let’s use a candy bar as an example. You eat it, it is broken down in your stomach and absorbed as glucose right into the bloodstream.

Your body will then release insulin and in a few minutes your insulin level will be pretty high so it can bring all that sugar to the cells and lowering your blood sugar levels. 

What you ate the meal before the candy bar will affect how much insulin is released- usually means more insulin is released to respond to the candy bar if you are eating a meal made from the Standard American Diet- processed, refined carbs. 

If your blood sugar is regularly high, the pancreas continues to release insulin until blood sugar levels return to normal. 

The brain needs glucose and can make its own insulin. How crazy is that. That might be why when your blood sugar gets too low, you can’t think. 

Stress will affect your blood sugar too. Noradrenaline, a fight or flight hormone, will keep the body from producing insulin because it thinks we need to hang on to the sugar in our blood to flee danger. 

In Type II Diabetes the problem is that you have insulin being released but the receptors on your cells are not taking it in. This shows up as consistently high blood sugar levels on a blood test. 

It starts out as insulin resistance. Think of insulin as a key to a door. The cell is the door and the receptor is a lock on the door. Using that key too much can wear out the lock and it just doesn’t work anymore so you can’t get the door open. Your body might try to make more keys (insulin) to try to get the door open. 

The more refined carbs and sugar you eat, the more insulin produced by the pancreas. This can wear down the receptors causing insulin resistance but if not managed with diet and lifestyle it can also wear out the pancreas to the point of it not being able to make insulin as well or make enough or make any at all. 

This is when you become insulin dependent and need to inject yourself with insulin. 

Again, the best foods for managing Type II Diabetes are going to be proteins like meat, seafood, poultry, lamb, bison, wild caught fish, pastured eggs. Always buy the highest quality protein that you eat the most of and for the rest, trim the fat and do your best. 

Full fat dairy products will slow down the absorption of the milk sugars keeping your blood sugar stable. Most people with hashimoto’s should not be consuming dairy but you can do full fat coconut milk in place of many dairy products, except cheese sadly. 

Veggies in large amounts. Avoid some of the starchier veggies for a few weeks like sweet potatoes, squashes, beans and things like that. 

Grains will cause your insulin to spike so are not recommended. 

I hope this helps. 

If you have a question about your health you would like me to answer, send it to me at helpforhashimotos@gmail.com or go to my website and fill out the contact form. 

Please leave me a rating and review on iTunes and share this podcast with anyone you think could use the help from it. I would really appreciate it. 

You can also get my ebook Five Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Hypothyroidism by heading over to HelpForHashimotos.com. 

You can join my facebook group Help For Hashmoto’s and while I am on a social media break I do check daily to see if anyone has asked to join. 

I’m currently taking new clients. If you need help figuring out just how to feel better with Hashimotos, thyroid problems or other chronic illness, I’m your girl! 

Can celery juice heal my thyroid? Episode 40.

Welcome to Episode 40!

I hope you are well! Thanks for listening, I appreciate that you are here! 

I’ve been having a lot of breakfast soup lately and protein shakes with chopped up frozen zucchini, pea protein and beef protein from Designs For Health with coconut milk. Quick and easy breakfast. I have something going on with my digestion so I am taking it easy with more healing foods during the day like bone broth and soup. 

I had been eating some sour dough bread from a company called Bread Srsly but my body is letting me know that no grains seem to be okay right now. I’ve been getting itchy skin. I’m going on vacation soon so when I get back I am going to dial my diet in tight and do a lot of bone broth to see if I can get my digestion back on track. 

Ever since I did that little experiment of going off my medication I have had horrible digestion. So- I’ve started making sure I am taking stomach acid with every meal to help break down my protein better. 

I have also been doing a lot of green juice in my Vitamix. A couple sticks of celery, about ⅓ to half a cucumber. I just cut some up and put them in the freezer so I don’t have to worry about them going bad. I add a whole peeled and seeded lemon and a palmful of parsley with water and ice and blend. I do add a pinch of sea salt too. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about this drink before on here but there you have it again. 

I got to thinking about my green juice and the celery in it. Celery juice seems to be all the rage right now and so it begs the question: 

Can Celery Juice Heal My Thyroid?

Anthony William, The Medical Medium, says that fresh celery juice every day will help you heal your thyroid. 

I’ve never been a huge fan of celery but recently my body really seems to enjoy it. I still prefer it to be covered in nut butter if I’m going to eat it raw but sometimes I crave plain old celery. 

I always use it as a base for my soup recipes but other than that celery has not usually been real high on my list of delicious veggies. 

This study says celery has many medicinal properties.  It appears to be antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, can help lower blood sugar and levels of fat in the blood. 

It grows well in cold and mild environments and is widely used in traditional medicine. It is said that it can prevent cardiovascular disease, jaundice, joint pain, lower blood pressure and is anti-fungal. It can also help protect the lining of our gut. 

Pretty crazy that Mother Nature provides us will all this good stuff to take care of our body. 

Celery has antioxidants in it which will help neutralize free radicals. Free radicals damage our tissues and cells. 

What is the best way to eat celery?

Fresh raw celery is best consumed within a week in order to get the antioxidant benefit and chopping it as needed rather than making celery sticks and storing them for the week means losing less nutrients. But if you need to chop it and store it in order to save time or make eating it easier then go for it. You won’t lose all the nutrients. 

Steaming it can protect some of its nutrients too.  So I guess this means eating it in a variety of ways can be the most beneficial. 

Be sure to choose celery that is crisp and will snap when you pull it apart and try to always buy it organically if you can. It is usually on the Environmental Working Groups list of the dirty dozen. 

What nutrients are in celery?

One cup of celery has 33% the daily value of vitamin K, 11% molybdenum (if you have multiple chemical sensitivities you could be deficient in this), 9% folate, 6% potassium and so much more. You can go to whfoods.org for a full nutrient profile. 

Vitamin K: It is a fat soluble vitamin found in foods and made in our body. It helps blood clotting- this is K1. K2 is made by the bacteria in our gut so good gut health is important. 

K is absorbed from the upper part of your small intestine with the help of bile which is made in the liver and secreted from the gallbladder and from pancreatic juices. Taking too much vitamin E or Calcium can reduce absorption of K. It is stored in small amounts. Rancid oils (like canola and soybean oil) and fats, x-rays, radiation, aspirin, air pollution and freezing of foods all destroy vitamin K. It is not a good idea to supplement with K1 unless you can have your clotting abilities monitored. 

Molybdenum is an essential trace mineral that we get mostly from food. It is deficient in the soil which can cause a deficiency in mammals including humans.  It helps in fixing nitrogen in the soil so decreased molybdenum leads to poor plant growth. 

Our body only contains about 9mg of this mineral and it is found mostly in the liver and the kidneys, adrenal glands, bones and skin. One function that relates to thyroid problems is that it helps to mobilize iron from the liver so the body can use it. This means that it can help prevent anemia. A common and important issue in thyroid health. 

It is well absorbed from the small intestine but competes with copper where absorption happens. It is thought to help prevent some cancers as well. 

This is not something you should supplement with in large amounts. You will find it in a multi mineral supplement in just the right amount with other needed minerals. Check with a practitioner before supplementing with anything. 

Deficiency is thought to lead to visual problems, rapid heart rate and breathing problems. 

Folate is also known as B9. It is a water soluble vitamin and is prevalent in dark leafy green veggies. Do not confuse folate with synthetic folic acid which is in most processed foods. The synthetic form can lead to unmetabolized folic acid and will be a problem for you if your methylation pathways are not working right. 

Our body can store enough of this in the liver for 6-9 months before we will notice a deficiency. It helps us make red blood cells and helps us break down and use protein, divide cells and is important in brain function. 

Folate is used to treat stress, fatigue and adrenal gland dysfunction. Taking high amounts of vitamin C can cause you to need more folate. The adrenals also like vitamin C but again- supplementing willy nilly because someone said something helped them can be bad for you. 

If you are taking birth control pills you can need to supplement with folate. It also helps with menstrual issues. It can help restless leg syndrome and with pernicious anemia (a B12 problem). 

And finally potassium. It is a pretty significant mineral in the body. We need it for cells to function and for the electrical connections in our body. It is part of electrolytes which help our cells get water. It actually means that it has a little electrical charge to it. 98% of our potassium is found in our cells. Those tiny little things sure do have a lot of things in them. 

Alcohol, caffeine, sugar, diuretic drugs all cause potassium losses and can contribute to lowering the blood potassium. We also lose potassium from diarrhea and throwing up. 

It helps regulate our blood pressure and deficiency is common in chronic illness and as we get older. 

Fatigue is the most common symptom of deficiency and early symptoms of deficiency also include things like muscle weakness, slow reflexes, dry skin, acne and can progress in to nervous disorders, insomnia, slow or irregular heartbeat. 

Low potassium can cause irregular heartbeat and cause blood sugar issues making our blood sugar higher. 

What is so great about celery juice?

It sounds pretty good to me based on all the nutrients in it and what they do for us! How about you?

Well, studies show that the juice has been shown to lower inflammation and if you have Hashimoto’s you likely have some inflammation in the body. 

Anthony William says that juicing celery and drinking 16 ounces  (or up to 32 ounces) of it a day will improve many chronic conditions including thyroid conditions.  You will need to have once bunch of celery to juice per day to get 16 ounces out of it. That is a lot of celery. 

He says you need to drink it in the morning on an empty stomach. I would agree with this if you were going to do it. Drinking it on an empty stomach will ensure that nothing will interfere with it doing its job. 

In his book he says that celery will help you maintain stomach acid and it helps the liver produce bile which you need to emulsify fats. His whole thing in his thyroid book is that EBV is the cause of thyroid problems, which for many people, can be a trigger and celery juice is supposed to “anti-EBV”. He says it also helps support the central nervous system and helps with adrenal health. 

He says celery juice will increase production of T3 which for many of us would be great. 

I’ve tried once to make celery juice in my Vitamix and I had a really hard time getting it down. I don’t have a juicer and don’t plan to buy one so for now, I’m holding off on drinking the green stuff all by itself. 

I have heard a lot of good stories about celery juice helping people have great bowel movements, more energy and get rid of hot flashes. 

There do not seem to be any downsides to drinking it. If you want to give it a try, go for it. You will get some great anti-oxidants, vitamin C and other good for you nutrients. There is nothing wrong with that. 

Okay. That is it for today. Thanks for listening! 

If you have a question about your health you would like me to answer, send it to me at helpforhashimotos@gmail.com or go to my website and fill out the contact form. 

Please leave me a rating and review on iTunes and share this podcast with anyone you think could use the help from it. I would really appreciate it. 

You can also get my ebook Five Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Hypothyroidism by heading over to HelpForHashimotos.com. 

You can join my facebook group Help For Hashmoto’s and while I am on a social media break I do check daily to see if anyone has asked to join. 

I’m currently taking new clients. If you need help figuring out just how to feel better with Hashimotos, thyroid problems or other chronic illness, I’m your girl! 

Until next week! 

Nadkarni KM. Indian Materia Medica. 2nd ed Mumbai, India: Popular Prakashan; 2010. 

Kooti W, Ghasemiboroon M, Asadi-Samani M, et al. The effects of hydro-alcoholic extract of celery on lipid profile of rats fed a high fat diet. Adv Environ Biol. 2014;8:325–330

An extract of Apium graveolens var. dulce leaves: structure of the major constituent, apiin, and its anti-inflammatory properties. Mencherini T, Cau A, Bianco G, Della Loggia R, Aquino RP, Autore G J Pharm Pharmacol. 2007 Jun; 59(6):891-7.

Kooti W, Ali-Akbari S, Asadi-Samani M, Ghadery H, Ashtary-Larky D. A review on medicinal plant of Apium graveolens . Adv Herb Med. 2014;1:48–59. 

Six types of thyroid dysfunction. Episode 39.

Welcome to Episode 39. I’m so happy you are here. 

I spend a good couple hours cooking several things last night so I would have food to eat over the next week or so. I’ve been trying to double up on meals when I cook so we have stuff to freeze for nights I don’t want to cook. 

I made two whole chickens on Sunday night so I had leftover meat for making soup and for putting on salads. I made a double batch of chili on Monday and Tuesday was a big batch of Thai Beef Stew, braised cabbage and I tried out a meatless dish of grape tomatoes, garlic, basil, chickpeas and spaghetti squash. If you tolerate legumes it was an okay dish. I was hoping for more flavor from the chickpeas. I just sautéed the tomatoes in olive oil, smashed them, added the garlic and chickpeas and sautéed a bit longer. Then I added the spaghetti squash and basil and mixed it through. 

We are having venison chops tonight with sautéed mushrooms and roasted cabbage. 

What are you making for dinner these days?  Head over to my website and comment on this post to let me know what your cooking. Look for Episode 39. 

Today we are talking about the six types of thyroid dysfunction that cause or result in hypothyroidism so let’s get started. 

The thyroid gland is super sensitive to any changes in the biochemistry in our body. It’s job is to perceive even the tiniest of changes in the body and make up for that by changing how much thyroid hormone is released in the body. 

This is one reason you can see such different lab values over time. 

When these changes in our biochemistry become something that is chronic or constantly happening in the body then there begins to be problems with the thyroid gland and the communication between the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. 

Things like constant blood sugar dysregulation, constant or chronic inflammation in the body, deficiencies in nutrients, poor liver function, toxic burden, low stomach acid, intestinal permeability, poor eliminations and even the use of hormones including thyroid hormones can cause thyroid problems. 

Hypothyroidism or low thyroid function can fall into six different types. Some of these may occur at the same time, and it may be that only one of these will require permanent hormone replacement. 

1.Primary Hypothyroidism. 

This is when there is decreased hormone production by the thyroid gland. So it isn’t making enough T4 or T3. One cause and the most common cause in the US is Hashimoto’s. Worldwide the most common cause of Primary Hypothyroidism is iodine deficiency. (ref)  It is also caused by removal of the thyroid gland. 

This is a dysfunction of the thyroid gland and this is the one type of hypothyroidism that needs to be treated with thyroid hormone replacement. 

If you have Hashimoto’s, you may need medication due to the destruction of your thyroid gland but you also need to understand that this condition is an immune system issue first and a thyroid issue second. 

If you catch Hashimoto’s before too much damage is done, you might be able to support your thyroid nutritionally. Sadly, for me, I am still in need of medication.  If you do not have success bringing TSH down with diet and lifestyle changes, you will likely need hormone replacement. 

Your labs might look like this if you have primary hypothyroidism: 

• high TSH

• normal or low Total T4

• normal or low Free T4

• normal or low Free T3

• normal Reverse T3

2. Secondary Hypothyroidism

This deals with your thyroid not putting out enough thyroid hormone due to an issue in the pituitary gland. Remember that the thyroid is regulated by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus. When these two glands are not communicating and the pituitary doesn’t secrete Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) like it is supposed to. You may find your TSH at or around 1.8 but still having symptoms of hypothyroidism. 

Chronic stress in the body is usually at the heart of this one. Stress fatigues the pituitary and it can cause a failure to signal the thyroid to produce thyroid hormone. 

Stress: too busy all the time, not enough sleep, living off of coffee and processed foods, inflammation, viral or bacterial infections. All of these will mess with your adrenal function and your thyroid function and remember those two go hand in hand.

You can also have low thyroid function after pregnancy. This is a stressful time for women who tend to be the ones suffering with most thyroid conditions. Pregnancy in and of itself will put a high demand on the pituitary gland. 

If your blood tests come out normal but your doctor puts you on thyroid medication anyway, it can help you feel better for a couple weeks but then you might start to feel worse. You can develop thyroid hormone resistance at your cells much like insulin resistance. 

So your cells are refusing thyroid hormone because there is too much in the blood and you might be given a higher dose making things even worse. You have all this hormone running through your blood so your pituitary gland gets a message it can stop making TSH or it just stops talking to the thyroid altogether. 

You might need medication after enough damage has been done between the communication of the pituitary and the thyroid.  

If you have Hashimoto’s but it doesn’t get addressed, this can become you.

Your labs might look like this: 

• 1.8 or less TSH

• 6 or less T4

• symptoms of hypothyroidism. 

3. Your T4 is not converting to T3

This happens when you have tons of chronic stress and high cortisol. So you are making T4 but your body isn’t converting it to T3 which is what your cells need. When cortisol is high, you will likely have some of this going on. 

If your body is dealing with infection or inflammation your cell walls can be damaged by that which also affects T4 to T3 conversion. 

You need to damper the inflammation or infection and support your body in dealing with cellular stress (free radicals). 

T3 levels won’t affect your TSH so your labs might look like this: 

• Normal TSH

• Normal Total T4

• Normal Free T4

• Low T3

• Low Free T3

• Low or normal Reverse T3

4. Your conversion of T4 to T3 is too high.

This would mean you have too much T3 being made and you also have less thyroid binding globulin (TBG). 

Too much T3 will overwhelm the cells and you find yourself in thyroid hormone resistance again. It is common in women with insulin resistance and PCOS. It is often caused by too much testosterone in the body.  If you have developed Type II Diabetes and are taking insulin for this, you may also find yourself in an over conversion of T4 to T3.

If you are using a testosterone cream you can over convert T4 and T3. 

You will have hypo symptoms with this one. 

A big help here will be to reverse the insulin resistance to reverse the thyroid hormone resistance and begin to feel better. 

You may have labs that look like this: 

• Normal TSH

• High or high normal Free T4

• High or high normal Free T3

• Normal Reverse T3

5. High Thyroid Binding Globulin

Thyroid Binding Globulin is a protein that carries thyroid hormones to the cells so they can use them.  You can develop antibodies to this protein in Hashimoto’s. 

You can find yourself in this situation if you take hormonal birth control or estrogen replacement therapy. 

If you are on birth control, you may have high levels of estrogen you will make too much TBG and thyroid hormones are carried to the cells on TBG so if you have too many TBG proteins in the blood bound to them, you can have less thyroid hormone getting to your cells. 

You have to work to get the excess estrogen out of the body. 

Your labs might look like this: 

• Normal TSH

• Low Free T4

• Low Free T3

• Normal Reverse T3

6. Thyroid Hormone Resistance

Again, similar to insulin resistance with a root cause being stress. Your pituitary gland and thyroid gland may be making just the right amount of hormone but it just isn’t getting into the cells. It feels like hypothyroidism to you and it is the high amount of cortisol in your body that is causing your cells to resist the thyroid hormone. 

You absolutely must manage your adrenals with this one. 

Your labs might look like this: 

• Normal TSH

• Normal Free T4

• Normal Free T3

• Normal Reverse T3

You have to make sure your labs are being tested regularly in all cases. 

Ok. That’s it for me. 

I want to remind you all that I have openings in my practice for a few more clients right now so if you are needing help navigating diet and lifestyle changes head over to Help For Hashimoto’s and fill out the contact form. You can also get my report on Five Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Hypothyroidism. 

One last thing, part of the diet and lifestyle changes are to look at what you are putting on your skin. I found Beautycounter to be a trusted source for skin care and make up for me. They ban over 1300 chemicals in their products while the US only has a ban on around 30 ingredients. So, you don’t have to think about safety with their products and I really like that so I became a consultant last year. I don’t work too hard at selling it because my focus is really on nutrition but if you have any interest in checking them out go to beautycounter.com/stephanieewals to shop. I would sure appreciate your support. 

I’m still on a social media break and have no desire to get back on anytime soon. I’m checking the Help For Hashimoto’s facebook group once a day. You can join that if you would like but all the action is in the newsletter which you can sign up for on my website. 

I’m grateful to you all. Please leave me a rating and review on iTunes so more people can find the show and get help. 

Until next time. 

Your immune system and Hashimoto's; Adaptive vs. Innate immunity in Hashimoto’s. Episode 38.

Welcome to episode 38.

I am 3/4’s the way through a year of podcasting. Thanks for sticking with me and hanging out. I really appreciate it. My end goal is to help as many people as possible have a great quality of life with autoimmune disease.

You can help me with that by sharing this podcast with people you know dealing with thyroid issues and by leaving a rating or a review. I have enjoyed reading the reviews and honestly avoided them for awhile because I didn’t want to see if there were any bad ones. Thankfully there weren’t any. Anyway, I am grateful to those of you leaving reviews. 

Someone in Denver who rides the train to work listens and I want to thank you! I do this for you! So you can begin to feel your best. 

I’ve had a busy week and didn’t do so well with eating enough last week. I had not prepped any food which always makes for days where I just skip a meal which is so bad for my adrenals and my blood sugar. My blood sugar is so sensitive which I think is keeping me from losing the 5-10 pounds I have gained over the last year or two. I have not done anything different with my diet but menopause and insulin resistance have made of mess of my body. I have regularly done the autoimmune strong workouts over the last month- I’m getting them in at least three days a week. I hate working out but I want to be strong as I get older so I just do it anyway. 

I ate out a lot this past weekend but we are so fortunate to have some really cool restaurants that serve at least Paleo type foods. I had a green curry with pastured chicken and organic veggies twice in the last week from a great restaurant called French Meadow in Minneapolis. They have a lot of gluten free options which is so nice and the food is good. It tastes like it is made from scratch.  

I had a yucca crust pepperoni pizza with a cheese made from pumpkin seeds and a chicken curry dish to bring home from another place called Sassy Spoon. They are 100% gluten free which is nice. They are another from scratch type restaurant. 

This weekend I was at a party for a family member and there were gluten free cookies for dessert and I had at least one whole cookie if not a little more. I could feel the effects of that right away on my neck and my face began to itch like crazy. So, despite wanting to devour a ton of them, I didn’t. I didn’t want to suffer the physical consequences. That party had a taco bar with corn tortillas but I skipped the tortilla and just had the meat, lettuce and guacamole with a little salsa- so basically a taco salad. Pretty easy to modify that one if you can tolerate tomatoes. 

On Saturday morning I made my breakfast soup and chicken and veggie stir fry with lots of garlic to eat for the week. As long as I have food to eat during the week, every thing seems to go better for me. My moods are better, sleep is better, energy is better. It is just a matter of taking the time to make the food. 

Monday I ate at a place called Foxy Falafel which even has Autoimmune Protocol menu items. I tolerate chickpeas so I had their falafel which is such a treat. We even got their egg free, gluten free, dairy free brownie and chocolate chip cookie. I over indulged but I have not been to that restaurant in 2 ½ years so it was okay with me. They also sold Hu chocolate which is pretty darn good. 

After all that indulgence over the last week, I filled up on my green juice made in my vitamix which consists of a lemon, 2 stalks of celery, ¼ of an english cucumber, a handful of parsley, water and ice. I always feel really good after drinking that and it kickstarts my digestion for the day. 

Sauerkraut has been in regular rotation too. That helps my digestion work better as well. We have our old refrigerator full of it and everyone complains about the smell. It is sort of infiltrating the whole refrigerator. I love it! 

I’ve been doing hamburger patties on a bed of lettuce too. Quick and easy. 

Okay- let’s get started on todays subject. It is an important one to understand because it plays a big role in your autoimmune disease. 

Today we are talking about your immune system and Hashimoto’s. This episode has some scientific terms in it but I think I have broken it down to make it easier to understand. It is important for you to know how your body works and the immune system is a pretty big deal.

It is our biggest line of defense with many kinds of cells, antibodies, proteins and chemicals all working together like a country’s military defense system works to protect a nation. 

The immune system is divided in to the innate immune system aka the non-specific immune system. This side of the immune system is highly involved in inflammation- like when you hurt yourself and you get a bruise or a bump. When you cut yourself and the area gets all red and becomes scabbed. The job of the immune cells in innate is to keep pathogens out. It acts quickly and does not specify or target any one thing. For the most part, it cannot tell the difference between an invader, damaged cells or healthy cells so healthy tissue sometimes gets damaged. So if you have chronic stress causing inflammation or some kind of infection that won’t go away, this side of the immune system produces chronic inflammation. 

The other side of our immune system is the adaptive immune system which is very specific about the attacks it launches. We will talk a little more about this side in a minute. 

Your immune system needs to be regulated in order for your Hashimoto’s disease to be managed. 

Our immune system is on guard for antigens. Antigens are toxins or other foreign substance which causes an immune response in the body and can create antibodies against it. 

Things like a specific food, mold, bacteria, a chronic virus such as EBV or a parasite. These things irritate the immune system leading to an attack.  Now in Hashimoto’s, gluten is a big antigen which induces an attack on the thyroid gland every time you eat it. Remember that gluten is a protein found in all grains to some degree but the biggies that can be more of a problem for most people are wheat, barley and spelt. 

You can also have an immune response to environmental chemicals or heavy metals but not everyone will develop an immune response to these things.  You might be someone who doesn’t have a huge heavy metal burden or you just don’t react to foods. The exception would be gluten and possibly dairy because the proteins are similar to those of your thyroid so I always recommend people remove those two things from your diet. 

Your immune system might be reactive to bacteria. Many people with Hashimoto’s have antibodies to the bacteria Yersinia enterocolitica. 

Whatever your issue is you need to remove the antigen either by removing the offending food, detox the heavy metal or get rid of the bacteria to calm the immune system and manage Hashimoto’s. 

When dealing with autoimmune disease and specifically Hashimoto’s we want to look at TH-1 and TH-2 cytokines which can be high while T-suppressor cells will be low. 

A cytokine is a category of tiny proteins that work to signal cells of the immune system and are produced by cells in the immune system and a number of other places. They have many jobs in the body one of which is to work with the immune system to protect us. 

T-suppressor cells are also known as regulatory T cells which work to modulate or regulate the immune system and help us maintain tolerance to antigens against our self which helps prevent autoimmune disease. The T regulatory cells are immunosuppressive- they suppress the immune system. 

So, if we have high cytokines and low T-suppressor or T-regulatory cells then you have an immune system that is all out of balance and giving you symptoms of Hashimoto’s and maybe even causing destruction to your thyroid gland. 

Now let’s look at TH-1 and TH-2 cytokines specifically because most of us fall in to either TH-1 dominance or TH-2 dominance. 

TH-1 are T helper cells involved in an innate, or immediate immune system response. This is the adaptive immune system which is a part of the immune system that creates memory after dealing with an antigen. This means it will always remember that particular antigen whether it is a food, mold, heavy metal or parasite or bug. Every time that substance enters your body your innate/adaptive/acquired immune system will attack. It is very specific about what it reacts to. This is the part of our immune system that, once we have measles, will protect us from ever getting it again.  It is the line of defense against the pathogens.  

Sometimes it doesn’t distinguish the difference between an invader from non invader when it enters the body. It gets confused which can result in things like hay fever, asthma or an attack on the thyroid. 

When you have TH-1 dominance your immune system is overactive in the TH-1 pathway.  The majority of people with Hashimoto’s have TH-1 dominance but there are some Hashimoto’s patients with TH-2 dominance. 

You might also switch back and forth between the two depending on what your body is needing or getting too much of. Maybe you are deficient in some minerals or or getting too much of a mineral. These can trigger either TH-1 or TH-2 dominance. 

The best way to manage this is to focus on the whole body. Reduce inflammation throughout the body. Remove the triggers for your immune system. 

Once you have an autoimmune disease, you can put it in remission but you will have it forever and will have to work to manage your diet and lifestyle so your immune system can relax a bit. You must restore balance to the body. 

High TH-1 or TH-2 immune cells block thyroid receptors on your cells so your thyroid hormone cannot get in and do its job giving you symptoms of hypothyroid. 

Type 1 Diabetes, Hashimoto’s, MS and chronic viral infections are associated with TH-1 dominance. 

Lupus, dermatitis, asthma, and chemical sensitivities are mostly associated with TH-2 dominance. 

This is not always the case- remember that. As with everything there are exceptions. 

TH-2 are T helper cells involved in a delayed immune system response. Helper cells work to direct immune system activity as do the regulator cells and suppressor cells stop an immune reaction when needed. 
There are some different ways these immune cells could be affecting you. 

• You might not make enough of the T-suppressor cells that regulate your immune system and tolerate antigens. Not enough T-suppressor cells keeps the immune system on high alert and attacking self. Your thyroid gland can be a victim of this problem. 

• Maybe you make too much of the chemical messenger Interleukin-2 (IL-2) that tells other immune cells to attack and kill an invader. Too much of this one puts tissue not involved in the attack at risk of being an innocent bystander that gets attacked. 

• You might make too many Interleukin-4 (IL-4). This releases B cells that look for intruders and mark them for death. Again, here your thyroid tissue can be damaged. 

• Not managing your blood sugar or not being able to handle increases in insulin due to consuming sugar and refined carbs can send those B cells in to over production. 

• Having food sensitivities and eating those foods anyway or dealing with a parasite will increase Interleukin-4 and increase production of the B cells. 

• A chronic virus such as EBV will increase the Interleukin 2 creating more natural killer cells and cytotoxic T cells. 

Let’s get to know what these terms mean. 

Interleukin- these are a type of cytokine. Cytokines are chemical messengers within the immune system cells. Some cytokines kill pathogens on their own. 

B cells- a white blood cell that is circulating in the body and is on the lookout for for antigens that they have antibodies to. When these cells activate, they are quick to divide and grow. Some of these have memory and will forever recognize an antigen when it enters the body. 

Natural Killer cells- white blood cells that go to an infection site to destroy cells infected by a virus. They play a role in the adaptive immune system having a memory to viruses. They do not need to be activated to kill cells in the body. 

Cytotoxic cells- T cells that attack cells infected with a virus and certain bacteria. They release chemicals called cytotoxins which cause infected cells to die. 

Our ultimate goal here is to bring the immune system back in to balance. 

You need to support your immune system and you can start with Vitamin D in the form of cholecalciferol. This specifically supports the T regulatory cells so they can do their job right. Remember these are the ones that help regulate the immune system. 

Make sure you are taking an emulsified version which means it is mixed with some kind of oil so that your body can use it. Poor quality vitamin D supplements with be mixed with soybean oil or with canola oil. Look for one with MCT oil (a form of coconut oil) or I have seen them with olive oil too. Biotics makes a nice one called Bio-D Mulsion Forte. 

Fish oil will also support the T regulatory cells but taking any fish oil in large amounts isn’t a good idea. 

There are some studies to show that people with Hashimoto’s are not able to process vitamin D naturally so they may need higher amounts than the average person. If you have a Vitamin D test that shows normal levels yet your immune system is still struggling and you are doing everything else right to reduce inflammation and immune responses you may think about raising the amount you take. Having high normal levels is best for thyroid patients. 

You may need a therapeutic dose and should have your levels checked by your doctor once a year or more to make sure you don’t over do it. 

Excess vitamin D can cause calcification of the heart, kidneys or lungs and you can have too much calcium circulating in your blood. 

Glutathione (a big antioxidant in the body) in a cream form and superoxide dismutase (an enzyme that acts as an antioxidant to protect your cells). These will both help regulate the immune system. 

Don’t waste your money just trying these to see if they help. Work with someone who can first help you get your diet and lifestyle dialed in, get your digestion working well and making sure you are able to digest fats and absorb vitamins and minerals. 

Back to TH-1 and TH-2 Dominance. It is helpful to know which way you go here so you can know which things will continue to stimulate your TH-1 or TH-2 cells. 

Things that stimulate TH-1: Echinacea, Maitake mushrooms, glycyrrhiza from licorice (so if you take licorice for adrenal health and you feel worse because of it then it could indicate TH-1 dominance), lemon balm. 

Things that stimulate TH-2: caffeine, green tea extract, grape seed extract, pine bark extract, white willow bark, lycopene (found in tomatoes) , resveratrol. Taking any of these will stimulate the immune system further and cause you to feel worse. 

Again, work with someone who can help you with monitoring these things. 

Things that regulate TH-1 and TH-2:  probiotics, vitamin A, vitamin E and colostrum. 

Things that quiet interleukin one that would activate TH-1 or TH-2: Boswellia (frankincense is a species of the Boswellia species), pancreatic enzymes (often sold as digestive enzymes), Turmeric or its compound curcumin. 

It is probably best if you have some sort of immunologic testing done to find out if you are TH-1 or TH-2 dominant before messing around with the things mentioned, aside from Vitamin D. 

You also will want to work on diet, keeping your blood sugar stable, get your adrenal health dialed in and make sure your digestion is working top notch. 

After all of this is completed and you know where your body stands, where your immune system stands then you can work to find those specific antigens, the things triggering the immune response. A gluten free diet is very important because gluten is one of those foods that is inflammatory as I stated in the beginning. 

Healing leaky gut or intestinal permeability will be important too but we can discuss that in another podcast if I haven’t covered it. I don’t remember what I did yesterday hardly and being 38 episodes in, I cannot remember from week to week what I have covered. 

Thanks so much for listening. Again, if you could leave me a review on iTunes, I would really appreciate it. 

I am on a social media break and not sure when to return. I am checking the Help For Hashimoto’s facebook group once a day, otherwise I’m avoiding all social media.  

If you have a question, you can email helpforhashimotos@gmail.com or you can go to my website and fill out the contact form. 

Have a comment or question about this episode? Leave it on the blog post on my website helpforhashimotos.com under episode 38. I’d love to hear from you. You can also get my free ebook 5 Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Hypothyroidism while you are there. You’ll get a weekly recipe and some nutritional nugget of information each week. 

I’m taking new clients right now so if you are in need of help navigating your autoimmune disease and especially Hashimoto’s, I am here to help. You can reach out to me on my website. You can make an appointment for a 15 minute free call to see if we are a good fit for working together. 

Until next week my friends. 

Can Hypothyroidism affect your heart? Episode 37.

Welcome to episode 37. Thanks for joining me. Today I am diving in to our heart health and what it means to our heart health when we are dealing with hypothyroidism. 

Do you have: 

High or low blood pressure?

Fast or slow pulse?

Irregular heartbeat?

Heart skips a beat?

Palpitations

High cholesterol?

Heart Disease, plaque buildup, heart attack?

These are all things that can be affected by thyroid disease. 

Our heart uses thyroid hormone. Our heart is affected by changes in our medication or by the amount of medication we are taking. It is affected by low levels of T3. How many of you have a doctor that will only test TSH? 

This could be affecting your heart. 

When you don’t have enough thyroid hormone your heart can beat too slow or it can beat irregularly meaning it can flutter or miss beats. Long term consequences of this is that your tissues don’t get enough oxygen or nutrients which will make you feel physically bad. Our heart and the entire cardiovascular system is dependent on adequate levels of T3 for proper function. T3 helps improve how the heart contracts so when you are low you will have less cardiac output. Cardiac output means the amount of blood the heart pumps through the circulatory system in one minute. 

You can also end up with plaques developing in your arteries and high blood pressure. Hypothyroidism can effect how blood is pumped in and out of the heart, how the lining of the arteries functions, cholesterol levels in the blood and more. Low T3 can increase the amount of cholesterol and fat circulating (technically called lipids) in the blood.

T3 is the main regulator of gene expression in the heart muscle. Gene expression means how genetic information is transferred in the cells of the body. It is the effect of a gene on the body.  It is thought that low T3 levels are associated with increased death in patients already dealing with heart disease. 

Hypothyroidism is associated with higher cardiovascular risk factors. This means that we have a higher chance of cardiovascular disease. The heart cells do not convert T4 in to T3 very well if at all so if T3 is low then the heart tissue feels the effects and doesn’t function as well as it should. 

Treatment with thyroid medications is supposed to improve all risk factors but the problem is if you are treated with T4 only medication and you are not converting T4 to T3 for whatever reason, you may be at higher risk for issues with your heart. 

There are not a lot of randomized controlled studies in this area but hopefully some will be done soon. 

Bottom Line:  Hypothyroidism affects the whole body. It has a negative impact on the heart and almost everything else when it isn’t treated. 

You might hear from your doctor that NDT like Armour or Westhroid etc will cause a high heart rate. If this is the case for you then you must look at your adrenal health and/or iron levels. If you have high reverse T3 which is usually the case with cortisol or iron problems or even chronic inflammation you can see an issue with your heart rate.  You could have a high heart rate if you are having a flare up of Hashimoto’s where tissue is being killed off and thyroid hormone is being released. 

If you think your medication is causing heart palpitations, discuss it with your doctor and you may also want to try to take it in smaller doses. I am currently on Armour which my body doesn’t love as much as the compounded thyroid powder so when I take one whole pill I get palpitations throughout the day. I have to take half a pill 4x a day to get my body used to it. I also have adrenal issues and low iron which is not super responsive to iron supplementation so once those things are fixed, I should be good. 

OK.  I want to explain more about heart disease so you know what you are dealing with and how you can optimize your life choices so you can give your heart a fighting chance. 

Heart Disease or Coronary Heart Disease are conditions that affect the heart muscle, valves or rhythm. 

Cardiovascular Disease are conditions that affect blood vessels- usually that they are narrowed or blocked which can lead to a heart attack. 

Heart disease is caused by atherosclerosis- a disease of the arterial wall that leads to the narrowing and obstruction of the artery. The narrowing is because of sclerotic deformation of the artery and the development of raised patches called atherosclerotic plaques in the inner lining of the arterial wall. Depending on which organ in the body the artery feeds, atherosclerosis in those arterial walls will impair blood flow to that organ. 

The two major types of Coronary Heart Disease are angina pectoris and myocardial infarction (heart attack). 

AP happens when the space inside the coronary artery is narrowed but not closed off completely.  At rest your body will be able to deal with less blood flow but any physical activity will cause the heart to have to work harder, the artery with the build up can’t supply enough blood to feed the heart muscle which can result in a gripping chest pain that can radiate to the neck and usually the left arm. 

Heart Attack or MI happens when the coronary artery closes up all the way and blood flow to the heart muscle stops. This causes a portion of the heart to die or causes death. 

About half the people who have a heart attack die in the first 2-3 hours and if you make it through a heart attack will take some time to recover and may suffer complications such as an abnormal heartbeat. 

How do we prevent these conditions?

We first prevent the build up in our arteries- the atherosclerosis. 

We avoid: smoking, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, stress, anxiety, anger and the big ones- poor sleep and the standard American diet (SAD). 

For 60 years or more we have been told to avoid fat and cholesterol in our diet. To eat margarine and cook with vegetable oils. That we need to be on statin drugs to manage our cholesterol. 

We can thank the Diet Heart Hypothesis which states that dietary fats, including cholesterol, cause heart disease. A correlation was shown in a diagram of 6 countries (carefully selected out of 22 countries that had the same data available) that fat consumption and death from heart disease were related. When all 22 countries were put in the diagram the correlation between fat and heart disease wasn’t plausible. It actually shows there is no correlation at all between fat consumption and dying from heart disease. 

A lot of money was thrown at scientific research in the US to prove this correlation to be true. The data that did not support the hypothesis was thrown out and the data that did was promoted and advertised. Studies in other countries that were done were proving this hypothesis to be wrong. 

Many of the studies proving the correlation between dietary fat and increase in heart disease or death were funded by companies that proved to benefit from this idea that fat is killing us. We were being sold a false bill of goods and we have been believing it and paying for it with our health for years. 

Is cholesterol really a bad thing?

The short answer is no. 

The longer answer-  We will die without cholesterol. Our bodies are made of billions of cells and almost every one of those cells produces cholesterol all the time. Why is this? Every cell uses cholesterol for structural integrity. 

Saturated fats and cholesterol are used by our cells to make the cell walls firm. If they are flabby and fluid we would be structured like a worm. 

Cholesterol is needed in different amounts all over the body depending on the purpose or function of the cell in that area. 

Protective barriers like our skin will have much more cholesterol because we need a strong sturdy barrier to protect us from any invasion. If a cell needs to be softer and more fluid it will have less cholesterol. 

Our cells communicate with each other and and transport molecules in and out of the cells-they need cholesterol and fats to do that. 

Our brain uses about around 25% of all the cholesterol in our body. 

Most of the cholesterol in our body does not actually come from the food we eat. Many studies have been done to show that dietary cholesterol does not have a huge effect on the cholesterol in our blood. 

Our body was made to make it on its own. It makes about 85% of our cholesterol and the rest comes from food. When we eat more foods containing cholesterol our body makes less of it. We eat less of it, our body makes more. 

Low cholesterol has been shown to produce emotional instability,  problems with behavior, aggressiveness, violence, low self control and more.

Sex hormones are made from cholesterol too- low libido, adrenal issues, high or low estrogen etc. 

Our liver produces much of our cholesterol and regulates its levels. 

When our skin is exposed to sunlight, we make vitamin D from cholesterol. 

Why do some people have high cholesterol and others don’t? Why will it be higher when we are under stress or have surgery? Why is it higher in winter and lower in summer?

Cholesterol plays a healing role in our body. It goes up when we need something to be healed. It’s higher in the winter because we have less sun exposure. 

Damaging molecules end up in our blood stream and we have this layer of cells in our blood vessels that can be damaged by things going through our blood. These cells send a message to our liver that there is damage. The liver makes cholesterol and sends it to the damaged area in the form of LDL cholesterol to repair the damage. Once the damage is repaired/the wound is healed it goes back to the liver in the form of HDL.

If you have high LDL cholesterol you should be asking, what is causing damage in my body instead of how do I lower my cholesterol. Get to the root of the problem and the cholesterol will take care of itself. 

Atherosclerotic plaques in your body are sources of inflammation in the body. Inflammation is the way our body responds to any injury. It is there to get rid of whatever is causing the problem so the body can begin to repair itself. 

Plaques in your arteries are the body's attempt at dealing with chronic, never ending damage that has been done to the blood vessels. The body is basically forming scar tissue in your arteries. 

What causes all of this?

Processed foods is a big one, poorly managed blood sugar and sugar in the diet in large amounts. Remember that women should only have around 22grams of sugar per day and men should only have 24 grams per day. High blood sugar on a regular basis creates an inflammatory environment within the body. 

Really quickly- some other things that cause inflammation in the body are the chemicals in products we use everyday- personal care products, household products, prescription drugs, exposure to smoke and pollution, pesticides, chlorine, microbes and parasites and even disrupted gut bacteria. Certain nutrient deficiencies, lack of sun exposure, no exercise and high stress are also big problems for our health in general but also in managing inflammation in the body. 

How do we manage to have good heart health and good cholesterol?

Consuming high quality healthy fats: 

Note it is NOT any particular fat that is good or bad but the way it is processed that makes it bad for us. 

The types of fats we need to know and understand: 

Saturated fat: a stable fat, doesn’t go rancid easily and our body can make it so it is considered non- essential. It is usually solid or semi solid at room temperature. 

Monounsaturated fat: pretty stable fat, won’t go rancid easily, our body can make it so it is considered non essential. Liquid at room temperature but if refrigerated should become somewhat solid. Found in olive oil, olives and oils from almonds, pecans, cashews, peanuts and avocados. 

Polyunsaturated fat: very unstable, goes rancid easily, never heat them or cook with them. Always in a liquid state, even if refrigerated. Two of these are considered essential meaning we have to get them from the diet. Flax and other seeds, nuts and fish and fish oil. Omega 6 and 3 are from these types of fats. 

All fats and oils are a combination of these three types of fats. They are categorized by which fat is most prevalent. 

We need all three types of these fats in order to have proper function in the body and to make sure that we can manage any inflammation in the body. 

We must have good digestion, proper liver function, zinc, magnesium, vitamin B6, vitamin E and C in order to have proper repair of inflammation in the body. 

Consume a mixture of about 30% saturated fat, 10% polyunsaturated fats (Omega 3 and 6) and 60% monounsaturated fats like olive oil as a very general guideline: 

• Animal fats from pastured, well raised animals if possible

• High quality butter such as Kerry Gold, Organic Valley or a locally made butter

• Ghee which is the butter fat with the whey removed- used in Indian cooking a lot

• Coconut or Palm Oils

• Cold Pressed extra virgin olive oil

• Other cold pressed oils from nuts or seeds

Cold pressed oils are expensive and more difficult to make. They are the most fragile oils as they are easily damaged by light and heat. They are the seed oils and oils made from nuts. Canola oil is a seed oil and is processed with high heat, chemicals and is a rancid and damaged oil before it hits the grocery store shelves where it then sits on a shelf exposed to light all day long- remember seed oils are polyunsaturated and are damaged by light and heat. 

Avoid hydrogenated fats, partially hydrogenated fats and those highly processed “vegetable” oils and of course trans fats. 

Other things that can be helpful: 

Vitamin C can help the body repair itself when under stress or when other factors are present that might otherwise cause damage to the lining of the blood vessels. Best choice is whole foods that are high in vitamin C (listed in order from highest amount of vitamin C per serving to lowest) like papaya, bell peppers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, strawberries, pineapple, oranges, kiwi, cantaloupe and cauliflower. 

Staying well hydrated will keep your blood free flowing and thinner. The thicker and more viscous your blood is, the more damage can be done to the lining of your blood vessels because there is more friction. Aim for about half your body weight in ounces a day but no more than 100 oz a day. That is a lot of water and even I find it tough to get that much water in each day. 

Cardio Protective Nutrition: 

• Consuming and digesting animal proteins which are the best source of vitamins A, D and the B vitamins. 

• Again, vitamin C

• Potassium- helps us maintain healthy blood pressure. Fruits and veggies in general but Swiss Chard has 1000mg of potassium per serving. Recommended amount is 4700mg per day. 

• Fill your dinner plate (and lunch and breakfast plate) with vegetables, especially cruciferous veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts

• Consume wild caught fish, pastured eggs

• Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented pickles, miso or natto

Lastly, high cholesterol in the elderly population is associated with longer life and life expectancy in general increases with higher cholesterol. Cholesterol is protective against infections, lower cholesterol levels associated with memory issues. 

Okay. That is it for today. Thanks for listening. Please leave me a rating and review on iTunes so more people can find the podcast. Let’s get as many people as possible the information they need to heal. 

Have a question or comment about today’s episode? Head on over to helpforhashimotos.com and ask it on this weeks episode blog post. Search for Episode 37 and you will find a transcript of todays episode. 

Need help figuring out how to navigate your thyroid condition? I am taking new clients right now and would love to help you out. Go to my website and fill out the contact form. 

I’m taking a facebook break. I will be checking in to see if anyone wants to join the Help For Hashimoto’s facebook group but beyond that I am trying to stay off it. I’m not a fan of putting out a bunch of content there when Facebook owns it all. 

I am focusing more of my energy on putting really good content out in my newsletter and here on the podcast so if you have a topic you want covered contact me through my website. 

I forgot again to send the lunch ideas in my newsletter. I’m so sorry about that. I was pretty stressed out last week with lack of sleep and worrying about passing the grad school entrance exam. I got a middle of the road score which is what my school was looking for so it looks like I’m going back to school at almost 48. Am I crazy? I don’t know. I am little scared though. it is kind of daunting to be a student at my age. I am also freaking excited to learn about functional medicine! More excited than scared the more I think about it. Maybe it will be fun for you all to learn along side me! 

Go sign up for my newsletter. For sure each week you will get a new recipe to try and so far the feedback on the recipes I’ve sent out has been really good. 

All right, see you next week! Take care! 

https://endocrinenews.endocrine.org/hypothyroidism-and-the-heart/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17923583

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5512679/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17093250

Am I eating enough protein? Episode 36.

Welcome to episode 36. I’m so glad you are here! I forgot to share lunch ideas in my newsletter last week so that will be going out in this weeks newsletter. You can sign up at www.helpforhashimotos.com.  

It seems like a lot of people have questions about exactly what they should be eating and so I am going to share what I have been eating for the last few days. 

Breakfasts have been my breakfast soup or a vegetable beef soup I made last weekend. I had chili one morning and a protein shake one or two mornings. I have been combing Designs For Health Paleo Protein and Pea protein with ice and canned coconut milk. 

I had one of my RESTART participants ask about how much protein we should be eating and it got me thinking- Does the amount of protein we eat affect our thyroid function?  I did a little research and it turns out it does. 

Let’s get a little primer on protein. 

Protein is one of the big macro nutrients our body needs. It is second to water in our physical makeup at around 20% of our body weight. It makes up most of our muscles, skin, hair, eyes and internal organs like the heart and the brain. 

So, it is pretty important. 

Our immune system needs protein to create antibodies that help fight infection. I am pretty sure that doesn’t mean if we don’t eat protein we won’t create antibodies against our thyroid though. That is not where I am going with this. 

We have something called hemoglobin in our blood. It carries oxygen to our cells and it is a protein. When you hear someone talking about dietary protein or a protein in your body, they are made of the same thing. 

Insulin and our thyroid hormones are also proteins. 

When we eat protein we break it down in to amino acids. Some of these we can make our self but many we need to get from our diet. Some of the amino acids we can make on our own we might not be able to because of toxins in our environment or the use of prescription drugs. 

Tyrosine is one amino acid you might hear about in thyroid health. It may have been suggested that you supplement with tyrosine to help your thyroid. It is made in the body easily from phenylalanine, another amino acid. It is needed for the production of adrenaline, dopamine, and thyroid hormones. 

We need folate, niacin, vitamin C, and some other elements to make tyrosine. This is important. If your thyroid is not working right, it probably isn’t a tyrosine deficiency but a lack of those things that help make tyrosine. 

Try getting those precursors from your diet. A well balanced diet is important for everyone but most especially for those of us working on gaining our health back. 

Every food we eat, has a different mix of amino acids. Meat, dairy and eggs are the greatest sources of what is often called a complete protein. If you are a vegetarian you might combine beans and grains to get your complete proteins but for many of us with autoimmune disease, this can be a problem. 

We might have to avoid grains and legumes because they are an inflammatory food for us. For many of us trying to heal our gut and autoimmune disease, we will find better healing with animal based proteins. 

I respect anyone’s choice to eat the way the do. I am just telling you what I know to be true. 

In the last few months I have seen suggestions for protein requirements between 45 and 60 grams per day to 100 grams per day to between ½ to ¾ times your body weight. For me that calculates to around 90-135 grams per day. 

I know I need upwards of 100 grams per day to not feel starving between meals. You just kind of have to play around with this to figure out what works for you. 

Protein is first breaking down in the stomach. You need adequate stomach acid to break it down and guess what? With hypothyroidism you probably are not making enough stomach acid and therefore not breaking down the protein you are eating as well as you could. 

The problem with not having enough stomach acid- meaning there isn’t enough acidity in the stomach or the level of acid is not high enough is that the process of breaking down protein is not happening in the way it should. The enzymes needed to work with the amino acids are not able to gain access to those parts of the protein that are broken down in to amino acids. 

Other things affecting stomach acid production are chronic stress, the standard American diet and eating too much at once and age. By age 60 we are not making enough stomach acid for whatever reason. 

Our liver uses the amino acids we have broken down in the stomach or in digestion. 

Now as far as our thyroid is concerned. There have been some studies done on protein and thyroid function. 

It is clear that nutrition is very important in thyroid function. Remember thyroid hormones are proteins.  When we are not eating enough or possibly not digesting it well, the signals from the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland are down regulated or slowed down. This signaling - the hypothalamus telling the pituitary to tell the thyroid to make thyroxine is affected by a lack of protein in the diet. 

Reduced protein in the diet can make our brain think we are in starvation mode and the thyroid is told to slow down. But one study showed that the restriction of energy in a low protein diet caused there to be less T3 produced but no difference in TSH, T4 and FT4. 

This is interesting because many doctors are not testing T3- the actual hormone that your cells need to function and this restricted protein diet is causing less of it to be produced, yet the other markers might look normal. 

The researchers suggest that calorie restriction and a lower carb and higher protein to carb ratio could be the cause. 

It also showed that there was in increase in Reverse T3- the hormone that binds T3 in times of stress or injury. 

Their conclusion was that adequate protein intake is needed for thyroid function. For the thyroid hormones to be produced and it is also needed for the pituitary to produce TSH. 

The big take away here is that you need protein and quality protein if you can afford it and you need to be digesting it. 

Wild caught fish and seafood

100% grass fed beef

Pastured poultry

Wild Game

Pastured eggs

are all great sources of protein. 

Another take away is that you should not restrict your caloric intake when you have thyroid problems. The weight you may have gained due to your hypothyroid condition will come off gradually with diet and lifestyle changes. 

Thanks so much for listening. Please leave me a review and a rating on iTunes so more people can find the podcast. 

I’m sending out another recipe this Friday in my newsletter so go sign up for that at helpforhashimotos.com  

Have a question for me? Send it to me at helpforhashimotos@gmail.com or go to my website and fill out the contact form. 

If you have a question about this episode, leave me a comment on the blog post under Episode 36. 

Until next week! 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793233/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3121981

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17403271

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27916585

https://www.nahypothyroidism.org/6-nutrient-deficiencies-common-in-thyroid-patients/

https://www.nahypothyroidism.org/6-nutrient-deficiencies-common-in-thyroid-patients/

Why are my hands and feet so cold? Episode 35.

Welcome to Episode 35. I’m coming to you from the frozen Tundra of MN where schools are closed and the high temps for the day will be around -15 and the low -31 with windchills reaching -50. When I got up the outdoor temp was -26.

 It is cold here and when you have thyroid problems and you are already cold, this can be an issue for you. Cold hands and feet can’t get warm and sometimes you might even be cold to the bone. 

A few years ago there were nights where I could not get warm enough to fall asleep without a heating blanket, wool socks, a sweatshirt and flannel pajama bottoms with at least 3 blankets on top of me, one of which was down. 

The struggle is real my friends. If you feel like this, you are not alone- cold weather or not.  

I got a question in my inbox about this very issue. Here it is: 

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto in 99, but given no info beyond that.  Had many problems with medication so ended up not using RX but went to Thyrophin PMG but always being ill.  Have been gluten and corn free, low dairy for years.

The past few weeks my feet have felt like they are in ice water, and my temperature has often been 95 degrees, with a hot home and heating pads and baths I can sometimes get up to 97.2 degrees.

I had been forgetting the Thyrophin frequently.

I did get a chill New Years Day.

Do you think the Hashimoto could be why I am so cold?

Unfortunately my MD moved away and there will not be a replacement for some time and I am in a remote area without much for functional medicine.

I will listen to more podcasts tomorrow.

I am taking undenatured whey to reduce hydrogen peroxide,  but can’t get catalase where I am, have upped the Thyrophin and drinking lots of ginger tea,  and bone broth and wondering what else I can do.

Thanks for any advice you can give me,

Sandy 

Thanks for your question Sandy. No doubt you will be helping many people by having wrote in and asked me this. It is a common problem. 

I would like to know what kind of problems you had on your medication. Perhaps you just didn’t feel great? Maybe you had heart palpitations? Maybe it made you feel worse?

The possible scenario here is that your adrenal health or HPA axis is not functioning properly which is leading to adrenal issues and if you have adrenal issues you may not feel well on medication. I discuss this in Episode 34 but the idea is that your adrenal health affects your thyroid health and vice versa so if you are not dealing with stress well, not sleeping well, having blood sugar issues, then your adrenals are working overtime and you are either in a state of hypoadrenia (things are working slower) or hyperadrenia (things are in overdrive) and your thyroid along with TSH and Free T3 and Free T4 output are also being affected. 

Thyrotrophin PMG is a supplement from Standard Process that is similar to the GTA from Biotics except it has magnesium citrate and bovine thyroid extract that has been processed to remove thyroxine or what we call T4. GTA  Forte II which is what I take has zinc, selenium, copper, rubidium, porcine glandular concentrate and some enzymes. 

Natural Desiccated Thyroid Hormone prescription pills are made from porcine or pig glandulars and the Thyrotrophin is made from bovine or cow thyroid glands so maybe this is partly why you are not feeling well. 

I am assuming you needed medication because you were on it but didn’t feel well on it so it might be time to have your labs done again at a doctors office or order them yourself through someone like Direct Labs, depending on where you live. Some states don’t allow consumers to order lab work. 

You probably need T3. Denis Wilson, MD has coined the term Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome which means that you can have a low body temperature and other symptoms that will respond to T3 therapy. 

I found this to be the case for me. I still have a lower body temperature but once I started on GTA, I no longer have frigid hands and feet. My hands are still a little cool but I am no longer freezing before bed and my overall comfort is much better. This, I believe is attributed to the T3 in GTA. 

It is almost like your body is able to reset itself and you may find that even after stopping a T3 treatment that you will remain more temperature stable. 

Symptoms of Wilson Temperature Syndrome (WTS) include typical hypothyroid symptoms and things like asthma, hives and migraines along with a lower body temperature. You may also have fatigue that lasts and stays, anxiety, depression, headaches, insomnia, muscle aches, brain fog, carpal tunnel syndrome, overall lack of well being. 

Low body temperature is the main symptom and is easily measured because as a whole, our body temp needs to be within a certain range to properly function. If you don’t have low iron or iron deficiency anemia, kidney disease or liver disease, and you have all these other symptoms, you might want to check in to Wilson Temperature Syndrome. 

Don’t expect to go to your regular doctor and expect them to even know what this is. You can learn more by googling Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome. 

I would make a plan to remember to take your Thyrotrophin. Find a time of day to take it where you can make it a habit. Also, don’t buy it off Amazon. Find a practitioner to buy it from. 

It is definitely you thyroid issues as to why you are so cold. 

You say you are taking undenatured whey to reduce hydrogen peroxide. 

Undenatured whey is whey that has not been heated enough to denature it or basically kill all the enzymes and good stuff that might be in it. Heat will destroy the immunoglobulins and break the peptide bond (broken down protein). It has glutyl-cysteine which is a peptide. Your cells use it to make glutathione which is our big antioxidant. From what I understand undenatured whey is supposed to raise glutathione levels and fix anemia. 

If your thyroid issues are due to a mercury toxicity from environment, amalgam fillings or anything else, you may not want to be taking this type of whey. Too much cysteine can suppress your thyroids ability to function so there may be a possibility of consuming too much undenatured whey that could be making you feel worse. 

The other issue I have with whey in any form is that the proteins in dairy products are similar to protein structure in your thyroid which can be an issue for your immune system. It can get confused and attack your thyroid tissue which can create more problems like hyper thyroid symptoms and tissue or cell death. 

Hydrogen peroxide is naturally produced by the body when we convert iodine in the thyroid. When TSH rises, more TPO or thyroid peroxidase enzyme is released which then releases hydrogen peroxide. This will cause damage to the cells in the thyroid if there is not enough selenium and glutathione. If you have Hashimoto’s you may have had a TPO antibody test done. The more peroxide in the body the more TPO antibodies may be created. The immune system may see the rise in TPO enzyme as the problem and so creates antibodies against it. 

The more iodine in your diet, the more it will need to be converted, the more hydrogen peroxide there will be which can decrease how much selenium and glutathione you have to deal with it. 

You might likely be deficient if you are eating more processed foods rather than real whole foods as well. 

You also said that you can’t get catalase where you are. I want to explain what that is for you guys. 

Catalase is an enzyme that will break down the hydrogen peroxide keeping it from damaging our cells much like glutathione does. You make catalase in your liver but maybe you are not making enough. 

Selenium also helps to form glutathione which will remove excess hydrogen peroxide. You can supplement with anywhere from 50mg to 200mg per day of selenium but no more. 

Before you do that though, look closely at your diet. Remove dairy completely for a couple of months to see if it is causing an immune response for you. Stay gluten free and find out what foods you are sensitive to. Sugar, alcohol, soy, caffeine, eggs and even other gluten free grains can be a problem for many of us. You may also want to consider if nightshades are a problem by eliminating them. They are quite anti-inflammatory for many people. 

Ginger is good for heating up the body so keep up with the ginger tea. Bone broth is excellent. Make sure you are eating enough. 

Eat foods that love the liver. Much of our T4 is converted to T3 in the liver. 

Foods with vitamin C like acerola cherries, greens, parsley, cruciferous veggies like cauliflower, broccoli, cabbages, brussel sprouts. Remember these are only a problem as a goitrogenic food if you are eating them raw in large quantities on a daily basis. 

Foods with vitamin E which will be protective to the liver and have antioxidant properties. Asparagus, Avocado, leafy greens. 

Zinc is an antioxidant and is in abundance in oysters, ginger root, many nuts and peas. 

Selenium works with vitamin E as an antioxidant. Molasses, brazil nuts, brown rice, turnips, garlic, red swiss chard, oranges and shellfish.

Most of us are deficient in magnesium and this is important for so many things in the body from helping cells to create energy to helping our liver detoxification pathways work properly.  It is found in a lot of grains and nuts but also coconut and brown rice. 

If you are following an elimination diet, this may not work for you and you might have to supplement with magnesium. My favorite is magnesium glycinate. 

There are many more things that are great for your liver- B vitamins, turmeric, milk thistle and amino acids. Remember that amino acids are coming from protein being broken down in our digestive tract. 

So eating and digesting protein is helpful as well. 

I would recommend you find a way to have your thyroid tested again and be diligent with taking the supplement for your thyroid. 

I hope this helps you Sandy. Thanks so much for writing in. 

I have had some people try to contact me about working with me one on one through DM’s on Instagram. It took me about a month to even notice they were there. I try to just pop on and off of my social media accounts so the best way to reach me is through my website www.helpforhashimotos.com by filling out the contact page there. 

Someone also asked me to talk about lunch ideas and I am going to put that in my newsletter along with a recipe for a pizza hotdish (as we call it here in MN)/casserole. So head on over to helpforhashimotos.com to sign up for that. 

You can find me on social media at out of the woods nutrition-help for hashimoto’s on facebook and @stephanieewalsntp on instagram. I have been less active there so again, the newsletter is the place to get the good information from me. There is also the help for hashimoto’s facebook support group so you can go ask to join that. 

Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next week! 

Adrenals and your medication. Episode 34.

Welcome to Episode 34. I’m so glad you are here. Today we are talking about adrenal health and why it is soooo important to have healthy adrenal function when you have hashimoto’s or other thyroid conditions. 

The adrenal glands are little walnut sized glands that sit right on top of our kidneys. We would die without them, they are that important. These little glands help us deal with stress in our every day lives and with chronic stress which is a part of most people’s every day lives. 

Your ability to be resilient, have energy and endurance all depend on our adrenal glands ability to do their job. They secrete cortisol, adrenaline (epinephrine) and noradrenaline (norepinephrine) and impact how your body uses carbohydrates and fats, how well you convert your food into energy and if your body will store fat, how your blood sugar is managed, and helps your cardiovascular system and gastrointestinal system work as they should. 

The adrenal glands also make your sex hormones after menopause and andropause. They have anti-inflammatory properties and help to minimize the effects of alcohol, drugs, foods and toxins. 

All this said, they are pretty important and they manage a lot of stuff in our body which means they can “wear out” or become fatigued. This is what many now call HPA axis dysfunction or dysregulation. 

Basically this means that when our body perceives a stressful event our brain signals our adrenal glands to release cortisol, adrenaline or noradrenaline to deal with the stress. 

As this happens more often in our body due to chronic stress, food sensitivities/allergies, inflammation, mismanaged blood sugar etc., our adrenal glands become less able to recover and respond again and they become depleted. The adrenals are not able to respond and this affects all parts of our body in a physiological way. 

This disrupts how much cortisol is released and when it is released which will affect our sleep patterns as well as the production of some hormones and neurotransmitters but not necessarily the levels of cortisol put out by the adrenals. 

It is the brain that signals the adrenals to release their hormones, the adrenal glands don’t do it on their own, so it is believed that the problem is in the brain and the signaling in the nervous system. 

The package insert for your thyroid medication will specifically state that you should not use your medication. Here is what the package insert says for Synthroid (Armour says something similar)

• Do not use SYNTHROID if you have uncorrected adrenal problems.

• Taking too much levothyroxine has been associated with increased bone loss, especially in women after menopause.

• Once your doctor has found your specific SYNTHROID dose, it is important to have lab tests done, as ordered by your doctor, at least once a year.

• Foods like soybean flour, cottonseed meal, walnuts, and dietary fiber may cause your body to absorb less SYNTHROID from the gastrointestinal tract. Grapefruit juice may cause your body to absorb less levothyroxine and may reduce its effect. Let your doctor know if you eat these foods, as your dose of SYNTHROID may need to be adjusted.

• Use SYNTHROID only as ordered by your doctor. Take SYNTHROID as a single dose, preferably on an empty stomach, one-half to one hour before breakfast.

What does this mean for you?

Here is a list of symptoms that will tell you if you are having an issue with your adrenal health:

• You tend to be a night person

• You have a hard time falling asleep

• You are a slow starter in the morning

• You might feel keyed up and have trouble calming down

• Your blood pressure is higher than 120/80

• You get a headache after exercising

• You feel wired after drinking coffee

• You clench or grind your teeth

• You have chronic low back pain that gets worse when you are fatigued

• You get dizzy if you stand up too fast from sitting/lying 

• You crave salt

• You have afternoon yawning, afternoon headaches

• You have a tendency towards shin splints 

• You tend to need sunglasses outside even if it isn’t sunny

You may also see lab work that shows high T3 yet you are feeling like you are still hypo or if you are on a natural desiccated thyroid medication and just not feeling well or you’re having symptoms that make you feel hyper like heart palpitations, racing heart or even anxiety. 

This can be because the cells are not getting the T3 and it is just sitting in your blood stream which can cause the feeling of anxiety or a racing heart among other things. 

Your thyroid function often is affected by how well functioning your adrenal glands are. 

Chronic adrenal stress will affect how your brain is able to tell the adrenals to work so they will have extra output of adrenal hormones at certain times and at others you will have very little leading to the symptoms listed earlier. 

When your adrenals are not functioning well, aside from keeping T3 from getting in to the cells, you will also have trouble converting T4 into T3, your cells can become less sensitive to your thyroid hormones which is probably what is happening when your T3 is high yet you feel hypo. 

Hashimoto’s can be triggered by chronic adrenal stress because adrenal stress will wreak havoc on the immune system which can result in the antibodies against your thyroid being made. 

What causes adrenal stress? 

So much. 

Your diet- consuming too much processed food, too much sugar and having food intolerances or food allergies. Your adrenal glands, cortisol especially, play a major role in blood sugar management. Food intolerances cause inflammation and an immune system response so continually eating foods you “shouldn’t” will cause an issue for your adrenals and can raise reverse T3 which means your body is converting your needed free T3 into Reverse T3 leaving you feeling hypo. 

Your body makes less Progesterone which is needed to even out the effects of estrogen in our body when we are dealing with chronic stress. 

Too much estrogen in your body binds up your thyroid hormones in your blood. High cortisol contributes to estrogen dominance in your body. 

Your adrenal function is affected by your ability to deal with stress of all kinds. We turn on that stress response when we: 

Don’t get enough sleep. Sometimes we can’t control getting enough sleep if we work a night shift or we have young children or whatever. Being deprived of sleep is not good for your adrenal health which isn’t good for your thyroid health. 

Make sleep a priority. Sleep in a dark, cool room. Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up around the same time every morning. This will help to reset your internal clock and will help you sleep better and deeper in the long run. Also, keep electronics out of your room, wear the blue blocking glasses after the sun sets- this will help increase your melatonin production allowing you to feel tired but also fall asleep. 

Do something to help deal with mental and emotional stress. Therapy, meditation, journaling. Find what makes you feel better and do it. Lose the things in your life that are contributing to your stress. Sometimes we have to see less of those toxic people in our lives. Take care of you first. You are no good to anyone else if you are not well cared for first. 

Manage your blood sugar! So important. This is second in importance to sleep. If you want to see improvements in your hashimoto’s or adrenal issues then you have to manage your blood sugar. Consuming large amounts of sugary processed or high refined carbohydrate foods will affect your adrenal health for the worse. Even consuming too much fruit at one time can be hard on your blood sugar. If you get hangry then you have an issue with blood sugar. If you wake up between 1 and 3 am then you have an issue with blood sugar. 

Inflammation in any form will stress your adrenal glands but most especially the chronic inflammation that most of us with hashimoto’s are dealing with. Chronic inflammation is increased by all the things I have just talked about along with things like parasites or infections you might not be aware you have. 

Exercise, gently. Autoimmune Strong is a good place to start. They have the most gentle exercise program I know of for chronic illness and it won’t tax your adrenals. 

Your thyroid health and your adrenal health go hand in hand. If one is not working well, the other one won’t be either. 

You can have your cortisol levels tested by a salvia test that measures your levels throughout the day. It will give you a good picture of what time of day you are lacking or having too much cortisol and then you can make a plan with your practitioner to fix it. I don’t recommend doing this on your own.  You might not find a conventional doctor who would test this or even know what to do with it so it might be a good idea to find a functional medicine practitioner who can help you. 

Some things you can do on your own to help your adrenal function are: 

Eat protein and fat at every meal, including the first meal of the day and do so within an hour of waking. This will make your blood sugar stable and your adrenals won’t have to get busy raising your blood sugar right away in the morning. Eating protein and fat in the morning will also help keep your blood sugar stable all day. 

Until your body starts to get back on track, you may need to eat some protein every few hours to help stabilize your blood sugar. If you are dealing with insulin resistance or blood sugar issues, this will help your body adjust and remain in a stable state. If you tolerate a small amount of nuts, seeds or eggs or even a can of tuna or sardines. These would be great options for you. A protein shake made of just a single ingredient protein powder (I like Designs For Health Pure Paleo Protein Powder) or even high quality beef jerky. 

You will need to figure out how well your body tolerates the starchy or more sugary carbohydrates. As I have said before, I don’t tolerate starches well, especially at lunch time so I tend to have a small amount at dinner which helps me to sleep better. If you feel sleepy after eating you know you have eaten too many carbs. Avoid grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squashes, parsnips, beans and sugary things.

Avoid fruit juices and instead consume the whole fruit so the fiber keeps your blood sugar stable by slowing down how quickly your body absorbs the sugar. 

Avoid coffee or caffeinated teas, no decaf coffee either- it usually has some caffeine in it. These stimulate the adrenals- if you are dependent on caffeine to get you going in the morning, you likely have some adrenal issues. 

Eat lots and lots of vegetables, high quality protein and high quality fats. Stick to a palm sized portion of protein, a thumb sized portion of fat and fill the rest of your plate with veggies- greens, fibrous veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, asparagus, brussels sprouts, carrots, celery, radish, onion, garlic and so on. 

Find out if you have sensitivities to foods and eliminate them. An elimination diet is particularly helpful and a cheap way to figure out which foods cause inflammation in your body. 

Don’t fast if you are dealing with any blood sugar dysregulation and/or adrenal stress. This will only make things worse. You may want to stick to a 12 hour window of opportunity for eating and make sure you are eating enough. You need more than 1200 calories to sustain yourself and to ensure your body can heal. Eat until you are full and satisfied- this will ensure you don’t have blood sugar issues as long as you are eating as suggested. 

You may want to supplement with magnesium. It is needed for so many biochemical reactions in the body and the adrenal glands are no exception. Magnesium can act like a spark plug in the body and stress depletes it. Magnesium citrate can be found in a product called Natural Calm which is readily available. It can loosen your stools though so be aware of that and back down how much you take if you need to. 

B vitamins are essential for your body and play a role in energy production. A high quality B complex is recommended. Know your source when you buy it. I don’t recommend Amazon as a place to buy supplements. 

Vitamin C is good for your adrenal glands but it also stimulates the immune system so if you are dealing with high or elevated antibodies for thyroid, you might want to be cautious. 

Licorice root is great for sluggish adrenals. It is stimulatory so don’t take it after 1 or 2 pm. It can increase energy and endurance and helps to manage low blood sugar issues. 

Ashwaganda is an herb that is known as an adaptogen which means it will help your body get or stay in a more balanced state and it can help stabilize your cortisol if it is either too high or too low. It is also a nightshade and can be inflammatory to some or stimulate your already overactive immune system. 

Ginger root also helps to keep your cortisol levels even and balanced. You can make a tea by grating 1 teaspoon of ginger and let it steep in hot water for about 10 minutes. You can strain it or just drink it. 

I think this is a good place to stop. Thanks for joining me. Have a question about your thyroid or how to manage it? Go to my website- helpforhashimotos.com and fill out the contact form. 

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes so other people can find the podcast and be helped. There are 14 million people just in the US that are diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. That is a lot of people. The more you share about the podcast, the more people that can be helped. I’d really appreciate your help on that. 

You can find me on social media at stephanieewalsntp on instagram and at Out of the Woods Nutrition-Help For Hashimoto’s on facebook. I also created a facebook group for the podcast called Help For Hashimoto’s which is a positive support group but all the action is happening in my newsletter where I send out recipes and tips for living well with Hashimoto’s. You can sign up on my website. I was thinking of making a grocery shopping list or a guide to understanding your thyroid labs to give you when you sign up for my newsletter. Will you let me know which one you prefer?

Talk to you soon! Have a great week! 

Perimenopause and menopause with thyroid issues. Episode 33.

I'd be interested in hearing you discuss hashimoto’s and thyroid medication during perimenopause and menopause, and/or how those hormones can affect your thyroid and the way your body absorbs thyroid medicine. I'm 51 with Hashimotos, Armour Thyroid (90mcg), with levels considered normal by the endocrinologist. 

I am gluten and dairy free and eating well. But I still struggle with constipation, weight gain, insomnia, facial puffiness etc--hypothyroid symptoms. In November I had the first period that I have had in about 8 months. In the weeks after that, everything seemed to be in good working order...lost the weight, digestion was great, puffiness went away. Now a few months later (with no periods), all those same symptoms are returning.

I had been on Armour from June until I saw the endo in November .  I saw the endo on 11/19 and my TSH was 4.6, Free T4 0.81 (those are the only ones they gave me and there isn't a patient portal where I can peek at others that might have been taken).  

They advised me to go up to 90mcg at that time as he likes the TSH lower.  The period that I had was on 11/13 and so when I saw him everything was going GREAT...had dropped 6 pounds without trying, sleeping well, digestion good.  Have been on 90mcg since November and am creeping steadily upwards, digestion sluggish, insomnia, etc.  Ahhh!

Michelle. 

Thanks for your question Michelle- it is quite likely there are hundreds of thousands of women in your shoes. Before I forget to mention it- work with your doctor to at minimum add in a Free T3 test. TPO and TgAb antibodies tests and Reverse T3 would also be helpful. 

This is a complicated issue and I can give you some good general information but as with everything- we are all bio individual so you will have to experiment to find what works for you. 

Women start to make less estrogen and progesterone as we near our 40’s. This alone can trigger our thyroid to slow down. It sounds like you might be on a hormonal roller coaster here which is totally possible as you approach menopause. 

I like seeing that your endocrinologist likes to see your TSH lower than 4.6. Ideally it should be around 1-2. But upping your medication might not be the solution. That is not to say you shouldn’t take it as prescribed- I’m just saying there might be things you can do that will allow you to take a dose and stay there without having these fluctuations like you are. 

You say you are eating clean and gluten and dairy free. That sounds good, but what does clean eating mean to you? 

How much sugar or starchy foods are you eating? Once we hit a certain age, those starchy carbohydrates can be a problem for some of us when we are looking to maintain or lose weight. 

Those of us with hypothyroidism whether caused by Hashimoto’s disease or not can encounter issues with insulin resistance. Our body cannot process and tolerate sugars like it used to- my body certainly can’t. This means that you will have to be very mindful of what you are putting in to your body and even what time of day you do it. 

Maybe you feel tired an hour after eating lunch- even a paleo style lunch. If it had some starches in it, and you are feeling tired- like a sugar crash- then you likely are not tolerating starchy carbs at that time of day. 

If you struggle with sleeping- falling asleep or staying asleep a bit of starch in the evening meal might help you sleep better. The only way to know is to try it for a couple of days. 

Let’s talk about what perimenopause and menopause are before we dive in to what might be happening with you. 

During perimenopause (the 2-12 years before you reach menopause) 

It can start in your late 30’s but is more commonly occurring in your 40’s. You can have hot flashes, sleep problems, mood swings, and heavier than normal periods (this part is the worst if you ask me) and these symptoms can wax and wane for a good 10 years. 

Your estrogen during perimenopause will be fluctuating significantly to the point that you will have more than you’ve ever had circulating through your body at some times and other times it might be low. It is much like the blood sugar roller coaster but is called the perimenopause roller coaster. 

Symptoms include: 

• heavy flow that is new to you or longer flow (high estrogen)

• cycles that are less than 25 days long

• changes in breast tissue: lumps, sore, swollen (high estrogen)

• waking in the middle of the night and you didn’t before

• worse or more cramping

• start of night sweats, especially before a period (low estrogen)

• migraines that are new to you or are worse

• mood swings before a period (high estrogen)

• gaining weight without changing what you are doing

You may have some or none of these symptoms. About 20% of us will have dramatic changes during perimenopause. The rest of us are lucky to have minor issues. 

Progesterone is gradually lost during this time which is kind of like a cruel joke from mother nature because it is the progesterone that helps counteract the affects of estrogen. 

It also helps us deal with stress and the loss of progesterone makes us feel more anxious, depressed and have poor quality sleep. 

Managing your diet and allowing some self care. 

• Don’t kill yourself in the gym- over exercising or doing too intense of a workout will affect your energy levels for days to come, especially if your adrenal glands are worn out or confused about what to do for you

• Learn to let stuff go- like dishes and cleaning the house. 

• Avoid alcohol- this alone can wreak havoc on your hormones at this stage in the game. It keeps us from getting rid of that excess estrogen AND lowers progesterone.

• Manage your blood sugar. Journal your food so you can see just how much starchy food and sugary foods you might be eating. 

• Take magnesium- it calms our brain, helps us sleep and regulates our brain communication with our body

• Exercise gently, especially if you are dealing with Hashimoto’s. Autoimmune Strong is a great place to start. 

If you are dealing with heavy bleeding, you need to avoid dairy which Michelle already is, avoid alcohol, eat fermented foods and lots of veggies to help keep your gut bacteria healthy. Gut bacteria clear estrogen from your body and so does fiber so eating more veggies than you already are can be really helpful. I also find my energy to be better when I eat more veggies- like 7-8 servings or more a day.  

If your hypothyroidism is not being managed well (meaning your TSH and free T3 are not optimal)  then you may have heavier periods as well. Work to get your TSH around 1-2 and some doctors think it is okay if it is a little below one (.3 to .5)— especially if you are on a natural desiccated thyroid hormone replacement- When T3 is optimal you might find a suppressed TSH. Finding a doctor that will allow your labs to look this way is another story. 

Also keep in mind that you might feel great at a TSH of 2 and someone else might feel good at .3. This is bio individuality. It is so important to know your body and learn how to tell when things are off. 

Your thyroid medication may need to be adjusted seasonally too. If you live in a climate with winter- even all for seasons then your TSH may rise in winter and fall during summer. Another reason to really be in tune with your body and its signals. 

Part of my job as a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner is to help you learn how to do this. 

Menopause starts one year after your last period and symptoms should be better. 

You will have much less estrogen and progesterone at this point. Your adrenal glands will be making estradiol in your cells and this is supposed to be enough to keep you feeling good. BUT- if your adrenals were taxed for years before this happens then you may have some issues. 

Your endocrine system is made up of the pineal and pituitary glands in your brain, the thyroid and parathyroid glands, the Thymus (works with the immune system), Adrenals glands, pancreas and your ovaries. All of these work synergistically together as a system and when one is off, they will all be off. 

You can’t just take a supplement for your adrenals and think that it will fix your issues. It will help in the short term but it is a band-aid and not getting at the root cause of your problem. 

If you have gained weight around your middle, you are more than likely dealing with insulin resistance. This means that your cells are not accepting glucose or sugar from insulin as it travels through your blood stream to bring your cells sugar. Your liver and your muscle cells are not accepting the sugar so it just stays in your blood stream and eventually gets transported to fat tissue for storage. This is why we gain weight.  

The best way to combat this is to quit sugar completely. No dessert, no sweet anything. Every time you eat sweets it makes your insulin resistance worse. Even fruit- so keep your natural sugars to below 25 grams of fructose

High fructose corn syrup in soft drinks is 55% fructose, sugar cane is 50% fructose and honey is 40% fructose. Eight ounces of orange juice has 18 grams of fructose.  So pay attention to what you are eating. If it is sweet tasting, it is likely contributing to your weight at this point. 

Starchy foods like potatoes and rice are mostly glucose and very little fructose but you might find you still have a problem with those as well and will need to test your carb tolerance with a glucose monitor. Start with sugar though. It is more important at this stage to remove sugar from your diet and then look at the starches. 

Hormone fluctuations during perimenopause and menopause can affect how your thyroid functions. 

You might end up with estrogen dominance (the highs on the rollercoaster) which can keep thyroid hormone from attaching or making their way into the receptors on your cells. This means your cells are not getting thyroid hormone creating hypothyroid symptoms. 

Thyroid hormones are similar in chemical make up to estrogen. Too much estrogen or eating too much soy can block the receptor sites as well leaving you with less thyroid hormone in your cells and hypothyroid symptoms. 

As we lose our progesterone, we may see or feel a need for more thyroid hormone. We need progesterone to get T3 which is what our cells use and need. 

Our thyroid naturally slows down as we get older and therefore will not be able to get enough hormone to our cells affecting not only our energy but creating all the other symptoms we have talked about before. 

If you are dealing with chronic stress, and most of us are, this will also affect our ability to make enough thyroid hormone. 

When your thyroid is not working optimally or you are not medicated optimally, all of your hormones will be disrupted. 

It will be important to know if you are in menopause or if you’re having a thyroid problem. If you take estrogen thinking you are in perimenopause or menopause and it is actually your thyroid causing the problems, you might end up feeling worse and the estrogen will affect your thyroid function. Vicious cycle as with so many things in our body. One can’t work well without the other. 

If you have crazy periods during your 30’s and 40’s it is more likely an issue with thyroid than perimenopause. Thyroid problems are often the cause of early perimenopause. I’m a textbook example of this. 

They make the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause worse, affect blood sugar, make you depressed, affect your ability to handle stress. 

You have options: 

• start with journaling your food to pinpoint

  • are you eating enough

  • are you eating too much sugar

  • is your ratio of protein fats and carbohydrates where it should be

  • are you eating a lot of processed foods or a whole foods diet?

• exercise

  • reduces hot flashes

  • better mood

  • lessens depression, less anxiety

  • higher sex drive

  • sleep is better

  • more energy

  • lowers insulin resistance

  • increases bone density

  • helps manage weight

• natural supplements- introduce 1 at a time and wait 2-3 weeks before adding another one

  • maca powder

    • will help your hormones adapt and balance as needed

    • can reduce hot flashes

    • supports the entire endocrine system, including adrenals and thyroid

    • can regulate menstrual cycles

    • can increase energy and stamina

    • don’t take it if you are on estrogen

  • soy- is supposed to be helpful as a phytoestrogen to help with menopausal symptoms. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Don’t supplement but get it in food form. I would go for tempeh and miso and NOT genetically modified. 

  • Black cohosh

    • helps to reduce hot flashes

    • helps insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, depression

    • helps with joint pain/body aches

  • Damiana- tea or tincture (2-3 ml 2 to 3x/day)

    • helpful for hot flashes, low sex drive and general well being

  • Dong Quai

    • hot flashes, insomnia, fatigue, anxiety

  • Vitamin D

    • helps regulate endocrine system

    • supports sleep

  • Chasteberry or Vitex

    • helpful for breast tenderness

    • balances progesterone

    • water retention

    • headaches, irritability, depression, fatigue

    • sleep issues

The Period Repair manual is a must read for every woman

Supplements suggested can be bought through this trusted source (my fullscript store)

Thyroid talk with Ginny and Danna from Thyroid Refresh. Episode 32.

In todays episode I am talking with Danna Bowman (Thyroid Nation) and Ginny Mahar (Hypothyroid Chef) who have teamed up to create a really cool interactive program on their Thyroid Refresh® website called Thyroid 30®. We talk about how they found each other to team up and create a positive space for thyroid patience to be supported, what some of the biggest mistakes thyroid patients make, how lifestyle choices make a difference in your recovery and more. Use code TryThy30 for $5 off their program starting January 13, 2019.

How does blood sugar dysregulation affect the thyroid? Episode 31.

Welcome to episode 31 and Happy New Year. 

I spend a lot of time between Christmas and New Years reflecting on my year and always being really hard on myself for not accomplishing more than I did. 

I had a great year, I have good relationships with people in my life that matter and while they are not perfect and not always great, I am working hard to show up better in those relationships. So here is to a new year full of health and great possibilities in all areas of my life and in yours too. 

I am really grateful you are here. 

I teach a class called The RESTART Program as a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and it falls right in line with the subject matter of today’s podcast. I am discussing managing blood sugar in relation to thyroid health. They go hand in hand and one out of balance puts the other out of balance. 

My class is all about managing blood sugar and about Restarting with a new outlook on food and nutrition. It is a real food sugar detox where you learn how to eat real food to manage your blood sugar, you get nutrition education and you get support from me and from the members of the class. We have a private facebook group and we meet each week for five weeks with the detox starting on the second week.

There are no shakes, no pills- just real food. This class has been life changing for so many people and I really love teaching it. Learn more at www.outofthewoodsnutrition.com/restart 

Susan O.  “RESTART® gave me the tools to reverse pain, lose weight, increase energy, and best of all, the common sense of how we should be living and eating. Thank you for helping me make a difference in my life and my family.”

Tina T.  “I came to the RESTART® class just wanting to learn how sugar affects the body. I left class feeling better and with a ton of knowledge. It’s a lifestyle change I can do. Stick with this class, you won’t regret it.”

Melissa M.  “I now understand what I need to heal myself and my family. This class changed my attitude towards food and health. If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired all the time, I highly recommend taking RESTART®.”

You can register for class now at www.outofthewoodsnutrition.com/restart  Cost is $147 for the entire five weeks and will be taught via zoom which is free for you to download. 

Okay- on to the show. 

Why is maintaining healthy blood sugar levels or keeping your blood sugar balanced so important for your thyroid?

Most if not every organ and tissue in the body needs glucose or sugar. It is what helps us make energy in our cells so if you are lacking in sugar your cells are not getting the materials they need to produce energy so your cells will not have energy, your organs won’t and you definitely won’t have any energy. 

When you have a low level of glucose, your blood sugar is low and your thyroid won’t be getting enough energy or enough sugar to turn into energy to function. It will be sluggish and not able to produce enough hormone for you. 

When you have higher levels of glucose in the blood or high blood sugar on a regular basis, you end up with something called insulin resistance. Say you eat a meal that is pretty carbohydrate heavy of maybe pasta or bread or pizza and that gets broken down into little particles of sugar. It will cause your blood sugar to rise and your body says “I’ve got to get rid of this sugar in my blood. There is too much in here and it can damage my blood vessels. So it releases the hormone insulin which is supposed to lower blood sugar in the blood by bringing the sugar to the cells so it can use it for energy production. 

The problem when we eat all that refined carb garbage is that you are eating too many carbs for your body to handle so you are dealing with this higher blood sugar issue with the quick rise of insulin to help manage the levels of sugar in your body. It’s not good and your body- your cells eventually get tired of receiving the sugar from insulin so they become resistant to it. They are like- “No more. My cell door is closed. Go away!” 

So you have this sugar with no where to go because the cells don’t want it. It is just floating around in your blood stream. But it has to go somewhere so what does your body do?

It stores it in your fat tissue or creates fat tissue to store it. 

Now your thyroid is looking for nutrients but the cells are resistant because of the insulin resistance. The cells are refusing the sugar being transported by insulin.  No fuel for the thyroid means it isn’t going to produce enough hormone for you and you feel sluggish. You might have the TSH of 5 or 7 or 9 that your doctor says is fine when you know it isn’t fine because you feel like crap. 

Now keep in mind this is a very simplified explanation of things because I want you to be able to get the idea. 

When your blood sugar is high either from insulin resistance or because you are constantly eating all day long or because you eat the Standard American Diet then you probably are experiencing some inflammation.  We are all bio individuals- where you experience inflammation may be different than someone else.  If you have inflammation in your thyroid due to autoimmune attacks or because of something else- your thyroid cells are not able to take in the nutrients they need to function well. 

Two important nutrients are iodine and the amino acid tyrosine.  If you have an inflamed thyroid, that doesn’t mean you should supplement with these two nutrients. That is a band-aid. The root cause might be the mismanaged blood sugar and you should be able to get both of those nutrients from your diet.  

Missing these nutrients through mismanaged blood sugar is one way you can get  to an autoimmune diagnosis. 

Here is the kicker. People with high blood sugar levels in their blood and insulin resistance tend to have low thyroid hormone production which will increase your TSH. When TSH goes on the rise it can make insulin resistance worse. 

I think I can attest to this- when I experimentally went off my medication I felt and actually still am pretty puffy. I ate three cheesecake flavored M&M’s last Saturday and a couple hours later had a small patch of psoriasis on my palm and the back or nape of my neck is itchy. It can mess you up. It is a vicious cycle. 

When you have a high TSH because your body can’t make enough on it’s own, as your blood sugar lowers the cells in your thyroid are affected. We need the proper amount of T3 and T4 to maintain healthy blood sugar. The more out of control our blood sugar gets, the more our thyroid can’t function properly. It is sluggish and that contributes to insulin resistance even more. 

The best way to fix this is to fix your blood sugar balance. To keep it balanced and reset things. So obviously diet is a huge factor and that is what the RESTART Program is all about. There are other things you can do as well. 

Sleep is huge. One night of bad sleep, loss of sleep can create insulin resistance in a healthy person so for those of us suffering from insomnia, you are in that vicious cycle again and so having diet dialed in will be really important. We repair our body at night and cortisol is supposed to be low at night- if you are not sleeping both of those things are going to be messed up. No repairing of tissues, and cortisol can be high which means insulin resistance and fat storage/creation. 

Exercise. When your muscles are worked or exercised and trained, if you will, they become insulin sensitive which will lower your insulin resistance. For many of us with autoimmune disease we need to go slow and I can’t recommend enough the Get Autoimmune Strong Program. Please go to the show notes and use my link to check it out so I get credit for sending you. It helps me pay for the podcast. 

A lot of experts will recommend burst training where you do something intense for 30-60 seconds and then rest for a few minutes and do it again. I am not in the place where I can handle that so if you get exhausted from working out- autoimmune strong is for you. 

You can also use a standing desk instead of sitting desk. I got one on Amazon that sits on top of my cheap Craigslist desk for about $80-$90. It was a good investment. 

Manage stress. This along with sleep is sometimes more important than eating well. That’s not to say you shouldn’t eat well but these other two are really really important. When you are experiencing a lot of stress- mental/emotional or physical, your cortisol levels go up. When the cortisol is high, your liver will create sugar to increase your insulin and again we have a cycle we don’t want to be in. 

Cortisol is in our body to give us a burst of energy to escape danger. Our primitive mind doesn’t know the difference between actual physical danger and what goes on in our mind, or even between a close call on the road and running from a bear. It is all the same to our body. So chronic stress- not good for our body fat and our blood sugar. Unfortunately, our body prefers to get its energy or sugar from our muscle rather than our fat so we end up losing muscle and getting fatter in this scenario of unbalanced blood sugar.  

So we have this high blood sugar because of high cortisol and we have resistant cells, they don’t want any more sugar so more and more sugar gets released either through you eating something because your body has told you you need more energy so you crave some kind of sugary carb food or because you are stressed so the blood sugar levels are higher and higher- your body thinks there isn’t enough sugar because the cells are refusing it and so the levels get higher and higher in the blood and that gets shuttled to fat because it needs to get rid of it. 

When you eat matters and what you eat at night matters too. When you eat before bed, if it is a carb heavy food like a cookie or a bowl of cereal, your blood sugar will be high when you go to bed and you will have a crash around 1-3 am when cortisol is released to raise your blood sugar. Ever wake with a start or have heart palpitations at that time and then you can’t get back to sleep? That is a blood sugar issue. Then you pile on lack of sleep because you couldn’t fall asleep and you have more insulin resistance. 

Eating protein at breakfast or your first meal is important to keeping your blood sugar stable all day long. If you aren’t eating protein and you have insulin resistance and issues with cortisol, your body will take what it needs in the form of sugar from your muscles- creating less muscle and more fat. 

You may need to eat every 3 hours for a short time to get your blood sugar balanced, but don’t eat a bunch of carbs every 3 hours. Eat some healthy fats and proteins with veggies to keep your blood sugar stable and then eventually you will be able to make it from meal to meal without needing a snack. Eating all the time, snacking all the time will keep your insulin levels high all day long which means more fat storage, inflammation and stress on the body and on your thyroid. 

All this stress affects your pituitary gland and TSH is secreted from the pituitary gland. When your adrenals and cortisol are working hard to manage stress and blood sugar, there isn’t much room for your thyroid to be helped out so it takes a hit and becomes sluggish or you develop autoimmune disease.  Cortisol inhibits production of T4 and of TSH (will show up as a high TSH on a lab). 

So we have a thyroid that isn’t working. This causes a decrease in the rate the cells take in sugar (glucose). The receptors on your cells don’t know what is going on so they can’t take in the right amount of anything.  Your blood sugar is out of whack and T4 and T3 are not being secreted from the thyroid like they are supposed to either. You are dealing with inflammation because insulin overproduction will also produce inflammation. 

You are dealing with a blood sugar rollercoaster here. Sometimes too high blood sugar due to a meal you ate or stress or whatever and then low blood sugar because of the rise in insulin, too much insulin which causes a crash- when you get really tired after a meal or after a bunch of sugar. Cortisol gets involved to try to fix the problem and it starts all over again. Not good. You crave the sugar to get you out of the crash. 

The solution here- besides taking my class is to heal your gut, remove some of these foods that are causing your blood sugar to be so out of control. Figure out if certain foods are causing you inflammation, get some good nutrients in to your diet. Get some omega 3 fats, fiber and protein in your diet.  You might need chromium, magnesium, cinnamon can be really helpful in lowering your blood sugar and testing your blood sugar. I am working on getting someone on the podcast who is an expert in finding your carb tolerance. It involves pricking your finger- I’m not so good at that. I have to have my daughter do it for me so I don’t mess with it- I really need to do that though. I know there are certain foods that really spike my blood sugar and the thing of that is- it can be different for everyone. You might really react to an apple whereas someone else won’t be affected at all. I’ll work on getting a good guest to help us figure that out. 

Ideally you want your blood sugar levels to stay somewhere in between 80-100. This would be on a blood glucose monitor. You can get a good picture of your blood sugar from a Hemoglobin A1C test. This will measure the sticky proteins of sugar that are attached to your red blood cells. This causes your red blood cells to become brittle and cause damage to your blood vessels. This is how we end up with plaques in our veins. 

In The RESTART Program we don’t use any sweeteners on the sugar detox. Some safe alternatives if you are going to have sugar keeping in mind that sugar is sugar and will affect your blood sugar the same -are honey, maple syrup and maybe coconut sugar. Again- these all will do the same damage if you eat too much of it. You shouldn’t be having any more than 22-24 grams of sugar a day according to the world health organization. That is not a lot when you figure 4 grams of sugar is = to 1 teaspoon of sugar. 

Stay away from aspartame, splenda and other artificial sweeteners. Some people think stevia in green powder form or the liquid drop forms are okay- I don’t care for the taste and I don’t know that my body loves them either. Some people do okay with erythritol or xylitol- they can cause bloating and irritate your gut. Avoid agave as it is pure fructose. It will for sure spike your blood sugar. 

The bottom line here is that you cannot address your thyroid without addressing your blood sugar and your diet. 

Diet changes alone can result in weight loss, more energy, better sleep, lessened cravings, better skin, and a better functioning thyroid. 

I’d love to have you in my class. Learn more or register at www.outofthewoodsnutrition.com/restart

Check out autoimmune strong here. 

Thanks so much for joining me today.  I’m glad you are here. Please leave me a review on iTunes and share this podcast with anyone you know who might be helped by it. 

I’m sending out a recipe for breakfast soup in my newsletter next week so go sign up for the newsletter on my website if you want that. It is really good. You will also get an ebook called 5 things your doctor won’t tell you about hypothyroidism. 

Join the Help For Hashimoto’s facebook group to get ongoing support from other members and from me. 

You can find me on instagram at stephanieewalsntp but all the action will soon be in the newsletter. 

See you next week! 

Study on blood sugar and hypothyroidism

What is autoimmune disease? How do I keep my immune system healthy? Episode 30.

Thanks for joining me. Today we are going to talk about the immune system again. It is important for you to know how your immune system works when you have an autoimmune disease. That way you can make more informed choices about how you live your life and what you eat. 

When I work with clients who have autoimmune disease we have to look at what is causing the immune system to be out of balance. The key to that is looking at how your digestion is. 

In order for your immune system to function well and serve you rather than harm you, you must do the work to strengthen the defense system and remove what is causing it stress. 

Your immune system, as I have discussed works really hard to keep you healthy and keep your body in balance or in homeostasis which basically means in balance. That is it’s job. 

Another way to look at what I said last week and the week before is that your immune system is always asking if you are safe. If it could talk it would say “are you safe? is this safe?, are you me?”

We are kind of like a bucket. We take in things, let other stuff fall out of the bucket. Sometimes our bucket (immune system) will overflow. When this happens we get inflammation and eventually that inflammation leads to symptoms. In the case of Hashimoto’s that means your thyroid is getting attacked and damaged. 

In order to support your immune system you must support your digestive system and your body with the nutrients it needs to operate optimally. Your body will maintain good long term health this way. 

Let’s talk about inflammation.  The scientific description of inflammation is described as a complex response within the body tissues to things that are harmful. Things like pathogens, bacteria, viruses, toxins, chemicals or tissue damage. 

The immune system will respond to any of that by creating a way to get rid of it (inflammation). Clearing out damaged tissue like when you cut yourself. If you typically have cuts that heal slowly and/or you tend to scar easily- this means your immune system, your body doesn’t have the tools to properly clear out that damaged tissue. 

In fact, slow wound healing is a sign of zinc deficiency. Zinc is an essential mineral to the body providing our body the ability to heal wounds, enhance the immune system, provide anti-inflammatory action and it promotes the conversion of T4 to T3. 

You can’t just go out and supplement with zinc though and think that will take care of it. If your gut is not healthy, if you’re low on stomach acid, your body won’t be able to assimilate it. 

This is why we have to go back and look at how your digestion is working and more importantly, what kind of food you are eating. 

You can’t inflame and anti-inflame well without the tools provided by your diet. This is why I am always preaching to you what to eat. It is that important. It is medicine. 

You will find lots of practitioners who will tell you supplementing with zinc or other supplements will be essential to your healing. They might even be. BUT- what good do they do you if your digestion isn’t working properly. What good do they do you if you are not changing your diet along with taking the supplements. Supplementation might be needed in therapeutic doses for a time period but they should not be something you have to take all the time for the rest of your life. I kind of look at them as something to help speed up the healing process or provide your body with what it is severely deficient in and then once you get your stores up, you should be able to use food. This, is ideal to me. 

So before you go supplementing with 20 pills a day, let’s get you eating right first. With that said, you can get some immune boosters in to your diet as long as you are digesting food well. 

You can get vitamin A from carrots (actually beta carotene which converts to vitamin A), cod liver oil, eel, egg yolks, grass fed dairy (not recommended for autoimmune clients), kale, sweet potato and liver. 

Vitamin B6 is found in basil, bay leaf, dill, garlic, liver, pistachios, lots of herbs, shiitake mushrooms, sunflower seeds, and tuna. 

B12 you can get from clams, fish eggs, herring, kidney, liver, octopus, sardines and trout. There is some in red meat too. 

Vitamin C- a good immune booster found in citrus, acerola cherries, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, kiwi, parsley, rosehips, herbs and triphala. 

Copper which is needed in conjunction with zinc- they work together.  This can be found in cacao, liver, oysters, shiitake mushrooms and spirulina. 

Vitamin D which most of us with Hashimoto’s are deficient in is found in fish, cod liver oil, oysters, and pastured lard

Vitamin E can be found in almonds, chili powder, curry powder and sunflower seeds. 

Zinc is found in oysters, pumpkin seeds and red meat. 

Our bodies produce something called reactive oxygen species- they are oxidants and are basically reactive chemicals that carry oxygen. They are formed in the body as a byproduct of the metabolism of oxygen or the use of oxygen in the body. 

With stress, the levels of these reactive oxygen species can increase and cause oxidative stress. When the body can’t keep up with breaking down reactive oxygen species, you also get oxidative stress. This causes damage to our cells and tissue in our body. 

We also have things called free radicals which are basically an electrically charged molecule in the body with an unpaired electron in the outer shell- this makes them a little dangerous so to speak and can be very damaging to other molecules that are close by. We get free radicals from our environment but also from inside the body like when we eat too much sugar, over exercise or when our cells make energy. But most important is when our immune system is active. 

This is a very normal part of our daily life and they are not all bad- we just have to make sure they don’t get out of control. 

One way to do that is to bring in the antioxidants that will help neutralize the free radicals which will make those dangerous or unstable free radicals, stable so they don’t damage our cells or tissue. Glutathione is the biggest anti-oxidant but things like Vitamin A, C, E, plant chemicals, selenium and zinc are very helpful. 

Making sure to include berries, citrus, cloves, green tea and even prunes in your diet are a good way to get your antioxidants in. Research seems to show that food based antioxidants are best. 

Other things that are helpful for your immune system to work properly are prebiotic fiber from apples, bananas, berries, broccoli, cabbage, chicory, garlic, Jerusalem artichokes, jicama, kale, onion, and root veggies. 

Some other good immune boosting foods are elderberry, ginger, manuka honey, bone broth, mushrooms, nettles and rhodiola. 

I’m starting an online RESTART program starting January 9th from 7:00-8:30 pm central time for five weeks. It is a food based sugar detox with nutrition education and support all in one. If you are not sure where to start to get your healing on track, this is the class for you. 

You can find out more at outofthewoodsnutrition/restart or you can email me for more information by going to my website and filling out the contact page. 

Thanks so much for listening. Please leave a review and a rating on iTunes if you don’t mind. It will help more people with Hashimoto’s find it. 

You can reach me on my website by filling out the contact form at helpforhashimotos.com or outofthewoodsnutrition.com. I’m also on Instagram at stephanieewalsntp and please join our help for hashimoto’s facebook group. 

Interested in working with me one on one. I am accepting new clients right now- people who have no idea where to start in this health journey. I can’t wait to help you feel better.

What does subclinical Hypothyroidism mean? Should I get tested for Celiac Disease? Episode 29.

So I believe I am in the beginning stages of hashimotos diagnosis, upon my research I came across your podcast. I have not seen my primary care physician yet for a follow up visit after blood work, but my TSH came back at 4.14, she did do a blood test for celiac which was negative, but my food allergy came back as borderline level for wheat and low level allergy for sesame. 

My mother has hypothyroidism (never told hashimotos) and my aunt has been diagnosed with hashimotos. I started discovering my symptoms after I got my BSN  and had my labs tested which were normal. Now I’m discovering that I can get the antibodies and it affect my thyroid before it even shows up on my labs. 

At this point I know that I need to clean up my diet. I am getting a little anxious about it, although I eat fairly healthy I just am so afraid that this diet modification is going to run my life. But all of these symptoms (including reoccurring yeast infections) are what I’ve been feeling for the past 6 months severely, and 6 years not as severely. So I am wondering if the celiac test did not come back positive because I am possibly in the early phases still? 

I am on the second podcast and I love it so thank you for all the advice!

Katie

Hi Katie, 

Thanks for your question!  I will start with the question about Celiac disease. I am not sure what blood test you had that tested for Celiac Disease. Here is what I know at the moment. Some labs test for alpha-gliadin in the blood and about half of people who have this test done that actually have celiac disease will have high antibodies against alpha-gliadin. Alpha-gliadin is a protein that the immune system would be on the lookout for and attacking. Half of those with celiac disease also do not test positive for these antibodies.  The tests that are looking for just alpha-gliadin are only getting that one portion of the proteins in gluten that your body is having trouble breaking down. Apparently there are around 60 plus different protein components to gluten that your immune system can launch an attack against. 

You should ask your doctor if their lab tests for more than just alpha-gliadin. Look for a test that will test for transglutaminase antibodies, intestinal transglutaminase as well as skin and brain tissue glutaminase antibodies. It will be a much more thorough test and give you a better picture of whether or not you may have celiac disease. 

What some research is showing is that most, if not all of us have some issue with digesting the proteins in wheat and other gluten containing grains (they actually all have gluten in them just in varying amounts). Just because we don’t feel bad when we eat a food containing gluten doesn’t mean we are not sensitive to it or have an intolerance.  If you regularly have headaches, brain fog, blood pressure, anxiety- things you don’t necessarily associate with your meal from the day before- these are things that could be caused by an intolerance to gluten or any food really. 

Symptoms to a food sensitivity or intolerance are not always digestive. This is something to really think about in your life. What symptoms are you having that have started to just seem “normal” or part of your daily life? Food sensitivity symptoms can show up anywhere in the body, not just in your digestive tract with bloating, diarrhea or constipation, gas, stomach upset etc. They can show up in your skin, joints, in your brain in the form of brain fog, inability to think well. 

Not so long ago the only way to find out if you had celiac disease was to do an endoscopy which is a procedure where a device is inserted into the GI tract to look for damage or inflammation. The damage to your gut would be classified as Marsh I, II or III with each one being progressively worse from inflammation in your intestines but the microvilli are still there in I to some damage in II and in III your microvilli are severely damaged.  You can have symptoms of gluten sensitivity and not have any damage to your microvilli. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t remove it from your diet. 

If you have positive blood work but no damage to your microvilli, you should probably still avoid gluten. If you have or had things like anemia, chronic anxiety or depression, joint pain, gut issues, chronic fatigue, liver or gallbladder issues, loss of feeling in your hands and feet, skin rashes especially on the back of your upper arms you might want to ask your doctor to test you for celiac disease. 

It sounds like you have the genetic predisposition to thyroid issues with your family members also having it. This means that you have the genetic susceptibility to the problem and it will be your diet and lifestyle that determine whether or not you develop disease. 

I got this from Katie this morning: 

Good Morning! I just had labs drawn on 11/29- 

tsh 3rd gen was 4.14;

triglycerides slightly elevated 155; 

low level wheat allergy, 

low level sesame allergy detected on a food allergy panel. 

labs drawn again on 12/17 

tsh 3rd gen was 5.98, 

tpo 38.8, 

t4 free 0.95,

t3 total 0.99, 

tg <15.

Energy is poor, muscle aches, joint pain/stiffness, unable to lose weight despite healthy eating and exercise, poor recovery for exercise, hair is thin and brittle and I lose a lot but everyone tells me ‘it’s a normal amount’, haven’t really noticed a change in amount, but the outer third of my eyebrows are thin, my bowel movements used to be regular until about a year ago, now I might have one once every 2-3 days, sleep isn’t great and I feel like I need 10hours almost. I am cold regularly, but I also get very hot easily too.

The doctors office called and said it was "subclinical hyptothyroidism and that I don't need to be treated with medicine". I have been symptomatic severely for the last year, and intermittently for the last 7 years. In your opinion should I be on medicine? 

I plan to go gluten free in the new year, I hope that will help with my antibody levels, but will that help my tsh level go down? 

Here is the deal with labs. Often times the lab values that are established for a testing lab come from the population of people that are tested. This means you have healthy people, people who are like you, sub-clinically hypothyroid and people taking medication so you were at a TSH of 4.14 on November 29th and now at 5.98 and they are saying that is not “sick enough” to treat with medication. 

This is complete BS- clearly your TSH is getting higher which means you are feeling worse probably. When I quit taking my meds so I could get a good “baseline” number after being on the GTA Forte from Biotics Research, my digestion stopped completely about a month after not taking any meds. 

When you deal with a functional medicine practitioner they have a functional range anywhere between 1-3 TSH. Personally, I feel best at 1 or below which is where my free T3 is optimal. 

Hopefully the wheat issue will have been answered by the celiac info but you should definitely be gluten free, 100%- always. 

The functional range for free T4- the amount of active T4 in your blood, should be around 1-1.5 ng/dL- you are at .95 which is a little low for functional medicine. This means you don’t have enough Free T4 in your blood for your body to convert to free T3.

Your free or total T3 is .99. I don’t know what value of measurement that is in so check your labs against what I am saying here and again, you can see the transcript on my website to make it easier to see numbers and amounts. If that is in pg/mL then you are quite low. This means your cells are not getting enough free T3 which is why you feel the way you do. 

Free T3 is the best indicator of what is available for your cells to use. The functional range is around 300-400 pg/mL and if the measurements are not the same you can find a converter for pg/mL on google. 

You have antibodies which means if I were a medical professional I would diagnose you with hashimoto’s which is autoimmune in nature and means your immune system is the problem causing your hypothyroidism or subclinical hypothyroidism as they are calling it. I am not a medical professional though which means I do not diagnose or treat anyone for anything. I do however help people bring their body back in to balance so that it can operate properly and bring you back to a state of health.

It may be possible that you can handle this with diet and lifestyle changes if there has not been significant damage to your thyroid. This might be your first step in trying to feel better especially if your doctor won’t put you on medication.  You may want to try GTA from Biotics Research at www.getbiotics.com using code DFILC163- this is my account with them. I would take one capsule 1 time per day to start and see if it makes you feel better. GTA has porcine glandular or thyroid gland tissue from pigs in it with the T4 removed and selenium. Both nutrients that can be helpful to thyroid. I would not supplement with much more until you know your digestion is working well. No point in taking a bunch of supplements if your gut is not healed and you don’t really know what will work for you as we are all bio-individuals. If you take GTA you must have your thyroid tested regularly. 

Here is the thing with taking thyroid medication with hashimoto’s. You might feel better initially- like for a couple of weeks to a month. Your TSH might be brought in to the normal range but your symptoms will come back and you might even feel worse. This is what happened to me- I think I needed medication for sure because upon initial diagnosis my TSH was at 150- that is all that was ever tested on me until I worked with a naturopathic doctor. 

Hashimoto’s is an immune system issue first and is not a thyroid condition- it causes the thyroid condition. If the immune system is not addressed, you will certainly develop other autoimmune conditions as time goes on. 

The last episode- episode 28 discusses the immune system but we will go over some components right now. I’m going to use the analogy from Datis Kharrazian’s book Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms.  

You are a house. A house has walls to protect you from the outside- windows, doors and a roof. You too have things that protect you from the outside world. Your skin, your digestive tract, your lungs and brain. If our house has a leaky roof, the window are cracked so that wind and bugs and rain get through them and you have some holes in your walls where elements from the outside can get in quite easily. 

The same thing can happen when your body’s protective barriers have holes, cracks or leaks in them. Think of a cut on your skin- that is allowing the outside world direct access to your insides.  Your immune system reacts pretty quickly to a cut to work to keep invaders out of your body by clotting your blood and creating inflammation and then a scab which eventually heals and the cut is gone. 

When your gut or small intestine has cracks or holes it is leaky or permeable. Things called antigens come through the holes and your immune system is activated. Antigens are things like undigested food particles, bacteria, parasites, mold, toxins. You have immune cells called macrophages that are in your tissues waiting to eat up things that don’t belong. When a macrophage engulfs the antigen it sends a signal to the rest of the immune system to help it out. T-helper cells come first and organize the rest of the immune system in the attack on the antigen. Natural killer cells and cytotoxic T-cells arrive next and kill the invader. T-regulator cells make sure there are enough T-helper cells that help regulate the immune system and T-suppressor cells that stop the attack once the antigen has been destroyed. The B-cell antibodies are enlisted to remember all the information about that antigen so that when or if it invades the body again, it can remember to attack it. 

When you have autoimmune disease, somewhere along the line, something with these immune cells has gone awry. If you don’t make enough of the T- suppressor cells, the immune attack will continue and in the case of your thyroid, it can be mistaken for the antigen that was originally supposed to be attacked. 

This is just one scenario of many that can be the issue and is certainly part of why diet is so important. Removing inflammatory foods like gluten and dairy, managing blood sugar, ensuring your adrenals are optimal, managing sleep etc. It is multifaceted and about the whole body, not just one thing. 

So after the long answer, the short answer is yes, a gluten free diet can help your antibodies go down. They are not super high so that is good but you certainly don’t want them to get higher and it is clear with your TSH going up that you are needing to do something. Once you go gluten free I would go back in 30 days for labs that include all you had before and possibly even Reverse T3 which will tell you if stress is causing some of the issue of T4 and T3 being so low. 

Thanks so much for writing in Katie. I hope you start to feel better soon. 

Okay. I got a request for me to talk about what I eat. It seems that meals are a struggle for a lot of you, including me. Some days I don’t eat very well and some days are low on veggies so you know, no one is perfect with their diet and that is okay. I do notice I feel so much better with an extraordinary amount of vegetables in my diet and a smaller amount of meat. 

I have been watching The Paleo Way with Chef Pete Evans on Netflix. It is really good and so inspiring to me when it comes to getting vegetables in my diet. Check it out if you have Netflix- I am sure he worked pretty hard to get Netflix to take his show. 

What have I eaten in the last week?  I have been doing a green juice most mornings blended in my vitamix. I have had that blender for over 10 years- when the second George Bush was in office. It still runs like new. I have had to replace my canister and they have excellent customer service. This is not an ad. I really just love my blender. Anyway, I put chopped celery, about ⅓ of an English cucumber sliced, parsley which I buy and freeze and just pull a chunk out, a lemon- whole but peeled, a chunk of ginger (to your liking) and a handful of greens- lately I have been using Power Greens which is a bunch of baby dark leafy greens like spinach, chard, and kale. I blend that with some ice and water and drink it almost daily. It makes me feel light and energized. 

I tried just a couple pieces of celery all by themselves with some water and ice and it was horrible. I got a gag reflex from it but finished it and then felt nauseous for about an hour afterward. This might be a sign that my liver or gallbladder was getting some benefit and clearing out some toxins. 

So I have that- I do have breakfast which consists of leftovers. Things like hamburger patties on a bed of lettuce with onion dressing from Nom Nom Paleo’s Ready or Not cookbook. So good.  Or I will have leftover soup. 

I made roasted chicken for dinner last week and turned the leftovers in to soup with chopped carrot, celery and onion sautéed and then I added in the leftover chicken, pulled off the bone and shredded a bit with a zucchini chopped in to bite sized pieces and bone broth.  

I bought some pastured local mild Italian sausage and sautéed that in coconut oil with an onion and half a small butternut squash cut into bite sized pieces with some dried sage- about a Tablespoon. I had that for breakfast after my celery juice and then some green juice and a whole bunch of homemade chocolate bark- cocoa powder, coconut oil, some honey, sea salt with pumpkin seeds and goji berries. I can’t stop eating that stuff. I don’t make stuff like that often because I don’t have a lot of self control with sugar. 

We had burgers last night and I had mine on a salad. I will put almost any leftover meat on a salad and if you like fish you can do canned tuna, sardines or salmon on a salad. I am not a fan of fish at all so that is not for me. 

I did chicken breast sautéed with lots of garlic, broccoli and carrot “noodles” and coconut aminos for lunch yesterday and will eat that for lunch today too. 

I love the Thai Beef Stew from Against All Grain. You can find that on her website if you google it. I will make a big batch of that and eat it for lunch and breakfast. I was away from home most of the day last Saturday so I had lunch and dinner at the same place because they have some good gluten free meat options which I knew would fill me up. I had pulled pork- like a pound for lunch and dinner and it was a little too much meat with no veggies so I ate way more veggies on Sunday. I don’t feel great eating too much fat and meat so I have to work harder at eating more veggies. 

I like veggies roasted best- the rest of my family hates when I do that. So I usually make a sheet pan of roasted veg just for me. Broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage are my favorites roasted with olive oil and sea salt or Redmond Real Salt. 

I will do a segment in my newsletter of meals I’ve eaten over the week if that would be helpful. Head over to my website and sign up for my newsletter. 

If you have questions about todays episode go over to my website under Epidsode 29 and leave a comment on the blog post for this episode. I will do my best to answer it as quickly as possible. Was this information helpful? Do you need something clarified? Let me no so I can help you out. 

If you have a question you want addressed on the podcast you can fill out the contact form on my website. I can’t wait to hear from you. 

You can find me at outofthewoodsnutriton.com or helpforhashimotos.com- they are the same website, on facebook at Out of The Woods Nutrition and join my private facebook group Help For Hashimoto’s to get support on your journey. You can also find me on Instagram as @stephanieewalsntp. 

I’m going to do some live group coaching in January- does that sound like something you would be interested in? I also have room for a couple of new clients working on diet changes, seeing where your body is out of balance and addressing those imbalances so you can feel better. Reach out to me on my contact page if this seems like something you might be interested in. We can chat to see if we are a good fit for working together. 

Thanks so much for listening. See you next week. 

What is autoimmunity? Leaky gut, the immune system, and gut bacteria. Episode 28.

Welcome to episode 28. I kind of feel like I left you in the dust last week by cutting things off at intestinal permeability. I’m still working on getting my TSH in normal range and my brain had had enough. It felt like too much work to dive deeper and so I ask you to have patience with me as my brain and body get back up to speed with all that I want to share with you. I had some kind of bug last week where my body ached which didn’t help me feel like doing much but lounging around. I did some research for a client and that was about it. I am fighting fatigue for a number of reasons, and am honoring my body’s need for rest. 

I want to say something about medication. It is not a bad thing to have to take thyroid hormones. Sometimes the damage done to the thyroid is so great that the gland just can’t make enough hormone for your cells. Some of us will need lifelong hormone replacement even after all the diet and lifestyle changes we have made and that is okay. It doesn’t mean you are a failure. It’s okay to need medication. All the diet and lifestyle stuff will help. It might even help you need less medication- just don’t feel bad if you still need to take it. 

Ok so lets dive more in to Hashimoto’s and the things that can affect it. You know you need to heal your gut if you listened last week. How do you do that? You have to lower inflammation. This starts with changing your diet and your lifestyle. An elimination diet or autoimmune protocol diet - AIP- can be very helpful. I’ll cover that more in detail in another podcast. 

Before I talk about the gut let’s talk a little bit about the immune system. When you have an autoimmune disease such as Hashimoto’s, your immune system is attacking self. It is attacking proteins in your body that are part of you. Our immune system is supposed to protect us from invaders like bacteria and viruses. In autoimmune disease it is attacking our tissues, like the thyroid. This means that autoantibodies have been created. Antibodies against our own tissue. 

Antibodies are important parts of our immune system where they recognize proteins in things like bacteria, viruses or parasites. The autoantibodies or antibodies hang on to the invader and signal the immune cells to launch an attack. In autoimmune disease, your body mistakenly makes antibodies to our own tissue as well as to the things that don’t belong like the virus or some bacteria.  

When your body creates antibodies against proteins in your own tissue this is called molecular mimicry or being cross reactive. This is the beginning of how you develop an autoimmune disease. 

Your genes will predict the probability of your immune system creating the autoantibodies and it will be your environment (diet and lifestyle) that cause the immune system to actually create them. How many genes you have that say you have susceptibility to autoimmunity will determine how quickly your autoimmune disease is triggered by your environment and how severe it will be. 

Your autoimmune disease likely happened or manifested because the autoantibodies formed and your body wasn’t able to determine the difference between the antibodies formed against your own tissue and the antibodies that formed against foreign invaders. Then your immune system launches the attack against both the foreign invader and your own tissues which eventually causes enough damage to your own tissue that will result in you having symptoms of disease. In the case of Hashimoto’s the symptoms result in what would look like hypothyroidism or a slow thyroid or it could trigger Graves disease which is a hyperthyroid state. 

You don’t have any control over your genes but you have a lot of control over your diet and lifestyle or what would be referred to as your environment. In order for you to understand why your body has essentially began an attack on you it might be a good idea to understand how your immune system works. 

We are all made up of various types of proteins. They are what are called the building blocks of the body. The bricks your house is made of so to speak. Proteins are broken down in to amino acids which form all kinds of things in the body. Some amino acids are essential, building everything we are made from. When some of these amino acids get strung together, they create proteins.  Our DNA is made from proteins and so is pretty much everything else in our body.

Antibodies created by our immune system are also a protein and they are called immunoglobulins. You may have been tested for IgA, IgE or IgG antibodies. What these immunoglobulins do is look for certain amino acids that are strung together a certain way in some proteins. They then attach themselves to these amino acids strung together and keep the protein from working properly. Once it binds to this protein and basically deactivates it, it lets the immune system know that this protein does not belong and should be attacked. 

Your immune system will then attack the whole thing, not just that little protein that was recognized. So if it is bacteria, the whole bacteria gets attacked. The same thing happens to our thyroid when there is a case of mistaken identity. The thyroid tissue gets attacked and the immune system remembers that the proteins in our thyroid are something that need to be attacked just like it would remember to attack the same bacteria if it invaded our system. So when you have an inflammation in your body, your immune system may be on constant high alert and attacking thyroid tissue because its protein structure is similar to something else being attacked. One common issue is foods that have similar protein structure like the protein in wheat or gluten- called gliadin. 

There is so much more to this- this is a vey simplified version of what is going on in our body. 70-80% or so of our immune system lies in our gut and the lining in our gut being in tact is crucial in the prevention of autoimmune disease. 

The small intestine also is where about 90% of absorption of nutrients happens through the microvilli. The microvilli are little fingerlike projections that line the small intestine also called the brush border. The microvilli  take up the nutrients from the food we eat and helps to transport those nutrients into the blood stream.  This is how your cells get the nutrients they need to work well. 

The adult small intestine is about 16 feet with a diameter of about 1 inch but the microvilli increase the surface area to be 500 times greater than that.

There is a mucosal layer- and that is just what it sounds like. A layer of mucous that lines the cell wall of the intestines keeping the outside contained to this area. What that means is, like I stated last week, our digestive tract is exposed to the outside and it protects the rest of our body (the inside) from harm. 

The wall of the intestines can become damaged in a number of ways- toxins, bacteria or pathogens and even from proteins found in grains, beans and even nightshades like tomatoes and potatoes. They can actually cause microscopic holes to be formed in the small intestines which allows undigested food particles, proteins and toxins to leak in to the blood stream causing inflammation and immune system reactions. 

The tight junctions formed in the wall of the intestine are one of the lines of defense that keep the inside protected from the outside. They are supposed to open up to our insides for certain nutrients to get absorbed properly.  Zonulin is a protein in our gut that acts like a gate keeper and will monitor the opening and closing of the tight junctions. 

One study describes the workings of zonulin quite well. The study done by Alessio Fasano in 2012 found that zonulin played a role in increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut) which “may be influenced by the composition of the gut microbiota” which contributes to autoimmune disease when antigens are present. Zonulin is a protein in our intestines that regulates the tight junctions in the small intestine which means it basically controls when or if there will be openings created/permeability in the small intestines where things from the outside can have access to our insides. 

The biggest triggers for zonulin to cause the small intestine to loosen the tight junctions (again, giving access to our insides) are exposure to bacteria and gluten. The bacteria discussed in the study were infections that trigger an immune response.  The protein gliadin which is in wheat was the other big trigger for zonulin to cause the tight junctions to open or create intestinal permeability/leaky gut. 

This may be partially why a gluten free diet is so helpful for people with autoimmune disease. There is some thought that all of us with autoimmune disease may have a gluten sensitivity.  Once the immune system recognizes a protein in a food, it can recognize similar proteins in other foods which can lead to multiple food intolerances. Gluten and proteins in dairy, oats, yeasts used in baking and in brewing as well as in many other grains are all similar enough that there can be a likelihood that you may be sensitive to one or more of these foods in addition to gluten. 

It doesn’t mean that you are but that there could be a likelihood of developing additional sensitivities to those foods. 

Hopefully I have established that the health and or integrity of the small intestine is important for your health when dealing with autoimmune disease. Diets like the autoimmune protocol are very helpful in determining which foods are giving you trouble and are cheaper than food sensitivity testing which isn’t always the most reliable.

Other things that can affect intestinal permeability are things like NSAIDS- ibuprofen or acetaminophen, hot peppers like cayenne, alcohol, the wrong types of bacteria in your gut, stress, exercising too hard, surgeries and food allergies. 

If it is not clear to you yet, you need to fix your gut in order to calm your immune system. It starts with digestion. You need to have good digestion, you need to have regular bowel movements that are about a 3 or 4 on the bristol stool chart. Your eliminations should be daily, 1-2 times a day. Your stool should be about the length of your forearm from your wrist to your elbow. It should come out with ease, and there should be little to nothing on the toilet paper when you are done. 

Eliminations should be about 16-24 hours after you eat- that means that what you ate should come out of you about 16-24 hours later. You also want to have a good balance of bacteria in your gut. You can feed the “good” guys by consuming lots of vegetables and fermented foods. 

We have more bacteria living in our digestive tract that we are made of cells. There are trillions of them and there are hundreds of different species of bacteria that make up those trillions. Usually though, you have a portion of bacteria that dominate your gut- these guys kind of run the show.

They help us digest sugars, starches and fiber in our food so we can absorb the nutrients from them. These bacteria provide us with certain chemicals that help us with energy production and help regulate our metabolism. They also make B vitamins and vitamin K and increase our ability to absorb our fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. 

A good or healthy gut bacteria help our immune system operate properly or keep it operating as it should. When we experience what is called gut dysbiosis or having the bacteria out of balance, we start to see dis-ease or symptoms of digestive upset. 

Feeding the bacteria the proper foods helps keep in balance the good and bad bacteria  which keeps your immune system operating properly. What you put in your mouth directly affects the amount and type of bacteria living in your gut. This is why diet changes are so important when you are looking to heal your gut or bring your body back in to balance. 

I will cover the diet changes needed in a future episode so please stay tuned for that. Do you have any questions about this episode? Go to helpforhashimotos.com and look up Episode 29 on the blog. You can read the transcript there and you can leave a comment or question under the blog post. 

Be sure to sign up for my newsletter there and get your free ebook 5 Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Hypothyroidism. 

Join me on facebook in the Help For Hashimoto’s facebook group and on Instagram at @StephanieEwalsNTP. 

If you like what you are hearing I would appreciate it if you left a review on iTunes so more people can find the show and be helped. 

Look for information coming soon about a live group coaching program for those of you who don’t even know where to begin with the diet and lifestyle changes. The program will be live video calls and I will walk you through how to make the changes you need in order to feel your best. You will get nutrition and thyroid education as well as support from the group. Please let me know if this is something you would be interested in. 

Thanks so much for listening. See you next week. 

Looking for a way to exercise with chronic illness? Check out Autoimmune Strong. 

What is Hashimoto's? Episode 27.

Welcome to Episode 27 of Help For Hashimoto’s. I’ve got some lab work to share with you today. In the past weeks I had been talking about how I went off my medication and had been feeling pretty good. That feeling lasted for only a couple of weeks. Last week I started to feel slow. I could feel my muscles having to work extra hard just to walk or write. I didn’t have a lot of energy. I pushed my lab appointment up by a week because I knew things were not okay. I started to feel like I could just lay in bed all day.

My digestion also had virtually stopped working. I felt bloated and was gassy and was not having eliminations at all. So then I didn’t feel like eating because I was so plugged up which affected my energy levels as well. I’m sure if you have dealt with or are dealing with hypothyroid symptoms, you can relate.

Some of you may be very sensitive to your medication or to a higher than normal and if you have a TSH that is 4, 5 or 7 or 9 and your doctor is telling you that you are fine but you are having symptoms like I just described then you are not fine. Maybe you can manage things with diet alone- that is possible.

Clearly for me, that was not possible. So either, I was dealing with way too much stress over the last nine weeks or there has been too much damage to my thyroid gland and I will always need medication. For now, I am back on medication and starting to feel a lot better. 

My TSH went from being suppressed at below 1 to being 119 in just eight weeks after being off all medication completely. I will have my actual lab results posted in the show notes for this episode on my website. Taking the Biotics Research GTA supplement had suppressed my TSH and so we could not get an accurate reading of where my body was at. I decided on my own to go off all medication to see if my body could do it on its own after all these years. 

Clearly it cannot. I need the medication.  There was some talk with Aimee Raup in the episode on her book Body Belief about believing you can feel well. I want to be clear that you cannot think yourself in to remission but what you believe about your body’s ability to be well can affect how well you feel. I hope that makes sense. Even at a TSH of 119, feeling sluggish, and tired and like I didn’t want to get out of bed I remained positive about what this meant. I truly wanted to be able to tell you I didn’t need my medication any more. For now, that is just not the case. I need it and I am okay with that.

 I don’t like feeling like I am walking through sludge with 100 pound pack on my back all day long. I don’t like only having enough energy to get dressed and then need to take a nap. So, if medication helps me feel at my best everyday along with a continued clean diet and good lifestyle management then this is how it is. I will make the best of it and live my best life because I am not going to let Hashimoto’s control my life. You don’t have to either. 

With that said, let’s dive in to the topic of Hashimoto’s and what that really means. I talked about hypothyroidism last week and how that is a symptoms of Hashimoto’s which is an immune system problem first. 

What exactly does this mean? 

When you have a diagnosis of Hashimoto’s this means that your immune system has launched an attack on your thyroid gland and is destroying it. It is the most common cause of hypothyroidism in the United States. Usually you have to fight for it to be tested mostly because the treatment of the disease is the same as it is for hypothyroidism. It is expected by your doctor that your thyroid will continue to be killed off with the immune attack so your medication will be adjusted over time as the thyroid is destroyed. 

Over the years as you continue to feel bad, you may be offered antidepressants as I was or you may be offered pharmaceutical solutions to your racing heart or treatment for your high cortisol output or lack of cortisol output. Maybe you will be offered the option of removing the thyroid altogether. 

These treatment options are frustrating for us, the patient, at best. You may be told there is nothing you can do. That a gluten free diet will leave you nutrient deprived or that it won’t help you. 

Here is the thing. Doctors receive about 40 hours or less of nutrition training in medical school. If they get extra training in nutrition they will be taught what the government and the USDA food pyramid teaches. They are not trained to look any further for answers to your problems when it comes to chronic health conditions. It isn’t their fault. It is frustrating, but it isn’t their fault. So your doctor is doing what he or she thinks is best for you. I want to be clear on that. I am not bashing them. I am frustrated with the way we are treated in our current health care system and things do need to change but that is for another episode. 

Okay. You may or may not have a Hashimoto’s diagnosis but you have gotten a hypothyroid diagnosis and they are not testing for thyroglobulin or thyroid peroxidase antibodies because the treatment for you is no different. 

Common treatment for other autoimmune diseases is to be put on an immune system suppressing drug like prednisone. Hashimoto’s isn’t aggressive enough of an autoimmune disease to warrant being on a drug like that- and frankly, you should not want to use that as your treatment. It is a bandaid. This disease and most other autoimmune diseases are very well managed through diet and lifestyle. 

If you are looking for a bandaid as a permanent fix for your autoimmune disease, this is not the place to get it. 

I don’t want to go through the rest of my life with a bandaid that doesn’t really make me feel good. Prednisone’s side effects are things like insomnia, mood changes, increased appetite, gradual weight gain, acne, dry skin, slow wound healing, headache, dizziness, nausea, stomach pain and the list goes on. 

Doesn’t sound fun- in fact is sounds like more crappy symptoms on top of all the crappy symptoms that come with a mismanaged thyroid condition. 

Even if you are put on thyroid medication, like me, with a combo of T4 and T3 and even the supplement with the porcine glandular in it- the immune system is not being addressed.

Hashimoto’s disease is named after the Japanese doctor, Hakuro Hashimoto who was the first to describe the disease in 1912. Our autoimmune disease was the first ever to be recognized as an autoimmune disease. 

About 50 million people suffer from some kind of autoimmune disease in the US and about 30 million of those people are women. Hashimoto’s and Graves disease are some of the most common autoimmune diseases with about 8% of the US population having a diagnosis. Most of the cases of hypothyroidism are due to Hashimoto’s. 

If you have hypothyroidism and are on medication but still feel symptoms or you continue to feel worse over time, then you are probably dealing with Hashimoto’s disease. You might be showing lab tests of normal TSH because you are on medication but your immune system may be on fire and so you present with symptoms. 

You also might be having symptoms of both hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism which can fluctuate from week to week, day to day or month to month. This is a clue that your immune system is needing attention. Your TSH levels can be all over the place so if you happen to go in for your labs at a time when your TSH is in the normal range- you will not be given medication. In the case with Hashimoto’s medication in the form of thyroid hormone replacement is a band aid. You may need it for a time period until you get things under control but you may not need to be dependent on it for the rest of your life. There is even some evidence to show that it might be possible for your thyroid to regenerate once you get the immune system calmed down. 

In my case, I probably had Hashimoto’s when I was first diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2002 but because I went for 8 years thinking all I needed was to take my levothyroxine there was probably enough damage to my thyroid that I will likely need medication for the rest of my life. Who knows. I’m still hopeful. I went through times of having hypo and hyper symptoms and could not figure out what was going on. One of those times was when I was pregnant in 2004 and lost my baby at 34 weeks. You can read more about that in Five Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Hypothyroidism which you can get from my website when you sign up for my newsletter. 

What is happening in your body when you have those hypo/hyper symptoms? Essentially the immune system is attacking your thyroid, killing off some tissue. As that tissue dies, the thyroid hormone is released in the blood stream giving you symptoms of hyperthyroidism such as heart palpitations or racing heartbeat, you may have this feeling of inward trembling, you may feel nervous or moody/emotional, you can have insomnia and night sweats (I had night sweats for years), you may be losing weight for no reason at all. 

You can confirm you have Hashimoto’s by asking for a Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies test (TPO Ab). This will verify that your immune system is attacking the enzyme that allows your body to produce T4 and T3. 

You can also ask for a Thyroglobulin Antibodies test (TGB Ab). Thyroglobulin is what your thyroid uses to make thyroid hormone. You can have a negative antibodies test. This is common because as with everything else in the body, your immune system can yo-yo. It may not be acting up at the time of your test. So you either have to go in and ask for the test when you know you're in a flare (having symptoms). 

What are the triggers for Hashimoto’s or autoimmune disease in general?

As has been said, “Your genes load the gun and your environment pulls the trigger”. 

You may be genetically predisposed to your disease- like me. My mom, her siblings and their mother all had or have some kind of thyroid condition. One of my Aunts and my Uncle have Grave’s disease. My Uncle also has an autoimmune kidney disease for which he is on an immune suppressant. My other Aunt has hyperthyroid symptoms and my mom has hypothyroidism. I’m pretty sure she has Hashimoto’s because she has spent her whole life not really feeling well. She has never been tested. 

So, genetics were there for me and I pulled the proverbial trigger of that genetic gun with my lifestyle and environmental factors. 

Things like gluten intolerance, estrogen dominance, blood sugar dysregulation, PCOS, being deficient in vitamin D and other nutrients, toxicity in the body from environment or heavy metals, chronic infections or inflammation, stress in any form. All of these or any one of these can lead to the breakdown of your body and the beginning of autoimmune disease. 

The good news is that you can definitely control your disease with diet and lifestyle. You maybe have figured that out already and that is why you are here. If not, you are in the right place to learn about how you can manage your disease and feel your best. 

If you are on medication, you need to start paying attention to how you feel on it. You may need to have it adjusted and hopefully you have a doctor who is willing to treat you by your symptoms and adjust or switch your medication as needed. The medication is kind of a Goldilocks type medication. It can take some time to find what is just right for you. Some people do fine on synthetic medications that are T4 only like Synthroid or Levothyroxine. Some people do better on Natural Desiccated Thyroid Hormone like Armour, Naturethroid, WP Thyroid or compounded thyroid powder.  If you don’t feel well on one type of medication ask to try a different one. 

One thing all autoimmune conditions have in common is intestinal permeability or what you may have heard of as leaky gut. Your intestinal wall is the only thing protecting your body from the outside world. It’s entrance is essentially your mouth and its exit is your anus. If it becomes permeable or leaky- having tiny microscopic openings in it- then the outside has access to your insides where your immune system is ready to protect you at all costs. 

We have a protein called zonulin which allows our intestinal wall to become permeable or causes the tight junctions in our intestinal wall to open which will allow proteins and bacterias to have access to our insides- our blood stream. This causes our immune system to go on high alert and launch an attack on these so called invaders. 

One of the bigger triggers for this in autoimmune disease can be gluten- the protein found in larger amounts in wheat, barley, rye and other grains. This is why you hear so many practitioners talking about being on a gluten free diet. It can help your immune system calm down. Next dietary change would be to take dairy out. It has proteins similar to gluten and can confuse your immune system and remember we are trying to calm the immune system. 

You also need to look at other factors like stress, sleep, nutrient deficiencies like vitamin D and healing the gut is a must. You can’t absorb nutrients if you are not first digesting your meals well and have a healthy gut. Gut means your small intestines. That is where about 80% of your immune system lies and that is where the majority of your nutrient absorption is. 

This is a lot of information and hopefully not too overwhelming. If you have questions or want something covered in more detail, please drop me a note at helpforhashimotos@gmail.com or go to my website and fill out the contact form. I’m here for you and want to help so send me your questions. 

Please head on over to my website, www.outofthewoodsnutrition.com and sign up for my email list. You will get recipes and content not shared anywhere else. 

Like what you are hearing? Please leave me a review on iTunes so more people can find the podcast. I would really appreciate it. Also, share about it on facebook to help spread the word. 

Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.  

How does the thyroid work? Episode 26.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. - Marie Curie

Welcome to Episode 26. Today, inspired by someone in the Help For Hashimoto’s Facebook group we are talking about how the thyroid works. You are getting a hopefully easy to understand lesson in thyroid anatomy and physiology. I’m keeping it simple here so don’t worry. 

If you are dealing with hypothyroid symptoms then you know, this tiny little gland runs the show. It rules our body and when it isn’t functioning, we really feel it. 

The symbol for the thyroid is the butterfly and with good reason. It is shaped kind of like a butterfly and it wraps itself around our trachea and sits just below our voice box. It has these little sacs within it where the thyroid hormones are produced. 

The thyroid is part of our endocrine system and it is responsible for increasing our basal metabolic rate which is our ability to gain or lose weight. Our basal metabolic rate rises when we make cellular energy (called ATP) which provides us with heat causing our body temp to rise.  This is why when our system of producing thyroid hormones breaks down somewhere along the way, we can end up with cold hands and feet or just feeling cold in general. You might literally feel cold in your bones. 

Thyroid hormones stimulate the creation of proteins at the cellular level which involves making DNA which is part of how we copy and make new cells. Remember we are cellular beings. Our cells make up tissue which make up organs which make up systems which make up us as an organism. 

Thyroid hormones help us use glucose or sugar and fats for energy and they help break down triglycerides so they can be eliminated as needed. 

Thyroid hormones help us grow as kids and particularly help in the growth of the nervous and skeletal system. 

So you can see, this little gland has a big job. 

The thyroid gland is really sensitive and will respond to messages pretty quickly when called upon as long as it is working properly. It kind of speeds things up or slows things down as needed. So if you are cold, its job is to tell the body to create more heat so you can be warmer. 

If your hands and feet are always cold or you have that cold bones feeling, then something isn’t working right along the way. This is not happening because your body wants it to, but rather because it doesn’t have the tools to do it properly. Or something is broken down along the way. 

What can break things down? Well, chronic stress, poor diet, blood sugar dysregulation, the wrong medication or the wrong dose or the inability to process the medication, not enough- you get the idea. 

You must ask yourself WHY this pathway has broken down somewhere instead of what can I take to make it feel better. 

How is your thyroid supposed to work?

It starts in your brain. The hypothalamus works in concert with the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus is the controller here. The very tiny part of the brain controls much of the function between our nervous system and our endocrine system. In fact, all that the hypothalamus and pituitary do together control most of the growth, development, metabolism and balance throughout the body. The two are attached in the center area kind of under the big parts of the brain. 

Through a negative feedback loop like the furnace or air conditioner in your house, your body sends a message that it needs some regulation. We are using the example of being cold and needing to warm up. 

Your hypothalamus sends out a hormone called Thyroid Releasing Hormone or TRH which gets sent to the pituitary gland. 

TRH tells the pituitary gland to release Thyroid Stimulating Hormone or TSH which you will be familiar with because that is probably what your doctor tests for. Funny they don’t test for actual thyroid hormone in our blood. Just this stimulatory hormone. TSH gets sent to your thyroid where it tells the thyroid to make thyroid hormone. 

In the thyroid, some chemical reactions occur and Thyroid Peroxidase gets a message to make T4 and T3. Thyroid Peroxidase is one of the things that creates antibodies in Hashimoto’s. Remember Hashimoto’s is first an immune system problem rather than a thyroid problem. We are going to cover that next week. 

T4 and T3 are being produced in the thyroid. Mostly T4 and a small amount of T3. This gets taken through the blood on a binding protein and is held captive until it gets where it needs to be when it is released or free.  Much of the T4 our thyroid makes needs to be converted to T3 before our cells can use it so about 60% of what is made in the thyroid goes in to the liver and is converted to T3 there and about 20% is converted to T3 in the gut or small intestine area. 

Again, once they get to the cells they are released as free. This is the hormone your cells can use. See why it makes sense to test the free levels or hormone?

Your liver has a big job. It works hard for you every day.  It has to help manage blood sugar, it makes bile so we can break down and use dietary fats. Bile also carries toxins out of our intestines and eliminates them in our waste. The liver processes hormones like excess estrogen, and it processes toxins or chemicals for elimination as well, not to mention processing alcohol. Do you think your liver can work on your hormones if it is processing toxins and chemicals and managing blood sugar all day long? I think it gets backlogged and has to prioritize things and guess what- converting thyroid hormone is not always at the top of the list. 

I mentioned conversion of T4 in the gut. Those good gut bacterial are vital to our health in a lot of ways, one of which is conversion of T4 to T3 for our cells to use. What if those gut bacteria are destroyed due to antibiotic use or there are more bad guys than good guys? How much conversion of thyroid hormone is happening? Antibiotic use is not the only thing that affects our gut bacteria. Remember that stress, especially chronic stress can alter the gut bacteria population which will affect our ability to convert T4 to T3. 

When things are working properly, the Free T3 will get to your cells and turn on or off the genes needed for each situation presented- in our case today, we want to feel warmer or be warmer so we are turning on the metabolic process of creating more heat with the tiny increase in TSH happening all the way back at the brain and pituitary gland. 

Let’s do a quick review of these hormones. 

TRH- Thyroid Releasing Hormone

The body sends a message it needs something- like to warm up- this is a message to kickstart your metabolism. The message goes to the hypothalamus which talks to your nervous system (important for adrenals health) and to your endocrine system (thyroid, blood sugar regulation, sex hormones) and releases TRH as a message to your pituitary gland which releases: 

TSH- Thyroid Stimulating Hormone

This is released in response to the message from TRH. TSH goes to the thyroid gland with iodine where Thyroid Peroxidase, an enzyme that is made in your thyroid gland does some chemistry and makes T4 and T3 with a protein called thyroglobulin. 

T4- Thyroxine

Is called T4 because it has 4 molecules of iodine attached to it. It is bound to thyroglobulin until it reaches its final destination at your cells where it is released and is Free. 

T3- Triiodothyronine

This is the main thyroid hormone used by the cells. 

What can go wrong?  A lot. Are you on hormonal birth control?  If so, this can interrupt the functioning of your thyroid. Very simply explained, your body ends up overloaded with estrogen which will cause confusion in your pituitary gland. The pituitary is where the TSH is released and the excess estrogen will create extra binding proteins so your thyroid hormone will be bound instead of free which means less for your body to use. You can then have labs that look like you are releasing enough TSH but it is all bound up so it isn’t getting to the cells and this creates symptoms when labs look fine. 

Even if you present with high enough TSH to get put on medications you and your doctor should be asking WHY is the TSH high? Where is the malfunction at? Where is the breakdown? 

The breakdown could be in the hypothalamus/pituitary axis. Some sort of dysfunction there. It could be in the gut, maybe in the liver.  Maybe your body is overloaded with toxins from the environment- either poor quality foods with high amounts of chemicals in them, body care products and makeup or you work around chemicals. We live in a toxic world, it is just a fact of life. We need to make sure our liver can keep up with the chemical burdens we face daily. If not, thyroid function can be affected. 

Chronic stress- physical or emotional stress can reduce the amount of T4 in the cells without the pituitary gland being affected much at all- again- this would mean you have symptoms but blood tests might look normal. Remember we convert T4 in our tissue mostly and that might not be happening under conditions of chronic stress. What are the stories you have going on in your head? 

Iodine deficiency- I am not an expert in this area so I will only touch on this briefly. We need iodine to make T4 and T3. If you eat real food and you eat high quality food, you are likely getting all the iodine you need to make thyroid hormones. Not everyone agrees with this and you can check out Dr. Brownstein for more information. He believes iodine therapy can be very helpful. Dr. Kharrazian believes iodine therapy is like fueling the fire, especially if you have hashimoto’s. I don’t feel knowledgable enough to comment one way or the other on it. There have been some people who suffer with low body temperature and therefore are cold all the time that have benefited from iodine therapy and have also found an increase in their energy. Do not supplement with iodine unless you are under the care of a knowledgeable practitioner. 

Childbirth- this is where I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism with a TSH of 150. This happens in about 5-10% of new mothers. I also had a genetic predisposition and I epigenetically turned on these genes with poor diet and lifestyle. So this was the beginning of my knowledge of thyroid problems for me. I likely began the breakdown of my body long before that. 

Heavy metals- cadmium, lead and mercury have all been linked to thyroid dysfunction and mercury in particular with thyroglobulin antibodies which is significant in showing a relationship between mercury and hashimoto’s. I had a mouth full of mercury fillings. 

Chlorine, fluoride and bromine are halogens. They all affect the thyroid in different ways. Chlorine keeps iodine from making T4, fluoride decreases T3 and T4 while increasing TSH in the blood. Bromine displaces iodine increasing TSH in the blood and keeps the thyroid from functioning well. Getting a filter for your shower at the least can help with the fluoride/chlorine issue. Bromine is in bread products.  You need a lot of exposure to these chemicals to really be affected. It is just one small piece of the puzzle. 

There is so much going on here and so much that is at play. This is why there is no one quick fix. No one supplement, no one thing that will work to make you feel better. There are general recommendations, of course that will definitely get you on the road to feeling better but you have to remember that it took time for your body to get to the point of breakdown where you are noticing symptoms and so it will take time for things to get back to normal. 

As always, I start with diet and very little supplementation. Get cooking, eating real whole foods, manage blood sugar and stress. Get good sleep. These are things you can do before you seek the help of functional medicine testing. Save yourself some money on supplementing with things you aren’t even sure you really need but think you do because someone has said that selenium or zinc is good for your thyroid. I’ve even said it- these things are needed for good thyroid function but maybe you don’t need them. Try cleaning up your diet first and then hire someone to help you figure out what might be best for you. In the long run you will save yourself thousands of dollars. 

Ok. That is it for me for today. Next week we will talk bout Hashimoto’s and why it is first an immune system problem with consequences for the thyroid. 

Until then, head on over to my website and get my ebook- Five things your doctor won’t tell you about hypothyroidism. Join the facebook group, Help For Hashimoto’s and please tell other people about the podcast so they can stop getting bad information from people in these support groups. I see so many people being told such bad information and it breaks my heart. 

I would really appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review on iTunes so more people can find the podcast. I do this for you guys so you don’t have to go through what I have. 

Find me on Instagram @stephanieewalsntp and at Out of The Woods Nutrition on Facebook. I should streamline all that stuff so it’s all the same. Anyway, I sent out a recipe in the newsletter this week. If you are not on the list, that is the place to be. I am done with biochemistry now- whew. I survived and so I will be putting more time in to better content in the newsletter. That is the best place to be. 

See you next week. Thanks for listening. 

Newly diagnosed with Hashimoto's and Celiac Disease. Episode 25.

To focus on our condition or how bad we feel is defeating so if we start out every day thinking about what a crappy day it’s going to be because of how bad we feel or how little energy we have, we’re setting ourselves up for really bad day. Focus on what you want as if you already have it, not on what you don’t want. 

Welcome to Episode 25.

 I hope this day finds you well. I have been dealing with some really messed up digestive issues lately and feeling stressed. I think 9 weeks of being stressed over Biochemistry and putting so much pressure on my self to do well in this class has taken a toll on my digestion. I have been dealing with alternating constipation and diarrhea for about 2 weeks and it has stressed me out further. Mostly because I know that constipation means reabsorption of toxins that are supposed to be removed in the stool. My brain felt fuzzy and heavy and weird, I felt spacey. I was having really strange vivid dreams- a sign there is a toxic burden in the body and I was very irritable. I was also stressed about getting things moving. I took some fiber, was drinking just bone broth for breakfast and lunch and then eating a good meal of protein and lots of veggies for dinner. My limbs have felt heavy- almost like lead weights so then I started thinking that maybe my thyroid is really slowing down or the lack of medication is catching up with me. I took my thyroid supplement yesterday, rested last night, slept well and feel pretty good today so far though my energy levels are not optimal. I’m thinking doing this while trying to get through a really hard science class was not the best idea I have had. Stress can suppress thyroid function so that could be going on here too. I go to the doctor next week for labs so will keep you posted. Again, I want to reiterate that no one under any circumstances should stop their medication without the help of their doctor. I’ll keep you posted on that. I got things moving with some fiber and the Traditional Medicinals Smooth Move Tea. I drank three cups in one day and things started moving and have not stopped moving so I’m feeling much much better. 

Alright- let’s get to the question. Only one today and then next week I may be able to answer more. I’m done with Biochemistry this week so wish me luck on my very last test. I can’t wait til it’s over! 

I was just diagnosed with Hashimoto's and Celiacs, where can I buy gluten free supplements? My hormones are very low, minerals are low, have zero energy.

-Jeanette

This is a loaded question. You have a lot going on here. It is quite common according to some practitioners for people with Hashimoto’s to have Celiac disease. It is quite possible that the the Hashimoto’s is a consequence of untreated Celiac disease. Either way, you are dealing with both and it doesn’t probably matter to you which one you got first. If you don’t work on healing your body you can likely end up with another as I believe the statistics are that most people with autoimmune disease end up with at least 3 of them. 

With all that, your first question should not be where can you buy gluten free supplement and I say that with love. When you have Celiac disease, your small intestine is damaged. You have these little things all along your small intestinal tract called microvilli. Think of them as little finger like things that stick out and grab on to nutrients from your digested food as it passes through your small intestine. Celiac disease damages those little microvilli so you can’t absorb those nutrients as they pass through. So, your first question should be how do you heal your gut because at this point taking a bunch of supplements probably will be a big waste of your money because you won’t be absorbing the nutrients right now. This is worth repeating. If your digestion is not working well, supplements are a waste of your time and money. Mostly your money. 

What do you do then? You first, need to take gluten out of your diet. All of it. Always. Forever. Gluten is what is the problem in Celiac disease and form most of us with Hashimoto’s. You will need to become a staunch label reader when you are shopping at the store and for now, I would avoid processed foods, even if they are gluten free. 

Your body needs real food to heal, not only your gut but in general. Bone broth is very healing to your gut, especially when you are cooking bones with joints and collagen. You can google how to make bone broth and will find hundreds of recipes. My basic recipe is either a chicken carcass, leftover from dinner. I even have my family save their bones. I will use chicken feet if I have them and I happen to have about 5 packages of them in my freezer which I ask my chicken farmer for when he butchers chickens. Or you can go to a food co-op and get chicken carcasses, backs and necks from them. They are really cheap. Like just a few dollars for a bag. Broth that is already made is expensive so making it is the most economical way to make a lot of it and this is something you can have every day to get you started on your healing journey.  I use chicken because of its mild flavor and I prefer it. I do also love turkey broth though and make a huge batch every Thanksgiving. Beef bones and lamb bones- any bones can be made into broth- even fish. Choose bones you like. It doesn’t really matter. Chicken is just cheap and readily available so that is why I am talking about it today. 

Okay, you have your chicken bones. You can use a stock pot, a crock pot or an instant pot to make broth. The bigger the pot the better so you can get a lot of broth at once. If you have a tiny crock pot- like one of the circular ones and not an oval and you know you like to use it- get a big oval one. I don’t use it that often. My go to is just cooking it in a big 8 quart stock pot or in my instant pot. My stock pot- 8 quarts- holds 2 gallons of liquid so I like using that because I can make a big batch. 

For any of those cooking options, put your carcass and bones or whatever in the pot, crock etc.  Now add either a quartered onion, maybe a clove of garlic (not a whole bulb of garlic- just one of the pieces of it) or two and smash it with the bottom of a glass or the flat side of a chefs knife. Peel the skin off the garlic and add it to the pot. You don’t have to peel the onion but you might want to cut the end off that has the little hairy roots on it if it is dirty. Side note- save your onion skins when you are cooking with onions and throw them in a bag in the freezer along with carrot tops and bottoms and celery tops and bottoms. All that stuff can be used for broth. 

You have onion, and garlic added to the pot. You can add carrot and celery  pieces as I just mentioned or you can add a carrot and a rib of celery. A rib of celery is just one piece of celery off the stalk (not everyone knows this stuff guys, so I am being as instructive as I can think to be). 

You can just cut those up into maybe 4 big chunks and throw those in the pot. Now if you are using a big pot like I do, you can add more veggies. As far as I am concerned there are no hard and fast rules about how much veggies to add. You can add no veggies if you want. I drink the broth like coffee so I like the flavor they add, plus you are getting vitamins and minerals from the veggies. Now the minerals and vitamins part of this is really important for you because your minerals are low and you have zero energy. This broth will feed your gut all it needs to feel really good. The more kinds of veggies you add to it the greater the mineral profile. Or you can make a veggie soup with it after you make broth. Soup is magic. I love it. There have been studies done to show that it is the veggies you add to the broth that give the mineral content to it, not the bones. The bones seem to add some flavor though. 

Anyway, there is a lot of misleading information on the internet about bone broth. It is a good healing food for many people. Personally, I go by how my body feels more than what a study says. Maybe it is a placebo effect. As long as it makes you feel better, that is what matters. 

Back to the broth making. You have the bones, the veggies. Add about 3 Tablespoons of raw apple cider vinegar such as the Bragg’s brand “with the mother”.  Any raw will do, this is the brand I use and trust.  You can add a bay leaf too if you want. Don’t add any salt. Do that after the broth is done when you are going to use it. Sea salt or Redmond Real Salt will be another good way to get some minerals. 

Cover all this with filtered water. Not tap water. Tap water will likely have chlorine and fluoride in it. Two things that can inhibit thyroid function. Filter it to the best of your ability. A Pur water filter that goes over your faucet, a Brita filter. I use Reverse Osmosis water that has some mineral content added back in. 

Now you are going to put the lid on your chosen cooking pot and let it simmer. 

Crock pot- start on high to get it to a good simmer then cook on low for around12- 24 hours- whatever works for you. If you know you have issues with histamine- don’t use a crock pot. Cook it in a pot on the stove for 2-3 hours and that is all. Let it cool and freeze what you won’t be using to keep histamine from developing.  

Instant pot- cook on high pressure for 90 minutes

Stock pot- I start it on the stove and get it to a simmer. If I am going to be home I let it simmer a bit on the stove but then I put it in the oven at about 200 degrees F and let it cook in the oven overnight. You loose some steam this way but it just means the broth is a bit more concentrated. You can add back whatever water you lost in cooking. I seem to see about 2-3 inches of water lost cooking it this way. 

You strain the broth with a fine mesh strainer and jar it up leaving 2 inches at least in your jars if you are going to freeze them. This will prevent jars from breaking and don’t seal the jars until the broth is frozen or you may end up with broken jars anyway. Before you freeze them though, let the jars cool all the way. Store them in the fridge overnight if you can and then put them in the freezer. You can also store them in zip top plastic bags once the liquid is completely cooled. Get as much of the air out of them as possible and then seal the bags. They will store flat in your freezer and take up way less space. They also thaw faster this way. 

Now you can use it to make soups or you can drink it. My favorite thing to do is to put about 1 ½ cups of broth in a small pot with a slice or two of lemon, a slice of smashed ginger and some mint leaves or a peppermint tea bag and bring it to a boil. Take it off the heat and let it steep for 5 minutes. Add that to a mug with about two tablespoons of full fat canned coconut milk (I’m currently enjoying Trader Joe’s Coconut Cream- blue label) and a ¼ teaspoon or so of Real salt to taste. I drink this regularly and it makes me feel really good. 

Your gut likely needs some good fermented foods and I recommend you start with some homemade or purchased raw sauerkraut or Bubbies brand pickles. Just a small bit to start with at each meal. Maybe a teaspoon at each meal for a week and then work your way up to a couple tablespoons at each meal. This will help populate your gut with some good bacteria and if you overdo it can cause some digestive distress. If you get gassy or bloated then back off and play around with amounts until you find what works for you. 

This all sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? Healing your gut or your body takes work. There is no magic pill or no amount of supplements that will fix you if you are not eating good food that feeds your body. 

Shop the perimeter of your grocery store. Start eating meat, veggies and fruit. ¾ of a plate of veggies, a palmful of meat at each meal, including breakfast. 

Make sure you are digesting your food well. Chew it really well- 20-30 chews per bite. Get into a relaxed frame of mind when you eat. Take a couple deep breaths before you eat and make a statement of gratitude for your meal. This will help get your body ready to digest your food. 

Now it is likely the one thing you may need to supplement with is some kind of digestive support. You may need stomach acid or digestive enzymes. But first I would start with digestive bitters. Urban Moonshine has some good ones. Take bitters about 20 minutes  before a meal to get your digestive juices flowing. Check your stools to see if you have undigested foods in them. If you do, you may need to supplement with digestive enzymes or betaine HCl. I did an episode on digestion, so I would go back and listen to that one. 

Low hormones and low energy.  Not sure what you mean by low hormones. Either way- hormones and energy will be affected by your digestion and by those microvilli not being able to absorb nutrients. Sometimes low energy comes from our body having to work too hard to digest our food or from food sensitivities. Sometimes it is from nutrient deficiencies, sometimes from low thyroid hormone. It can also be from your adrenal glands needing some attention and quite possibly from mismanaged blood sugar. 

All of these things start with how well your stomach can break down your food. It all starts with digestion. 

This is a lot of information to take in all at once. I suggest you start with the gluten free diet as mentioned before, then dairy free. These two will be important for your gut to heal. Then I would look in to beginning something like the GAPS diet or the Autoimmune Protocol or Elimination diet to figure out what foods might be causing issues for you, if any. 

Healing for you will determine how long you have gone with undiagnosed Celiac and Hashimoto’s. How much damage has been done, your stress levels and ability to handle stress and also how much and the quality of sleep you are getting. Multifaceted. There is no one thing that will fix this or make you feel better, especially not a supplement. I have been there. Tried them all and found I felt my best when I started living my life and quit being the girl with the autoimmune disease. 

You have some work to do. Lots of learning to do. But you know, you can do this. Head on over to my website and sign up for my newsletter, you will get lots of support from me that way and join the Help For Hashimoto’s group on Facebook.  There are a lot of “support” groups on facebook for Hashimoto’s and thyroid stuff but all of them that I have found are filled with people who are either looking for a quick fix, complaining about how much this disease sucks- and it can suck but reading the woes of autoimmune disease daily can really bring you down so look for the good in your life each day. 

If you are recently diagnosed and need help navigating just what to do or just want someone to tell you what to do instead of trying to figure things out, hire someone. That is what I do. Help people navigate this long and winding road of bringing the body back in to balance from chronic illness. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5533136/

https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/bone-broth-and-lead-contamination-a-very-flawed-study-in-medical-hypotheses/

Why does exercise exhaust me? Episode 24.

Body Belief. What you say to your body matters. Episode 23.

What You Say to Your Body Matters: How Thoughts Affect Health How Your Body Beliefs Dictate Your Health

Body Belief

*******Edited 11/30/2018********

In this episode I mention how I am off all medication and feel fantastic. A couple weeks after saying this I noticed some big changes in how I felt and discuss this in detail in Episode 27. The short version is that I did go back on medication but please listen to episode 27 for more information. Again- I do not ever recommend you go off your medication without the supervision of your doctor. I did this as an experiment to see what would happen since I see a lot of people talking about what would happen if they went off their meds. Results might be different for you but it is clear there is enough either damage to my thyroid or stress in my life that caused my TSH to go way up really quickly and really high which is a clear indication that things are not right. See you in Episode 27 to discuss this.

In health,

Stephanie

Aimee Raupp, MS, LAc, is a women’s health and wellness expert whose mission through her teachings is to educate and inspire women, improve their vitality, and guide them to reconnect to the presence of their optimal health. She is the author of three books, Chill Out & Get Healthy (Penguin), Yes, You Can Get Pregnant (Demos Health), and Body Belief (Hay House). 

A licensed acupuncturist and herbalist in private practice in New York, she holds a Master of Science degree in Traditional Oriental Medicine from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine and a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Rutgers University. Aimee is also the founder of the Aimee Raupp Beauty line of hand-crafted, organic skincare products.

As a neurobiology research scientist in her twenties, Aimee began experiencing personal health issues. Frustrated by Western medicine’s inability to provide answers and unable to find relief, Aimee sought solutions from Eastern medicine. She began acupuncture treatment and discovered how a mind-body-nutrition approach was key to overcoming her illness and maintaining good long-term health. Inspired by her personal experience, Aimee has dedicated her life to the service of helping women renew hope and reawaken to their healthiest life through the teachings of Traditional Oriental Medicine.

With more than 15 years of patient care, Aimee has treated a variety of autoimmune conditions, as well as managed her own. Her latest book, Body Belief: How To Heal Autoimmune Diseases, Radically Shift Your Health & Learn to Love Your Body More, combines Aimee’s clinical experience with her deep-rooted spiritual and emotional work to bring its readers a roadmap to heal from autoimmune disease. Her Body Belief Plan offers a holistic and practical approach based on the core pillars of reconnecting to ourselves, renewing our beliefs, and reawakening our health and avoiding body disconnect, behavioral sabotage, and environmental toxins. 

Aimee has become known as a world renowned fertility expert in the field of alternative and natural medicine. In her bestselling book, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant: How to Improve Your Fertility Now & Into Your 40s, she shares the healing protocol that helped scores of women in her practice — many of whom had been told they had poor fertility outlooks — to get pregnant, stay pregnant, and have healthy babies. Including the most effective lifestyle approaches and the latest nutritional advice, Aimee’s remedies help women get in tune with their bodies, eat the best fertility-enhancing foods, and avoid environmental toxins to achieve healthy and stress-free pregnancies.

Aimee has appeared on ABC Television’s “The View” and has been featured in Glamour, Allure, Well + Good, GOOP, Shape, and Redbook, as well as received endorsement from Deepak Chopra, Arianna Huffington, and Dr. Christiane Northrup for her work in helping thousands of women to heal their bodies and reawaken their wellness. Aimee is a frequent women’s health columnist and speaker and has presented lectures at SheSummit, Wanderlust and numerous women’s health and wellness conferences. She engages her large community worldwide through her online programs and with her website, www.aimeeraupp.com.