Navigating Thyroid Issues with Elle Russ

1 in 8 women will develop a thyroid disorder in their lifetime, with women being 5 to 8 times more likely than men to experience thyroid problems. Today we get personal with something I have been battling—chronic fatigue and thyroid issues after years of under eating and overtraining. 

Today best-selling author and thyroid health expert Elle Russ joins us to discuss the importance of your thyroid—what it does for your body, common signs that your thyroid health is compromised, labs to properly get your thyroid checked, and more. She has personally been an amazing resource for me to better understand the thyroid, because of her own incredible story and battle to figure out her own health journey.

Resources from this episode can be found at: https://www.fuelwitherin.com/podcast/v/episode-16-navigating-thyroid-issues-with-elle-russ.

Follow Elle 

Instagram | ⁠@_elleruss⁠

Website: ⁠www.elleruss.com/thyroid⁠

⁠FREE Thyroid Guide + Video Series⁠

LETS CONNECT:

Website | ⁠https://fuelwitherin.com⁠

Instagram | ⁠@fuel.with.erin⁠

Youtube | ⁠@FindYourFuel⁠

==========

Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast and its show notes is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended as medical advice or as a substitute for the advice of a physician or other healthcare professional. Using this information does not create a doctor-patient relationship.

Do not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problem or to prescribe any medication or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medications, or before starting any herbal or nutritional supplements. Statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The use of any information provided is solely at your own risk. This disclaimer also applies to any of the guests on the podcast.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The main hormone, the fat burning hormone, the energy hormone, the brain light-up hormone is called T3. It's a thyroid hormone. The adrenals need T3 to produce cortisol. They go hand in hand. So almost everybody who has suffers from hypothyroidism will get adrenal fatigue. Almost everybody goes through adrenal fatigue at some point. And adrenal fatigue, one of the ways to really see whether you have it or not is you'd be very sensitive to light, sound, and smells. The same cologne someone always wear, your friend always wore, is going to bug the shit out of you now. Things are too bright. Noise is crazy, where before none of it bothered you or you didn't even know. You are overwhelmed. You want to cry every morning at the thought of doing more than one thing. It makes you want to cry. You can't handle the idea of multitasking, even though maybe you were great at it. So these are the those are some things with adrenal fatigue. And then it's just pure exhaustion as well. So when you're working out in the absence of T3, you're just continually punching your adrenals.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

So today we have the amazing L. Russ joining us, who is a number one best-selling author and world-renowned thyroid expert who's helped thousands of people because of the way she makes complex concepts easy to understand. And personally, it's been such an amazing resource for me to better understand the thyroid, common issues, symptoms, and how to navigate. And she has such an incredible story to share on how she was misdiagnosed and basically forced to become an expert herself to figure out what was going on with her health. So if you've struggled to get answers from the medical system or have experienced one of the many symptoms of thyroid dysfunction like I have, then today's discussion is your fuel for today.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Well, I suffered greatly at the hands of uninformed doctors. Now you would be like, Well, what do you mean an uninformed doctor? They went to medical school. Yeah, some of them went to Harvard. Okay. Doesn't matter where you went to medical school, how well you did, you were taught what you were taught. And that stuff's like 30 to 40 years old, which is what I discovered. So what happened was is um I was born in 1973. So everyone can do the math on how old I am. And when I was around 30 years old, I started to get my period like every other week. It was abnormal. No females in my family had any gynecological issues or any problems. I had been regular, and I just chalked it up to a fluke. I didn't know better. I went to the doctor at the time. By the way, we're talking no podcasts or anything back then, okay, when this was happening. So it's not like I could just go out there and find the information. And so he just gave me the birth control pill, right? Now, here's the number one problem right here. Oh, they didn't ask why is a 30-year-old with healthy gynecological history and her family and everything else suddenly bleeding. That's not right. That should have been the first thing. Let's figure out why this is happening. Instead, it's the Western model of let me give you a pill to squash the symptom. Well, it didn't work. I bled through the first pill, then the second pill, then the third pill, then the freaking damn fourth pill. And I was like, okay, by this time, I have gained, I've gone from, I'm five feet two inches tall. I'm a small person. I have gone from like 115 pounds to 160, working out every day. I have acne. My hair's falling out by the droves. I used to have perfect skin, but my hair's straightened right now if you're watching the video. But I have a huge head of curly hair. Hair starts falling out, I'm bloated, I get 30 symptoms, I'm a mess. I live in Los Angeles. I had a PPO. I had the best insurance you could get. I couldn't find anyone who knew what they were doing. I couldn't find anyone who would test me properly. So then they couldn't diagnose me properly. People said your thyroid's fine, work out more and eat less. I said, motherfucker, I am working out two hours a day. I know what I'm doing. I'm eating this amount of calories, you know? Okay, so I was left on my own. And I went to all these doctors, and then finally, I think it was at the end, and then had hormone issues because thyroid is the precursor to the production and regulation of your sex hormones. So without a doubt, if the doctor's not gauging your thyroid right, they test your sex hormones, then they're telling you you got a sex hormone problem. I didn't have a sex hormone problem. I was a young person whose thyroid was off, which gave her a bunch of downstream symptoms, one of which was being misdiagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, PCOS. So if you're out there and someone diagnosed you with that, do you really have it? Because here's the thing. I didn't. Let me tell you how that worked.

unknown 4:51

All right.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

So there you go. So I went in and they did the ultrasound, and you and I and everyone else would have diagnosed me with polycystic ovarian syndrome because that's exactly what it looked like. But why? Why? I had hypothyroidism-induced polycystic ovarian syndrome. I don't have polycystic ovarian syndrome. Never had it since. Went away immediately when I fixed all the no problems whatsoever. They were ready to put me on, I forgot what the medication was, whether it was medformin or whatever it was at the time. They were ready to put me on something again. Let's give you a medication to control something instead of going, well, what is happening here? So that looks like it is a gynecological female hormone problem, right? Of course. But no one's asking, let's talk about the master freaking gland at the bottom of your neck that's responsible for all of this stuff. And they were taking a 1973 test, just told you that was the year I was born. They were taking a 1973 test to evaluate whether I had a thyroid problem. And of course, they didn't see that I had a very serious thyroid problem because they were taking the wrong tests. Still happens today, 24-7, all the time, even with Harvard-trained doctors. Okay, so here I am, and I go to all these doctors. I'm going to like literally two dozen endocrinologist experts. No one can help me. They get one part of the piece right, another part of the piece wrong. I'm misdiagnosed. Now I've got a polyp in my uterus on the uterine wall that needs to be surgically removed. I had to pay for that. Nobody takes the blame for that. And no doctor was, I really wish I could have invoiced the initial dumb dumb doctor on that one. So after that, I get on thyroid hormone replacement. I solve my own problem myself. I literally order my thyroid hormones on the internet, black market, because I can't even get someone in Los Angeles, California with the best insurance in the U.S. to help me. So I dosed myself back to health. I was my own doctor. And then what I would do is I would go to doctors to get blood work to check in on my own work without consulting them. I would just go to one doctor, get blood work, and then like never go back to them again just to get my own blood work. And um, so I did this. So I solved it myself. I actually doctored myself back to health. Shouldn't have had to do that. I shouldn't have had to do that. So then I'm good. And I'm like, oh, thank God this is solved. And I'm feeling great for a few years. And then suddenly, um, many years later, I start to get hypothyroid symptoms. But I'm not thinking that because I'm like, well, I'm on thyroid hormone replacement. So how is this a thing? Well, I look more into it. The symptoms just get worse and worse. And here I go. Now I'm exploding again. I'm getting bigger, my hair's falling out, I'm exhausted, my eyes are puffy, I'm constipated. I have all the symptoms are coming back, and I'm like, uh-oh, uh-oh. And I find out that I have a secondary sort of issue where my thyroid hormones, one of them, is sort of backfiring against me, I guess, so to speak. So I had to now, so now it's like the second time in a decade, and here I am, and I know I have to solve a problem now that 99.99% of doctors don't even know anything about. And I am sobbing in the parking lot again. Uh, I had gone to a doctor who kind of knew what was up after I got fixed. And I'm still in practice to this day. She is the doctor to major Academy Award-winning celebrities, which goes to show you doesn't matter how much money you have, doesn't mean you have the right doctor. And I went to her and I explained, hey, I've got this issue. This is how we have to solve it. I've done the research, blah, blah, blah. She threw her hands up and goes, Oh, this is too complicated. I had a doctor say that to me and I said to her, Are you kidding me? So are you telling me that the MCAT test to get into medical school wasn't complicated? Like, like organic chemistry, like, really, this is complicated. She's unbelievable, right? So, anyway, I'm second time in a decade, I'm crying in the parking lot of a doctor's office, and now I know that I'm on my own again. I gotta solve this again. I gotta order stuff from the black market because I know no doctor is gonna prescribe me what I need, figure out what I want. So I do it again, and I succeed. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me, right? Like, you have to be kidding me. So then after that, um, everywhere I went, someone would bring up their thyroid problem without me even talking about it. And I would end up being like, Well, you need this test. Then they'd call me and go, Oh my god, you were right. My doctor is apologizing to me. They realize they were wrong, or all these kinds of things were happening. And then I started working for Mark Sisson in 2012. He is the author of The Primal Blueprint, sort of the one of the grandfather OGs of the paleo primal movement. And he was starting a publishing company. He published a lot of his own books and cookbooks. And I said, Hey, I really want to write a thyroid book. And he was like, I've been wanting to do that. Let's do it. And it became a number one best-selling book. It's called the Paleo-Thyroid Solution from 2016, and there will be an updated, expanded version at some point. And then from there, all I've been doing since is everything I can to help people, right? I've got a free thyroid guide with a free video series. You can do what you did, which is pay and get an audio of me just sending you an audio evaluating your labs, uh an audio thyroid lab review. You can also call me and talk to me for 30 minutes, which is what a lot of people do who are in foreign countries who need my advice, but they're working with their people there, or they're in a country where they can go to a pharmacy and buy whatever they want so they can do it themselves. And then I also have an extensive course for doctors, for patients, for practitioners called the Ultimate Thyroid course, which is the most extensive course on the topic, goes really heavy detail into dosing. And that's really great for anyone who wants to just take it in control in their own hands, like I did, to be able to manage their own health. And then the sort of last and top thing I do is if you live in the USA or Canada, I have a medical team that works with me and we take you through a five-month program where we optimize you on thyroid hormone replacement. Of course, assuming you need it, you know, it's not always the case that you need it, as you'll probably tell your audience, I told you and wasn't sure if you were right for it yet. So I'm not a everybody should take thyroid hormone replacement the moment a thyroid problem pops up. But what we do is we take people through a program, we get them optimized on thyroid hormone replacement, and also if they need HRT or TRT, testosterone replacement for a man. So you wouldn't come to me if you just needed HRT and TRT, but if you were a woman or man who also needed that, that would be included. And that's an all-inclusive five-month program where we're hand holding you through the entire thing. And that's all telemedicine. Um, so those are the ways that I help people with thyroid and and then of just talking about it. There are 60% of the people suffering don't even know they have a problem. They're undiagnosed.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

The wild stat for me was how many women are impacted by this and just completely go undiagnosed and what varying degrees of it could be. I mean, in your scenario, it was so bold and out there, you know, when you're having periods every two weeks, losing your hair, you're like, whoa, okay, flag, there's an issue. But if you're low-grade chronic fatigue, you know, some like headaches, like other things, but just, yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Then how do you Or like cholesterol? That's the other issue. It can be a little bit subpar and then you're lost. For example, I had a client who came to me to do the five-month program just recently. And I mean, okay, she she needed thyroid hormone replacement. It was very clear, but she said, and I always laugh when I hear this, she goes, it's funny. She goes, My doctors told me that my thyroid was beautiful. I was like, What? Like, I it's just funny to me. There's so many you what more often than not, what you're gonna get is it's fine. You're fine. Now, why is that? Because if your result is anywhere within the reference range, that is next to the result, unless it's high or low, they're not gonna say anything. So you could be at the very bottom of the range of anything. And they're like, nah, you're fine. No, I'm not. I'm passing out. I have restless legs, I need iron. Nah, it's fine. You're in range. Really? The range is 10 to 150. I'm at a 11.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Or not even do the right labs to be able to understand at all.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

They never do the right labs. They never do the labs. And I'm just gonna tell, I'm gonna rattle them off right here. It's all by the way, this is all in my free thyroid guide. You can go to freethyroidguide.com and all this stuff is there, including how to suss out a doctor's office before you even bother, because you can call them up and ask them some questions that might dictate, nah, am I wasting my time or not? But you can all so the tests that you need to get like, do I or do I not have a thyroid problem? Now, my book and my work is mostly on hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's. Those are usually underactive scenarios. There is something called Graves disease, hyperthyroidism overactive. If anyone is listening and they're like, oh, that's my problem, then just go to lrust.com forward slash graves, g-r-a-v-e-s, and there's a whole 40-minute audio on that with an expert. It's not my specialty. Um, I mean, I know a lot about it, but I wouldn't be responsible for helping someone through it per se. So mostly it's about hypothyroidism, which is like sluggish, slow, underactive. All right. And in these scenarios, you can get completely discounted because someone will also say, Well, you're getting older. You get that a lot too with women who are struggling with this while you're getting older. Men will be completely discounted. Or they'll test your hormones for men. They'll test the testosterone when you're low energy, and they'll see that the testosterone is low. But because they're only taking one dumb test, I'll tell you the full test in a way, but because they're only taking that 1973 test, they go, Well, it's not your thyroid. I guess we need to give you testosterone. And they give that person testosterone, and it doesn't work because you never solved the problem in the first place. Had you shelved the testosterone, given them thyroid, get the thyroid back up, the testosterone shoots right back up. Okay, so that's kind of how that goes. So, anyway, the test that you need do I or do I not have a thyroid problem, four main tests plus two antibodies. You always want to rule out do I or do I not have Hashimoto's, which is the autoimmune uh disease that affects your thyroid. Um, and there are different ways to evaluate and different things you can do with Hashimoto's. So you want to rule that out. The four tests are TSH, um, free T3, free T4, and reverse T3. TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3. Those four. Do I or do I not have a problem? Now, the dumb dumb doctors are gonna go, oh, we'll take total T3, we'll take T3 uptake. No, exactly the tests I said. Now, the rule out of the antibodies, do I or do I not have Hashimoto's? So there are two antibodies for this. Now, if you were to ask your doctor, I want to take the Hashimoto's test, don't, because they're only take one because most of them only know that there's one of them, and there's two, and you could be positive for one or the other and both, and it matters. The first antibody is called TPO, thyroid peroxidase antibody. The second one is called TG antibody, stands for thyroglobulin. All right. TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, TPO antibody, TG antibody. Great. Now, in my free thyroid guide, I always talk about there's some peripheral tests, and you know this, Erin, because you took them, which is you always you really need to check in with like an iron comprehensive panel, but at least ferritin, vitamin B, vitamin D, these are essential. They often get low in thyroid patients. So most of the time when you're going in and you're getting your annual blood work, the doctor is taking a TSH. They are taking the one test that you never use to completely fix and figure out the situation. So that is how I remained sick for years because the doctor kept testing the TSH and he's like, you're fine. But once he took the other test, once I took the other test, I was like, oh my God, this is my problem. I don't have a hormone problem, I don't have PCOS, I don't have any of this shit. By the way, it's been how many years since I was 30? Because 1973. Okay, so I'm up there. Here's the thing not a problem after not one gynecological issue, nothing, for the 20 plus years after that. The other thing that happens, you go in, ooh, lipid panel's looking bad, you need to uh cut down on your saturated fat. No, you don't check your thyroid. Are you burning enough fat? Are you do you have enough T3 to burn the fat that you're taking in your body? Everybody's lip old panel looks like shit when they have a thyroid problem. That's how you get the problem. You're oh, they're they're taking the 1973 test, oh, you're fine because it's within range. Then you have a blood pressure problem. Let's give you blood pressure medication. Nope. Thyroid responsible for blood pressure. Oh, you've got cholesterol. They even told me that at 30. They're like, you gotta relax. I'm like, what are you talking about? I took the thyroid hormone, lipid panel's been fine ever since. And on that note, I gotta tell you a story. And a clip of her success story is on my website. Her name is Midori. She had thin, so she did not present with the weight gaining issue that a lot of people get with hypothyroidism. So she was thin and slim and fit, and she had a cholesterol of 600. 600. Wow. You go above 200, doctors are a little bit like, mm, 600. So they're like, oh my God. So they took all the heart tests, the EKG, the scans, they did everything to go, what's going on? She realized the whole problem was thyroid. And here is the end result. Once she got on her dose of thyroid hormone replacement, aside from helping all of the other horrible symptoms she had, the brain fossil depression, everything else, her cholesterol dropped within eight months from 600 to 200. She didn't do anything different. So do you need to be on the statin? Probably not. Do you need to be on blood pressure medication? Maybe not. Do you need antidepressants? Maybe not. We have more receptors in our brain for the biologically active thyroid hormone T3. You could treat depression with that shit. The woman I told you about that came to me to the five-month program, three days in, she's like, oh my God, I feel better. And everyone asks this. Does this stuff make you happy? Yes, it does. It does because the receptors in the brain, your neurotransmitters, things can't, you can't access happiness. You can't get the dopamine. You can't feel those feelings. That's why people do, when they start it, they go, Oh my God, does this make you happy? Yeah, it doesn't make you happy. It brings you back to where normal people are where you can access it. And so that's the tragedy of these downstream. So you're gonna end up getting patched like a terrible quilt.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Just completely misdiagnosed in different areas, spent, you know, gone down the wrong rapid.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Pill here, pill here to treat all of the things that are leading right back to here, which is the base of your neck, the master gland. And it's not the master gland because I say it is. Look it up, it is the master gland responsible for temperature, heart rate. That's why when you're heart hypo, your your resting pulse is usually way too low for what it should be, or maybe overactive and too high because your body is working, your heart's working hard because in the absence of T3, which it needs. Um, so skin stuff, everything. So you could be going down. Oh, when I was constipated, I listen, I got a ton of colonics, I did laxatives. They won't work. None of it. You have to fix this no matter what. I I have people every day coming to me, they're like, I'm hypothyroid, I'm trying to fix it, I'm working on it, but in the meantime, how do my hair's falling out? How do I and I hate to say it, but here's the truth it won't stop falling out until you fix the problem. There's no amount of collagen or biotin that you could consume during hypothyroidism that is going to counteract any symptom from it. And that's a frustrating thing because people then often go and overwork out because they're starting to gain weight, they're starting to get bloated, they don't know what's up. Maybe I'm getting old. So now they're like, well, I'm gonna go work, I'm gonna go work out. And they actually make the problem worse by doing that. But then they go to how does that work?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Because what is it? I think you had said before, maybe it was a double punch to the adrenal glands if you're working out on top of having a thyroid issue. Is that what's going on? You're just actually working against your body, then giving it rest and helping it.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

So here's how everyone can kind of tell in a way. This is how you can sort of tell whether you would have a thyroid problem or not. I mean, there's a lot you could tell through taking your temperatures at home every morning, actually a more accurate way. But one of the ways is this if you're getting weight and you keep going to work out, when you go to work out, sure, it might feel good right after or during. But then I would ask the question, and I ask this of every client that comes to me who's got a weight problem, who's working out, is how do you feel like two hours after working out? Do you feel tighter and like, you know what I mean, and energized? Or are you exhausted and feel fatter around the middle? It's usually the latter because what you did in the gym that made you feel like you were getting somewhere, what you did is you just punched your adrenal glands in the face. And it felt good for a minute because you released all the hormones and everything else, but what you are doing is exhausting them. And here's why. The main hormone, the fat-burning hormone, the energy hormone, the brain light-up hormone is called T3. It's a thyroid hormone. The adrenals need T3 to produce cortisol, they go hand in hand. So almost everybody who has suffers from hypothyroidism will get adrenal fatigue. Almost everybody goes through adrenal fatigue at some point. And adrenal fatigue, one of the ways to really see whether you have it or not is you'd be very sensitive to light, sound, and smells. And you'd be annoying. You couldn't deal with it. The same cologne someone always wear, your friend always wore, is going to bug the shit out of you now. Things are too bright. Is crazy where before none of it bothered you, or you didn't even know. You are overwhelmed. You want to cry every morning at the thought of doing more than one thing. It makes you want to cry. You can't handle the idea of multitasking, even though maybe you were great at it. So these are the those are some things with adrenal fatigue. And then it's just pure exhaustion as well. So when you're working out in the absence of T3, you're just continually punching your adrenals until finally your adrenals are kind of gonna say F you and you really don't want them to. Because when that happens, then you have to go on HC. It's very serious. Like a lot of times, this doesn't lead to like adrenal failure. You know what I mean? But adrenal fatigue is horrible. And that's why. Um, so you have scenarios sometimes where people go to the doctor and the doctor, it may be a functional medicine doctor, a naturopath, and your thyroid's suffering, but they're like, let's test your adrenals, and they see your adrenals are suffering. So they're like, well, let's treat your adrenals and see if the thyroid comes back. Okay, it could in a scenario where stress was the thing that got you there. But if not, you're going backwards and you shouldn't be doing that too long because usually it's the thyroid problem caused the adrenals to get shot. Yeah. So if you were going to law school or medical school or a divorce and some crazy shit was going on in your life and you ended up in a then I'd say, okay, okay, then that might say lifestyle is really affecting it, right? So sorry, I could go on forever about all of these things and these connections, but I know, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Well, and I think part of your story too was when you were trying to figure all of this out, you were also super active, working out a ton, it sounds like. So when you were self-diagnosing, what did you do from the workout perspective? Did you completely stop? Were you walking while you were? I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

I didn't know. I didn't know better and I could have killed myself. I could have had a heart attack or something. I really didn't know better initially. And I was working out through it again to try to get ahead of it. Do you know what I'm saying? I didn't know. So I that's why I warn everybody. That's why every client has that chat. What's the exercise? Because here's the thing: it's a crazy making thing. You, as the person in your mind, goes, Well, I'm getting fat. I gotta stay ahead of it at the very minimum, even if I don't lose weight. I don't want to gain more, right? So I'm gonna go do this thing, and then I go, Well, yeah, what are you gonna do? You're gonna go do what? A fat-burning workout on a body that can't burn fat because you don't have any fat-burning hormone T3. It's no make a senso, right? It's like, but I get it, because your logic is like, but I gotta, but it makes me feel better. But I and I go, yeah, but you're actually taking two steps forward and 18 steps back.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Especially people who use it for mental health or addicted to, you know, activity and exercise and can't mentally wrap their right their brain.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

I get a lot of bikini body competitors who've come to me over the years, and I'm not shocked, you know, because this is like, and here's why. It's because what they're doing to their bodies is if I were to p personify the human body, the body's like, whoa, whoa, hey, hold on a minute. We're not getting any sustenance, and we're in fight or flight or something because they're doing all these crazy things with their body. Let's dial back the thyroid because they are in danger. They don't have resources because they're not eating, because they're eating broccoli and chicken, right? Okay, so they don't have any resources. So we're gonna dial back this feedback loop. They shouldn't become pregnant. So the testosterone, all the downstream things are gonna happen. We don't we need to slow them down and we don't want to give them any more of the fat-burning thing. We're gonna dial it back. That's what it does. That's youth thyroid six syndrome. It's likely how I got myself there, it's possibly how I ended up. Um, you can never know because you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Like long time ago, I used to be a cigarette smoker. Was it that? Did you know, was it a lack of selenium that I found out later I had? Was it, do I have a natural inability to convert one hormone? We could go all the years long and never find out why. The truth is, is that you just need to fix it. And there are a million ways to do it.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

So, what do you tell your clients about uh exercise or activity while they're trying to heal their thyroid?

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Depends on how serious it is. So, for example, if someone has very serious adrenal issues where they are either taking HC or maybe they really have to take an adrenal formula, they can barely get out of bed, they can barely walk because they're so exhausted. I mean, like that that is the truth for a lot of people. You know, like you could be subpar and get up and go about your life and actually like, you know, do stuff and push it, but there are people that can't. So if you're at a certain level, then it's literally like you stand during a TV show for 15 minutes a day or watch your mailbox right. And in my book, I talk about I'm like, hey, look, here's the problem is when people, when their thyroids get better naturally, or they take thyroid hormone replacement to get better, they get more energy and they get excited. And then you want to go do all the shit, like, I'm gonna go burn all the fat now. I'm gonna go do and that's the time to go, hey, let's so it's usually a gradual. It's like, hey, do the chill walks at 3.0, some dumb weights, no hit, no running, no crazy stuff, right? And then as things get, then it's then you can escalate it. Then once you're good, do whatever you want. Yeah, do whatever you want within reason. You're fine. Now you can sustain a you can sustain a marathon. You could you could do anything. Now you're a normal person. Thyroid-wise. So, but you gotta build up to that point because listen, it is the master gland. There's all these downstream systems you want to make sure. And also, once you get unhypothyroid, you want to make sure that then from that platform, you're optimizing, you're doing all these things. Maybe now you need a detox because you were in this land for a while. And so you want to take it easy with the crazy, I'm gonna go do cross fit. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yes. And I think I had told you this a little bit earlier, but for our listeners, I was talking about how I, this is the whole reason that I created this podcast was that I heard your story that you were telling on a different podcast, and it basically spoke to my soul in that everything you were saying about, you know, I got myself into, I believe, this thyroid issue because of underfueling, overtraining, and have gradually seen my labs that I've reviewed with you and some others improve after fueling correctly, supporting my body, incorporating some iron, trying to do all the things, still struggling a little bit. But there's so many things that you also listed that just hit so home for me, which was the I also have curly hair, but straightened it because I have lost curl.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

That's part of it. You can lose curliness in your hair. It'll come back. Mine's fully fine. Well, but but when you have some curls back. Yes, but when you have curly hair, naturally you will notice during hypothyroidism that it you will lose it.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yes. It's the strangest thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

You'll also just lose your hair. I always describe this during hypothyroidism. I remember waking up and I I I'd like to look at a piece of hair. It felt, and I want to say this because this is how I felt, and maybe somebody's, you know, experiencing this. It felt like I was pulling a very brittle rubber band. Somehow it was bouncy yet weak. I also would wake up and I'd be like, why do I have bangs? Like half the hair, like just some shit would be gone.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Handfuls of hair coming out of the shower. I cannot tell you how many women I've spoken to on the phone were sobbing, they're sobbing to me because they are afraid of going bald. You will not go bald, but yes, it is frightening for a woman to deal with hair loss. Speak to anyone with alopecia, right? That's a really brutal thing. So um, but it comes back, it comes back, it gets fuller, it comes back in full force. I mean, I can't stop. I'm my hair is so long and so huge now, and I don't have any extensions. I have to cut it constantly. Like, you know what I mean? It's um, and I'm 52. So you'll have a healthy head of hair, you just need to solve the thyroid issue. Same with the skin.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

That's one of those things where I saw that symptom 10 years ago, but it was such a whisper. And so I just think of all the women, again, who go undiagnosed because they see some thinning hair, are a little tired, and it's not a complete red flag. And you just think, oh, I'm in midlife, I'm aging, and I have kids, so I'm tired. So you brush it away. When really some labs or under better understanding and digging could get you at living such a better life. And the other thing that you had mentioned too was the infertility. Same thing. I had gone through infertility earlier in my life, and I'm like, oh my God, like if that it just I can't even process if I did this to myself because of, you know, just not fueling my body correct and putting my state with having thyroid issues.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

You can still have kids if you want.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

And well, I have luckily and of course, yeah, of course, the first fertility doctor I went to didn't ask the right questions, didn't check anything, just basically went straight to let's do IVF. Like, no lifestyle changes work, which I was like, okay. Yeah, no, they don't. That is not the right answer. Like, I'm not a professional, but I know that's not it.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

I know that's not it.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

So I do love that you also share that camp impact, it sounds like infertility and get your thyroid check before you want to get pregnant.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

But listen, one of the success stories in my book had two miscarriages because her doctor had her on the wrong thyroid hormone protocol for eight years. She didn't know till later, right? Way after the fact, when she finally got on the right medication, she was like, Did this m? And she curled up into a ball and cried all day long because she wanted kids and it was too late. So that was her doctor's fault, right? Imagine how angry you are, right? Like, you know, they're supposed to be the experts, right? But at the truth is that what I've learned and what I'm always here to advocate is you better learn this stuff, whether it's for me or someone else. But here's the thing it's like you got a problem, you better become kind of an expert in it. You might know more than doctors. You can help doctors help you. Perseverance pays. The people that come to me are the ones that are like, I've been searching. I've been, mm-hmm, yeah, I get it. It works. I persevered. And I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't have written two books. I wouldn't even be alive and be in good health. If I didn't say, F these doctors, they don't know what they're doing. I guess I have to fix myself. I don't want anyone to have to do that. Do you know how scary that was? I was at home with the temperature, a blood pressure monitor, you know, medication, like thyroid hormones, trying to time everything, figure it out, take notes, suss out how I'm feeling. I mean, I can't. It was I I cry sometimes thinking about I was so alone. But you don't have to be alone now. We have the internet, there's books. So many doctors have caught on and adopted some of my principles. There's obviously a lot of people that have come after me who are talking about thyroid and all of that. You just have to really suss your thyroid expert wisely, okay? Because there's a lot of people out there just jump on the bandwagon because they know that this is a popular topic because it is so pervasive. That doesn't make it make them the right person to deal with. So there are a lot of charlatans out there. I've even been on panels with other doctors who have said incorrect shit right in front of me about thyroid. Um I mean, you know, it's just gonna be nonstop. So you've got to educate yourself so that you can advocate yourself for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah, which is why your story is so impressive to me too, because just feeling the fatigue that I've gone through and knowing what it takes to push yourself to basically start another full-time job on the side to do your own research and be your own advocate. And again, I was lucky enough to find you and a lot of podcasts from other experts on the topic that just give me those bite-sized nuggets where you had to scour endlessly and then go to the black market. So you do have to break that down a little bit for me of what did that look like and what dosage did you end up using that was correct? Like, what was that process?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

I had a couple. So the first time, the first round, I used uh natural desiccated thyro uh thyroid, armor thyroid, and I ordered it from like off the internet from like Mexico or something. I don't know. I ordered it somewhere because I was like, I don't trust these doctors. But then I did find that doctor later who threw her hands up and she did prescribe me the armor. That's why I thought, okay, she knows what she's talking about. So when she kind of discount dissed me, I was like, uh, um, all right, so so I dose myself and then I get better and I'm good. I'm like, okay, great. So I stay there for a while. Then I have the new problem. And now this is a whole new ball game because this level of dosing thyroid hormones, it's using one specific thyroid hormone. That's the last choice for this. Almost no doctors even know what. Like, you can't. I mean, nowadays you can find some people. Obviously, I do it with my medical group. There's some people that do it. But um, I was really alone here. And this one was scary. The second time was even scarier because it was a sort of an unknown realm. There weren't like one guy had wrote a book on it in in uh UK called Recovering with T3, Paul Robinson. Love that guy. He helped me save my own life. So his book is what really and again, thank for books. I'm glad I wrote one too, because I know I've saved lives. And Paul Robinson saved my life by writing a book on this, and I was able to suss out from there what to do. Again, had to order my medication from Mexico and other areas and um dosed myself back to health again, like just sitting there all day trying to figure it out and then test myself and do all of these things and be my own doctor. And then I remember once I fixed myself then, I went into a doctor and I kind of tried to explain, you know, because you still have your annual physical with your whatever doctor. And she said, I think you're gonna kill yourself. Just like give yourself a heart attack. She had that again, it's a false impression of the hormone that I was using. And I was just like shaking my head. I was like, God, you know, it's just it's never gonna end, is it? And it won't, and that's okay, because you know, it every day I get a call from someone whose doctor has missed it. But this is why we have to understand they're steeped in outdated protocols. You're really not gonna get the care. And when you go to a doctor nowadays, they're gonna give you surgery or prescription, they're not gonna sit there with you unless they're a functional medicine doctor, charging more, not adhering to any insurance company, and spending an hour with you. And even then, so you can't guarantee it. But if it were me, I'd go to an anti-aging or a functional medicine doctor. Never an endocrinologist. I want to make that very clear. And I feel bad because there's some good endocrinologists out there. Classically, they're most uninformed about thyroid, and most people think that an endocrinologist is the correct person to see for that. Because technically they are. They don't know jack shit about it. They're the terrible, they're uh they're riddled and steeped in ego. Don't go, I I would not go to an endocrinologist for a thyroid problem ever.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Which is why I love the rise of a lot of these do your own blood labs, get your own results, um, whether it's function health, which I've done, or joy plus blokes. I mean, there's so many out there where you can go and get labs and give yourself the correct labs based off of the symptoms and things that you need to explore. And so I'm also curious, one thing, especially in midlife, we hear so much about perimenopause, and then thyroid and perimenopause can overlap and mirror some symptoms. So, how can people tell based off of that what could be going on or which route to go?

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yeah, so um, perimenopause and menopause can mimic or like worsen thyroid symptoms because hormone fluctuations can affect thyroid function. Estrogen can impact how thyroid hormone is used in the body and all sorts of stuff. So it's easy to overlook a thyroid issue during this time, right? So because someone's, let's say 45 and they're exhausted or something's happening, I feel bloated, and then the doctors just test like they don't take the right thyroid test. So they rule out thyroid without ruling out properly, and then they look at the hormones and they go, Oh, maybe you need progesterone or maybe you need some kind of hormone. And it's like, yeah, you want the thyroid to be right first. So you always got to get this right first because from here, this is the producer and regulator of the sex hormones. So once that's optimized, you know that whatever levels you have are the correct, right, accurate levels, right? And so from there you can really gauge your HRT. So I always tell women, like I in my experience, and I use HRT for menopause, and I am a huge fan of it. Uh in hindsight, I probably would have started testosterone sooner. So I would have started around 42 or so, or 40, maybe, versus 42. When you start to feel like you can't gain lean muscle mass and there's some kind of issue there with like lifting weights, and you're noticing you're not, I would have started that sooner. I probably would have started progesterone a little bit sooner, and you have to biohack it. And the thing is, it's really important as you go through paramenopause and menopause that you are dealing with the right practitioner because there's a lot of people that are going to try to convince you that you have to do this, you have to do that. And what I have learned, it is, even though thyroid is individual, it is so much more straightforward. Not so with menopause. Um, like for example, I'm on progesterone and and testosterone. Maybe I have had one bleeding situation in a year. Okay, so we're getting close to like nothing eventually, right? But everyone was like, you need estrogen, you need estrogen. And I could sense in my brain that I needed probably some estrogen. I was having some of the symptoms. I tried it. I tried the lowest dose of whatever. So far, so good. A month later, oh no. I'm bloated, I'm huge, my nipples are sore and hurting and tender, my boot and my doctor warned me when that happens. And you know, I was like, fuck it. Now, will I need it later? Maybe. See, that's the thing. Something you may not need now could change. So it's very individual. You have to have a great practitioner who is helping hand hold you through it, and you also need to experiment with yourself. It's a very weird process. If you're a woman, you are used to having your period every month for your whole freaking life, and then then this comes a time and it's a weird detachment. Part of you're like, no, I don't want to know. And then part of you is like, oh, I can't wait to get rid of this because all the post-menopausal people throughout your life tell you how wonderful it is that you don't have to deal with a period, right? And so it's this weird identity shift, too. It's uh, it's kind of a doozy because there is something about like even maybe wanting to feel that shedding of the blood. Like there's a right, you're used to this. So it's a mind trip emotionally too as a woman to go through it. But some tip-offs would be like if you're crying at cat commercials, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, are you overly emotional even about good stuff? And that was my thing. I was sobbing a lot, but it was like me getting nostalgic and like happy. They were like gratitude, but I was like, that's not good, right? And so even though it was a positive thing, but I was so sentimental and just getting so emotional about everything. And then also lean muscle mass, I couldn't gain muscle while my testosterone had tanked. Boy, that shifted like within three days of taking testosterone, and my brain lit up because that has to do with focus. But here's the thing I knew, Erin, that my focus issue wasn't from thyroid, which it could be. So I knew that it was testosterone, and it was. So that's why you have to have the thyroid, right? Because where's your brain fog coming from? Where's your exhaustion coming from? Where's your bloat coming from? Where's your weight gain coming from? Well, crossing 42 above, it could be any one of those things. There's people that go through it earlier, you know. People, I know a woman who who does hormone stuff, I'll just uh shout her out, Karen Martell in Canada. And she uh she's someone you might want to interview, but she does hormones and she went through like she got started getting horrible hot flashes at age 40. I haven't gotten a hot flash yet. So it's so different for everybody. The dose of progesterone that I need every night is vastly different than my friends who need so much more. I took a level of progesterone for a while, was doing good, then I started to wake up onability to get out of bed, dizzy, exhausted, like a brick hit me. Too much progesterone, had to drop it. You gotta be in tune on this stuff, you know what I mean? So I think menopause HRT sussing out is sketchier and less predictable than thyroid. Yeah, it's it's a thing. So start getting optimized in your 40s, start paying attention. It's coming.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Yeah, and paying attention, that's the key too, is I finally started just logging how I was feeling every day, what was going on, so that I could look back because I'm not gonna remember that shit. Like, no way. So logging it helped a ton to then be able to correlate symptoms that I was feeling because so much of what you're talking about, which I love, is symptom-based and what's happening, not just labs, but using both of those as kind of correlation tools to dig deeper. And that's helped me a ton. Because again, you know, I'm approaching midlife. So it's like, is this perimenopause? And same thing. I haven't had hot flashes, I sleep like the dead, hair falling out, you know, everything more correlates to the thyroid. And so then I've also heard from so many experts in terms of your body's kind of hierarchy of needs, like thyroid is first. Figure out that first, then you know, at least like you can rule that piece out and go down your other kind of venues to explore.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Yes. And I mean, uh I just want to say this. I want to talk about two things that happen that happen all the time that people need to be warned about. Because I say this a thousand times a day to clients. Okay. The first one is I can't tell you I wish I had a nickel for every time this happened, where I'd be around someone, they're like, Oh yeah, no, my I got my thyroid test. My doctor said it's fine. So my doctor. I know, wait, hold on. It's like, yeah, hi, right. How do you know? Did you just believe them? Mistake number one. We want to trust them. They're an MD. They went to Harvard. Of course they know, but they said it was fine. I'm not worried. I can't tell you every single time someone has told me that their thyroid wasn't fine.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

It wasn't. It literally wasn't. I even had someone who goes, Oh no, no, my doctor tested for G3. I go, I go back and test, check. She came back horribly hypothyroid, total disaster. Finally, I got her on the wrong right thing. But she went through menopause early. And in hindsight, I told her, I go, Hey, do you see this is from that? Because you were mistreated all these freaking years. Years, that's why you had menopause at 40 instead of 50. And so, like, she finally got it together. But again, we all want to just trust that they know what they're doing. We pay a lot of money, doctors, insurance. Nope. So, you know, I was told my thyroid was fine too several times. I mean, right? Uh, my client last week was told her thyroid was was beautiful. So, how do you know? So, you need to know yourself. Okay. The second one is this I don't think people realize this. When your doctor says, Yeah, sure, to a request you made, they don't take you seriously. And I wanna I'll tell you why. Uh I have this list of tests, free thyroid guide. Millions of people go to their doctors, go, hi, can you test these things? Here's the list. They go, Yeah, sure. Client goes to the lab, afterwards the results come in. Wait, where's the reverse T3? Wait, you took T3 uptake, not free T3. And here's why. Because your doctor thinks you're a dum dum. And they didn't, they didn't care to call you to go, I disagree. I think we should test this instead of this or whatever. They just did what they wanted. And here's your mistake, and where you got to correct this. When you go into the lab, you need to ask the phlebotomist, hi, here's the list I gave to my doctor. Is that all on there? And if it's not, you walk right out of there and call your doctor, hey man, I thought I asked you for this list, but now I'm here and it's a different list. You didn't even call me to tell me, have a discussion with me about this. Would anyone let that happen in any other course of business if someone didn't deliver the right amount of things or you asked them to do something and they did the wrong thing? Wait, why did you order that part? I said to order this part. I can't tell you how many clients have called me crying. But I asked them. They said they don't believe them. Please don't believe them. I don't care how much you love your doctor, please double check their work. That one's a killer.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

And that waiting game is brutal. You finally get in for labs, you finally get the results back. You've burned a month or a month and a half. Your name gets stabbed a lab, and you have to do it all again while you're suffering. Like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

And and you know what? What does that feel like? Feels like gaslighting. You told me you lie, you lied to me. You fucking tonight, the doctor just lied to you. Like, it's horrible. But you have to understand, they don't care. They're like, this chum doesn't know what they're doing. They're a Google researcher, num's like whatever. I got a degree from Harvard. I don't care. Like, you need to double check the word. This happens all the time. All the time. So those two, and I don't care what the test is, like whether it's siren or not, if you request something, just make sure. I mean, it's happened to me, but it happens to everybody. I have to warn everybody about this constantly who's not in my program. In my program, we do it for you. But like the people that are out there working with their doctors, this is this happens all the time. Someone will come to me and I'll be like, Where's the I asked for it?

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

And you're and let me let's talk about that. Why would a doctor be like, not just take that test? Some of them are embarrassed that they don't know what it is. So instead of just go, well, I don't know what this is, but I'll take it. So this happened to me one time. In my book, I talk about a story where I went to a doctor with a patient who didn't speak uh English very well. I knew she had a reverse T3 problem. I sensed it, I pretty was suspect, and I asked the endocinologist, who didn't even look at the patient or ask her any questions. I said, Hey, look, I would like you to test this patient's reverse T3. And she goes, We don't do that, that's old school. Just like that. And I said, Well, that's interesting. Um, I just myself got over a reverse T3 problem, so it's pretty new school to me. All I'm asking is for you to take a test. And this is what she said. Fine, but I don't know how to evaluate it. And then I said, Did you just patronize me for asking you about a test which you are now telling me you know nothing about? I said this to her. The patient was crying, by the way. This is what's going on. It's a contentious situation. Can we just talk about that for a minute? That makes me want to cry to this day. I asked you for a test. You're telling me it's old school. We don't do that shit. And then I ask you again, push you, and now you tell me you don't even know what it is. So that's them not taking the test because they're embarrassed because of freaking ego. Where's the patient? Guess what? She had a reverse T3 problem. Is anyone shocked that's listening? I called it. I knew it was the case.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Yeah, and the scary part of that is you're such a strong woman that everyone is probably like, I wish I had your energy and guts going into talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

But you can't when you're hypo. It's hard to be confident when you're hypo. It's hard to be, you know, that's my other expertise is confidence. It's hard. You, you know, I remember a doctor patronizing me for asking him for a B12 test, and I walked out of there sobbing. Guess who had a B12 deficiency? I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like, so can we all just stop this bullshit and wasting our times and like get on it and get to the right experts, educate yourself, advocate for yourself. It's the only way you you're gonna win. The only reason I'm here today is because I advocated for myself. And so, but now it's out there, the information is out there. Literally, I had nothing to, there wasn't even podcasts when I was going through this back in the day, right? So I didn't even have uh a wealth of information. That being said, I do want to talk about two other authors who have changed my life and who I always recommend because to me they are the grand grandparents of this. One is Janie Bothorpe. She wrote a book called Stop the Thyroid Madness, and she has a website called Stop the Thyroid Madness. This is one of the best websites you can have for thyroid. And uh she wrote a book. I met her and got help from her years before her book, back in 2006 when I was suffering, 2005. She uh had a free Yahoo group, and it was just her and other women who had gone through this, just like me now, who were helping women. You could post your labs, they were kind of directing, you know, it's oh, ferritin, and they were the ones that let me know about ferritin and iron storage. And thank God I caught on to that because mine was at the bottom of the branch. I was passing out. Um, and as I told Aaron the other day, you need proper iron storage for your own thyroid hormones to get to where they need to go, were the ones you're taking. And so you can't ever get better if you don't get the iron up. And so that was like just that alone, right there back in 2005, was revelatory to me and most doctors at the time. Um, and then she later wrote the book, it has the website, and she's wonderful. She has over 20 years of experience doing it. Um, and then the other author I mentioned out of the UK called Paul Robinson. If anyone has a reverse T3 problem or they can't convert T4 to T3, Paul Robinson wrote a groundbreaking book called Recovering with T3. Those are the only two books I recommend to people, and I've read all of them. Okay, I've read every single thyroid book out there. I wrote mine for a reason because all of the other ones suck, except for the two I just mentioned. Not to say there's not more good ones coming out. I'm just giving my personal opinion on it. And so, and I love to give them a shout out. They both helped me save my life, just as I'm sure there's other people who feel that way about me. And, you know, that's what we need to just keep going, right? Just keep passing it down.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Yes, keep sharing our stories and helping more women. And I know you have so many great resources. Is there a symptom checker? I know you have the guide that's available. We'll post everything in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

I have a list of symptoms on my website and also in my free thyroid guide. And there's over 30. There's about 35, 40 of them in there. I had all but like three of them. Okay. So you can go look at that. Almost every page on my website involving thyroid will have a pull-down menu with a list of symptoms. And if not, there is a list of symptoms in the free thyroid guide. Free thyroid guide also has um, you know, some supplements, like so, what are their peripheral tests, how to call a doctor's office to suss them out, has some recipes from uh my paleo cookbook and you know, some other things in there that are very helpful. So I've been doing that for 10 years, and I think, gosh, I don't know how many thousands have been downloaded now, but I this this free thyroid guide has gone through so many reiterations that now I've included a free video series with it. So it's like you can't get better than this for your first stop of free information on thyroid. I suggest everyone go to freethyroid.com.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

I love it and I agree because I was just watching your masterclass before this, where you have probably the most layman succinct best breakdown of how the thyroid functions, because I swear I could read it so many times of the TSH T4 to T3, blah, blah, blah, reverse T3. But the way you break it down and explain it in layman's terms is so helpful. My brain is wrapped around it now. So anyone's curious.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

I'm I'm that's in the that's also in the free thyroid video series. I take that part of my masterclass where I describe that loop and that's in there. So uh what Aaron just told is free for you if you go to Free Thyroid Guide and check out the video series. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

I love it. So yes, check the symptoms, get your labs, you know, go down that rabbit hole if you need to. Try to figure out, you know, how you can find and relight your fire if you've experienced any of that type of stuff, like I know I have, and you've been so helpful to so many women throughout that journey.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

So Well, and you too in the future. Like I said, if you need, you may need thyroid hormone, you may not. We'll see. I'm open. I'm here for you if you do to help you through it. But yeah, it's it's the maker or breaker of a good life or a bad life. Also, hypothyroidism untreated is accelerated aging and it's a slow death. That's why you look older, you feel like crap, your body's dying slow, slow. It's a nightmare. It's not functioning correctly. Yeah. It's an absolute nightmare. And also, too, like you said, symptoms are so important because doctors just go by labs, so you have to go by symptoms because, see, like we're talking about your labs, and your labs right now look like something a doctor would say, Oh, beautiful, right? But we know I know your lab history, and we also looked at that one number. We're like, okay, that that could be better. And you have symptoms. So, right? Now we do have those other components like ferritin, B12, and things like that. Those are energy related as well. So, yeah, it's really important that your thyroid's right, and then an iron comprehensive panel for all women, particularly because you've been mast training your whole life. You have a couple babies, maybe, and lost a lot of blood. Maybe you went vegan or vegetarian for a while, and now you're like, ah, let's make sure that iron status is is optimal.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

So good. Well, thank you, Elle, so much again for coming on. Is there any other uh resources or places that my audience can find you?

SPEAKER_01 54:09

lrust.com, E-L-L-E-R-U-S-S.com, or just go straight to Freethyroid Guide. That'll get you right to my website too, freethyroidguide.com. And um, yeah, from there you can find out about my podcasts, anything else, all the ways I can help you. I I do just want to say this right away. I have so many people that come to me who are like, I'm a hopeless case. I've been dealing with this for 40 years. It always works, guys. It always works. Thyroid problems are always fixable. One might take a little longer than the other. A woman through menopause has Lyme disease and thyroid problems, okay. Someone who's young just has it, might take two months. It's really three to six months of your life to get it better. There is no thyroid problem that's not fixable. No one needs to suffer. So if the people that come to me like, oh, I tried that, I tried that air home, it didn't work. I'm always like, what was the dose? How was it dosed? Oh, I don't remember. Then you don't know what you're doing. We need to start over. And from what I've told you right now, clearly we know that most doctors are uninformed on this. So any way that you were treated for thyroid was likely wrong. And so I don't want anyone to think I'm a hopeless case or I've tried it all. You didn't try it with the right people to guide you in the right way. So that needs to be said because that's not a pipe dream. That's factual biological science. No one needs to suffer from a thyroid problem.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

Yes, which that alone provides so much hope. And I'm a walking case study in that almost a year and a half ago, I got just TS TSH and T4 pulled from my primary doctor. They they thought it was normal. Fast forward, I'm figuring it out now. But, you know, again, like you need to be knowledgeable, understand this stuff to be able to be your own advocate.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Yeah, and thank you for doing it. Just keep spreading the word, keep doing podcasts about these stories. You know, each one of these things, I, you know, people come to you and you go, Where'd you hear, where'd you hear me? Right. And they they found so so this is how we just keep it alive. And and I love podcasting for that because it's always there, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 55:59

So women supporting women. Well, Elle, thank you again so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to another episode of Find Your Fuel. If you enjoyed the show and want to support us, please leave a comment or review. And before we go, I have to give you the obligatory medical and legal disclaimer. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. The advice and recommendations we discuss are not intended as medical advice and do not replace the treatment or care of a physician or any other primary health care provider. Using the information shared today does not create a doctor-patient relationship and it should not be used to diagnose or treat any health problem. Always consult with a qualified health care professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medications. The use of any information provided is solely at your own risk. So, in a nutshell, let's be smart and remember these stories and conversations are for educational purposes only to help other women find the fuel to live their best lives. We'll see you in the next episode.