Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Understanding Your Thyroid Condition – With Dr. Rebecca Warren

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

For full show notes, resources mentioned, and transcripts go to: www.drmindypelz.com/ep95/ To enroll in Dr. Mindy's Fasting membership go to: resetacademy.drmindypelz.com This episode is all about thyroid problems. We dive into the solutions behind your thyroid symptoms and how to read labs. Dr. Rebecca Warren is a Functional Wellness Practitioner and Doctor of Chiropractic who specializes in women's sex hormones, thyroid hormones, and healing after thyroidectomy. At 19, Dr. Rebecca was diagnosed with Follicular Variant Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma and had a complete thyroidectomy with high dose radiation- all of which was completely unnecessary. But she didn't know what else to do. After having her thyroid removed, she suffered from hormone issues that Doctors would write off because all her labs looked "normal". She suffered from depression, anxiety, weight loss resistance, and period issues with no help on how to get better. It wasn't until she decided to draw a line in the sand that no doctor was going to know more about her body than her, did her health transformed. She has spent the past decade and a half studying the literature, implementing protocols, using the most up to date functional labs and testing, and ancestral tools (like fasting and diet variation) to not only take back her health but to help thousands of men and women to do the same. Her goal is to help people avoid the unnecessary suffering she went through and help those that may be on a hopeless path right now. Dr. Rebecca practices with her husband in Chattanooga, TN, and does virtual coaching worldwide. Their approach is simple but powerful: get to the cause, support the body, and trust and know that the body was created to heal itself. Please see our medical disclaimer. 

But you know that you're fatigued. You know that your period has changed or you know that you're suffering a little bit with more anxiety. It's not about what's on a piece of paper. It's about what's happening in front of you. And you should never go into a doctor's office, leave there and question yourself. I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be.

I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the greatest thought leaders, and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the power back and help you believe in yourself again. My name is Dr. Mindy Pels, and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I bring you Dr. Rebecca Warren. Now, let me tell you a little bit about her. Let me tell you about the conversation. And I am so excited to bring this episode to the of you that are struggling with thyroid problems because we really dove into some solutions and how to read labs. So I'm just tickled pink to give you guys this episode. But let me tell you

a little bit about Dr. Rebecca. Not only is she a personal friend of mine, not only has she been on a thyroid journey herself, as you will hear. She had her thyroid removed at 19 years old, but she has turned her pain around her suffering around thyroid. She has turned it into her life's mission to teach people how to understand their thyroid condition. She is a woman's sex hormone and thyroid specialist. She, her background is as a chiropractor. She is a functional wellness practitioner. She has a radio show.

This woman is on a mission to make sure that people are getting the proper thyroid information. And in this episode, I asked her to break down what labs you all should be looking at. So if you have your lab work, pull it out because she goes through ranges. She talks about what you should be looking for. I asked her to talk about if you didn't get complete lab work done by your doctor, what other tests should you have. And you will see in the show notes that she is giving away an e-book of all of her lab,

that she recommends the ranges. And hopefully you guys can take that and take it to your doctor and get a better reading on exactly what's going on with the thyroid. We talked about lifestyle changes. We talked about keto and thyroid, fasting and thyroid. We talked about toxicity and toxins you're going to want to avoid. And then we end the discussion with minerals, nutrients, foods you want to add in. So I really tried to take her in as many different angles as I could.

to give you guys the resources that you need to be able to manage your own thyroid cases, to be able to talk to your doctor in a more complete way. And I think you're going to absolutely love her, love this episode, and find that it's incredibly useful. And as always, if you resonate with what you hear, there is such a growing problem with people suffering from all kinds of thyroid issues that if you love this, send it out into the world, share it with a friend. And as always, leave us a positive review if it hits you in your heart in a beautiful place. So Dr. Rebecca Warren, let's roll up our sleeves and solve your thyroid

problems. Here's where I want to start with thyroid because I feel like everybody's thyroid journey is so different. So before we dive into helping everybody under understand, like, how to figure out what to do with their thyroid problem. Why you share your story? Because I remember the first time you shared it with me. I was like, wow, that's quite a thyroid story. Absolutely. And so, you know, my story actually started when I was 16 years old. I was walking out of a movie theater. And I thought I was having a heart attack. I walked outside. I fell to the ground in a fetal position, clutched my chest and was freaking out. I didn't know what was going on. I got rushed to the emergency room. They gave me morphine. I was.

in and out. And when my parents got there, I found out that the doctor said I had a thousand, like thousand gallstones in my gallbladder, which was shocking. Yeah. To have that. And how old? 15 years old. Galbladder attacks so severe. But of course the doctor said, it's okay. We can get this taken care of, right? We can just cut out the gobladder and everything will be fine. And I always like to share that part of my story. Because you're going to, You're going to have people listening right now and they're like, I have a gallbladder issue, whether they've been having a diagnosed thyroid issue or they think they have a thyroid issue. There's a direct connection on gallbladder function in the thyroid.

And so you'll tend to see godd bladder go out before you start to see all this thyroid issues really come to the surface. But for me, I didn't know. They cut it out and they sent me on my way. And I remember thinking to myself, this isn't right. Like this is, you know, I'm going to talk to my doctor about it. I went to my follow up. And I thought the health was losing weight. So I talked to my doctor.

I said, hey, I feel like I should get better. I think I should lose some weight, you know, maybe support my body since I had this gallbladder attack. And the doctor was like, I got it. I'll give you something at the end. At the end of my appointment, he walked out. He got a Xerox copy of the food pyramid, which I am aging myself there, right? Xerox. Kids don't know that now.

Right. And he came back with the food pyramid and there's two paragraphs at the bottom. I'll never forget. And I remember thinking to myself, well, if my doctor is not concerned, then I guess there's nothing to be. concerned about. And then three years later, my mom found this huge lump in my neck. And after all this testing, I sat in my doctor's office at 19. He walked in and I'll never forget. He said, you know, I'm sorry to tell you this, but your daughter has thyroid cancer. Wow. And I remember in that moment, I had this out of body experience, right? Like, this wasn't my life. Like, right? The C word.

I didn't know the C word alone. Yeah. It just wrecks you. I was just, I was scared and I was nervous. but my doctor told me this. Well, if there's a cancer to have, this is the good kind, which doctors still say, but why do they say that? Because we've got it all figured out with the thyroid. You have a thyroid issue, get on a pill. Oh, you have thyroid cancer, cut it out and get on a pill.

They believe that they can cut out this vital dynamic organ, put you on a pill for the rest of your life and that's it. And you'll be good. And you'll be good. And that's what we did. I did not have, I did these resources, they didn't exist. I wish I would have known then what I know now. I got my thyroid cut out and I did high dose radiation and I went on my way.

And I want to mention that, you know, a follicular variant papillary carcinoma is the cancer I had, which is a predominant cancer that's rising in numbers exponentially every year. But it's been renamed because cutting it out and radiating it has far more risks than living with it for the rest of your life. So I always mention that because there's more and more people that are hearing about thyroid cancer, and they don't have any guidance or help, and they think they have to get their thyroid cut out. But after I left the doctor's office, I started

suffering with low thyroid hormone issues, like symptoms, right? I lost my period. I started feeling depressed. And I think depression can look so different for everyone, but every day I woke up with this heaviness I couldn't shake. It was like this blanket that I carried with me, that I couldn't shake. And then at night, I got anxious. I worried about things that I couldn't change. worried about things I had no control over. I couldn't sleep because my mind was going, right? I became weight loss resistant. I started having brain fog and memory issues at 19, 20 years old.

But every time I would go to the doctor, my labs looked fine. Wow. I kept asking you, what do you want? Your labs, your thyroid hormones are fine. Eventually, I couldn't lose weight. I was doing CrossFit. I decided to become vegan because I was like, well, I'm not losing weight. I need to be more in control of my diet.

And at that point, a doctor looked at me because I was like, you know, doc, I'm not losing weight. And he goes, do you understand calories and calories out? Oh, God. He needs to know more. I left there and became raw vegan. I restricted and restricted because I was being told that there was something wrong with what I was doing, all because they did the wrong labs. And then I went, I got into a car accident. I went to a doctor, chiropractic's office.

My life was changed. It was the first time that someone told me that my body was created to heal itself, that I could do something about it. And I was given hope. And at 20, I drew a line in the sand. I said there was going to be no doctor moving forward that was going to know more about my body or that was going to make me question myself. I fired my doctor.

I took health into my own hands and I became a doctor to help people do the same thing. Amazing. You know, it reminds me of one of the books that I've read over the last several years that really like opened my mind was the book undactored by William Davis, the guy who wrote Wheat Belly. And he uses that exact example. He said, we live in a day and an age and time where we could potentially know more than our doctors because of things like the internet, because of podcasts like this where, and he uses the example of thyroid. He's like a lot of times patients have researched their own thyroid problems. They walk into their doctor's office.

And doctors need to realize they may be more up to date on what's going on with their thyroid than the doctor themselves and have a collaborative conversation with the patient. So that's what your story sounds like to me is that you were moving through a system where the doctor knows best, the patient doesn't, and yet the doctor wasn't willing to be a partner in your care with you. Absolutely. And this is the thing. I say this with every person I work with is you live in your body. You know your body. You might not be able to put a name to it. You may not be able to show it exactly, but you know that you're fatigued. You know that your period has changed or you know that you're suffering a little bit with more anxiety. You know that. And good care. It's not about what's on a piece of paper. It's about what's happening in front of you. And you should never go into. to a doctor's office, leave there and question yourself like, oh, man, I didn't talk about, I didn't find the answers or I'm still sick, right?

It shouldn't be like that. And you should demand that they keep testing and that they work with you or you find another doctor. Totally agree. Explain to me the gallbladder thyroid connection. Before we move on, I want to talk about thyroid symptoms. I want to talk about labs so that we can help the people listening to this podcast, like solve their own thyroid problem.

I actually had never heard gallbladder thyroid. That's fascinating. So explain to me why that is. Well, yeah. So it's actually what's really interesting, gallbladder has, it's rich of receptors for T3 and estrogen. So even period issues can contribute to sluggish and problematic gallbladder function.

But the biggest thing to understand is that free T3 active thyroid hormone binds with, it's one of few hormones that like binds with every single selling your body. It's connected with a. TPP production, so energy production. So in order for anything to be produced at adequate levels, in order for your body to function and respond adequately, you need enough energy for that to happen. You need adequate numbers of free T3. And when I say adequate numbers, I want to clarify something.

I'm not talking about outside of the medical ranges. I'm talking about you can be within medical ranges and be suboptimal for you. Yep. And so when we see low free T3, we see a dysfunctional, we see a few dysfunctional things. dysfunctional amount of bile production and dysfunctional of releasing of that bile, adequately releasing that bile. We also see a decrease of HCL production, which is digestion. So that low HCL, low pancreatic enzyme can go back and affect the gallbladder because

it's part of this whole digestive system. Wow. So it's a few different areas where it gets affected. So is there, I haven't, I haven't done a lot of research on the statistics around thyroid problems, but do we see gallbladder is taken out first? and then thyroid gets taken out? Like, is that a pattern where those two organs are removed pretty frequently together? Yes, yes, usually gobble butter first.

And I'll say this. I was very shocked when I came across, I was reading about thyroid symptoms. And this doctor was speaking on the most up today's studies about thyroid symptoms. And he presented this statistic, which is shocking, 10% of people that are suffering with hypothyroidism have overt symptoms, which are only 10% of the population have symptoms that they can just right off the bat identify the thyroid issues. Well, I'm not losing weight, run fatigue, or my hair's changes. The other 90% have symptoms like depression or anxiety, brain fog memory issues. They have constipation, diarrhea, skin issues, acid reflux, or they just don't

feel like themselves, or they're crashing and they just can't adapt to stressors, or they have low immune system. So because T3 can affect so many different systems in the body, you can have these symptoms that you might not right off the bat be able to identify as thyroid symptoms. You just know something is wrong. Yeah. Wow. So what's the classic symptoms of thyroid? Because I know that when I was working with patients one-on-one, the most common thing I would hear from, especially women, would be I can't lose weight. I think I have a thyroid problem. It's like the go-to organ if you can't lose weight. But like you said, there's a lot more. There's the anxiety, the depression. So can you just like list off so when people are listening to this,

they can help identify if their symptoms, there is a thyroid connection or not. Yeah. I do want to say this before I talk about those symptoms. The thyroid is going to be connected, intimately connected in the system with the adrenals and your sex hormones. So a lot of times I will have women, you know, work with me and they're like, well, have a thyroid issue. I'm like, well, you've had decades worth of estrogen and progesterone imbalances. It's not the thyroid. That was your first original thing is that. So I want to say that because a lot of times we can see this kind of coupling of symptoms from these other systems in the body. Is that why perimenopausal women can end up with more thyroid problems as they're moving through menopause?

Yeah. So when your thyroid is suboptimal, I keep on saying suboptimal because I want to say We'll talk about ranges, but like, you know, three, two, three ranges can go from like, depending on what lab you use, 2.5 to 4.4, you can be at 2.8, at 2.9, and still have these symptoms, right? So when you have this low thyroid hormone, I have, you know, women who are completely depleted. But what do they do? They get up. They get the kids ready. They go to work.

They get crap done. Why? Because they're coming from a place of survival. They have cortisol coursing through their body. and on a daily basis are in this stress survival response. And then perimenopause comes around and those adrenals come center stage and the adrenals can adapt to this transition. And then boom, it goes right back to the adrenals, goes right back to the thyroid.

And it just becomes this kind of vicious cycle. A vicious cycle. Yeah. Wow. Okay. You know, I was at a functional endocrinology seminar a few years back and they were, they were highlighting the thyroid. and they were saying one of the most important reasons to get your thyroid balanced is exactly

what you said, that every single cell in the body has a receptor site for T3. So if your body is, if those thyroid hormones are not regulated, you're going to affect every part of your body. And we definitely live in a culture where you go in. TSA is checked. You're put on a medication. You're told you're all good, but yet you don't feel good. And then that's where it ends.

There's just nothing beyond that to help people through this process. So go through the checklist just so because when I think thyroid, me personally, I think hair, I think fatigue, I think anxiety. Those are kind of things that come up for me when I think about thyroid. But what are like the classic signs that people would expect to see? Yeah. So classic signs, well, I'm going to tell you overt and not overt, right? So classic is the weight loss resistant.

So I usually point out nothing has changed in your diet and you're slowly starting to creep up with weight, which a lot of people are right off as getting older, not necessarily, right? Or you're starting to implement changes. This is the thing that's really disheartening for me. I have women that are trying to do keto or, you know, like they're implementing some more cardio and they're doing all this stuff. And I always hear I'm doing all this work and I'm not losing weight. And most often they tend to start chronically restricting calories because they're like, they think they have to like do more when it's really hormone related. So that's what we're seeing with the the heart rate there in regards to weight loss. Hair changes, hair falling out, hair thinning out and eyebrow changes like you're noticing that your eyebrows are thinning out.

You need to put on more makeup like that. And then sex hormone decrease in sex hormone production like estrogen, progesterone, low testosterone for men. There's going to be that connection there, right? And then again, I think some of the top that we don't talk about enough is depression. Depression, we know it affects brain function, brain clarity, brain acuity, like your ability to feel like you can handle stressors, anxiety, and the gut. So like I mentioned before, there's a direct connection with the release of HCL, the release of bile. So there's a lot of people that feel like maybe they can't eat meat, right? Oh, I can't eat protein. I don't digest it very well. or I can't have, you know, certain vegetables because I just get bloated in all of this.

Well, no, it's because your digestive capacity has decreased because that T3 is not at adequate levels to increase that signaling. So those are going to be the biggest ones. And then constipation or diarrhea, we've normalized not having normal bowel movements. It might be common, but it's not normal. Right. So, digestion and going to the bathroom. Yeah.

Yeah. So if you go into your perimenopause, menopause years with a thyroid problem, and specifically T3 is not well regulated, is that if what I heard you say is that your sex hormones are going to plummet even more, which I got to tell you as a woman who's just going through the whole process, I'm grabbing on to every sex hormone I can. So that is really interesting. So that to me means like let's help women before they hit 40. Let's help them figure this out so that the menopausal journey could be better.

Yes. You cannot, you cannot go into perimenopause with a thyroid that's not supported. You just cannot. And we don't talk about it enough because this is the problem, though. Because if you have a sex hormone issue, if you're going through perimenopause and you're struggling, you're going to go to who, an OBGYN? And what are they going to focus on over? arteries, uterus, estrogen, they're not going to, unless you're actively asking them. And I see a lot of

OBGYNs look at the thyroid, but if you have a thyroid issue, you got to go see who. And then a conologist. So you have these two people that are trying to treat these symptoms, like these symptoms, try to treat these separate systems when they're actually connected. You cannot, it's going to go back and forth. Your low T3 is going to cause adrenal issues. Adrenal issues will make it hard for you to find adequate dosing for thyroid hormones if you're going to get on thyroid medication, right? And so it's just back and forth and then going through paramedopause, which is major shift, major, you know, support you need for your adrenals, the thyroid is not there. All of it, the fatigue, the depression, the anxiety, the decrease of even sex hormone output is

just going to be, it's like you're on fire. Like all of these things just go over the top. Yeah, I like to think of hormones as like they're a little bit like tag you're it. like one hormone tags the next hormone tags the next one. And if you've got one of them that's asleep, then they can't continue that process all the way on. So and I, and now you've really, because I've spent so much time thinking about sex hormones. I've thought about how they connect to insulin and cortisol and oxytocin. Now you really got me thinking about how it connects to thyroid as well.

So explain to me when we do labs. Well, my first question is, why do they only check teeth? And what else should doctors be checking? Okay. So the reason why TSAH was considered the gold standard was that considered the gold standard. Let me make sure people hear that was. It's because thyroid-stimilulating hormone goes from pituitary, talks to the thyroid. And the number one drug, the number one, let me go and say, the number one approach to thyroid

hormone is to utilize Synthroid, which is a T4 only medication. Okay. So TSH, so TSH is affected by T4, not T3, and we'll talk about that here in a second, why that's really important. So this idea is if someone has a thyroid dysfunction, and all I'm going to give them is T4, that's all we're going to do about it. All I need to know is make sure is that they have enough T4, you know, and then TSA is going to be affected by T4, and that's it.

So they're just looking at like the feedback loop from pituitary to the, thyroid, hypothalamus, pituitary thyroid, the HBT axis. Yeah, and that's it. But they're not looking at anything downstream or connecting at a cellular level. Right. And the thing that sucks is that I look, I've looked at the studies. I've tracked the studies for a decade and a half. And back then, literally I would read studies that say if your patient says they have

X, Y, and Z all these symptoms, but their TSA looks good. It's because they're not following recommendations because they're not taking the medication. And that's really disheartening because there's doctors that are still practicing off of that outdated information. It's no longer like that in the studies. Okay. So let me just point this out. Is T4 usable by ourselves? No.

Well, it's going to, no. So T3 is going to be more efficient at being bound up by ourselves. So T4 has to be converted. Great. T3 is the hormone that's going to bind to the nucleus of the cell. is going to create ATP that's going to create the energy that your cells need to be well and to function, like your whole body to function. So T4 has to be activated. It has to be, and this is important because, again, Synthroid is the number one prescribed medication for thyroid meds.

And remember how we talked about there's a cycle two with like digestion and gut and then it's going to affect liver. So the idea is that when you take T4 or when you make T4 yourself, the liver, the gut, the kidneys have to be well. They have to be functioning well in order to take that hormone and convert it to something active. But if you sit down with anyone that has a thyroid issue or someone who thinks have a thyroid issue, they always have digestive issues. There's always some liver issues, some insulin issue, carbs. There's a connection there with insulin and carb metabolism with free T3, so the liver's overwhelmed. And so when I sit there and I hear that, okay, I have a thyroid issue. My doctor put me on synthroid. And I'm like, well, how well do you think your digestive system is? Oh, no,

it's not very good. Well, you have some blood sugar issues. How well is your, do you think your liver is not well? I was like, well, did your doctor check these things or ask you about this before putting you on a medication that depends on these systems? No, they did it. Crazy. What was so, again, I know like my brain goes to, it's not that hard to check these other things. And I want to, I want to go into what the other measurements we need to check are. But why aren't we checking it? Is it a function of finances and the insurance companies won't pay for it? Is it lack of knowledge? Is it that the public just wants a pill?

Just give me the synthroid and make it all go away. Like it seems like of all the organs in the body, the thyroid is the most misdiagnosed, most misunderstood. And yet the solution is just look a little deeper, please. Yeah. Honestly, I've spent years having to do. with anger and frustration. Yeah.

I didn't mean to poke the bear. Sorry. I've actually started a list of local underchronologists and doctors that I do not want anyone to ever visit because it really doesn't take very much. And I think it's a few different things. Number one, we have lost the art within medicine of listening to the patient and seeing what's in front because if someone's sitting in front of you, and I know Dr. Mendi, you're the same way.

Someone's sitting in front of me. I don't care what's on this piece of paper. they're telling me that something is wrong. We need to dig deeper. We need to do more, right? And that's not happening. What's coming out of your mouth doesn't matter as much as what's on paper. And if that paper isn't complete, it doesn't matter.

Right. So I think it's, I think it can be a few different layers. I think number one, doctors don't know. Endocrinologists. I still have endocrinologists in my area that I'll call them up and I'll send them information. They just don't know, right? Yeah.

There's some completely honest. encountered it as a patient before I became a doctor that have egos. I don't want a patient coming in telling me about Dr. Google. And those people need to move on. Yeah, they don't believe you. Or they don't feel, they don't give you the credit to actually have done more research and up-to-date research. Yeah. That is, that is definitely, definitely a problem. Okay, go on to the other test. Because when I first dove into understanding the thyroid, it was like, oh, my gosh, there's like 11 things here we got to look at to be able to see if the conversion is happening of all these thyroid hormones. So go through the other tests that people should know. Yeah. And I want to, I want to go

ahead and also distinguish like there's the thyroid based test and then there's other tests that will always affect thyroid like vitamin D and homocysteine B12 mineral status, right? So but looking at the core, the first step, you can never get well. You will never get well if you do not have these test, right? So thyroid stimulating hormone, I still test that. And the reason why is that we have to view TSA differently. It's not a thyroid hormone. Remember, it comes from the pituitary. It's a pituitary hormone. So I can see TSA start to trend up before downstream hormones are affected when your body's chronically stressed. There's these underlying stressors, whether you're restricting calories or, you know, really stressed or toxic or in a home full mode. I start to say,

see that TSAH kind of crawl up and I think the body is signaling that something is going on. Right. Right. So that's how I use it. But it can still be within range, quote unquote, and not be, you know, and be within range and still have a problem. So I will say I want to go ahead and put this out. The most up to date studies are looking at the fact that TSA should be under a 2.5. It should be under a 2.5. Medical ranges can go up to a 4, 4.5 or maybe some up to a 5. Okay. So everybody, go look. If you guys have your lab work, go and look. That was a gift. Thank you. Yeah. So under 2.5, what can it be too low? Um, yes. And then, you know, there is hyperthyroidism, right? And we don't usually talk about that that much because if you have hyperthyroid, you know. Heart palpitations. You're in the emergency room. You can't swallow and stuff like that. So you can go too low, but everybody is different. I want to say this before we move on. to the next labs is, you know, within medicine for a really, really long time,

the ranges are, they're staler, actually. They're too broad. They're too broad. Yeah. They're too broad. But then what I started noticing, and I'm actually thankful for this, when functional ranges were, you know, proposed, they were very, they were not as broad. They were very kind of like, not strict, but they were more, you know, tighter.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. And it helps so many people. But now, because of how tight. they are, we're not allowing for variations, right? We're not allowing. There is variations if someone is in ketosis, if someone's low carb, if someone's eating more protein, if someone's losing weight. So I'll give some ranges that your listeners can kind of work off of depending on where they're at

in their health journey, but we just have to know that functional ranges are going to vary for each person. You just can't go too low or too hot. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. And you have a great e-book that you are graciously giving away on all the labs to look at for thyroid. So you guys, we'll put that, we'll link that in the notes so you can get access to that. And that's, I think that will be so helpful for people. So thank you. Okay, what's the next one? Okay. So TSA goes from the pituitary and it goes to the thyroid. And that's where you get released T4. Now, I want to clarify, because there's still doctors that are testing total T4. That's not what we're concerned with. We're not just concerned with what's bound out, but we're concerned.

turned is what's readily available. What can I use to be converted, to be activated to help me feel better and function better and do what needs to happen. So you want it to be free and unbound T4. T4 is going to give you an idea of what's happening at the thyroid, right? Okay. Is there a possibility that we're missing nutrients, minerals, the building blocks, you know, thyroid thyroid, thyroid, thyroglobulin, right, the protein, iodine, you can get an idea of, wait, is it in the thyroid? Is there an issue with my thyroid by how much free T4 you're putting out? Now, free T4, I see that range. It can go 1.1 and above.

I say that again because I'm seeing people over and over again, like the lower limit can be 0.6.7. They're at a point 9. They're at a point 8. That's a big red flag. You're going to be crashing eventually, maybe sooner than you think. So keeping an eye on those ranges are really really important. So is it fair to say TSA will tell you more about what's going on in the pituitary

and how it's responding to total body, whereas T4 is really, free T4 is really about what's going on with the thyroid. With the thyroid. Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. So look at TSA, it can change. I have people that are chronically stressed one season and I test it again and they take care of themselves and that TSA normalizes, right? whereas free T4 is going to look at, you know, that thyroid output, that thyroid production,

thyroid production, right? Awesome. Now, free T4 has to be converted. It has to be activated in the liver and the gut, kidneys. So you have to look at free T3. You can have great looking TSA. You can have good amounts of free T4 and be completely depleted of free T3 and have hypothyroid symptoms, right?

You have to look at free T3. Now, the interesting thing with free T3 I want to put out there is this, that, Free T3, there's, you know, you talk about fasting, you talk about ketosis and, you know, low carb and high fat and all these things. So there was this conversation that's happening out in the interweb, right, where people are like, well, you can't do those things. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I wanted to get to lifestyle because I have some very strong opinions, but go ahead on that. Yeah, well, yeah, well, what I was going to say is like, you know, you can't do those things because you need carbs to convert T4 to T3. No, let's take a step back.

Because when you look at the studies, what we notice is that carb metabolism is associated with T4-T3 conversion. We know that when you get into ketosis or when you utilize fasting, that conversion goes down. We know what is happening. But they're not talking about why it's happening. These studies are looking at these changes, but they're not saying, oh, it's happening because this is a bad thing. In fact, when you look at studies with people that are overworked,

weight and they're losing weight. Or we look at predominantly those types of studies where people are losing weight and they're keeping it off, you see a decrease of T3 as well. All of their markers in these studies, people are improving and their T3 is going down, but they don't see it as a bad thing. No, because a lot of carbs, a lot of extra fat, a lot of stress on the body will make you need more T3 to deal with these extra and added stressors, right? Interesting. So increased fat, you're going to, you're going to need bad fat. Bad fat.

Bad fat. Yes, exactly. Chronic, like, increase of carbs without any diversity, you're going to need more and more and more T3 production to deal with that, to deal with all this carb metabolism. Because I, and I'll tell you, I'll be completely transparent. I thought it was a bad idea for people to do like keto or like, you know, fast until I had people come in. And it was for the first time in years that they felt better. They started losing weight. They started seeing all these amazing changes. And when I would pull their labs, their T3 was less.

Remember, T3 is associated with ATP and energy production. When you're producing ketone bodies, you have different energy substrates. You're more efficient with energy production and utilization. So there's less need for T3. You also see with fasting, this is a huge, huge thing I see with fasting is increased cell receptor sensitivity. The same thing with insulin and blood sugar, where you actually don't need to make more. You don't need to take more thyroid medication. You're actually binding up what is in your body more efficiently and you just don't need more. Your body's just becoming more efficient at utilizing that. So is it, is it as simple as when you increase carbs, when you increase bad fats, you're creating cellular inflammation. So that's,

that's going to be harder on the cell. You're going to drain the energy of the cell, but you're also going to make it hard for the teeth, for T3 to actually get into the cell. Yes. Is it, is it that simple? So when, when we start to clean up our diet, you make those, that cell a lot more receptive to being able to respond to T3. Yeah. A big thing that people need to pay attention to as they're making these types of changes is that if you are on thyroid medication. What I have found is, and this is actually a very common thing within functional thyroid approach, but you're on a lot more medication than what you actually need because you're not binding and utilizing it. And you're taking more. Because you're, if you don't fix

the cell, you're going to need more medication. You're going to need more and more and more. You're going to need more thyroid output. Even if you're not on medication, you need more thyroid output but because you're not binding and utilizing it. So one big thing I can see with fasting and, you know, eating good quality fats and changing and nourishing your body is that people can go into hyperthyroid. They feel like, oh, my gosh, you know, like I'm hyperthyroid. People say it's hyperthyroid. You're not hyperthyroid.

Hyperthyroid is a disease process. You're just on too much medication. You just don't eat it. You know, we see that in our reset academy. I see that all the time as we start to clean up people. people's diet teach them to fast. If they're on thyroid or have thyroid issues, they're on thyroid medication, I always tell them if you start getting those old thyroid symptoms that show up,

you start feeling like there's a thyroid storm. This is where you need to look and go back to your doctor and see if we can lower that medication down because you're just being more efficient at using the hormones the medication is providing. That's absolutely right. And people think it's a bad thing. They're like, oh my gosh, I have symptoms. And I'm like, this is great.

I know. It's like we, I do that all the time. Like, that's awesome. The other interesting thing, I should have sent you this study because, you know, being out in the fasting world, I've, I've seen some questions over the years about, well, my doctor said I shouldn't fast because I have a thyroid issue or this health influencer says I shouldn't fast because of the thyroid, the research on thyroid and fasting. Well, let me tell you a pivotal study I saw that it showed that when you go into a fasted state, yes, T3 goes down, but when you bring food back in, T3 goes back up. So it's a little bit of like if you're struggling to make T3, this isn't even talking about getting T3 into the cell.

If you're struggling to make T3, it's like a reboot to the T3 system. And perhaps that's because of what fasting does to the liver and the gut and its ability to convert T4 into T3, perhaps. But when you just look at that one study and you go, oh, my God, don't fast or you're going to tank T3. No, we have to now look what happens when we reintroduce food, because now we see healthy levels come back up. Have you seen studies like that? Yeah. And you know what's interesting is we have studies on individuals that have been on the ketogenic diet because of neurological issues like epilepsy and stuff like that. They've done studies on kids and on adults.

And so what I have seen is they see a decrease in T3. They don't see a decrease in T4, which it's a big deal. When we know what T3 is made for, how it interacts with our body, how it interacts with insulin and carbs and all of these things. And, you know, bad fat, we can see, you know, when we're looking at these ketogenic studies that, yeah, it's going to go down. But when introduced with food, like, you know, like, you know, refeating days. Refeeding.

You see that come up. But I will say this. is a disclaimer I always give. The same way, Hormesis, right, when you're introducing a good, you know, beneficial stressor, there is a point where you have to stop and you have to refeed. There's a season to break down. With top of you, there's a season to build up. And the one thing I want people to keep an eye on is that you can fast too much if you're not refeating appropriately,

right? You can restrict carbs too much when you're not refeating. And you need a refeed period. Insulin is involved with the enzyme called deidase, and that's what converts T4 to T3, right, in the liver. And an insulin response allows that enzyme to go into play and increase that conversion. So these feed days are vitally important to kind of wake up this enzymatic activity to increase that conversion, kind of let your body know that everything is good, because what you don't want to see is you don't want to see a decrease in T4 output from all the fasting in ketosis. Right. If I see someone come in, I see a lot of people that are doing low carbon.

If I see that T4 over time has started to decrease, I'm like, that's, that's too much. Remember, brain pituitary is going to affect that T4 output. That's where we're seeing that TSA and T4. So it's really important to keep track of that. What I always say is if you have a thyroid condition, you got to vary your fast, you've got to vary your diet more than the typical person. So when we hear these blanket statements like, don't fast, don't do keto with thyroid, I would put a little asterisk and say, don't do it all the time. Yeah. That's very. Yeah. Do you feel like there's of the three

macronutrients, one's more important for the thyroid and the whole system that we're talking about? Honestly, fat, right? Okay. Cell membrane, cell receptor sensitivity. thyroid, thyracites, like the thyroid cell. And I will say this. And I think this is really interesting. I came across some studies. It's only been discovered kind of in the last few years. And they're not going in the right direction right now, but I know in the future they will. Adult thyroid stem cells, thyroid tissue regeneration. They've just discovered the thyroid, yeah, has adult stem cells. The problem is they're only looking. at it in light of cancer because they're looking at it as a negative thing.

Like if someone gets their thyroid cut out and they have tissue left behind, they can regrow their thyroid. I've seen that happen. Uh-huh. But they see it as a bad thing, right? They're only looking at stem cells as, oh, well, this is cancer, how it's connected with cancer. This is a big deal because 90% of hypothyroidism, which we got to finish those

labs here in a second, but 90% of hypothyroid people are. like individuals have an autoimmune disorder. That means their thyroid is getting destroyed. Their thyroid cells can die, especially if it hasn't been addressed for years and even decades. Crazy. So this idea that we had these adult stem cells, that tissue can regenerate.

And we're trying to tell people that they shouldn't fast when we know how amazing fasting can be for stem cells and regeneration. And there's so many possibilities there. So I knew you would like that. Yeah. So two things I will say on that. When I first started doing diet changes with my patients like 10 years ago, I had a woman who had her thyroid removed.

We put her on a really clean diet, started her intermittent fasting. This was kind of even pre-keto. We didn't even do keto. We just cleaned up her fats and cleaned up, had her do nature's carbs as opposed to refined carbs. She didn't have a thyroid, but her thyroid numbers started improving. and she started to get that thyroid storm feeling again. And she went to her doctor and her doctor's like, I think we got to take your medication down.

This makes no sense because you've had it removed. And I said maybe there's tissue in there that's regrowing. And I've seen it with ovaries too. We've seen people in our community with full hysterectomies. And they're told your sex hormones are going to be tanked within weeks. And years later, they're still making estrogen progesterone. testosterone. And these are like, you know, late 30s, early 40s. They're not early, early, that would be really early menopause. So I think it's really interesting that just because

you remove an organ doesn't mean you took all the tissue out. And that tissue could still make some hormones. Absolutely. And I came across a mouth study where they gave the mice like chemo, which is, you know, towards like the thyroid tissue stopped it and their thyroid tissue regenerated. Like that should give people hope to want to like heal and support and then trust how innately powerful your body is, right? It wants to heal. It wants to grow. It wants to normalize.

So that's always working in your favor. Okay. Give us. I know there's a lot of labs. Give us some of the highlights. And then because I want to save some room for like lifestyle changes, toxins, things that we can like people could leave this podcast and immediately put into action. Yes.

So absolutely. So free T3. Just within ranges, you know, functional ranges shoot for 3.5, right, or to 3.7. But again, if you're in ketosis, if you're low carb, you can see it go down to a 3.1, 3.1, 3.3.3. Everybody is different. I have women that I get them up to a 3.5 and they are, they feel horrible, right? They don't like that there. They feel better at 3.1.

So having that range of 3.1 and above, depending on where you're at metabolically is really, really important. And then the next two things I want to talk about, which is a really big deal, TPO antibody is and thyroglobulin antibodies. TPO should be under a nine, thyroid globuline it should be under a one. I want to note these two because there's no drug in the market that's going to bring down these antibodies. So that means two different things. Doctors are not checking it or if they're checking it, they're not talking to you about it because you actually have to find your autoimmune trigger, whether it's infection in the gut, heavy metal toxicity. The reason why this has to, be talked about more. It's because this idea that we call it thyroid antibodies, you would get an

idea and doctors act like this is just an autoimmune response to the thyroid. This is a systemic immune issue. This is a systemic immune issue. They have found that thyroid antibodies can cross the blood brain barrier. They have found that thyroid antibodies, you're more likely to develop other autoimmune issues, three times more is likely to develop other autoimmune issues. So skin issues, gut issues, celiac, anemia, like you name it. It is a whole body immune system issue. So when you go to your doctor and you hear you have a thyroid issue and you get on synthroid or armor thyroid, all you're doing is putting in the end product. You're going to feel better because you got this hormone in there, right? You're missing it. You put it. But you then ignore where the issue is.

Are you not binding it? Is there antibodies? Because if you live with antibodies, you will never get well, your hair will continue to fall out. You have all your health positive ANA and all these autoimmune markers. And you're like, why do I have this? Well, because you were sort of an idea that these antibodies don't affect anything else when that is false. Crazy. So thyroid antibodies are a big thing. Yeah. If they go up into the brain, does that mean they start attacking the brain? They create this autoimmune response, inflammatory response in the brain. Yeah. It's wild. So if you have those, if you're showing up with positive antibodies and you're having, depression, anxiety, trouble sleeping.

Like, it could be that those antibodies have crossed the brain and now are damaging the brain. Mm-hmm. Crazy. Eating an inflammatory response up there in the brain. Great. Okay. So give us some kind of the highlights of those of like what you said mold, heavy metals. What else would somebody go looking for if they had these antibodies?

So I usually, when I look at the thyroid, I want people to understand that you, by the time you have symptoms, it's been there. years, maybe decades, right? You know, antibodies can exist if you don't test them seven and nine years before you have a symptom, right? So when you're looking at the thyroid, it's peeling the layers, right? So these are the layers that I approach it as, right? Number one, look at toxins in your environment that you can change and then look at your nutrient profile, right?

Some people will need some thyroid hormones because if you're completely in the hole, like it's going to be hard to want to get up in the morning and do the exercise. and do your quiet time or, you know, eat the way you need to do. So sometimes utilizing very glandulars from companies that have grass fed cows, good quality with no fillers, right? You can do that, right? You can do that. And then I'll look at nutrient values like vitamin D, vitamin B,

looking at magnesium, selenium, looking at iodine, utilizing an iodine loading test. Because the idea is if there's some easy things that you can supplement with right now while you dig deeper, do that. Don't feel like crap because it's going to be really hard on you, right? So that's the first level. Do you need thyroid hormones? What's your nutrient profile? What do you like vitamin D to be at what levels for thyroid?

Above a 60. If there's kind of an autoimmune response, I might get someone closer to a 70 or 80. Yeah. You know, I interviewed Dr. Sarah Godfraid a couple weeks ago and she likes for hormones in general, she likes vitamin D in the 70 or 80 range. Yeah. So like 60 is like for someone, that's well, right? Like that's balanced. I'm doing good. If we're working, if we're going after thyroid healing, I'm going to get it up to 70 or 80. Yeah. And you've got to get that up. Iodine's gotten a lot of attention and people are like,

oh, I have a thyroid problem. I should take some iodine. Talk a little bit about why you wouldn't just go supplement with iodine and what we need to know about low iodine. Yeah. So the thing is this. Like first things first. We listen to an article. We had. have it all the time. The first time, anytime I coach someone, I'm like, you are not allowed to read an article. Like, I just had a consult today. And she's like, Dr. Becca, I don't buy things anymore. I'm like, yeah, slow it down. Like, here's something we go out, right? You got to understand that iodine tends to be with other minerals. There's things that keep it that we get it naturally, like in nature, that will keep it in check, like selenium, right? So the big thing to understand about iodine,

it is a building block and it is possible that the reason why you have a nodule that your thyroid is growing that you're not making thyroid hormone is because you have low iodide, right? Because T4 is from iodine, T3 is from iodine. But you also have to understand something. Number one, when you don't have adequate antioxidants like glutathione production, when you don't have adequate selenium, which is part of the glutathione peroxidase complex that protects your thyroid, that can change into its hydrogen peroxide, which is, it's destructive for the thyroid.

It's toxic, right? So, and zinc and magnesium, you need, and copper, you need this complex. A lot of people will go out and get on iodine. The second thing to understand is that iodine will detox halogens, right? Fluoride, chlorine, bromine. They are similar. They're found around each other at the periodic table. molecularly, they're similar, which means they'll compete with each other.

And a lot of people, we know that we get fluoride and chlorine from water, but what people don't realize is you're getting it from the chemicals in your environment. Polychlorinated chemicals, polychlorinated chemicals. What's that? Flame retardants, non-stick surfaces, teflon panes, even like food wrapping, that when you open something, it's like smooth surface, these are chemicals in that when they go into the body, they affect the thyroid. So when people start doing all these high amounts of iodine, they're releasing these

chemicals and they're not having normal bowel movements. They don't have their clearance pathways open to get rid of them. You're recirculating these toxins and creating this, you know, issue. So I always recommend if someone's going to want to work with iodine, work with, you know, nutritional iodines until you work with someone or, you know, join your group, right? Yeah. Yeah, what's like seaweed?

What would be like a nutritional iodine? So we see seaweed, right? Anything that's going to be found in the ocean. In fact, I read about how even like if you live by the ocean, the air, the soil is just rich in iodine, right? So that's right. You just heard Dr. Rebecca says you have to go on your beach vacation. So make sure you got to go to Hawaii to get.

Got to go to Hawaii. Tell your partner, tell your family. Y'all need to go. doctor's orders. But you also get it from organ meats, stuff like liver, eggs. There's more foods than just what you find in the ocean. So liver, eggs. If you do raw milk, if you can handle that, you can see some iodine in there as well. So I like to utilize organ meats. I like to utilize more sea oceans like cod has high amounts of shrimp, wild caught shrimp that has good amounts of iodine. What do you feel about the risk of, okay, the ocean's polluted, these fish are polluted.

but if you're going to try to use food to help your thyroid and the thyroid is very susceptible to toxins. Is it a risk benefit? Like the benefits outweigh the risks in this moment? I'm going to go ahead and tell you this. Every single person I would work like I work with, everyone will detox. They have to detox. Right. Every, oh, yeah, for thyroid. Yeah, for thyroid. Well, every human should. But I just want everybody to make sure they hear that. If you have a thyroid problem, you have to detox. That is at the root. Yeah, because so once we get to that nutrient level, those glandulars, the next level is make sure your clearance pathways are open, bowel movements, urinating, sweating, liver function, and then look at the gut, right? You got to

start there. Gut permeability, you know, sensitivity, non-siliate gluten sensitivity is huge. Make sure that gut lining is good. Make sure you're having normal bowel movement. No, some of you guys are like eating veggies and are you're like one month like one to three months pregnant you know acid reflex that's yeah yeah you're not bloated yeah yeah if you're not pooping you're not getting rid of toxins if you're not pooping you're not keeping your estrogen check if you're not pooping you're not breaking down hormones you're not you're not moving things out yeah what do you think of carnivore for those people didn't you try carnivore for a while i did it was actually really it was the best my blood sugar has ever been wow

I like, I mean, unbelievable. And I have a whole health history, right? I live without a thyroid, right? Like for the rest of my life, and that's why I do what I do, right? No matter what, I will always have to do protocols. I will always have to reset myself because I don't have a thyroid. But carnivore can be such a powerful tool. I like to utilize it for the gut microbiome, right?

Remodulating the gut bacteria, helping to heal, you know, supportive in that healing. And then I still think it's important to vary that, right? Like come out and then back in. And I can see some amazing support and blood sugar regulation in the gut microbiome. So, okay, so I want to summarize this because, again, I feel like we need another episode on this. So you guys, if you love it, leave notes for us, leave reviews, let us know what else you'd love to know. And we'll bring Dr. Rebecca back on. But I just want to summarize it so that people have a clear path when they leave this podcast.

So we've decided that TSA is a point. singular measurement of thyroid. You would agree with that. Absolutely. And so you have a bunch of labs that you recommend. There's an e-book, a free e-book you guys can get. We'll leave a link. And we discuss the most important labs.

Is that what you? Yeah. Okay. Then when we look at diet changes, we know we need to look at our oils. We need to look at our refined carbohydrates. And then anything else? Was there a third one?

I think getting into ketosis, I think can be really, beneficial to give your thyroid, your conversion a break to utilize these ketone bodies more efficiently for energy. I think it's very encouraging to see that your body still wants to lose weight and get well and increase energy as you're healing your thyroid. So I think it can be a really powerful tool when done appropriately. You lost weight recently. You look like you've lost weight. I haven't, I haven't seen you in person since March, but you look great. I'll have to come back. And we'll have to talk about the connection with the thyroid and sex hormones and fibroids and everything I did with that because, you know, by the time, let me go out and tell you this,

one of the biggest things, because this is going to be shocking when people hear this, you know, one of the biggest things that as I dug deeper about like, why did I create thyroid cancer? Because people have thyroid issues can create thyroid cancer. It's a really fast growing cancer, especially amongst women. I had high mercury, high mercury levels. I don't have any amalgam fillings. I don't have any exposure to mercury, but my mother has her mouth full of mercury.

And I mean, I had really, really high levels. And so that's been a process for me to detox. Like the heavy metals, we know mercury has an affinity for that thyroid. So yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. You know, I interviewed Dr. Lara Bryden the other day, who is a hormone expert. and she really dove in to lead and talked about how as you move through times of hormonal swings

that she specifically zoned in on lead that lead is going to it's stored in skeletal bone it's going to come out when hormones go up and down do you feel like the same is with the thyroid like if it is I don't actually is mercury is stored I know it's stored in the brain is it's stored in nervous tissue and the thyroid and like if if we go through big hormonal swings does it come out? What initiates that mercury to be leached out? No, yeah, those big hormonal shifts as well. I was going to know, that's interesting where I said that. I had lead, I had a lead dump after pregnancy. Right. Like after I did too. And I had a thyroid problem. And after my second child, and they wanted to remove it. Or no, they wanted to do radioactive. And luckily, I was so committed

to breastfeeding. They were like, you would have to stop breastfeeding. And I'm like, I don't, you know, Mama bear hair was like, no, I'm going to breastfeed my child for two years and then let's revisit this. Well, it had gone away and I never had to do it. No, I'm glad you noticed that because I see when I look at someone's health history, like even when I coach someone, I had this woman, she was in her 70s and I'm asking her questions about when she was in her 20s and she's like, why are we talking about my past? Can we? I was like, because that's how we got here, right? Because when you see those big hormonal shifts is when I do see those thyroid issues come to the surface. I'm seeing. more women, more young girls when they get their period.

There's something off with the thyroid. They're bringing them in. I'm seeing it postpartum. A lot of women are suffering with postpartum, depression or anxiety. Because let me go ahead. Postpartum is different than postpartum depression anxiety, right? Postpartum is just that period of time. But there's women that are running on fumes that are feeling depressed and anxious

and their doctors are not checking those thyroid hormones. They're not checking their hormones and they're depleted and they're struggling, right? And then perimenopause and menopause. I have women that have kind of just pushed through life, right? They get crap done. They do it, but they can't do it through menopause. And that thyroid just crashes after menopause. But yeah, I see those toxins start to move into circulate after those hormonal shifts.

And I think it's important for women specifically to know that because you, there is a tendency to think you're going crazy. You're like, I was this way. And now I'm not this way. What happened? I didn't change anything in my life. And it's when we see these big fluctuations and hormones that you get this toxic dump. So we've normalized the, we have, it's, it's common. Just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal and you're not crazy.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. You're not crazy is really the message. We hope you get this from this. So, okay, so we got to look at our toxic load. We look at changing our oils. We look at going keto.

And then we don't look at throwing supplements at it. until we have a proper idea of what we're dealing with. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I will say this. I'll add to you can start off two things with detoxing is, well, detoxing your environment. Change your water. Change your water right away. Like whole house water filtration because you're showering in it, right? You're showering with hot water and these chemicals in your water. Like our county is fluorinated water, right? You're drinking it, right? It's everywhere, right? So you're drinking it. You're drinking it. You're taking a shower, do that, decrease that. And like the second thing is change out plastics,

right? Two things that you can start off with right there. Change out these endocrine disrupting disrupting chemicals. You can start there. But I will say across the board, minerals, minerals are always a great place to start. Awesome. No, I came across a study that veggies, because of mono-agriculture, all soil is so depleted, veggies, mineral content down 30%, meat 15%. And especially if you're low carb, right? The one thing I'll tell you, there's been a shift in my, you know, practice. And everyone used to talk about multivitivins. Uh-uh.

We need to talk about minerals. We're so depleted. Yes. We're so depleted. Yes. I think that is a supplement that right off the bat, like I feel like almost everybody. Everybody. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, that was been my big takeaway from fasting so many people is I would see all these like hair fall out, heart palpitations, trouble sleeping. sleeping and I realized, oh my gosh, the whole world. This isn't just the U.S. This is the whole world is mineral deficient. And it starts, if you guys are hearing this for the first time, it really starts with the poor way that we take care of our soils. Yes. And in America, it's really bad. I know regenerative agriculture is really making a surge, which is great. But like something is simple. When I go to Italy and vacation in Italy, I've noticed my hair grows more. My nails grow faster.

and I think, oh my gosh, what is in the food here that I'm not getting back home? It's so interesting the way minerals play out in our life. I'm so glad you said that because I've been noticing that too. I'm like, oh, my, everyone. Everyone's efficient. And it's a type of thing that is going to affect so much, but you're not going to pinpoint it, right? You're not going to be like, oh, mineral deficient.

And doctors, I mean, if they can't even test beyond TSA, how are they going to think minerals? So that was amazing. Well, okay, I definitely am going to have to bring you back because this, you know, it's interesting because I told Jessica when I was preparing for this today, I was like, I really want an episode for people, a go-to episode where people can understand the bigger picture of thyroid. And I feel like you just gave us that. So thank you so much. And then we're going to bring you back again and we'll do another episode that goes a little bit

deeper. So if you guys love it, again, leave a review, share it out and let us know what else you want to know about this so that we can get you the resources. I have five rapid fire questions for you, but before I go into that, how do people find you? And I know a lot of my resetter community is going to go stock you after this. Yeah. So you can find me at Dr. Rebecca Warren, D-R, R-E-E-C-T-A-W-A-R-R-E-N dot com, Instagram and Facebook. And I do have a Facebook group, healing after thyroid because we didn't even get a chance to talk about people. I know.

Without a thyroid. And that is what's happening. There's a mess. And maybe we can come back and talk about that. But I want to support people in that way. And before the questions, I want to just say a few things really quick. I just hope that everybody understands how remarkable their body is. It does the right thing at the right time.

And you're going to be frustrated. There's going to be, you know, times I know that you hate your body and you don't understand. saying why it feels like it's working against you. Just because you've been in this broken medical system does not mean that your body has failed you. And there's so much hope. I hope you know how amazing your body is. The second thing is get plugged in.

If people are listening to you, your community, like this is life changing information. Do not go to your endocrinologist and your medical doctor expecting them to tell you things that's not in their toolbox. What they're good at. They're great at it. You need the lab work, you know, medication, you need surgery, do that. But this is why programs like this exist, right? Yep.

That you can get the information that you can implement and get yourself well. So I just, just those two. Those are, you like spoke right at my heart. And I would agree, like, if you guys are struggling with your thyroid, A, don't ever let a doctor bully you. Don't ever let a doctor tell you that you cannot heal, switch doctors. because when you really dive into understanding the body, you see that the body can heal from the most amazing situations. You just have to find the strategies at work with that healing.

So I totally agree. Thank you for saying that. So, okay, here's my first question. We're starting a book club. So if there was one or two books that you're like, everybody needs to read, it doesn't have to be on thyroid. It could be fiction. It could be something that inspired you in your life, but a game-changing book that you would love people to read. what would it be? Oh, absolutely. One of my favorite books is the art of not giving an F. And this book is

amazing because it takes the things we avoid talking about and looking at death. It takes all these negative things. And it shows that the things that we avoid are the things that grow us. But he does such an amazing approach to it. And the idea is this. We have only so much of ourselves to give. And we have the, we need to give of ourselves when we can and when we can't, we stop. And don't avoid the suck. The suck is where good things happen. So I recommend every single person read that book. I love that.

Okay. We're going to add it. So we're creating a big book list so that at like the end of the season, all of our guests will put out their favorite books. I'm so excited for it. Okay. If you were the surgeon general of the United States right now and I know, Wouldn't that be amazing or not? And you were in charge of solving the thyroid problems that are happening here in this country.

And this would apply really. We have a worldwide audience. What are like three steps you would start with to change the direction that thyroid health is going? Okay. I would change the whole fat, low fat recommendation. Okay. I would change the whole low fat. I would give the most up-to-date research and say this is dumb.

stop doing this, right? Okay. The second thing is, you know, we have programs that, you know, what do they call it? Where they pay farmers subsidize, right? They subsidize things. And I think the problem is what I realized through COVID. And I was trying to get family in Mississippi some supplements. And there are areas throughout this country where people either don't have access to the nutrients

they need or the supplements that they need or it's just really difficult for them to afford it. We're subsidizing all these different grab. Why can't we put money into helping people actually have access to things like vitamin D, right? If I'm going to do government spending. Yeah, go. Yeah, I'm now electing you. Okay, thank you very much. And then the final thing I would do is I would work a way to start.

I would have to work with a different part of within the government is look at this toxicity that's being put into our everyday products, right? our skin, fragrances, like seeing how we can change that, because that is going to be such a detrimental thing to overall health. Love it. Absolutely love it. I agree with those three. Okay.

If you could go back to, was it 19 when you had your thyroid removed and you're walking out of that doctor's office in despair and you're going to give that girl some advice, what would you give her? You're going to try to make me cry here? What are you doing? You got this. What are you doing? We go deep here on the resetter podcast. You know, man, first I would say it's okay, right?

Take your time. Take your time. What? Just take your time. Like look at you. Like look at me. Okay. I love it.

Because this is, this was hard. I know. I know it's hard. For seven years after this happened to me, I couldn't even talk about it without crying. Like my first date with my husband, he asked me. about the scar in my neck and I like started bawling like, oh my gosh, on my first date. So, you know, the first thing I would say is like, you know, take your time. A lot of times when we go to the doctor's office, we might hear the C word.

We might hear all these diagnoses and you got to take your time. You never want to make a medical decision out of fear or hopelessness. You don't want to make a place, you know, that decision, right? The second thing is to take a step back and to remember, and this is a principle within chiropractic that I take with me wherever I go. So, yeah, the body's created to heal itself, but it does the right thing at the right time. Yes.

Always. But I have cancer in my thyroid. Exactly. Why did that happen? You cannot cut your way to health, right? Why did that happen? And then the final thing is get connected. Again, I said this.

I said this, like people, if you're listening to this, you have an amazing community. I send people to your YouTube videos like, there's so much amazing powerful information out there, but it can feel like you're alone on an island. If all you're doing is going to doctor's appointments and not hearing the truth about healing or not hearing what research says. So being connected, I wish I had had a community that I could go to and say, I'm struggling, I'm scared, I'm nervous. Is it possible? I'm making these changes and have that support. So those are the three things. I love that. Oh my gosh. I, Absolutely love that. Okay, next question. I got two more questions for you. The pandemic,

there's a lot of things we could talk about the negative impact it had on people, but a lot of us had really positive ahas and gifts that came out of the pandemic. And I'm going to start talking about it like it's over so that we can start manifesting that. So what is it that was the biggest gift for you over the last year, year and a half? Honestly, it's what I saw around me. There's there's there's and this is people can still make this decision right now you have you have two paths that you can take you can look at this pandemic and say everything is scary the viruses the infections the pathogens it's scary and we need outside help or you can look at this path and say i don't want to depend on the government for help i have to do something to change my situation i want to make sure

I'm as well as I can be. And the really cool thing, I will say this, our clinic, our virtual coaching, it grew exponentially. And it was so shocking, first of all, but it made me be so thankful that so many people thought to themselves, I want to be well. I don't want to be sick. I don't want underlying things that are going to make me end up in the hospital. I want to invest in my health now. So that was so. amazing and beautiful for me to see. Do you know that in my membership community that I do on Saturday mornings, we do a workout and then I do a coffee talk. And I always say, you know, I'll just talk about current events and what I'm seeing. And people keep requesting like, can you talk about the Delta

variant? Can you talk about vaccines? Can you? And because they're dying to talk about it. If you go to social media, it's like they're so slanted. But it really gives me hope that people are wanting to take back responsibility. They just need to think it through for themselves. And they're not being given that opportunity by, you know, social media, the government. So I love this idea about community and asking questions and just stepping out of fear by stepping into your own power. I just love that. So amazing. Okay. Last question. If you had one message for the world that you could get into everybody's brain and help them see what would that be? one message for the world girl you got to like warn people with you like deep questions i want i want

you going straight to your heart that's what i want yeah what's the first thing that comes to your mind have okay i will say this we got to give ourselves grace and we have to give ourselves grace like i think one of the things that i've noticed a lot lately is we're so dang hard on ourselves. Yeah. We mess up. We eat a donut. We don't work out.

You know, we yelled at our kid today. We, you know, didn't, you know, do what we said we were going to do. And we beat ourselves up. And our internal conversation is so ugly, right? Like, it's just so detrimental. We don't realize. Like, I always give this example. Like, if your child was starting to walk and they kept falling down, could you imagine

how horrible it was if I was like, come on, you know better. Get up. You've seen people walk. You've seen it. Come on. You've had three years or two years, however long it is. It would be horrendous and you think it would be abusive and yet we say this to ourselves inside our head. And because it's in our head, we don't have anyone to call that out. And so the biggest thing is when we can show ourselves grace, when we can love ourselves, then we can love others and show other people grace. But a lot of people that. spew hatred have so much hatred for themselves. Yeah. That just argue and fight have so much internal, you know, just like being torn,

right? And so giving yourself grace and allowing yourself to grow and to love yourself through that so that you can give that to others, I think is really, really needed right now. Hey, resetters. I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews. and those of you that have left me comments on iTunes, I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying these episodes. And it seems like you're enjoying them as much as I am enjoying doing them. One of the things that I've learned in just interacting with so many people

is that we've really lost the art of deep conversations. And for me, the Resetter podcast stands for having meaningful conversations with people who are thinking about health, about life, about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream media. And so I just want to say, give you guys a shout out and just say thank you for participating in this process with me. Because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it's impacting your life.

So please let us know if there's anything we can do to make. this podcast more customized to you to make it better. We are now officially in season two, and we are working to bring you the best conversations that health influencers have, that mindset changers can give, and to really deliver you something that you're not able to get anywhere else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say, my YouTube, from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you, and let's get healthy together.