Recently, I interviewed Reghan, and we discussed holistic strategies for managing Graves’ disease, how to think about diet and lifestyle changes, which natural supplements to consider, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: Welcome, welcome. I’m with Reghan here, as we are going to be doing a Save My Thyroid audit that focuses on Graves’ Disease. Thank you so much for joining us, Reghan.  

Reghan: 

Thank you. I’m glad to be here.  

Dr. Eric: 

I’m really excited to talk about your Graves’ journey and give you some helpful advice along the way. Can you let everyone know how long you’ve been dealing with Graves’? 

Reghan: 

I first got diagnosed in around May/June of this past year, but my journey to get my diagnosis took over nine months between seeing a bunch of different doctors, doing blood tests, MRIs, ultrasounds. My doctors and I haven’t really pinpointed a direct point of when the Graves’ could have started, but I could have been dealing with it for five years, and we just are getting a diagnosis right now. 

Dr. Eric: 

Is there any family history of any thyroid or autoimmune thyroid conditions? 

Reghan: 

No, but I do have family with other autoimmune diseases. No one else has thyroid issues. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. Are you currently taking any antithyroid medication for Graves’? 

Reghan: 

No, I am not. I have an endocrinologist who tried to prescribe me one, but I was worried about the health side effects. They seemed very harsh, so I am trying to hold off until I finish college. I am a senior right now in college. If I want to take a thyroid medication, I want to be in the best hands and not away at school and worried about it. 

Dr. Eric: 

I understand. Are you doing anything naturally to help manage the symptoms? 

Reghan: 

Yeah, I am probably about 75% gluten-free at the moment. I take supplements. I take Vitamin D, Omega-3, turmeric, and a probiotic. I try to cut out any refined sugars and add more protein to my diet. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. Wonderful. As of now, not this very minute, but overall, what are some of the more common symptoms you’ve been experiencing? 

Reghan: 

I don’t seem to have too many crazy symptoms. Something I have is hand tremors that go off and on. Sometimes, I won’t be shaking, but this morning, my mom felt my hands, and she felt that I was shaking. Besides that, my thyroid and my neck are a little bit enlarged. 

Dr. Eric:

Symptoms aren’t too bad. Having some tremors. Do you know if you have an elevated resting heart rate? I don’t know if you measure your heart rate. 

Reghan: 

I don’t measure my heart rate regularly, but I’m pretty sure it’s not. Every time I go to a doctor, they’ve never said it was an issue. 

Dr. Eric: 

No heart palpitations? 

Reghan: 

No. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s good. How long ago since your last thyroid panel? 

Reghan: 

I got bloodwork done about three/four weeks ago. 

Dr. Eric: 

It’s an endocrinologist you’re working with? 

Reghan: 

Yes. 

Dr. Eric: 

Either way, but especially with endocrinologists, they don’t reveal a lot of information in most cases. Did they mention if your thyroid hormones—T3/T4—are actually elevated? 

Reghan: 

Yes. I previously had bloodwork in January, where my levels were extremely high. When I got bloodwork in May and June, my levels have gone down a little bit, but they’re still consistent with Graves’. 

Dr. Eric:

Just wanted to make sure. You’re not really subclinical as far as your blood test? You just don’t have a lot of symptoms overall, but your thyroid hormone levels are still elevated as of the last test. 

Reghan: 

Yes. 

Dr. Eric: 

If you could paint a perfect picture, 6-12 months from now, how would you like your health to be? 

Reghan: 

I ideally would really like to keep doing the holistic method I’m doing with my diet and lifestyle changes. That will help lower my thyroid hormone levels. That’s my big issue. My body doesn’t react well to medication. I want to be able to put off the medication if possible and be able to manage it holistically just by lifestyle changes. 

Dr. Eric:

In your opinion, is there anything preventing you from restoring your health? Are there any potential roadblocks? 

Reghan: 

No. At the moment, I’m in college. I go to the University of Alabama. The school is not located- I want to wait until I’m finished with my senior year if I wanted to go the medication route and if the holistic medicine I’m doing isn’t working. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. Sounds good. I had you prior to this fill out a form. Some of your biggest health challenges: keeping your weight healthy, preventing your hyperthyroidism from progressing, keeping your T levels down. All of these are really good goals. Have you worked with a natural healthcare practitioner at all? 

Reghan: 

No, I have not. I am working on getting a nutritionist to work with. It’s more just looking at what other people have said works for them holistically. Reading books and doing my research. 

Dr. Eric: 

Just out of curiosity, how did you find out about me? I don’t know if you remember. 

Reghan: 

My mom has been doing a lot of research on thyroid health and holistic methods, people who have really seen results from doing it. She came across your name and sent it to me. 

Dr. Eric: 

Cool. She has more of a natural mindset as well? 

Reghan: 

Yes. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s awesome. You’ve made some diet changes, trying to eat a healthy diet. How about stress? Going to college, it doesn’t matter what stage in life you’re at. Being an adult in the workforce after school. How would you say currently stress is as well as over the last year or two? Like you said, this has been developing over time. 

Reghan: 

I am going back to school in two weeks. At the moment, my stress level is very low. I am not doing too much stuff that would stress me out. I work at night. I’ve been at the beach all summer, which is a very relaxing place for me. When I go back to school, I’m a naturally anxious person, so I tend to be a little more stressed in school. I’m trying to destress at the end of the day and focus on that every single day. 

Dr. Eric: 

Are you doing anything specifically besides going to the beach, which I’m sure is very relaxing, for stress? 

Reghan: 

I try to get out for an hour a day to exercise, whether it’s going for a run or a walk. That really helps me get to a good mental place, so I’m less stressed at the end of the day. 

Dr. Eric: 

How is your sleep now? How is it when you are in school? 

Reghan: 

My sleep is good. I’ve never had issues with my sleep. I naturally wake up early in the morning, like 7am/8am, and I go to bed usually around 10pm/11pm. Once I go back to school, that probably will change because of the environment I’m in. 

Dr. Eric: 

Even when you’re in school, it sounds like you’re not sleep-deprived. You do your best to get a good night’s sleep. 

Reghan: 

No. 

Dr. Eric: 

Good. As far as testing, you mentioned you had a thyroid panel done. I assume they tested antibodies? Do you know if that’s how they came up with a diagnosis? Did they do an uptake scan? 

Reghan: 

Yes, I did an uptake scan probably mid-May. That was with my endocrinologist. He already thought that I had Graves’, but we got that to confirm. I got bloodwork with that as well. 

Dr. Eric: 

Did he mention anything about radioactive iodine or thyroid surgery, or just pretty much talking about medication? 

Reghan: 

Mainly medication. I wanted to avoid doing any thyroid ablating, anything that I would have to be on life-saving hormones for the rest of my life. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yes, I definitely agree with that. Any other blood testing that you have done? I assume they probably did at least a metabolic panel, a CBC. Have you had Vitamin D tested or an iron panel or B12 or any blood sugar markers? 

Reghan: 

No, not recently. I probably had in past bloodwork, but not in the recent four times I’ve gone. They just have been strictly to look at my thyroid hormone levels. 

Dr. Eric: 

Have you ever had any functional medicine testing such as adrenal or saliva testing or dried urine testing or stool testing? 

Reghan: 

No. 

Dr. Eric: 

How about environmental toxins? We live in a toxic world. It’s not getting any better. Do you do anything- Diet-wise, you try to eat organic at home. I don’t know if in college, it might be more challenging. Do you do anything else? Do you do regular conventional care products or cleaning products? 

Reghan: 

I have been trying to drink more out of glass cups and not do as many plastics. That was one big thing. As far as shampoo and conditioner, body care stuff, I have been using what I have always used. I haven’t really changed that. 

Dr. Eric: 

At your age, I’m hoping that you don’t have any silver fillings, mercury amalgams. I know it’s not that common these days. Any root canals? 

Reghan: 

No. 

Dr. Eric: 

Is your oral health pretty good?

Reghan: 

Yes. 

Dr. Eric: 

My next question has to do with mold. Do you live in the dorms? 

Reghan: 

I did live in a dorm my freshman year, and it was probably 100 years old. There was black mold. At one point, I had black mold in my bloodstream, and I had to be on some special probiotic to help fix whatever was going on. This was from drinking the water that wasn’t cleaned properly. 

Dr. Eric: 

How long ago was this? 

Reghan: 

This was about two/three years ago. It’s my freshman year. So almost three years ago. 

Dr. Eric: 

Did you get tested for mold? You took the probiotics and got the recommendation. 

Reghan: 

I did a bloodwork panel, and they said this happens. If you live in an older dorm, this can happen more frequently. I am not really sure. There could be mold in your bloodstream or your body, so they just put me on an extra-strength probiotic, and it fixed the issue. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thankfully, you’re no longer in the dorms. Hopefully, where you are, not that you can’t have mold in an apartment or house. I have a daughter who currently is at NC State in the dorms. There is that concern. Thankfully, you’re not in that environment. 

Reghan: 

No. 

Dr. Eric: 

Before giving my feedback, any questions you have for me? 

Reghan: 

At this moment, no. I am more interested in what you have to say from your medical perspective. I know you focus more on holistic medicine. I want to know what your opinion is and how I can change my lifestyle based on what you think and not just based on this stuff I’ve read. I feel like I’ve read all these different opinions on what I should do. I would love to hear it from someone who really knows what they’re talking about. 

Dr. Eric: 

Sure. You’re doing a number of good things. You’re cleaning up the diet. You’re active, going for a run or walk every day. Is it on a daily basis? 

Reghan: 

Yeah, usually a daily basis. Weather-contingent, I will usually do an hour and a half walk or run per day. 

Dr. Eric: 

Taking care of your sleep. Those are some good things. Definitely want to continue doing things from a diet and lifestyle standpoint. 

With exercise, I would make sure not to overdo it, but the walking should be fine. With hyperthyroidism, if you have an elevated resting heart rate, which I know you don’t monitor, and you feel okay from a symptomatic standpoint other than tremors, I would be cautious with running. I am not saying not to run. 

One thing I do have my patients focus on is resistance exercise, doing some type of weight-bearing exercise. It doesn’t have to be with weights; it could be using your own body weight or with bands. You said the University of Alabama? 

Reghan: 

Yes. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m sure they have a pretty extensive fitness place if you wanted to use their equipment. You don’t absolutely have to do that. With hyperthyroidism/Graves’, low muscle mass is common as well as low bone density. Doing some weight-bearing exercises definitely could be helpful. 

There’s no single diet that fits everyone perfectly. I do have a book that recently came out called The Hyperthyroidism Healing Diet, which actually has three different diets. I talk a lot about AIP. Might be a little bit challenging for you to follow while at school. Even following a regular paleo or modified paleo diet. Maybe you are currently following something similar to that. 

The #1 thing I would make sure to try to focus on eating is whole healthy foods. Trying to avoid refined foods and sugars. Might be a bit of a challenge when in college. Since you’re not in the dorms, I don’t know how it works. Do you not have a meal plan? Do you get your own food and do your own cooking? 

Reghan: 

I do not have a meal plan. I just do my own cooking. I have been looking into doing Thrive Market. There is a box of protein that gets sent to my house. I have been trying to look into stuff that could promote me buying healthier foods and keeping my diet going. I know it will be hard when I get back to school. I will try my best to keep everything pretty much the same as what I’m doing right now. 

Dr. Eric: 

With the meal plans and eating at the cafeterias at school, not that they don’t have some healthy food, but usually not organic. At least not at NC State. Just try your best with your diet. Check out my book if you haven’t already. I also have a lot of information on the podcast and my website.

I asked you about thyroid hormones still being elevated. When I dealt with Graves’, I didn’t take antithyroid medication, so I can relate with you not wanting to take that. Some of my patients do choose to take it, and that’s fine. You want to do something. Have you taken bugleweed or L-carnitine? 

Reghan: 

No. I have looked into getting bugleweed. I just went to a supplement store near me, and they didn’t have it. I was going to order it, but I haven’t gotten around to it. 

Dr. Eric: 

It’s not a common supplement, so it’s not a shocker that it wasn’t in the health food store. You can definitely get it online. It doesn’t work for everybody, but I would say 70-75% of people, it works for.

L-carnitine in higher doses, like 2,000-4,000mg according to the research, also helps block the entry of thyroid hormone into the cell. 

Whether it’s bugleweed or L-carnitine, and some people take both, you want to do something to lower thyroid hormone levels. I took motherwort, too, but I was experiencing heart palpitations. If you are not experiencing that, you might be fine with just bugleweed or L-carnitine. Definitely something to keep in mind, which it sounds like you are. 

Toxic load. Keep up the good work. Glass, trying to minimize plastics as much as you can. Maybe look into some natural products that you use on an everyday basis. It doesn’t mean that you need to switch everything. Slowly make a transition to more natural products to reduce your toxic burden. 

When it comes to Graves’, it’s more of an immune system condition than a thyroid condition. You need to lower your thyroid hormone levels to keep you safe and make sure it doesn’t affect the heart and bones, which it does when it’s elevated. At the same time, you want to do things to improve the health of your immune system: finding and removing triggers, correcting underlying imbalances. Diet and lifestyle definitely play a big role in that. 

Sometimes, you need to dig deeper. This is where potentially working with someone, like a functional medicine practitioner, may be something to look into in the future. If you can’t do that now, especially with college, focusing on diet and lifestyle. Looking into certain types of testing. It depends. 

We didn’t do a comprehensive health history here. With most of my patients, I will do some type of adrenal testing. I’ll do more blood testing that you mentioned. If you didn’t get Vitamin D, that’s a good marker to start out with blood test-wise because healthy levels of Vitamin D, above 50, is important for an optimal immune system. A lot of people are deficient in Omega-3 fatty acids, so you could do a fatty acid panel. Did you say you’re taking Omegas? You said turmeric and a probiotic. 

Reghan: 

Yes, I’m taking Omega-3 and Vitamin D. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. You haven’t tested for Vitamin D? 

Reghan: 

No. 

Dr. Eric: 

Eventually, you might want to test. Maybe your levels are optimal; maybe it’s less than optimal. Don’t want it to get too high. Do you know how much off the top of your head of Vitamin D you’re taking? 

Reghan: 

No. The bottle I have recommends taking two supplements, but I take one a day. 

Dr. Eric: 

I would eventually retest when you get a chance. Diet and lifestyle. If you’re doing that while managing the symptoms. If things head in the right direction, that’s great. It might head in the right direction because you’re taking bugleweed, and you really won’t know until eventually you get to a point where you may not have to be on bugleweed. 

That’s what happened with me when I dealt with Graves’. I was on bugleweed but also doing other things to improve my health. While taking bugleweed, my thyroid numbers would go on the hypo side, which was a sign that I didn’t need as much bugleweed and was able to wean off. if you don’t get to that point, then you know there are still things you need to do to address the underlying cause. 

That’s where working with someone to do some testing besides the testing that the endocrinologist does. That’s what I do, but other practitioners do it as well. There are other functional medicine practitioners, including I’m sure in Alabama. A lot of others like me work remotely. Something to consider. 

Definitely makes sense to do as much as you can from a diet and lifestyle standpoint. Try to keep that up while you’re in school, which you mentioned you will try to do. 

Before we wrap up, are there any last questions on your end? 

Reghan: 

No, I don’t think so. I really appreciate what you’ve had to say. I’m going to take it to heart and really do some of your suggestions. I’m going to go on Amazon right now and get some bugleweed. When I do my next blood test, which I’m doing in the next two weeks, if I start taking it, it will hopefully lower my hormones. 

Dr. Eric: 

Have realistic expectations. It will take some time. if you start taking it tomorrow, for example, you might not see it decrease the next blood test if you are getting it in two weeks. It might be the one after that. Keep realistic expectations with that. 

Also keep in mind, which you might already know. There is a lot of free information out there. You have to be careful about the free information. I have my podcast, which this will be on. My books, I have two specifically on hyperthyroidism. Those obviously aren’t free, but they’re low cost, and they do give a lot of good information as well. If you’re not in a position to work with a functional medicine practitioner, definitely check out the podcast as well as the articles on my website and the books. 

Reghan: 

Okay, great. Thank you so much. 

Dr. Eric: 

All right, thank you so much, Reghan.

Recently, I interviewed Dr. Roy Steinbock, and we discussed how thyroid conditions present in children, the importance of early diagnosis and comprehensive testing, the challenges of diagnosing thyroid issues in children, the role of nutrition and lifestyle, why treatment approaches must differ for adults and children, the need for a holistic approach to pediatric thyroid health, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am super excited to chat with Dr. Roy Steinbock. We are going to be talking about thyroid conditions in children. Very interesting conversation. Even though I have a practice where I see mostly adults, I do see some children. It’s great to speak with someone who focuses on them. I know we’ll talk about you seeing some adults, too, so it’s not exclusively children, but you see more pediatric patients than I do. Great to have this conversation. 

I should mention that Dr. Roy is a repeat guest. Recently, I had him and his wife Debbie on the podcast as we chatted about the Elemental Diet. You want to check that interview out. 

Dr. Roy Steinbock is a board-certified pediatrician with an integrative and patient-centered approach. With over 20 years in primary care, he built a solid foundation assisting patients and families dealing with the diverse range of medical conditions. He believes that investigating the root cause rather than only addressing symptoms is the best route to achieving and maintaining optimal health and wellbeing. 

In 2006, Dr. Roy founded Mindful Pediatrics, so he could combine evidence-based western medicine with a functional and mindful approach. It is his own nutritional, spiritual, and lifestyle choices that complement his pediatric practice and continue to influence his approach as a physician. 

His degrees include a BA with honors from UC Berkeley and a doctorate in medicine with honors from the University of Tel Aviv, Sackler School of Medicine. Dr. Roy completed a pediatric residency at the Schneider Children’s Hospital in NY. Since residency, he has worked as a pediatric in-patient doctor in a newborn nursery and neo-natal ICU in several pediatric emergency rooms and for a large pediatrics private practice in Denver. He has completed advanced courses in functional and integrative medicine and maintains a lifelong passion for learning. 

What an impressive bio. Welcome, Dr. Roy. 

Dr. Roy Steinbock: 

Thank you. It’s always funny hearing someone else talk about you like that. 

Dr. Eric: 

You have gone through a lot of training. Usually, I tell people if they could give their background, but we did. If you want to expand a little bit. Why did you decide to name your practice Mindful Pediatrics? 

Dr. Roy: 

It’s funny because now “mindful” is a household term. When I named my practice Mindful Pediatrics a little over 20 years ago, people didn’t have a clue what that was at the time. I have always been a bit of a spiritual seeker. I actually got turned onto eastern philosophy, Buddhism, in my college years. I meditated regularly, but it wasn’t until the year before I opened my practice that I got turned into vipassana meditation. I did a couple of these silent 10-day retreats, and that’s what inspired me to quit my job at a big pediatric practice in Denver and start my own thing and do it the way I wanted to do it. 

Mindfulness is an approach to life, and it certainly has influenced my approach to medicine. It’s part of my meditation and mindful practice. It’s a lot of what informs the decisions I make day to day in my practice. It keeps me focused and present. It felt appropriate at the time and still does. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. One thing when it comes to your training, especially with pediatrics. In medical school, in your residency, did they get into any functional medicine or nutrition? Anything about actually improving children’s health? Obviously, some sort of wellness, but not really when it comes to diet and stress management. 

Dr. Roy: 

Not in medical school. I always joke that my nutrition course was nutrition pathology, so it’s things like scurvy and Rickett’s, which I have seen. That is the only serious nutritional deficiency I have seen in my career.

In residency, you learn a lot about children’s wellness when you are doing training. I did the primary care track, so I did a lot more work in primary care practices because I knew that’s what I wanted to go into initially. 

It was really my own personal interest. I have always been an athlete and interested in my own personal health. I have experimented with different diets growing up in high school, college, and afterwards. When I finished residency, I realized I had this big gap in my knowledge base, so I started taking courses in nutrition. That led to meeting naturopaths and chiropractors. I had never heard of a naturopath until I finished my residency. I met all of these other people who were practicing more holistically.

It was right around the time Andrew Wyle came out with his first real big book, not to date myself. I read that, and I was like, “Oh, this is exactly what I want to do. Of course I want to look at everything. I want to look at the whole picture. Why wouldn’t every doctor want to do that?” 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah. 

Dr. Roy: 

Nutrition was really the gateway for me. Then I learned about supplements, herbs, and functional medicine testing. 

Dr. Eric: 

In your practice, your wife Debbie handles nutrition. I’m sure you have some basic conversations. I don’t know so much about the child, but also the parents are there most of the time when dealing with children. Teenagers as well. 

Dr. Roy: 

Absolutely. Because I’m fortunate enough to have who I would argue is one of the best nutritionists on the planet in my actual practice, it’s a little different. I do talk about basic stuff with people. 

Really what I do more is a diagnosis, come up with a bit of a plan, but I really rely on Debbie. She is the boots on the ground to get the people to make the changes. She is amazing at meeting people where they are and getting them to move forward with their lifestyle. I don’t have long conversations.

It’s also age appropriate. Little kids, oftentimes, you say one thing, and they don’t remember it the next minute. Teenagers depend on their receptiveness. Debbie frequently works with the parents, depending on age. 

Dr. Eric: 

When I do work with a thyroid patient, sometimes the child isn’t even on the call. It depends on the age. If it’s a teenager, maybe. 13/14, in that case, maybe they will make a brief appearance. 

Dr. Roy: 

Agreed. It’s the same thing with me. I always like to do a physical exam, so they will come for the first appointment unless it’s a distance educational kind of thing. Oftentimes, then I won’t see the child again for a while, 3-6 months, depending on what labs we do. The kids don’t want to hear all the lab results most of the time, unless it’s an older teen or someone who is precociously interested. 

Dr. Eric: 

I was going to ask. The example I was giving, I am pretty much working remotely with people, but you are seeing people in person. At least for the initial visit, you will have the child and parent, I’m sure. Do you do follow-up telemedicine visits as well, or do they always come in? 

Dr. Roy:

I do both. 50% of my practice right now, and it really is growing because of COVID and people’s receptiveness to telemedicine, is telemedicine, even the initial visit. It really depends on the subject, what’s going on, the issues going on with the child. Some things absolutely need to be seen in person, and some things don’t. 

I do a lot of distance consultations. They’re different because as a medical doctor, I have a license in Colorado, so I can only practice medicine in Colorado. But I do give second opinions and work with their doctor in other states; it’s a big part of my practice now. As you get more specialized and get expertise in specific things, people seem to find you for those specific things. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. This is getting into the thyroid side of things. Have you seen a greater number of children with thyroid conditions, especially autoimmune thyroid conditions, like Hashimoto’s and maybe some Graves’? 

Dr. Roy: 

Yes. For me in my practice, absolutely. It seems like the numbers are increasing. Interestingly, when I have talked about it with colleagues of mine who are endocrinologists, they say there isn’t an increase. I have scoured the internet to see: It’s not really clear whether it’s really increasing. It seems like autoimmunity in general seems like it’s increasing. I would argue it is. 

Part of it might be selection bias. People come to me when they have a lot of problems/second opinions/people who are not getting diagnosed in their first round of seeing doctors. I have become much more aware of it in all fairness. Debbie and I both have Hashimoto’s, so that has made us more expert at understanding. We have done our own research, and both have very strong family histories of it.

In general, I see more sicker kids in general. A lot more autoimmunity that I saw early on. Maybe some of that is selection bias because that tends to become what people have gotten good results with in my practice, so they tell other people. Then they send people who are sicker to my practice. It seems like it’s on the rise to me certainly. 

Dr. Eric: 

I agree. You mentioned maybe not just children, but autoimmunity in general. Since you focus more on the pediatric side, it would make sense that you see more children. Maybe with the endocrinologist, if they are seeing a mixture of adults and maybe some children, they just don’t notice as big of a difference as far as focusing on the children. I would agree, with the toxic world and the stressors we have dealt with over the years and other factors, overall, in both adults and children, there has been an increase in not just Graves’/Hashimoto’s, but autoimmunity in general. 

Dr. Roy:

Absolutely. It seems pretty obvious to me, but again, I only have my sample size. 

Dr. Eric: 

Is there a difference between diagnosing thyroid conditions in children compared to adults? 

Dr. Roy: 

Not really. What I was going to say is, this will tie into the diagnosis piece. Thank you for reminding me. Thyroid is tricky. What I mean by that is people can have symptoms before their labs show up as abnormal for a long time. People can have really abnormal labs because unlike adults, where it’s much more standard to do a screening annual lab test, people don’t do that with children in general. Even they don’t typically look at thyroid as a test. It’s not a screening test for kids. 

If you look at the symptoms particularly for Hashimoto’s or even Graves’, it encompasses pretty much every system in our body, everything from your joints to your energy level. In kids, commonly growth and development, school performance, anxiety, mental health. Often, people are missing the diagnosis for many years. That is maybe part of the reason why endocrinologists don’t see this rise. It’s really just such a lag between symptom onset and diagnosis oftentimes for children and adults. 

In terms of the testing, it’s not really different. Anyone who comes into my practice and is suffering pretty much from any condition that is either chronic or new onset, unusual, not something obvious like strep throat or a tummy bug. People who are coming in with long-standing or really acute new onset symptoms that don’t make sense, I will check thyroid. Depending on what it is. If it’s not very serious, I will start with just TSH or TSH and free hormones, free T3/free T4. 

But if I am not really sure what’s going on, I will also check thyroid antibodies, both the Hashimoto’s antibodies, the TPO and antithyroid globulin, and also thyroid stimulating. What I have seen frequently in kids is if you catch it early on, they will both have TSI and Hashimoto’s antibodies. Usually, if you wait long enough or miss the diagnosis early on, they will generally just end up having Hashimoto’s. 

That’s one of the reasons you won’t see an elevated TSH right away. They’re actually getting stimulated by the thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins, so their TSH actually looks normal, but they are not feeling well.

I don’t know about you, but I find that people, even if their thyroid numbers are normal, sometimes they are still not feeling great if they have antibodies. That might be particularly early on, the first signs. If you do early treatment, then you can get them to improve much more quickly oftentimes rather than waiting until their thyroid is really imbalanced with an elevated or low TSH. 

That’s what I start with. I also look at things like why this person has an autoimmune condition. That is where I get more into stool testing, allergy testing, nutritional testing. I have what I call my dealbreakers. If these things aren’t balanced, you can’t expect the body to work well, particularly the immune system, both for kids who are getting sick a lot and kids who have allergies, eczema, asthma, hyperimmune type stuff, and autoimmunity. 

I at a minimum look at things like Vitamin D deficiency, which is shockingly common. I just saw someone who had a Vitamin D of 10. I have had one lower than that, 9, before in my practice. That is a level where you can have Rickett’s, especially living in Colorado, which is so sunny.

I will look for, especially really important at altitude but at sea level, too. I will look for iron and storage, ferritin. We don’t see a lot of anemia here because people have a higher amount of EPO. That’s why people train at high altitude because we have higher hemoglobin levels. The average is 13 or 14 versus 10-12, which is at sea level. The definitions for anemia don’t really apply so well here at altitude. 

I have to check things like ferritin level, iron storage. If you are not anemic but have low iron storage, that can affect the immune system, sleep, nervous system, development. I’ll aim to work for that to get those elevated. 

Zinc also seems like one of those real dealbreakers. If zinc is really low, I find people’s immune system doesn’t work well. Zinc is really involved in cell turnover, growth and development for children. 

Those are three basics I check for anyone coming in for basically any condition besides optimal health. Those are great places to start. Looking at things like stool testing. It depends on what’s going on. We can get into the weeds with mold testing and that stuff, too. That’s not where I start. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. Vitamin D, iron panel. You can’t just go based off a CBC. If someone doesn’t have anemia. That’s true in general. Not everybody with an iron deficiency has anemia, even if they are not living in higher altitude. I like to test pretty much with all my patients. I like to look at a full iron panel with everybody. If ferritin is elevated, that could be related to inflammation. You can’t just conclude someone has iron overload based on that.  

Dr. Roy: 

Exactly. That’s why I will look at CBC and ferritin at the same time. Especially with kids who get sick so frequently, because even if you just have a cold, your ferritin level can be elevated as an acute phase reactant. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you just do a regular serum zinc, or is it an RBC zinc? 

Dr. Roy:

I love RBC zinc. I dove into the research on this. I never got into the hair analysis. I see a lot of mental health stuff, so I am thinking about doing it, specifically to look at lithium levels because there are not great ways to look at lithium otherwise. 

In any event, I do an RBC zinc. I think it reflects a longer time frame, whereas serum zinc can change pretty dramatically depending on what you have eaten. It’s more moment to moment. As an acute thing, maybe serum zinc is better, but I prefer red blood cell zinc. I know that’s a little bit debated what the best form is, but that’s the one that I’ve had the best luck with. 

Dr. Eric: 

I agree with you. Same thing with magnesium. I prefer RBC magnesium over serum magnesium. There is selenium. Do you ever test selenium levels? 

Dr. Roy: 

I don’t. Is there an RBC selenium level to test? 

Dr. Eric: 

There is. I can’t say I recommend RBC selenium to everybody, but that is an option. There is RBC selenium along with magnesium and zinc. 

Dr. Roy: 

I think the reason my logic for it is first of all, the red blood cells last for about 120 days, so it’s giving you a bigger time frame. Then we also know that the majority of zinc is found intracellularly anyway. It’s 10:1 amount of zinc in the cells versus what’s in the serum, so it reflects a larger volume of what’s in our body, functionally what’s being used, I think. 

Dr. Eric: 

Let’s talk a little bit about some of the other tests. It sounds like it varies depending on the person. Food sensitivity testing sometimes. Stool testing. 

Dr. Roy: 

First and foremost, anyone who’s got any autoimmune condition, I will check a Celiac test. There is a very strong association between autoimmune conditions and your propensity to have another autoimmune condition, especially thyroid and Celiac. I think there’s a 20% connection between Celiac and thyroid conditions. That’s #1. 

Celiac is really one of those things because it’s the yield of treatment. If you catch someone who has Celiac, it’s such an easy fix. The cost of the test is not very high. I tend to do those a lot with anyone with chronic health issues. Especially someone with thyroid. 

I’ll do a full Celiac panel. In that, I include both the tissue transglutaminase and the deamidated gliadin antibodies. Of course, a total IgA as well, to make sure they are not IgA deficient.

I’ll sometimes do more food allergy or sensitivity panels when those seem appropriate.

I’ll do a stool test on everybody who comes in for a thyroid condition because the gut is so important for immune regulation and inflammation. Oftentimes, that’s the first place to look. 

The first functional medicine course I ever went to, do you know who Patrick Hanaway is?  

Dr. Eric: 

From IFM. 

Dr. Roy: 

Yes. I randomly sat with him at a lunch and started talking to him. I didn’t realize who he was at the time, the bigwig in functional medicine that he is. He saw I was fresh with it and basically said, “Do yourself a favor. Focus on the gut first. Learn everything you can about the gut first.” That’s what I did. That’s obviously paid huge dividends. 

It’s still really the mainstay of my practice. Digestive disorders of course, but all the things that follow it, things like autoimmunity. I really focus on gut health. That’s with Debbie’s initial expertise as well. It’s expanded over the years. It’s a big part of our workup. 

Dr. Eric: 

When I interviewed you and Debbie, that was a big focus of our conversation, including the Elemental Diet. 

Dr. Roy: 

That is such an amazing thing for people who have flares of autoimmunity or even to calm things down. 

Dr. Eric: 

Gut tests. A comprehensive stool test on everybody. Food sensitivity testing, depending on the person. Maybe some other tests. 

Speaking of the Elemental Diet, how about SIBO? I assume you don’t do it on every single person, but if you suspect it. 

Dr. Roy: 

Kids have a lower incidence of SIBO in general. But I do test it. It is a frequent test I do. If I diagnose someone with a thyroid condition, and they have any digestive symptoms, and they’re old enough, because I have had some kids with Hashimoto’s and Graves’ who are under two or three years old, as it is very difficult to do a SIBO test on those kids. Anyone who is old enough, I might do a SIBO test. 

It’s not my first thing. I’ll do a stool test first. If the symptoms make sense, then I will do a SIBO test. If I am not getting results from a basic stool test, I’ll do a SIBO test as well.

Because of Debbie’s practice and her focus on SIBO, that’s been in my consciousness maybe more so than it would be had I not been married to her and learned everything she teaches me. I am more aware of it than maybe the average pediatrician. But I see it much less frequently. I get more negative tests than Debbie does. Part of that is patient selection. 

Dr. Eric: 

Circling back to the thyroid. When do you get uncomfortable with the TSH? Obviously, TSH alone, you can’t just rely on that. Like you said, there could be other variables like the TSIs. I would argue most doctors, including pediatricians and endocrinologists, don’t pay attention until the TSH is above the lab range, like 4.5 or 5.0, depending on the lab. 

Dr. Roy: 

Or even higher. If you look at some of the recommendations, some people say in pediatrics not to treat until the TSH is above 10. That seems crazy to me. I really focus on what I was taught in medical school to focus on patient symptoms. If the symptoms make sense. 

A couple things with that, Eric. Kids tend to run higher TSH. It makes sense if you think about what the thyroid is doing. The thyroid is intimately involved with development and growth and energy in the body. Kids are using a lot more energy; they’re growing. Their thyroid is working harder. It would make sense if your thyroid would be higher to stimulate your thyroid gland to produce more thyroid hormone. So you have to be careful.

If you look at normal TSH, in the first few days of life, 15-20 can be normal. Really high amounts of TSH. Quickly, within the first few weeks, it does normalize close to adult levels. At least what the standard endocrinologist will say is 0.5-5. 

What I do in my practice is when it’s adults, and we can talk about the type of adults I treat in a minute, I do try to stay between 0.5-2, maybe 1.5, depending on how someone is feeling. With children, you have to let it go a little bit higher because of their natural propensity to have higher TSH. 

If someone has frank hypothyroid symptoms—constipation, cold intolerance, their hair is falling out, super dry skin, really extreme fatigue, anxiety—then I would treat at a lower number than if someone was what they would call subclinical. I don’t love that term. In any event, I will base it mostly on symptoms. 

If they have thyroid antibodies, obviously, I might be quicker to treat than somebody who is not. Most of the patients I’m putting on thyroid either have frankly elevated TSH, above 5 or 6, even without thyroid antibodies. Or I have diagnosed them with thyroid antibodies, and I see their TSH creeping, so I’ll watch over a period of time and watch their symptoms. 

If their TSH is 3, 3.5, I might just watch it if they are not having symptoms. If I see it creep up to 4, 4.5, 5, I will start treating sooner than later. I don’t necessarily want to wait for them to feel terrible before we start treating them, especially if they have antibodies and creeping TSH numbers. That’s how I do that. 

The other interesting piece is though I myself take natural thyroid- 

Dr. Eric: 

I was about to ask you this. 

Dr. Roy: 

I knew you would ask this. We know that thyroid conditions are much more common in females than males. That’s true with children as well. It’s almost 10:1 in children as well. I definitely see that. The number of boys I have seen with thyroid conditions have been a handful, whereas I can’t count the number of girls I have seen in my practice, particularly peripubertal. I see a lot near hormonal changes. There is the rare kid who gets a thyroid condition at 2, 3, or 4. It’s often 11, 12, 13 for girls. 

I found that during that time, it’s really challenging for me, at least from what I have been able to tell. It’s harder to control them with natural thyroid than just using synthetic T4 only. Though I did use that for years, I just found the ups and downs during puberty are really challenging to manage for girls with hypothyroidism. Once I switched to using synthetic only, it’s still hard, but it feels less difficult. I’ll do that. If they are doing amazing, I’ll leave them on that. 

At some point, if we have additional symptoms, things we typically think of with low T3 like hair loss or insomnia, then I might add in the natural thyroid or switch them. 

If someone is doing really well, I don’t like to make changes. I want to keep them happy and thriving. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. Adults like yourself, usually you will recommend the desiccated thyroid hormone. With children, you find on average they seem to do better with, say, levothyroxine. 

Dr. Roy: 

The adults I treat are really specific. I don’t have a general adult practice. I am a pediatrician. I do see a lot of young adults, so people who are college age, maybe into their mid-20s. That’s a pretty common thing, especially living in a college town, which is minutes from my practice. 

Because a huge part of my practice is focused on mental health, and so many young adults have a lot of anxiety these days, that’s been a gateway into my practice for young adults. A lot of them have thyroid conditions, too. 

Anxiety might be the #1 way I have diagnosed kids and adults with thyroid conditions. It’s really been insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks, new onset extreme symptom versions of that. 

The #1 adult I see is moms in my practice. As they come in, I ask them how they’re doing. Of course, I care about how the moms are doing because they are people I care about, but also because they are taking care of the children, which is my #1 focus. I start asking them questions. I’ve had many moms tell me, “I can’t go out in public anymore. I’m having panic attacks.” Then I’ll do my workup. I’ll do those things I mentioned, like the nutrient deficiencies. I’ll start with a full thyroid antibody panel. I have probably diagnosed more moms in my practice with thyroid disorder than kids over the years. It’s probably double the number. 

I’ll end up monitoring them and treating them if they want. Usually, they seem to want that. Oftentimes, it’s so bad that we need to treat the anxiety very intensely, maybe even use medications for anxiety to calm it down until we get the thyroid balanced. Then almost invariably, I find we can get them off an SSRI once their thyroid is calm within a few months. Their mental health improves dramatically. 

Dr. Eric: 

Would you say that most of the moms you work with with thyroid conditions have children with thyroid conditions or not necessarily? I am sure you see some with seeing their children with something else or a wellness visit, and you end up diagnosing the mom. 

Dr. Roy: 

1 in 5 women have Hashimoto’s or some thyroid condition. Maybe the number is higher than that. No, not 1 in 5 kids have it. I would say there is a higher propensity for, and we know there is a genetic component for autoimmunity in general. Hashimoto’s, we do see runs in families for sure. My mom has it. I have a very strong family history, as does Debbie’s family. 

I’m more cautious. When I see someone who’s had thyroid cancer, Graves’ or Hashimoto’s, when their kids come in, I will do more regular screening, even if they’re totally well. The earlier you catch these things, the better it is, and the less likely they will have serious long-term problems. We will focus more on things like diet and lifestyle that decrease the risk of autoimmunity, maybe moreso than I would for the average healthy kid without a family history. 

There is an increase, but a relatively small increase. We see thyroid conditions really develop around puberty for women, pregnancy, post-partum, menopause. Those are the big risk times. It can happen any time. That’s much later on. Kids typically come to me when they’re very young. Around that time, there is an increased risk. We will see more in families that have thyroid conditions. 

Dr. Eric: 

Graves’. I know you see a lot more children with Hashimoto’s, children and moms, because it’s much more common to have Hashimoto’s. When you do have someone that you end up diagnosing with Graves’, do you usually refer them out to an endocrinologist? Do you actually prescribe antithyroid medication for the few children that you have seen with Graves’? 

Dr. Roy: 

I usually refer to an endocrinologist for that. I will do the initial workup. I’m curious about your thoughts on this. I really do like to do thyroid ultrasounds for anyone who becomes positive with antibodies. Anyone who has a goiter, I’ll do an ultrasound on them. 

I know it’s not the standard recommendation. I think that’s partially financial. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to screen everybody financially as a gigantic population from a public health perspective. But I think as an individual, it makes sense in my opinion. 

You want to make sure there are no significant nodules to follow and things like that. I’ve had one patient only who had thyroid cancer at a very young age. That alone is worth it in my opinion. That could have easily been missed and would have been life-threatening for this little boy, who is doing amazing right now. 

I find it’s so much harder to treat. That’s why I will often consult with you if I need to. It is so much easier to give thyroid replacement. If your thyroid is not working and work up the cause. When the thyroid Is overactive, I will try herbs. Sometimes, I’ve had some success. 

Fortunately, if you wait long enough, most of the time, Graves’ will burn out. But I’ve had a few patients where it doesn’t, and they have needed a thyroidectomy or radioactive iodine unfortunately. 

It’s a little out of my scope, I would say, to prescribe the thyroid depressing medications, just because they do have their own risks. It’s something I feel more comfortable when an endocrinologist follows. I will also follow them. 

If someone has Hashimoto’s, they stop with an endocrinologist and continue with me, if it converts from Graves’ to Hashimoto’s, which is common. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah. Is that what you meant by what you said when most people “burn out?” They develop hypothyroidism? 

Dr. Roy: 

I have seen it in moms quite a bit as well. Particularly with post-partum thyroiditis- 

Dr. Eric: 

And Hashimoto’s. 

Dr. Roy: 

Fortunately, most of the time, eventually, if you can just wait it out and use some supplements or even thyroid-suppressing medication, you can wait it out and that swill switch over. There is a handful where it doesn’t. It’s not something I see a ton of. Because of that, I prefer to have an endocrinologist involved. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah, I get it. I do agree with you with the ultrasounds. Especially if someone has an existing thyroid condition, or you suspect they have one. They’re not that expensive when compared to other diagnostics. When I dealt with Graves’, the endocrinologist I saw recommended not to get an ultrasound, and I talked her into getting me one. I was paying out of pocket, so I think she was trying to save me money. It was $200 at the time. 

Dr. Roy: 

I think it’s still about $200. I do one every once in a while for myself. Debbie and I will do them. She just did one a year ago, and it was $200. 

Dr. Eric: 

It’s cost-effective to me, even if you have to pay out of pocket. I think the insurance companies would pay if there is justification. If someone has a thyroid condition, to me, that’s justification. Like you said, try to rule out if someone has thyroid nodules or if it looks good. if it looks good, maybe that will be the only ultrasound they need. 

Anything else? I know we covered a lot. Is there anything I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? Anything else you want to cover when it comes to thyroid health and pediatrics? 

Dr. Roy: 

I mentioned this before, but the take-home message, if I could tell anybody who is either a parent or a practitioner is that I think you have to look at thyroid very liberally to test it. Considering the list of symptoms, just spend a moment on the internet and google symptoms of Hashimoto’s or Graves’, and it can be almost anything. Everything from joint pain to the more obvious symptoms we know of. I just liberally look for it. If you look, you will find it more frequently than you think.

It could be patient selection for me. Selection bias on the type of people who find my practice. I would say anxiety is really the #1 way. The most common patient I find who has thyroid problems is a patient with relatively new onset anxiety or significantly worsening anxiety coupled with things like insomnia. 

I have not studied the DSM-V. When I was in medical school and doing my psychiatry residency, I was interested in it because mental health is a huge area of interest for me. Ruling out thyroid disorder is mandatory for every mental health condition. It’s not done. A lot of psychiatrists don’t do blood tests on patients, but I think it needs to be ruled out. 

If your child is struggling with any weird symptoms or chronic onset symptoms, thyroid testing is not super expensive, and it is one of those things where if you catch it early, you can prevent not just problems in the near future but problems really long term. Thyroid is that important. 

I think that would be my take-home message. When in doubt, test it. The tests aren’t perfect, but they are decent. If you get positives, you want to address it, arguably relatively aggressively. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. Thank you so much, Dr. Roy. Where can people find out more about you? 

Dr. Roy: 

You can go to our website, MindfulFamilyMedicine.com. Or you can go to MindfulPediatrics.com or evenDrRoy.com. That is the main place to find us. We don’t have a real presence on social media at this point. I don’t know if that will ever happen. We have a great newsletter and lots of free information on the website. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. This was a great conversation. Thank you so much for sharing. Continue doing the amazing work that you do. 

Dr. Roy: 

Thank you. Likewise. 

Recently, I interviewed Juanique Grover, and we discussed the crucial link between gut health and thyroid conditions, how she overcame Graves’ disease, the importance of a healthy gut microbiome for recovering from autoimmune conditions, the role of fiber in immune health, the impact of stress on digestion, a holistic approach to healing, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am super excited to be chatting with Juanique Grover, as we are going to be talking about gut health, of course tying it into thyroid health, thyroid autoimmunity. Let me go ahead and dive into Juanique’s impressive bio here. 

As the owner and founder of the esteemed Provo Health Clinic, Juanique Grover has dedicated her life to revolutionizing the way people perceive and achieve holistic wellness. Fueled by her personal experiences with Graves’, long COVID, and CIRS, Juanique pioneered the groundbreaking Gutsy Academy, a beacon of knowledge empowering individuals to become self-healing advocates. Through meticulously curated programs and insights, she has equipped countless people with the tools and mindset to reclaim their health and vitality. Her mission is simple and profound: to guide individuals toward becoming the healthiest, most vibrant versions of themselves. Welcome, Juanique.  

Juanique Grover: 

Thank you so much, Dr. Eric. I am really excited to be here. I’ll tell you why. When I was diagnosed with Graves’ 10 years ago, it was your book that saved my life. 

Dr. Eric: 

Oh wow. 

Juanique: 

Full circle. I’ve been dying to tell you this. I remember I was in the office with the doctor, and she was laughing at me. She said, “You have Graves’.” I said, “There’s no way.” She said, “Yes. We need to put you on these medications.” I said, “Hold on. Let me research this. Give me some time to heal it.” She was very uncomfortable with that answer. She was like, “Maybe, but try these medications because we don’t want your heart to explode. Let’s test you every month to make sure you’re not declining fast and furiously” because my TSH was like 0.001. It was nonexistent. 

I went and found your book on Amazon. I read it from cover to cover, and it was vital to me. I fixed my Graves’ in six months. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wow, that is amazing. Just to let everyone know, I did not know this. She mentioned when we pressed Record that she was going to tell part of her story, but she wanted to see my reaction. I did not know that until you just told me now. That is really great. Of course, I’m glad that you got my book, but even happier that you restored your health and have your own healing journey. 

Juanique: 

When people tell me, “You should write a book on how to fix Graves’,” I always say there is one already out there. One of my now coaches, she was diagnosed with Graves’. She saw our clinic in a magazine. She had a consult with one of my coaches. Then she reached out to me and asked, “What did you do to research?” I say, “Here’s this book. Go read it.” She read it, and she reversed her Graves’ in a few months. Now she is working at my clinic. She went from client to coach. She enrolled in IIN, and she is now a coach. 

I love coming across fellow Graves’sters because it’s a small world. I truly believe it’s something you can reverse. It takes a lifestyle makeover, but it’s so worth it. 

I wanted to tell you that. I was super excited to tell you that. Thank you for writing a book for someone like me who didn’t know what to do. There’s gotta be an expert out there who has researched this and knows how to fix thyroid problems. You were my guide, so thank you, Dr. Eric.  

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you. I’m almost speechless. I appreciate that. Happy that you found my book, and happy that you listened and got the results that you did and are now helping others. Now you’re successful helping people with immune conditions of different kinds, not just Graves’. I’m sure you see a lot of Hashimoto’s and other non-thyroid conditions as well. 

That’s the great thing about the gut. When it comes to gut health, it’s not just specific to Graves’ and Hashimoto’s but really all conditions. Even though the focus here might be more toward autoimmunity, optimal gut health is really necessary for optimal health. 

The opening question I have for you is why do so many people have gut dysbiosis, imbalances in the gut, leaky gut? Why is it so common?  

Juanique: 

We’ll make up person A. They are born into the standard American world. Mom’s first foods to this baby are Cheerios or some kind of wheat thing. They’re eating food that has herbicides, pesticides, and glyphosates. All of these things disrupt and destroy your microbiome. They’re eating contaminated food from a very young age.

Not only that, but children from a young age, how many babies are given antibiotics in their eyes when they’re born? How many people were exposed to antibiotics because Mom tested positive for group B strep? How many babies that turn into toddlers have chronic ear infections, so they are given antibiotic after antibiotic when 70% of ear infections are actually viral? It has nothing to do with a bacterial infection. 

We’re eating food that destroys the microbiome, and we are being overexposed to antibiotics that destroy the microbiome from a very young age. We are starting the foundation of immune health very rocky. 70-80% of your immune health is your microbiome. Your microbiome is basically the eyes and ears of the white blood cells. 

You and I right now, we’re breathing in air, and there are bacteria and viruses in the air. It goes through our mouth and nasal cavity and into our stomach and our small intestine. Those microbes are being signaled, “There is invaders there,” so they produce chemicals through chemotaxis that signal the white blood cells to say, “Hey, there is invaders. They look like this. Be on the lookout.” The immune response and microbiome, they talk to each other. 

If you want a healthy, intelligent immune response to your own cells, to your food, to your environment, you have to have a microbial balance that does that for your white blood cells. I like to call it, “Is your immune drunk? Do you have a drunk immune system, or is it sober?”

What I mean by “drunk” is does your immune system attack anything and everything in sight? If it’s any kind of protein, it attacks it, including your own proteins, your own cells, your own neural tissue, your own fat cells, your own bone tissue, your own cartilage. Are your white blood cells attacking your proteins? Are they being signaled to be intelligent and only attack the proteins, viruses, and bacteria that are not friends, that are foes? 

It’s so important if you are on any kind of healing journey to realize that your microbiome is king, gold. The holy grail to health. If you are not protective of it, and you are not taking care of it, it’s going to become imbalanced and send the wrong signals to your immune system and have it work against you. 

Not only that, but your microbiome needs to be fed. Going back to our baby scenario that is being fed Cheerios and processed foods and sugars. Babies these days are not being fed fiber. Children these days are not being fed fibers. Adults these days are not eating fiber. The average American eats about 13g of fiber a day. Our ancestors ate 55+g. Our daily recommended is 35g. The average American is eating a third of the fiber that they’re supposed to. 

Imagine that your microbiome is an army that is fighting off invaders. If you only fed a third of that army, your army is going to dwindle, and you will get invaded. You won’t be a happy whatever. You’re not feeding your army the fiber it desires and needs in order to service your immune function. Of course, your immune system is going to be dysfunctional. Of course, your immune system is going to turn against you. Of course, your immune system is going to act drunk. Of course, your immune system is going to act in a way that is extremely inflammatory to your entire body. 

Dr. Eric:

A lot of good information there. Sticking on the topic of fiber. I do recommend fiber-rich foods. There are some people who can’t tolerate fiber-rich foods. They might say, “I have tried eating a lot of plant-based foods, but I get a lot of gas, bloating.” What is your response to that? 

Juanique: 

Your gut can’t tolerate it for many reasons. You haven’t strengthened it to. I am a tall, scrawny person. It would be like me going to the gym and lifting 50-pound dumbbells and doing 50-pound bicep curls. I can barely lift a 50-pound dumbbell. My body isn’t primed to lift 50-pound dumbbells. 

When someone eats a standard American diet, where they haven’t trained their microbiome to digest fiber, to digest complexity, to digest plant-based foods, your microbiome is primed to digest really poor, crappy food, for lack of a better word. Your microbiome has the strength and equivalent of lifting two-pound dumbbells. That’s all it can do. You have to tend to your gut garden and prime it to be able to digest high-fiber foods. 

This is a typical scenario, and I will talk about another scenario in a second. People realize, “I have been on this standard American diet. I have all this inflammation. I will start eating a ton of raw vegetables.” Then they eat all these raw vegetables and blow up like a balloon. It hurts their stomach. “Oh, that was really bad. My inflammation is even worse.” It’s because of everything I’ve been talking about. Their microbiome isn’t primed and ready to eat that high amount of fiber.

The other thing that it could be is that they might have something called SIBO. They have bacteria in the wrong places of their small intestine because they’ve had so much bad fiber, because they’ve had such a sluggish digestive response. This gets a little more technical. We could do a whole podcast on SIBO. 

SIBO is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. You have an overgrowth of bacteria from multiple root causes that are a little too complex to talk about right now. It’s in the wrong parts of your stomach. Now that bacteria is digesting and fermenting fiber in places of your small intestine that it shouldn’t be doing. 

What you have to do is get high motility and those bacterial species back into the places that they’re supposed to be. There could be many reasons.

If you are person A, like the one who hasn’t gotten a microbiome that is primed and ready to digest fiber, there is a very simple solution: either cooking, sautéing, steaming, or soaking your food. What that does is helps break up the fiber. 

I use this example just because I’m a mom right now, and I have an eight-month-old. If I put my eight-month-old in front of a plate of my food, where I have steak and Brussels sprouts and peas all of this chunky food, he is going to try and grab it and eat it, and he is going to choke on it. He can’t eat chunky food right now. What I have to do is chew it up first and give it to him. Now that I have pre-digested this meal for him with my mouth, I have masticated it, now he can eat it and digest it better. 

What steaming, cooking, sauteing, soaking does is predigests the food and fiber so that your microbiome that is weak at this time can actually handle the stress. Then you slowly increase your raw foods. 

I tell most of my clients the majority of your food, about 90-100% of all of your vegetables that have high fiber, you will have to cook, saute, steam, or soak. Then once you soaked it, you have to cook it. That will be about 100% of your food until your microbiome can handle 10% raw food and 90% cooked. Over time, you will go to 80% cooked and 20% raw. Over months, if not years, eventually it will get to 50/50. Then it won’t matter because your microbiome has been designed and grown to digest the fiber.

I love this saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” If you are not using the microbial species that their job is to digest complex fiber from vegetables, if you are not giving them complex vegetables to begin with, they’re going to die and dwindle in number. You have to slowly grow them back. You have to gently coax them back into living. That could take months if not years to do. 

I tell people to be really gentle, be really slow, trust the process. They’re in there; their numbers are just really small. In order to get more of them, you have to feed them. You don’t firehose them with food and fiber. You gently sprinkle some fiber here and there, and then you increase it over time. 

Dr. Eric: 

Sticking on the topic of fiber, do you have any concerns with the carnivore diet or ketogenic diet? Especially with carnivore, a lot of people with autoimmune conditions can potentially benefit. Long-term, I do get concerned about the impact of that type of diet on the gut microbiome. I don’t know if you also share that. 

Juanique: 

I do have opinions about that. I am just going to speak research. The research shows us that the more microbial species and the higher in certain species that you have in your gut, the healthier your immune response, the better you can absorb nutrients and produce nutrients and assimilate nutrients. 

What the research tells us is that someone that eats meat and vegetables, the more variety you have, the better your microbial species and numbers, the better your immune health. Paper after paper says that. 

What we see with carnivore is that it’s basically an extreme elimination diet. When people get really ill, like their microbiome becomes so dysfunctional, I am going to use a drunk microbiome again. People try to eat vegetables and certain things, and it triggers their immune response, bloating, gassiness. They’re uncomfortable and feel sick. They go to a carnivore diet, and all of a sudden, they’re feeling great again. 

It’s because of that dysbiosis of bacteria. They have eliminated every fiber on the planet, so they’re not feeding the bad bacteria that is down there, which is causing all the problems. They’re just eating meat and feeling good and not getting that response.

I think of carnivore diet as actually really good short-term. In my schooling, from doctors I have spoken with, with the research I have seen, it should never be a long-term thing. When I have people who are really ill, I either put them on an autoimmune paleo diet or some kind of elimination diet to get the angry inflammation down. Then we go in and try to heal the microbiome without exacerbating it. 

That is what you’re doing. You’re not exacerbating it. We go in with protocols and supplements and spore-based probiotics or peptides, and we try to fix the microbiome while we’re not getting it angry.

Then we slowly reintroduce fiber. We slowly reintroduce vitamins and minerals. The research behind what vegetables and fruits can do for you, you can’t turn a blind eye to that. It’s overwhelming. 

Even people who try to demonize lectins from beans, there is an anti-cancerous effect from lectins. There is an anti-cancerous effect from phytic acid. We actually see that phytic acid, which is an anti-nutrient, can stimulate white blood cell response and decrease your cancer risk. There is this whole black and white world; it’s all or nothing. It’s either carnivore or vegan. 

What we haven’t taken into account is people’s bioindividuality and their microbial species down there. It really comes down to what is your microbiome able to digest and assimilate right now? People who are stuck on carnivore, it’s because their microbiome is angry. Their microbiome has bene dysfunctional and dysbiotic for years. This is an extreme thing that they have to do in order not to enrage it. We need to fix the microbiome, so they can reintroduce more foods again, so they can get a variety of nutrients, which allows healthy mitochondrial function, cellular function, brain function. It’s extremely complex. 

Carnivore is just an extreme elimination diet that people feel really good on. I haven’t seen the research of that over years and years. I don’t think it’s positive. All I have seen is anecdotal evidence of clients who have been on carnivore. Their cholesterol is cattywampus. Some of their inflammatory markers have gone up. It’s tricky. 

Dr. Eric: 

I appreciate that explanation. I think we’re on the same page. Carnivore short-term while healing the gut. It’s not a permanent solution for the dysbiosis. If someone follows it temporarily, which will help with the symptoms while trying to improve the gut microbiome. 

As you mentioned, when it comes to eventually introducing vegetables, take it slowly. Start with 10% cooked veggies. Raw veggies is a different conversation. If someone is following carnivore, which we are not recommending or not recommending, I brought it up because it’s a hot topic. If someone follows carnivore, and introduces plant-based foods, it should be a gradual process. 

Juanique: 

If you’re on carnivore, that is a perfect opportunity to start a gut infection protocol or gut restoration protocol. You’re putting in spore-based probiotics, and they are creating colonies that are going to work for you and your immune system.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the product HU58.It’s a probiotic that acts as an antibiotic toward 13 species of bacteria. When you’re on this elimination diet and are not enraging your microbiome, put spore-based probiotics down there to start fighting off the bad bacteria and creating new, healthy colonies of bacterial species down there. 

Carnivore is a great time, if you’re on it for three months, to really go and revamp the microbiome to make sure that it is a microbiome that starts working for you instead of against you. 

I don’t think we were designed to be on such strict elimination diets. The research doesn’t support that. Common sense doesn’t even support that. Meat has tons of nutrients, mostly proteins. 

When you look at the Krebs cycle and mitochondria and all of these other components, like the liver, they need so many micronutrients that you can’t get from organs and meat. If you starve the body of those things, you’re going to see mitochondrial oxidation. You’re going to see liver sluggishness. You can’t not, because science says so. 

Dr. Eric: 

Let’s switch gears and talk about stomach acid. What are your thoughts on stomach acid? Do you see that it’s commonly low in your patients? What approach do you take when it comes to low stomach acid? 

Juanique: 

I love this question. Stomach acid, I say the microbiome is king and the holy grail. When I teach my classes, all my students know that stomach acidity is the holy grail to digestion. If you don’t have enough stomach acid production, you’re not breaking down food, you’re not absorbing food. 

Let’s talk about stomach acid. People say, “Stomach acid is bad.” So many Americans have heartburn. The most commonly prescribed drug is a PPI. I want to talk about that, and I want to talk about the nervous system really fast.

We all know sympathetic dominance. That’s when you’re in fight or flight. We know perimenopause. We know the parasympathetic nervous system, which is rest, digest, and heal. 

When you are in a rest, digest, heal response, and you’re eating a meal, your mouth starts to salivate, so you’re producing saliva. Then your stomach is also being signaled to release a robust amount of hydrochloric acid. I use the word “robust” very intentionally. 

When you have this robust release of hydrochloric acid, it does a few signaling responses. It signals the lower esophageal sphincter right above the stomach to close, so when food comes down and mixes with hydrochloric acid, it doesn’t slosh back up and cause burning in your esophagus, which causes heartburn. 

Not only that, hydrochloric acid signals the hormones cholecystokinin and secretin. Those hormones signal the gallbladder to contract and release bile, and they signal the pancreas to release their digestive enzymes. 

This all sounds like amazing things that we absolutely want when eating a meal. We want a lot of hydrochloric acid. We want all of that bile. We want a lot of pancreatic enzymes to break down our food as much as possible, so we can absorb as much nutrients out of that meal as possible. That is when we are in a parasympathetic state. 

When we are in a sympathetic dominant state, so we are in fight or flight, our brain doesn’t signal the stomach to release hydrochloric acid. We have 50% production of hydrochloric acid. 

Let’s say we are eating carnivore, and we are eating a lot of meat and a lot of fat. That meal goes into our stomach. We only have a little bit of hydrochloric acid. That protein isn’t breaking down, so we’re not breaking down the meat. The lower esophageal sphincter is not getting signaled to close, so now we are getting heartburn. That food is sitting there and rotting because the hydrochloric acid isn’t emulsifying it and moving it forward. The gallbladder isn’t releasing its bile. The pancreas isn’t being signaled to release all of its digestive enzymes. 

Now we have partially rotting meat in your stomach, going into your small intestine. It will create a lot of problems. If anyone has smelled rotting meat in their trash can, that’s what’s happening in your gut. 

Hydrochloric acid is so important. I have two classes almost purely dedicated to hydrochloric acid and people understanding the hydrochloric acid response in the body and how important it is not only for digestion. 

Hydrochloric acid is the same acidity as battery acid. I like to call it the bouncer at the nightclub. It keeps bad pathogens away. If you’re breathing in bacteria and viruses, it’s not getting past that bouncer in the stomach, and it’s not getting to the small intestine. The stomach is keeping bad bacteria at bay, and it’s allowing a reprieve from your immune system.

When we go on a PPI and reduce that hydrochloric acid, we now get bacteria like H-pylori that come out to play and form ulcers. Nobody wants that. We want the bouncer at the nightclub to keep nefarious things away from your body, away from your tissues, away from your immune system. 

Hydrochloric acid is so important to understand and balance and make sure that you’re producing enough. If you’re not producing enough, you’re supplementing enough to help you absorb and signal your body to digest and signal your digestive organs to turn on. Great question. 

Dr. Eric: 

What approach do you take? Obviously, you want to do things to improve the health of your gut microbiome. I assume if someone tests positive for H-pylori, you want to address that. Do you recommend supplements like bitters, butane HCL to support stomach acid? 

Juanique: 

All of those things. They’re all helpful. What you really need to do is work on the lifestyle thing of getting out of a sympathetic dominant state. That can be as simple as three deep breaths before every meal. It’s really being intentional and slowing down. It’s not eating on the go. 

First, we want your brain on board. If we don’t have your brain on board, you will be dependent on supplements for life, and nobody wants that. Everyone gets frustrated.

I like people to do the baking soda test. Are you familiar with this? 

Dr. Eric: 

Yes. 

Juanique: 

Doing the baking soda test. If you fail it, you for sure need support with hydrochloric acid. 

Dr. Eric: 

For those who are not familiar with it, can you talk about it?  

Juanique: 

The baking soda test is something that you do first thing in the morning. You take half a cup of water and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda. Make sure it’s fresh baking soda. You mix it together. You want it to hit your stomach acid first thing in the morning. Don’t eat or drink anything. Take this thing. 

As soon as you drink it, put a timer on. The baking soda and water is going to mix with your own hydrochloric acid, and it’s going to produce CO2 gas. When it mixes with your stomach, you should start burping within five minutes. Unless you don’t have hydrochloric acid. If you’re not producing hydrochloric acid, you are not having that CO2 buildup, so you’re not burping. 

A lot of people will do the baking soda test. After five minutes, they will time until 20 minutes, and they didn’t burp at all. Or maybe they burped at 25 minutes, or 15 minutes, or eight minutes. You should burp within five minutes. If you failed that, you need to support your hydrochloric acid. You need more of it in your stomach.

There is a very specific way on dosing hydrochloric acid. It’s not one size fits all. One product I really love is Zypan from Standard Process. I love suggesting Zypan. They start with one per meal per day and increase over time until they figure out their maximum. 

Hydrochloric acid, I would say, they could start with that, doing the baking soda test and then start using hydrochloric acid pills, which is hydrochloric acid and butane, to help them digest their foods.

They could also use digestive enzymes. All of these things can help. 

Using bitters. What I love about bitters is it signals the brain to release the juices. One of my favorites is DiGest Forte from Standard Process as well. You’re supposed to suck on it before meals, and it tastes terrible. People don’t love to do that one, but it’s really effective. You suck on it, start to salivate, and your stomach starts to produce hydrochloric acid. You could use bitters to have your body naturally produce hydrochloric acid. It takes more forethought. If you can remember to suck on that 15 minutes before your meal, amazing. 

There is so many things you can do to support upper digestion, so you are digesting and absorbing optimally. 

Dr. Eric: 

It’s important. The stress, you have to address the diet and the stress, the lifestyle factors. If you’re stressed out all the time, then that is suppressing the production of stomach acid. The Zypan, the bitter herbs, not going to have much impact. 

It’s funny you mentioned the DiGest Forte. I did attend a Standard Process seminar and got a bottle of that. I just forget to take it. I’m going to take bitters before my meals. I don’t know if I really needed it. 

I’m a supplement junkie. I love taking different things and trying new things out. 

You’re ideally supposed to take bitters 15-20 minutes before meals?  

Juanique: 

15 minutes. But who remembers that? It’s so hard to remember. 

Dr. Eric: 

Exactly. 

Juanique: 

And they taste so bad. Years ago, I put all my clients on bitters, DiGest Forte. They said, “Juanique, it works, but it tastes disgusting. I dread taking it.” I don’t want people to dread it. But it does work. If you’re very disciplined and can do that, awesome. If not, take Zypan with your meal. 

There is ProZyme from Apex Energetics that I really love. It has some hydrochloric acid and a lot of digestive enzymes. You can do a blend of the two. It just depends on how much hydrochloric acid you need and figuring out dosing. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. I’ve heard you talk about parasites before. I want you to share your thoughts on parasites because it seems like it’s a big problem. 

Juanique: 

It’s a huge problem. There is a saying that if you have a pulse, you have a parasite. It’s just saying everyone has parasites. 

The thing is, everyone has parasites, but to what extent? Do you have an overburdensome amount of parasites or just a normal amount of parasites? If you have ever grown up with a cat or a dog or on a farm or with any kind of animal. If you had your own garden. If you didn’t wash your fresh produce properly, you probably had parasites. 

The interesting thing is when people actually try to test for parasites, they oftentimes get false negatives. I live in Utah, and there is a huge LDS community here, where they send their 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds on these foreign missions to third world countries, and they all come back with all these gut problems. 

I do a hair analysis, and parasites come up almost every single time. “I went to my GI doctor and did a stool test, and parasites didn’t come up.” That’s nice, but you probably still have parasites. Then they do a parasite cleanse and pass tons of parasites and feel a lot better.

What people don’t understand is if you have tried everything under the sun and still have low vitamins and minerals on your bloodwork, and you’re still sick, and you can’t quite get to the root cause, there is probably a parasitic problem in your gut. 

I just tell everyone if you have never done a parasite cleanse, go on one for 3-6 months. It could change your life. I have had tons of people come to me where they are like, “I did a parasite cleanse, and my hormones are better. My bipolar has gone away. My weight has decreased. My vitamins and minerals are finally coming up.” 

So many people come to me, and they take all these vitamins and minerals, “Nothing changes on my bloodwork. I am the healthiest person out there. But I am so deficient in everything.” Yeah, you’re a walking, talking buffet for parasites.

I’ve had people who went to countries and came back with IBS. Did a parasite cleanse. Their IBS symptoms went away. 

Parasites can be extremely disruptive not only to your hormones but to your absorption, to your microbiome, to your immune response. Parasites are a big freaking deal. I wish everyone took them seriously.

My friend is from Brazil. She says, “At our yearly check-up, our doctor gives you an antiparasitic.” “You look great. Here’s your antiparasitic.” There are many countries where if you don’t feel good, take an antiparasitic. It’s provided to you by your doctor. 

Here in the United States, doctors are outraged by the thought of parasites. They think it’s disgusting. They think that parasites only happen in third world countries, as if parasites have passports. No, parasites are very rampant here. We should take them seriously. If you haven’t, do a very thorough one, and then do one every other year to keep your parasite burden at play. 

Dr. Eric: 

Is that something you do every couple of years then? Do a parasite cleanse? 

Juanique:

I did a parasite cleanse two years ago. I probably passed about 50 tapeworms. I grew up in South Africa with 15 animals. I had two cats, two dogs, four birds, mice, hamsters. I’m not even kidding. My mom could never say no to me. I grew up with a ton of animals. My dad raced pigeons. It was a zoo at our house. 

What I didn’t tell you is I had Graves’ 10 years ago. My late husband died of stage IV colon cancer three years ago. A year after that, I was hit with an extreme health condition, where I thought I would have to go on disability. Tons of neurological issues. It was long COVID symptoms and chronic inflammatory response syndrome. I started doing all the things. “Juanique, what would you do if your client had this?” I’d clean up shop. 

One of the first things I did was a parasite cleanse. My hormones regulated. My cystic breasts went down. My anxiety and depression went away. I started to finally absorb stuff. I’m a very skinny person, and I started putting on weight. Every time I do bloodwork, “Your cholesterol is low, your vitamins and minerals are low. You look like you’re starving slowly.” 

I did this parasite cleanse. Every time I went to the bathroom, I was passing five parasites for a month. I love parasite cleanses. I love preaching parasite cleanses. I love seeing the results of parasite cleanses that people get. 

I’ll share another story. One of my dear friends, her daughter, who was 11 at the time, was having these emotional episodes. She would say, “Mom, I have this creepy feeling inside of me, and I’m getting really anxious.” After a year of this, she had this emotional outburst. Her mom brought her daughter to my clinic to do a hair analysis. I asked her mom, “Hey, was her last outburst on this date?” She thought a little bit and said, “Yeah, how did you know it was that date?” That was the last full moon, and parasites are more active around the full moon. “Your daughter’s hair analysis, the primary concern here is parasites. Let’s put her on a parasite cleanse, and all of her symptoms will go away.” Within two months, and it’s been a year or two now, her daughter hasn’t had any creepy feeling or emotional outburst and is as happy as can be.

We don’t realize parasites can affect our mental health, our physical health, our emotions. There is a book called This is Your Brain on Parasites. If you want to read something that is fascinating and gory, I would listen to that book. It’s so cool. 

Dr. Eric: 

I haven’t read that book, so I need to check it out. I agree with you about false negative stool tests. Just because you’re negative, that doesn’t rule out parasites. I wasn’t aware of hair testing for specific- Is it just for parasites or different types of infections? 

Juanique: 

What we do is a bioresonance hair scan. It uses the bioresonance of your hair and your tissues in the hair follicle to see what is stressing your body at the time. it’s not like tissue testing or anything like that. There are people who do Meridian scans to find imbalances and whatnot. It’s something more like that. It tests the body to see what the primary concerns are. 

I like to compare it to bloodwork like this. Most of my clients do hair analysis and bloodwork, and there is tons of overlap. Bloodwork is like a small picture that has tons of definition. You can only see so much, and it’s not a lot. A hair analysis tests for tons of things, like EMFs, parasites, viruses, chemicals, you name it. It’s a giant picture that is blurry. 

Even though it says parasites, I don’t know which ones. I don’t know which viruses. Is it CMV? Is it COVID? I don’t know. Is it EBV? Oftentimes, my EBV people, their primary is always virus and post-virus. All of my Lyme people are bacteria and virus. It shows us what it is, but not the specificity of it. 

We love to use that in our clinic because it helps us have conversations around, “Your heavy metal toxin burden is up right now. Let’s detox you from heavy metals, and you will probably find your energy improves, or you lose weight.” 

A ton of people who have gone from doctor to doctor, where doctors don’t know what’s wrong with you because your labs look “perfect,” so they come to us. They are not testing for heavy metals or parasites or chemicals or EMFs. 

I can’t tell you how many people test super high for EMFs. It’s EMFs that are making them feel sick. Just try these few things. Eat these foods that help mitigate the radiation from EMFs, and you’ll be fine. 

Dr. Eric: 

When it comes to testing, you do blood testing. You do that bioresonance hair scan. Is that pretty much it? Do you do any other types of tests, or does it depend on the person? 

Juanique: 

It depends on the person. We have a naturopathic doctor at our clinic, at Provo Health. His name is Dr. Jeff Wright. He’s phenomenal. He will take the very complex cases and do whatever testing they need to, whether it’s mold testing, urine mold testing, or Lyme or EBV. He will do whatever test is necessary. 

My health coaches and I, we just do the hair analysis, and some of my coaches do blood chem analysis as well. The blood chem analysis, it used to be 12 vials of blood. We are checking vitamins, minerals, inflammatory makers, cholesterol, iron, ferritin. Everything the doctors don’t test for. We are looking for things and then some. We are looking at a really big picture to see what is it that could be causing your problems. 

That, in combination with the hair analysis, it gives us a big and small picture. We can often see so much overlap that it’s really clear what’s going on here. 

Dr. Eric: 

You covered a lot. There’s so much to cover with the gut. There are so many other things I want to ask. We definitely won’t get to everything, but listening to some of your podcast episodes, some of the top inflammatory foods I found interesting. I know peanuts was one. Gluten. I can’t say I remember them all. I think there were six or seven. 

Juanique: 

There is gluten, dairy, corn, soy. Those are the big ones. Sugar is huge. If you have an autoimmune, if you have to cut out two things, if you can’t cut out all the things, just do gluten and dairy. Start there. You will probably feel better. If you can do corn, soy, and sugar, amazing. Some people do have to cut out legumes, nuts, and seeds. 

Until we can heal the gut and heal the dysbiosis, you have to do this temporary food elimination to decrease the immune response on your body. Then you heal up the microbiome and heal up the immune system and make it intelligent again, so when you reintroduce those foods, you’re not getting that negative immune response to it. 

Dr. Eric: 

One last question here, which is a common question: How does someone know if their gut has been healed? 

Juanique: 

I would say you have no autoimmune, you are not bloated, you are not gassy, your inflammation goes down, and you can tolerate your environment and your food. If you have a healthy microbiome, a healthy microbial lining, a healthy immune response, you can handle anything and everything. You can handle pizza and soda. 

I’m not a purist. I think the majority of people should be having the majority of healing foods. I think fun food has a place. We are here having the human experience. As long as it’s an 80/20, where it’s 80% healthy foods, lots of veggies and proteins and healthy fats and good nuts and seeds, and then 10-20% fun food, where you go out for date night, and maybe you have that glass of wine, we all know fun food doesn’t help your immune system. But it’s all in moderation. 

When you create a forbidden apple scenario, you just want it more. I think the goal is to do something that is sustainable and balanced. The 80/20 rule is 80% protecting and supporting your body, and 20% is not going to extremes. The majority of people can get there. 

When you’re in a healing crisis, you have to put the fun food on the back burner, so you can do a lot of damage control.

I remember when I had Graves’, I did not want to be on medications. I did not want to have a heart attack and die. I did not touch sugar, gluten, and dairy for months. I remember going out to dinner with my sister-in-law and brother. She was like, “Is that hard?” They were eating this cookie thing with an ice cream thing on top, and I was just watching them eat it. “Yeah, but being sick is harder.” Being on medications is way worse. Not having my health and not having my energy and not being there, there is nothing worse than not being present in my life and not having the energy and the health. I want to live an epic, wonderful, big life. 

I had a husband die of cancer. That was awful. I never want to have to go through that again. There is no food, no dessert, nothing that is worse more than my happiness and my ability to live the life that I want to live. If I need to put some things on the back burner, that’s fine.

I hope people can approach their healing that way. It’s just temporary. Let’s cut out the inflammatory foods, heal the immune system, heal the body. When my body is healthy, it can handle those things later. 

I want to use this analogy: When you are in a healing crisis, think of it this way. Your body needs, we’ll call it 100 biological bucks. Your body needs 100 biological bucks of vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, and micronutrients. It needs 100 of that a day in order for you to survive and thrive and do all the cellular functions in your body. 

Let’s say you ate the standard American diet, and you only ate 25-50 dollars. That other 50 has to come from somewhere. You put it on a biological credit card. Over years, that 50 dollars a day adds up to $10,000, to $100,000, to $500,000, to $1,000,000. Not only are you racking up this credit, but the interest, too. 

Someone who is in a healing crisis has $1,000,000 on a credit card, and it’s accruing interest. They come to me and are like, “I want a quick fix, and I want it fast. I’m only willing to pay off $30 a day of my $1,000,000 + interest.” “Honey, your interest is $500 a day. We have a lot of catching up to do.” That’s why people like you and me are like, “You have to be in it to win it at the beginning. It won’t be like that forever. But you have a lot of damage control that you have to do right now.”

It’s like a burning building. If you have ever watched a building burn, it requires so much water for hours just to stop the flames from getting bigger. It looks like at first nothing is happening. You just see this fire getting bigger, even though there is tons of water. They are utilizing that water to slow down the momentum of the fire. Then over time, the momentum stops, and slowly, the flames get smaller. Then they catch momentum and get small and die out. 

A lot of people can’t get to the “I need to slow down my momentum.” They are not willing to put the effort in and really give it a go. You are accruing so much inflammatory interest right now. We have to do a lot of damage control. 

If you want big lifestyle results, like if you want to radicalize your health, you have to radicalize what you’re doing on a day-to-day basis. It won’t be like that forever, but we have a lot of damage control we have to do right now. 

Trust that your body can do it. Trust the process. Give it time. You’re in it to win it. Just enjoy the journey. It won’t be a few months. It won’t be a year. It could be a few years. Your body can do it. Buckle up and enjoy the ride. 

I do want to give people a realistic timeline. Everybody wants the quick fix. It’s not quick, but it’s so worth it. A lot of people, as they’re on their healing journeys, they get to know themselves so well, and they get to know their bodies. It’s such a rewarding journey to be on. 

Dr. Eric: 

I agree. Nobody wants to give up the fun foods. I certainly didn’t when I was dealing with Graves’. Like you, I did, and I did it because I wanted to get better. At least I hoped, I didn’t know at the time because that was my first experience with Graves’. I didn’t work with other people at the time. Same thing with you. 

I didn’t know if I’d be able to successfully eat the fun foods in the future. Thankfully, I can. Like you said, in moderation. Just like you most of the time, I’m eating healthy. It’s important to mention that to give people hope, it’s not going to be restricting those fun foods forever. It’s just that when you reintroduce them, you don’t want to be eating fun foods every single day. 

Juanique: 

We live in such a beautiful day and age, where there are so many companies producing healthy fun foods that are sweetened with stevia or other non-inflammatory ingredients. We can swap things out and still really enjoy our food and have it still be fun. It’s not the milkshake from Wendy’s or Reese’s Cups. But it’s still good and satisfying.

Over time, it’s interesting because as you start feeding your microbial species fiber and vegetables and healthy foods, they will change in numbers, which means they are going to change the signaling to your brain to start craving those things. 

It’s actually fascinating. Your microbiome tells your brain what to eat. If you’re feeding your microbiome processed foods, those microbial species will grow in number and signal your brain to eat more processed foods. If you starve them and feed the microbial species that eat fiber from vegetables, if you start to feed them, and they grow in number, they will start telling your brain that they want more of that food, and you will crave that food. 

You will crave that plate of sauteed vegetables. You will wake up and be excited to eat this meal of sauteed veggies and avocado and nuts and seeds and eggs. You will think it’s the most delicious thing on this planet. You will not really feel a pizza when you see it. It smells nice, but your brain isn’t having that pleasure center hit like it used to. 

It’s really fascinating. The body is amazing at how it changes and adapts according to the environment you expose it to. 

Dr. Eric: 

Definitely agree. This was really amazing. Really enjoyed our conversation. Can you let people know where to find you? I know you also have your Digestion Restoration course. Feel free to talk about that as well. 

Juanique: 

You can find me on Instagram at @Gutsy_Mom. My clinic is Provo Health, so @ProvoHealth. 

I have a bunch of free resources. If you want to listen to my podcast, it’s been going for five years. It’s called The Gutsy Health Podcast, where you can get a lot of great information and tools on how to be a self-healing advocate. I am all about people becoming self-healers. 95% of the healing happens at home, 5% happens at testing and clinics. Learn the 95%, and be a badass self-healer. You can get free information from my podcast.

I have some free classes on the three root causes to gut health issues. You can also join my Digestion Restoration course. The course is phenomenal because it gives you tons of resources, incredible learning. I am taking some students through it right now. People take the courses and are like, “I finally have hope I can heal someday.” They’re understanding the how and the why. It’s making sense how they got sick. They are seeing a path forward out of the mess. 

When you go from doctor to doctor, you are bouncing around, not knowing the direction and where you’re going. You just feel helpless. You won’t stick to a program. The Digestion Restoration course really lays out for you the root cause to your health issues and the pathway out of it. 

For listeners today, if you want to sign up for this course, you can get $50 off when you use the code THYROID. It’s going to teach you how to be a gut healing expert. It’s going to give you all the food resources, supplemental resources, lifestyle ideas that you can use to change, so you can become really clear at what it takes to really get out of the funk of whatever disease or dysfunction you have.

It doesn’t stop at gut. If you have thyroid, because all autoimmune disease starts in the gut. If you have low hormones or hair/skin/nail issues, you need to become an expert in how to heal your gut. Everything starts there. The root cause to all health diseases begins in the gut. That’s why I’m so passionate about people starting with this course.

If you have utilized all the free resources and want more, do my Digestion Restoration course. It is a $1,900 value that when you use the code THYROID, you get for $200. Healing hasn’t been more affordable and accessible before. I highly recommend, if you guys are ready to take the leap, do that. 

Dr. Eric: 

All right, wonderful. Juanique, this was amazing. Thank you so much. It was great having you on the podcast. 

Juanique: 

Thank you for all the work you’ve done. You truly did save my life. Your journey, your path, if you hadn’t written that book, I don’t know what I would have done. It was a Bible to me.

What I want to tell listeners is if you’re in a healing crisis, look for people who have gotten themselves out of it. There is a path forward. Surround yourself with those voices and those people who have done it. That is going to help your brain, and that will help your belief systems believe that you, too, can do it. It can be done. People like Dr. Eric have done it. I have done it. Hundreds of thousands of people have gotten out of their healing crisis by one thing at a time. By implementing things that Dr. Eric talks about on his podcast and I talk about, it can be done, and it can be the best journey you ever go on.

I really want to talk to those people who have been stuck and are overwhelmed. There is a way out. Trust in yourself. Trust in the process. Your body was designed to heal. You just haven’t given it the right tools yet. You haven’t given it the right food. When you do that, magic happens. The human body is truly a magical organism. Just feed it the right things, give it the right thoughts, and it will start working for you instead of against you. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agree with that. Definitely check out Juanique’s podcast and Digestion Restoration course. Thank you so much. We’ll have to get you back on in the future. 

Juanique: 

Thank you so much, Dr. Eric. And thank you, listeners. 

Recently, I interviewed Dr. Lorraine Maita, and we discussed the the complex relationship between thyroid health and your sex hormones, the prevalence of thyroid disorders in women, the impact of estrogen on thyroid function, the importance of holistic approaches to hormone replacement therapy, how lifestyle factors influence overall health, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am very excited to chat with Dr. Lorraine Maita. We are going to be talking about thyroid and autoimmune issues in women. Let me go ahead and dive into Dr. Lorraine’s bio here before we start. 

Lorraine Maita, MD, The Hormone Harmonizer and Detoxifier, is a triple board-certified physician who specializes in helping you have boundless energy; stable moods; a lean body; a sharp, clear mind; strong bones; and balanced hormones, so you can feel like yourself again. 

Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Lorraine. 

Dr. Lorraine Maita: 

I’m so happy to be here. We have to get the word out to help women have a healthy thyroid. Thyroid disorders are very prevalent, especially in women. I want to talk about why. 

Dr. Eric: 

We definitely will talk about why. Before we do that, if you could expand a little bit on your background. How did you start focusing on hormones, becoming the Hormone Harmonizer and Detoxifier?  

Dr. Lorraine: 

I used to work in an emergency room in New York City. I got into functional medicine because a patient gave me TB. I was on antibiotics for nine months. I was getting all kinds of gut issues and other issues: rashes, gaining weight, feeling tired. 

Then I got myself together, learning functional medicine. I went into a company. I used to save people’s lives in the ER and the hospital. Back in the day, there were very few women executives. One day, I’m in my office, and a really senior woman came down. Not senior as in old, but she was right next to the chairman. She came down and said, “You have to help me. I’m standing giving a presentation, and all of a sudden, I get a hot flash. I’m sweating, I’m forgetting my words. Men were either casting their eyes down, like I can’t look at this, or elbowing each other, chuckling. People are not going to take me seriously.”

In those days, there were very few women executives. I could probably count on one hand how many there were in this huge Fortune 100 company. I had to be like, “Oh my god, I could fix almost anything, but not that.” 

I started to learn. I did these women’s circles. They laid everything out on the table. I was a newbie. I was young. I learned so much from them. I continue to learn. 

Then I went through my own perimenopause, which was really difficult. I started losing friends. I was irritable and tired all the time. I was moody, gaining weight. Why, all of a sudden? I am doing all the right things. The lightbulb went off: it’s perimenopause. I dove deep into that. I’ve never looked back. 

I have helped so many women because they’re either judged or dismissed. That was the same thing that happened to me. I also do hormones differently because I went to about four different doctors, and they’d give me the standard of what they did. If it didn’t work for me, which it didn’t, I was out of luck. 

I trained probably under six different philosophies. I feel like I’m a chef. The difference between a short order cook and a chef. I can take a little from here, a little from there. If something doesn’t work, I have another bag of tricks. I also look at the whole person and found that makes all the difference in the world. You can’t just give somebody hormones and say, “Everything is going to be fine.” Even if you tailor it to them, there are so many other things that come into play. 

Dr. Eric: 

I agree. There is definitely a time and place for hormone replacement therapy, which we’ll talk about. The problem is there is a lot of doctors who that’s all they do. They just give HRT and don’t do anything to improve the person’s health in other ways. That’s great that you take that whole body approach. It’s so important. 

Dr. Lorraine: 

I found that the people who had some side effects or did not feel right on hormones, it was because of something else: their gut or their thyroid. The thyroid, again, I have a lot of patients who are dismissed. They are tired, they can’t think, they’re constipated, they’re cold. They have all the symptoms, but the numbers look good. We’re not treating the numbers; we’re treating the patient. Getting your whole body in shape and getting everything else in shape, sometimes your thyroid bounces back. Thyroid is very overlooked, even though it’s so prevalent. 

Dr. Eric: 

Without question. It’s still overlooked, still misdiagnosed. Of course, we are going to talk more about this, but getting to the question: Why are thyroid conditions so common in women specifically? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

Women have more estrogen. We have that X chromosome, and there is something about that X chromosome and estrogen that kicks up your immune system. Estrogen unopposed or not balanced by progesterone can be very inflammatory. A lot of women are on the pill, or they have had IVF. Oral estrogen will increase thyroid binding globulin. Even your own estrogen will increase thyroid binding globulin. The thyroid binding globulin holds onto the thyroid, so you can’t allow it to be free to get into the cell. 

These types of hormones work by getting into the nucleus of the cell. If they are bound, they can’t- People being in a train station, in a train, with the door locked, they can’t get out. They’re not free to go to work. 

We need to have estrogen in a good range. A lot of women are hyper-estrogenic. They’re estrogen-dominant, which means they have estrogen, but they don’t have enough progesterone to balance it. Estrogen will make your thyroid grow. 

I realized late in life that I was estrogen-dominant. I didn’t know what it was when I was a medical student. My thyroid is a little bit big. Everybody had to feel my thyroid. Any rounds we went on, any type of clinical training, people would always want to feel my thyroid. I never had nodules. Too much estrogen, not balanced with progesterone, will make the thyroid grow. Too little, you get hypothyroid. 

Hormones fluctuate. We go through stages in life where they fluctuate, especially during perimenopause. This is when I was gaining weight, and all these other things were happening to me. It was around the time of 9/11, so I thought I was just stressed. Who wasn’t stressed then? I used to live across the street from the World Trade Center. When I realized I needed to balance my hormones, I had the same stress, but I reacted very differently to it. 

Estrogen will change the ability of thyroid to be able to work. It also can decrease your thyroid converting T4 to T3. Progesterone increases T4. T4 is actually the hormone made in the thyroid. Having the right hormones in balance on board is really important. We’re built to have children. If the thyroid is off, you have infertility. You have abnormal periods. People always think it’s just estrogen. No, it’s not estrogen. It’s the whole symphony of hormones. 

Women are more prone to thyroid disorders because of estrogen and the X chromosome.  

Dr. Eric: 

If someone has estrogen dominance, it could interfere with the conversion of T4 to T3, as you said. When you said it could make the thyroid grow, you mean it could be a factor in a goiter, an enlargement of the thyroid? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

Yes. Too much estrogen not opposed with progesterone is going to make the gland itself grow. It can cause goiter. Too little is hypothyroid. 

Estrogen, people think it’s just for reproduction, and it’s not. There are estrogen receptors all over your body: in your brain, in your blood vessels, in your kidney, in your skin. 

I had some dairy last night, so I’m a little congested. I was at an event where I had no choice. Food sensitivities play a role, too. I broke my own rules last night, but I couldn’t help it.  

Dr. Eric: 

For the most part, I avoid dairy, too, but I can’t say I’m perfect. I kid around sometimes. If I have pizza, it’s usually a cauliflower crust, but it’s not the vegan cheese; I’m going to have my mozzarella when I have pizza. I’m not perfect either. 

Most thyroid conditions are autoimmune. Most hyperthyroid conditions are Graves’; most hypothyroid conditions are Hashimoto’s. Autoimmunity is also more common in women. Is that for a similar reason? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

We have evolved to have children. Women have four times more antibodies than men. It’s estrogen that gives you all those antibodies. We have more antibodies to protect the unborn child and to be able to transmit the antibodies when we’re nursing. It keeps the infant healthy, and it protects the mother against infections. That’s a double-edged sword. It does protect the infant. It does protect the mother but only against infection. It increases the risk of autoimmune disorders. 

I always have a woman look back: What was happening at the time you first noticed something going wrong? It’s always when your hormones are changing. Either you have stress or infection. 

When you’re pregnant, your antibodies are at their highest. That’s when we see the biggest number of autoimmune disorders occur: post-partum. I call them the four P’s. This is when hormones fluctuate. Your pituitary gland in your brain doesn’t know what to do, so it signals making thyroid hormones, making all your other hormones, like your sex hormones; prolactin, which makes milk; estrogen; progesterone; growth hormone; thyroid hormone. 

When you have fluctuating hormone levels, the signals get crossed. Some women during puberty, estrogen is easy to make. Progesterone, no. You need to actually have an egg ripen and burst, so they call it the follicular phase. The corpus luteum from that egg that has ovulated, that piece of tissue makes progesterone. That doesn’t always happen very easily. During puberty, your estrogens are ramping up, and your body is trying to ovulate. It’s a very synchronized process.

Post-partum, your hormones are at a high level, and all of a sudden, they plummet. Some women bounce back. Other women don’t. 

Perimenopause is probably one of the worst times. Both hormones are fluctuating. Estrogen goes up and down, and that’s why thyroid disorders are very common then. All those signals get crossed. Your hormones are all over the place. 

Where in puberty, progesterone is ramping up, in perimenopause, it’s ramping down. We are born with a set number of eggs. We start running out. Some months, you’ll ovulate, and things will be nice. Other months, you won’t, and you’ll feel anxious and irritable and tired and PMS and get breast cysts and fibroids and irregular bleeding, heavy bleeding. You can get hot flashes and night sweats because even though you’re not making progesterone, and you’re estrogen-dominant, your estrogen is fluctuating up and down. A lot of the same symptoms in menopause occur during perimenopause. 

All these fluctuations mess up your pituitary gland, and they also stimulate the immune system. Once your immune system kicks off, if you have the genetic predisposition, it doesn’t know how to turn off. It turns on, but it doesn’t know how to turn off. That’s why most autoimmune disorders in women occur during the four P’s: puberty, post-partum, perimenopause, and post-menopause. 

In Graves’, I understand you do a lot with Graves’. It’s very common post-partum. Did you find that to be the case? 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah, I do see women who are premenopausal, too. It’s not just post-partum. I also see a good number of women with Graves’ where it develops in post-partum. You are right about the hormone fluctuations. Sometimes, we’ll see teenagers. Not a lot. Most of the women I’m seeing are adults. It’s less common, but these days, unfortunately, it’s more common than in the past. 

This suggests there are other factors, too. I think you would agree. It’s not just hormone fluctuations that are responsible for thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions. When in combination with other factors as well. 

Dr. Lorraine: 

I call it the autoimmune soup. It’s stress, toxins, adverse food reactions, inflammation, hormone imbalance, nutritional excesses, nutritional deficiencies, lack of sleep. People ask, “What affects my hormones? If you give me hormones, will I stay at the same level my whole life?” No, not really. What you eat, what you drink, how much you sleep, how much you exercise, the stress you’re under, the toxins you’re exposed to are all going to affect your hormones.

Most of the chemicals out there, a lot of them are estrogenic. All these herbicides and pesticides act like estrogen. Women are estrogen-dominant without estrogen. They’re taking these chemicals in, not knowing we are exposed to about 200 chemicals a day, especially women. We use personal care products. I use something on my hair, face. My makeup. Body lotions. I don’t use perfumes anymore. I don’t put nail polish on anymore. I don’t need to. I don’t want to. I’ll do a little bit of makeup, but not every day. 

Even if you have eaten clean and had a clean lifestyle for the last five or ten years, every toxin you have been exposed to since birth gets stored in your fat and bone marrow. When it starts releasing, it starts in perimenopause. Women wait to menopause to get all this testing done. Perimenopause, everything starts to go downhill. That can precede menopause by 10 years. Perimenopause is big for autoimmune disorders. Post-partum and post-menopause. 

I just had a podcast with someone about the oral microbiome. Women get dry mouth. They get more infections after menopause because estrogen makes saliva. Then the infections can affect your thyroid, your cardiovascular disease. It sets up a chain reaction of so many different disorders. Getting things in balance is extremely important, especially for your thyroid. It’s the canary in the coal mine. It will be the first organ to show some signs of having a problem. 

People don’t look for the problems in the thyroid; they don’t measure antibodies. They don’t look at free T3 or reverse T3. They are allowing the lab reference ranges to dictate the patient’s health. That’s not the case. 

Dr. Eric: 

It’s funny you mention the term “canary in the coal mine.” Another recent interview said the same thing. I agree. It’s not the cause of the problem. I agree with most doctors not looking at the full picture when it comes to testing the thyroid. Most just do TSH and maybe T4. You suggested the lab ranges versus the optimal ranges. Too many doctors also don’t pay attention to those optimal ranges. I appreciate you bringing that up. 

When it comes to sex hormones, you mentioned perimenopause. How challenging is it to test the sex hormones because they’re fluctuating? How do you handle the testing of progesterone and estrogen during those times? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

That’s a good question. If somebody has a regular period, an average 28-day cycle, do day 19-22. Measure your hormones then. If somebody has a shorter cycle, I measure days 16-19. Some people have periods all over the place. I tell them to measure two different times 10 days apart. Or when you’re having raging PMS, measure then. It will give me an idea. 

If your cycles are all over the place, a lot of women don’t know when to test. I give them a graphic and show them “Here’s two lab slips. Do one when you think you should be doing it, and do another one 10 days later. One of them will show.” 

We are looking for having estrogen and no progesterone. At the beginning of the cycle, you don’t have either or very much of either. Two weeks, estrogen goes up first, then progesterone goes up after you ovulate. Then after that two-week period, both drop again. That’s when you’re supposed to have your period. 

But when you have estrogen and no progesterone, the uterine lining just grows and grows. Progesterone stabilizes, but you don’t have progesterone to stabilize it. It may grow to a point where it’s breaking off, so you get irregular bleeding or spotting. You don’t know if it’s a period or not. That’s why sometimes you have to test two different times 10 days apart. 

Oftentimes, when people are having the most PMS-type symptoms is when you have that imbalance. That’s what’s causing it. I call estrogen the hormone of energy and growth. Too much estrogen is anxiety, irritability, impatience, insomnia, growth of the breast, cyst in the breast, tender breast, bleeding, spotting, fibroids, weight gain, and more. But those are your most common symptoms. Progesterone just calms it all down. 

Estrogen’s inflammatory, hence all the extra antibodies. Progesterone’s anti-inflammatory. When they’re ramping up in puberty, when they’re all over the place post-partum, and when they’re ramping up and down in perimenopause, you’re going to get the antibody spikes. When estrogen is low, you’re not going to get the thyroid hormone. What women tell me is, “I lost my zest, or I lost my effervescence, or I lost my luster. I don’t feel like a woman anymore.” 

I do see tremendous changes in the thyroid as well during that time and changes in the microbiome and changes in the oral cavity. They’re dry, foggy. They have hot flashes and night sweats. Sex is painful. It’s not fun to go through this. 

But the beauty of it is even if you didn’t go on hormones, you can improve your life with just improving your overall health, like your microbiome, your detox pathways, and getting your thyroid in order. No one would question to give you thyroid if you’re hyperthyroid. If you’re low in estrogen and progesterone, people say that’s a natural phase of life. Yeah, but it’s affecting the quality of life. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah. I agree. That’s a really good point. If someone has low thyroid, there is no hesitation to give thyroid hormone replacements. Many medical doctors just dismiss. When you look at the lab ranges, if you look at the lab ranges for post-menopausal for estrogen and progesterone, if it’s zero, it’s considered to be okay. Crazy! 

Dr. Lorraine: 

Exactly. Estrogen preserves your bones, brain, cardiovascular system. It helps with lipids, and it makes you feel good. Women have to realize that there has been a lot of misinformation about hormone replacement. 

I was around when Prempro came out. In fact, when I was a newbie and had to learn everything about hormones, because these menopausal women came down to me, they wanted to be taken seriously and rise up the corporate ladder, when I decided to do something, I do it all the way, so I learned from so many people, and I learned a lot. 

I realized that when women came to me on Prempro, they were never quite right. Some of them were a little more depressed. Some had spotting. Those are synthetic hormones. Prempro was what they used mostly in that Women’s Health Initiative. 

I was recommending bioidenticals long before. When Prempro came out, and I saw the difference, when I sent women for bioidentical hormones, I would have women come to me and say, “I want what she has because she is not gaining weight. She is not depressed. She just seems better. Whatever you recommended seems better.” It was. I converted a lot of women from Prempro to bioidenticals. 

Then I switched companies. The Women’s Health Initiative came out. Oh my god, all these women stopped their hormones, and it was bedlam. The rug was pulled out from under their feet. They got all the symptoms of menopause so abruptly. I mostly had departments of mainly women. It was so hard on them. I still knew and did things differently and kept studying and learned bioidenticals were safer. 

The analysis of that study was very flawed. Hence in 2017, the principal investigator came out with a paper saying, “Listen, this study was hijacked.” We never even got to see it before the press came out with this “It’s dangerous. It increases heart attacks, stroke, and breast cancer.” When you put it in perspective, it didn’t do any of that. Oral estrogen does. Oral estrogen causes clots. 

I was there during all that time. I continue to help women only because I saw how much they were suffering. When you don’t make a decision, and you do so out of fear, you’re deteriorating. You lose your bone. Your thyroid gets messed up. You start not to remember. You get dry. You can’t have relationships because it’s too painful. It affects your marriage. You’re irritable and can’t sleep and are tired, so it affects your performance. There are so many factors to consider. Quality of life is one of them. 

Dr. Eric: 

Definitely agree. I have a two-part question. How do you determine when a patient of yours needs bioidentical hormone replacement therapy? A second question is if there is a time and place for bioidentical hormones in those who are not in perimenopause or post-menopause? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

That’s a very good question. First of all, I do this all day every day, so I know the symptoms. But I don’t necessarily treat the symptoms. I will measure. I will have women do some blood testing. Then I will also detox them. Some of it can be due to toxins. Some of it can be due to inflammation. Inflammation is terrible for your thyroid. Toxins are terrible for your thyroid. 

I do a very different type of detox. Everybody calls it something different and does it differently. When you come to me, I want to do it my way once, at least. You have to bear with me. 

I just had a conversation with someone yesterday, and she said, “I’m eliminating those foods.” That’s only one small piece of what’s going on. We are going to refurbish you. We’re going to remove the toxins, give you detoxifying herbs, remove the most common foods, just for two weeks. I do it very short. Otherwise, people won’t do it. 

For two weeks, you remove the most troublesome foods. You give something to decrease inflammation and heal the gut. 80% of people come back to me feeling good to great. So many symptoms go away. I have actually had some women say to me, “I feel so good, I don’t think I need hormones.” I go along with it. If you’re feeling really good, and we subsequently measure, a lot of people go back into balance. 

Some women feel better, but there’re still big imbalances. I will treat them. You don’t realize that in perimenopause, that is where you start losing bone. People think you only lose bone in menopause, but you lose it in perimenopause. Progesterone is extremely important for bones, as is testosterone. All of those hormones go down. 

I also measure cortisol. If your cortisol is high, all your other hormones are going to be low. I decide based on symptoms, on measurement, on response to a really good detox vacation and elimination diet and decreasing inflammation. 

Dr. Eric: 

How do you measure cortisol? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

I measure it in saliva, four points. You get up in the morning and spit in the tube. Noon, you spit into a tube. 3-5, you spit into a tube. Before bed, you spit into a tube. You should have a nice curve of high to low. 

Lately, I have been seeing flatline cortisol, where there is no get up and go. This is burnout. Some people’s cortisol goes up at night, so they can’t sleep. If you can’t sleep, it disrupts all your other hormones. It’s like baking a cake. You leave one ingredient out, and it’s a flop. We have to look at the full picture. 

That’s what I do when I initially see someone. I want a fuller picture, so I can hit all the key points, get them feeling better faster, and then we decide when the dust settles, “Okay, whatever is left over, we treat.” I save people a lot of money on supplements because I have people coming to me. Every symptom has a supplement. It’s no different than a pill for an ill. It’s a supplement for a symptom. That’s not getting to the root cause. 

Then I give the supplements based on what’s left over. Then I give the hormones based on what’s left over. Where are you at? I know even if you feel a lot better, if you’re still having either symptoms or your hormones are low, you’re setting yourself up for problems down the road. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. I’m glad you use saliva testing. I do a lot of saliva testing, too, just because you can look at the Circadian rhythm as you described. 

You mentioned elevated cortisol. If someone does a blood test, and cortisol is high, is it truly high? Is it because they were stressed out while doing the blood draw? You can have that false elevation of cortisol when doing serum testing. Do you do any DUTCH testing in your practice? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

Once I put people on hormones, I do DUTCH testing. The mistake I see some people making is they take menopausal women who have no estrogen, and they do the test, but it’s not as accurate although it’s helpful to some extent. I get the hormones to a certain level, and then that is when it’s really testing the pathway. When you have enough estrogen in there to see where it’s going, how is your liver metabolizing it? Can you get rid of it? If you don’t have any estrogen, that’s not going to be very accurate. 

As I give hormones, I tell people I look at it 3D. if I did your financial plan, I’d have to look at your bank account, your savings, and your income and expenses to do a good job. That’s a complete financial plan. If I just looked at your blood, that’s like your bank account. You have enough money, but you have no money in savings. If something happens, you don’t have any reserve. 

Saliva is not the most accurate test, but it gives me a good idea. That gives me free hormone. It doesn’t always match the blood. A certain company did some tests that when they did uterine biopsies and looked at the hormones in the endometrial lining and then did saliva, they matched. It gives me an idea of how much free hormone is floating around. 

Some women, I can give them hormones until the cows come home, and it doesn’t rise in blood. I have to look at where it’s going, so I do blood and saliva to see how it compares, and then I do blood and the DUTCH test. The DUTCH test is so valuable. It tells me how the body metabolizes all of the hormones. 

If your liver, I call it the giant recycling plant, where you can have clean recycled garbage; dirty, stinky garbage; and something in between. If you make this 4 hydroxy estrogen, which is like dirty, stinky garbage, it damages DNA. They did a study where women who made 4 hydroxy estrogen either had a history of breast cancer or a family history of breast cancer. I want to know if you make a lot of that. If you do, I give you diet and supplement advice to make more of the 2 hydroxy estrogen. When they did studies on women who made that, it’s like clean, recycled garbage. I can shift the enzymes to make more of the safer version. 

I have to see. If you just threw your garbage out on the curb, the garbageman won’t pick it up. If you just have these hormone metabolites floating around, you could reabsorb them if you don’t have a good, active methylation process. That’s methylation is done by the COmt enzyme, which is like putting those toxic metabolites or even the safe metabolites in a bag, so you can dispose of them. 

That’s why I’m such a stickler for bowel movements. I’m going to be known as the Poop Doctor. Are you moving your bowels? If you’re not, you’re reabsorbing all those things you want to get rid of. 

The DUTCH test will tell me how you get rid of them. It will also tell me how you’re metabolizing your cortisol. It will give you a cortisol curve. It will tell me if you metabolize testosterone to a form that will give you more masculine features, like I have the Italian beard and mustache. You can get more of that if you metabolize or break down your testosterone into a form that is more androgenic. Think facial hair, but hair loss on the head. God has a sense of humor, right? You get hair where you don’t want it, and you don’t have it where you do want it. I can see all of that in the DUTCH test. I love that test. 

Dr. Eric: 

I like it a lot, too. Getting back to 4 hydroxy. If a patient of yours has elevated 4 hydroxy, making sure they have regular bowel movements. Make sure they have healthy methylation. Supporting methylation if necessary. Anything else? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

I have different cocktails for different enzymes. The one that’s in between is not as toxic as a 4, not as clean as a 2. That responds better to resveratrol. That’s the 16 hydroxy. You can have high estrogen, normal estrogen, or low estrogen and still be estrogen-dominant. You could be menopausal and be estrogen-dominant. You decrease the toxins coming in. 

Eating organic, because the herbicides and pesticides act on the estrogen receptors and make you gain weight and make you estrogen-dominant. Hormone-free, antibiotic-free, poultry and dairy. 

Look at your personal care products because a lot of them have chemicals that disrupt your hormone system, your immune system, and nervous system. Some people take certain creams that have hormones in them, and they don’t realize it. 

Yesterday, I just got a blood result back with somebody’s estrogen at 799. That is the highest. It’s either a lab error, or she is taking- A lot of the estrogen skin creams are very nice. Some people don’t realize it, but if the estrogen is 799 because of that, she’s in trouble.

Look carefully at your skin care products and your cleaning products. That decreases the toxins going in. 

Cruciferous vegetables help you break down the estrogen. We call it metabolize, into safer forms, like the 2 hydroxy instead of the 4 hydroxy. I make sure people get a lot of cruciferous vegetables.

The other thing is fiber. Fiber binds the metabolites and allows you to poop them out. A lot of women say when I ask, “How are your bowel movements?” “They’re normal.” “How often?” “Every three days.” “What do they look like?” “Pebbles.” That’s not normal or good. That won’t help you get rid of your toxins. You have to poop a snake every day. 

I had to say that over a lunch, and I did not like saying that over luncheon. You know what? It is so important. Women come to me and don’t feel right; they’re fatigued. Any toxins you’re trying to get rid of, you’re just reabsorbing if you’re not pooping. It’s like flushing a backed-up toilet. Ew! People tell me they feel absolutely great. “Oh my god, I didn’t realize it made a difference.” 

The other thing is gallbladder. A lot of women had their gallbladders out, or their gallbladder doesn’t work well. They don’t realize that bile is more than just digesting fat. It binds toxins and helps you get rid of them. Bile is an antiseptic for your bowels. 

All this dysbiosis, meaning you have a family of microbes in your gut that are not friendly versus friendly. The bile helps you. Your microbiome, the bugs in your gut, can take the bile that is bound to all these toxic metabolites, and it’s carrying it out. 

Some of the microbes are stinky. “You think you’re smart? I’m gonna break it off, so you’re just reabsorbing this stuff.” That’s called beta glucuronidase. It’s an enzyme that they make, so your bile can’t get rid of this stuff. You reabsorb it, and you’re estrogen-dominant, but it’s not going to measure because it’s a metabolite. Getting your bile flowing is really important. 

I recommend bitters. When I had a woman come to me four weeks before she was going to have her gallbladder removed. She said, “I need more than four weeks.” She was having a lot of pain and gas and digestive issues. We got everything going. She is okay. Things are better. She didn’t have to have the surgery. If you don’t have your gallbladder out, make sure your bile is flowing. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. Gallbladder problems are really bile metabolism problems. There is a time and place to remove the gallbladder. It’s not fixing the problem, just like anything else. There is a time and place for thyroid surgery, but if someone has thyroid surgery, is it fixing the underlying cause of the problem, especially if they have Graves’, and they end up getting radioactive iodine or thyroid surgery, but it’s more of an immune system condition than a thyroid condition. I’m glad you brought that up as well with the importance of supporting bile. 

Do you do stool testing to look at beta glucuronidase and the gut microbiome overall? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

I don’t do it in everybody. Some people feel so good and don’t want to spend the money on it. When somebody feels better after my detox, we have to look deeper. It’s mold, metal, gut. 

When I first started, I used to see a lot of bacteria that didn’t belong there. Now, I’m seeing more of what I call a desert. People have no probiotics. They have been treated with antibiotics. They are not eating enough fiber. They are not eating enough fruits and vegetables. There is nothing in there that’s going to help you because people don’t realize that microbiome, there is more cells in there than there are in our bodies. The microbiome is like your community. They’re communicating. They can disrupt your hormone system, immune system, and nervous system, or they can make them great. Having the right balance of the microbes there is important. 

The other point is you need iron, iodine, and other nutrients to make thyroid hormone and any hormone for that matter. Oftentimes, the digestion is off. We are eating on the run. We’re not relaxing. You’re either in fight or flight, rest/digest, or reproduce/regenerate. 

If you’re eating on the run and multi-tasking while eating, you’re not relaxed enough to get all the signals from your brain to your gut to make digestive enzymes. You’re not digesting the food; therefore, you’re not absorbing the nutrients. 

I say choose, chew, and chill. Choose the foods that nourish you. Chew thoroughly because the chewing releases stomach acid. The stomach acid starts the digestive process. That is antibacterial actually. All you people with SIBO, you need stomach acid, and you need stomach acid to absorb iron. Iron is essential to making thyroid hormone. The stomach acid is going to tell your gallbladder and liver to make bile and store it in the gallbladder and your pancreas to make other digestive enzymes. 

If you don’t give time, it’s like rushing through a car wash. You have the suds on, but then you rush through the rinsing process, and it’s stuck there. Take a little time to eat and chill out. Choose, chew, and chill. Relax when you eat. This way, all your digestion will take that food and allow the nutrients to absorb. 

So many little things. That’s why when people just think, “Give me hormones, and I will have a standard dose. I only have to see her once a year.” Is she taking care of all the things? No. 

If you really want good overall health and a good, healthy health span, I can’t guarantee a longer life. While we’re on this planet, why shouldn’t we live with vibrance and vitality and a sharp, clear mind and energy? Feeling good. 

Dr. Eric: 

Fully agree. We all want to feel good. Sometimes, we also have to pay attention to the smaller things like chewing our food. I have two teenage daughters, and one of them, I always have to say, “Slow down” because she likes to scarf down her food and do whatever she’s doing. 

Very important to talk about even the basics. So many people aren’t doing the basics. Like you said, they’re eating quickly or not really- They might be on their computer while eating and watching TV, not to say there is not a time and place to do that, but they are not relaxing. They are just trying to eat a quick meal in between their break, for example, and get back to work. Try to block out some time. 

Dr. Lorraine: 

Or they eat in their car. I had so many people who just eat in their cars. Stop. It will affect your thyroid. Anything that causes inflammation will affect your thyroid. 

I had a woman the other day where I know she is a sugar addict. Her TSH from her pituitary gland went up again. I said to her, “You know what? Please stop the sugar. Let’s remeasure.” That inflammation affected the communication between her thyroid and her pituitary gland. Came back normal. Otherwise, somebody might have put her on thyroid hormone. I don’t like when people overdo hormones either. There is a time and place, and that’s why reducing inflammation and taking care of all these other things makes all the difference. 

Dr. Eric: 

That is awesome. I’m so glad you take that approach. Not just have a cookie cutter approach where everybody gets hormones. I’m not against hormones. There is a time and place. You try to improve the person’s health. If someone needs hormones, they need them. If someone doesn’t need them, then they don’t need them. 

Dr. Lorraine: 

Exactly. It’s getting to the root cause. That’s why I have so many people who say, “I feel so good.” Then they don’t need anything. I just had somebody who came back to me. I did my process. She was great. Now, it’s seven years later. She needs them now. Let’s measure. 

Dr. Eric: 

You covered a lot of great information. Before we wrap up, anything else you want to mention? Anything that I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

I always like to end with telling people to have some fun. Enjoy life. Some people approach this like a checklist. I ate, I exercised, etc. They’re uptight about it. They’re too anal about it. Relax. Enjoy. Have fun. 

I know a lot of women have fear about hormones. I have a course called “Is HRT Right for You?” It will lay out all the studies. Also, have you do a self-assessment. What would happen if you did take hormones? What would happen if you didn’t? What are the risk factors? How is your life going to be different with or without? 

I also give you a list of the studies. The studies, I have been doing this for so long. It makes you feel comfortable because the latest studies show that bioidentical hormones are safer. Part two of the course is what to expect if you do go on hormones. That is a big course. It’s very reasonable. 

However, I have a Hormone Harmonize Kickstart that I’d like people to download for free. It will go through a lot of these things. It will give you more detail about what to do. We’re taking care of the whole person, not just one gland, your thyroid, or not just your estrogen and progesterone and testosterone, or your cortisol. The Hormone Harmonize Kickstart gets into a lot of the things that I covered here. 

I know I was a little bit divergent in many places, but I can’t help it. That’s how I think. I will go and hone in on different things, so that I can get to the root cause faster. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. Anything else? Where can people find you? 

Dr. Lorraine: 

I have two websites; it’s confusing. I have the coaching website, which is FeelGoodAgainInstitute.com. I have my medical website, VibranceForLife.com. I have a private Facebook group. You can use my name. Instagram is my name. The private group is The Feel Good Again Institute. You can find me all over. I’m even on YouTube. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Lorraine. This was an amazing conversation. I had a great time talking to you about thyroid, autoimmunity, hormones. Definitely check out Dr. Lorraine’s websites. Find her on social media. Sign up for her Hormone Harmonize Kickstart. Maybe check out her HRT program as well. 

Dr. Lorraine: 

Thanks so much. You gotta spread the word. I like people to feel good again. That’s why I named my company The Feel Good Again Institute. 

Dr. Eric: 

I agree. Thanks again, Dr. Lorraine.

Recently, I interviewed Heather Gray, and we discuss the need for a holistic approach to health, how gut health and emotional trauma influence Lyme disease, the challenges of getting a proper diagnosis, the significance of foundational health practices, the potential benefits of bioenergetics and frequency therapy, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am very excited to chat with Heather Gray. We are going to be talking about Lyme disease, mold toxicity, frequency therapy, tying that all into thyroid health. Let me dive into Heather’s impressive bio here: 

Meet Heather Gray, a functional diagnostic nutritionist and bioenergetic practitioner specializing in supporting clients with chronic and complex illnesses such as Lyme disease, mold toxicity, and autoimmune diseases. With over 32 years of personal experience, she understands the struggles of living with these conditions and is dedicated to helping others find relief.

Heather’s personalized experience as a practitioner, podcast host, and author has helped countless clients reduce inflammation in the body and brain, improve gut health, and achieve optimal wellness. She helps her clients get to the root cause of their symptoms and take control of their health journey. Heather’s approach is not only effective but also empowering. Don’t let chronic illness control your life. You can achieve the health and vitality you deserve. 

Thanks for joining us, Heather. 

Heather Gray: 

Woohoo! 

Dr. Eric: 

That was a nice ending to that bio. If you have been in that situation- 

Heather: 

Written by AI. 

Dr. Eric: 

You do have quite the healing journey. You dealt with Lyme and other coinfections. We were chatting before this. You mentioned bartonella, babesia, and toxic mold, and multiple autoimmune conditions, like Hashimoto’s and Celiac. You can probably spend an hour going over your healing journey. We will incorporate it into this talk here. 

Heather: 

I have it down to five minutes. 

Dr. Eric: 

Five minutes? 

Heather: 

Yep. 

Dr. Eric: 

All right. Let’s give it your five-minute healing journey. 

Heather: 

I will keep an eye on the clock. I was basically born full of shit. How many people can relate to being constipated as a kid? That’s what started my journey of throwing Band-Aids at symptoms. The doctors were wanting to get me on laxatives and stool softeners, nasty thick oils down my throat. 

Hindsight’s 20-20. That was around the same year my uncle committed suicide and my grandmother died of breast cancer. There was a lot of childhood trauma going on in my life. I think that’s what kicked off my Celiac gene at the time. I was also eating a typical standard American SAD diet. We have the perfect storm starting to brew.

By the time I did get bit by a tick when I was 13, there was a lot of early childhood trauma. I had a leaky gut, so there’s a leaky brain. Already had some autoimmune in process. I was living in mold. People talk about having a detox bucket; I had a detox thimble. It didn’t take much for me to get sick and remain sick. 

It took until I was 34 years old before I finally got diagnosed with Lyme. I was diagnosed with everything under the sun. I had two suicide attempts, multiple autoimmune diseases by this time. I was written off as my labs looked normal, everything’s fine, it’s all in my head. I was called attention-seeking. Put all kinds of prescription drugs and dismissed.

The definition of gaslit. If you were to look in the dictionary, it’s a Lyme patient, it has to be. The CDC just recognized my disease as a real disease last year. Wrap your brain around that one. Something that’s plagued the majority of my life was just recognized by the CDC last year. That’s what’s the pain to purpose story is. That’s what got me on my path of healing. 

If I would have stayed in the Western med model, I’m not sure I’d still be standing here. They were throwing antibiotics at a body, throwing napalm at a body that hadn’t worked for over 30 years. I talked about not being able to poop when I was younger. I still wasn’t able to poop as an adult. 

You can’t go to war with a person’s body that hasn’t worked right for decades and still expect it to come out okay. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves in the Lyme world, especially: There are so many people focused on treatment, and they’re not focused on the whole person. You might get better that way, but you won’t stay better. You’ll relapse, and that’s another story. 

Less than five minutes! 

Dr. Eric: 

Very impressive. Wasn’t expecting to talk about chronic constipation. I dealt with it, too. I had two bowel movements per week in my teenage years and 20s. Diet played a role in that; being on antibiotics many times as a child and teenager I’m sure also played a role. 

How long did it take to get- I don’t know where you are today, if you are having regular bowel movements daily or if it’s just greatly improved. How long did it take you to get to the point where your bowel movements were dramatically improved compared to yesterday? 

Heather: 

My gut was the last thing to get dialed in. Sometimes, the amount of antibiotic use, the Celiac on top of it, just the amount of abuse that my gut has taken over the decades, I still struggle with it. I do coffee enemas once a week and have for the past seven years. On Friday morning, just like clockwork. I start off Thursday night with a castor oil pack. I do a coffee enema, going into skin brushing, into my sauna. It’s my 24 hours of detox. 

I still take magnesium at night. There are things I have to take to help move things along. It doesn’t really work by itself. It’s nice to be able to take a few of these little supplements and have things work properly. 

I have to take a little bit more when I travel. It never fails. The minute I get on the plane, everything stops. It’s ridiculous. I usually have to double down when I travel. I’ve learned these hacks now, and I’ve learned how to be in tune with my body. 

That’s one thing I teach my clients who I work with. Don’t ever let yourself go a day without going. If you don’t, here are some tools to move things along and dig a little deeper. Especially people with chronic Lyme and these autoimmune diseases, the gut takes a beating. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. You went undiagnosed for a long time before you found out you had Lyme. What were some of the symptoms you experienced when you dealt with Lyme? Did you have some of the classic symptoms? When I dealt with Lyme, no bull’s eye rash, no evidence of a tick bite in my case either. You didn’t have the classic signs and symptoms either. 

Heather: 

I was 13 and remember picking a tick out of my stomach. My mom did it the wrong way; she did it with a lighter. We are now finding out that’s the wrong way to take out a tick because it will regurgitate what’s in its system because you have scared it. Then your chances of getting Lyme go up. 

I did not develop a bull’s eye rash. Only about 30% of people with Lyme develop that rash. My symptoms didn’t show up until about two years later. They showed up with my first stint in a psych ward for a suicide attempt. 

That’s part of the reason why I love educating. I love the fact that more and more is coming out about the gut-brain connection and how it’s not just a lack of neurotransmitters that cause these mental illnesses. It’s heavy metals, mold, Lyme, other viruses that cause brain inflammation. 

I wanted to start a movement. Instead of calling people crazy, saying, “Your brain inflammation is showing.” The minute you get that stigma slapped on you of being crazy, it’s harder to wash off. The louder you scream, “I’m not crazy!” the more they say, “That’s what a crazy person would say.” 

I got bit when I was 13. 15 is when my first suicide attempt happened. How much different would my life have been if they had dug deeper instead of throwing Band-Aids at symptoms and putting me on an antidepressant and sending me back home? It showed up with a lot of neurological stuff. The anxiety and depression. I was diagnosed bipolar. A lot of chronic, widespread pain. 

In the whole disease catalogue, there are only six diseases that have migraine and pain as a symptom. You’re not a hypochondriac; it’s not in your head. If you really have pain in your right shoulder one day and your left elbow the next, flag on the play, could be Lyme. My right knee would swell up to twice its size for no reason. 

I would have Lyme rage, which is really common with bartonella. The rage part of it is common but also common just to melt down. No logic, ugly crying, melting down for no reason. It was almost like an out of body experience. I could see myself above myself. “Heather, knock it off. Heather, what are you doing?” There was no control over the body; it was so bizarre. 

I was in anger management classes at 15 as well. People tried to give us the tools, and people were like, “Count to 10.” I try to explain to them, “There’s no buffer. Something happens, and I react. There’s nothing in the middle there.” Later, I learned a lot of it had to do with the brain inflammation and the Lyme rage. 

Gastrointestinal issues. Hormonal issues. I was living with about a level pain of 5-6 every day for years and years. When you get brought up on TV and see all these commercials, you start to think that kind of stuff is normal, so I never put two and two together that it wasn’t normal not to live with these everyday pains. 

It wasn’t normal to live with everyday bloating and gas. I used to carry Gas-X with me. I had some in my purse, I had some in my locker at school, and I had some in my car. Being Celiac and eating a standard American diet, my gut was a mess. I never put two and two together. These symptoms are common, but that doesn’t mean they’re normal. 

Dr. Eric: 

That is true. You dealt with those symptoms for around 20 years. You said you were diagnosed at 34? 

Heather: 

34, yeah. 27 years, I went undiagnosed. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wow. What approach did you take when you were diagnosed? Did you initially take more of a conventional approach? Did you jump into functional medicine? 

Heather: 

No, that’s all I knew. I went to a DEO, hoping he was going to be better. Not quite all Dr. Med. But he threw a bunch of antimalarial drugs at me, which holy shit, the side effects of those things are just horrific. Antibiotics, and he also added herbals on top of it. He totally went to war with the critters of my body. Not once did he ask me, “How are you sleeping at night? Are you pooping daily? What’s your diet like? What’s your stress level like?” None of those questions were asked.

After two months of dealing with that, I walked into my first Lyme support group, and it was just toxic. Those poor people were wearing that disease like a cloak of honor. They were really identifying with their disease. Intuitively, I could tell I am not going to find healing here. I knew there needed to be another way.

Then I heard the founder of FDN, Reed Davis, speaking on a podcast. It was Sean Croxton, Underground Wellness. I was a hairstylist at the time. I didn’t have a medical background. Reed talked about how to heal the gut, making sure your hormones are balanced and making sure your detox pathways are open. Intuitively, this makes sense. 

At the time, the program was $1,500. It’s up to $8,000 now, which is still totally worth it. I remember begging my ex-husband.

To go through the program, you have to do a couple labs on yourself. You become your first guinea pig. It showed my liver was extremely congested, and I had Blastocystis hominis, which is a pretty common parasite for people who have pets. An overgrowth of candida. All these things. It was so much more than Lyme. All that doctor was focused on was the Lyme. 

FDN is all about dialing in the lifestyle stuff, making sure that you’re eating properly and sleeping properly. Within 3.5 months, my life had completely changed. I had lost 40 pounds. I was sleeping at night. My hormones were balanced. I felt amazing. 

Dr. Eric: 

Awesome. When you work with clients, everybody’s different. No two clients have the same exact findings. Especially with co-infections, most people come in with not just Lyme, but so many other things, like bartonella, babesia, parasites, yeast overgrowth, etc. 

Heather: 

Absolutely. I go back and forth because a lot of the marketing gurus I worked with have these packages, which usually include the same functional labs and supplements and this kind of timeline. It sounds great and nice and all, but I found that folks with Lyme are really sophisticated clients. They have had to become their own health advocate for so long. They have already tried a lot of different things, so they already come with a lot of great pieces to their puzzle. A lot of times, the puzzle pieces might be out of order, or they are missing a quarter piece here that helps tie the whole thing together. 

I had to kick that to the curb and go with a more individualized approach to meet each person where they’re at. Sometimes, a person comes in and just needs some tweaking of their diet and a lot of tweaking with their mindset and nervous system. 

Or I have a client I am working with right now where we are starting over from scratch with how to eat, how much to drink, making sure you’re pooping daily. He’s doing amazing. I’m so proud of him. He’s one of the few where I tell him what to do, and he says, “Yes, ma’am.” No arguments, no whining, no victimizing, no nothing. He has completely turned his life around in three months, it’s amazing. 

Dr. Eric: 

Very cool. You mentioned you grew up on the standard American diet, as did I. In that case, changing one’s diet can sometimes have a dramatic impact. I’m sure you also experienced people who have already cleaned up their diet. They have already changed their diet and lifestyle. You need to dig deep or go beyond that. Maybe it’s a toxic mold problem, which you also dealt with, and you need to do something to remove the mold. 

Speaking of which, how common do you see that connection? Someone has Lyme who also has a mold toxicity issue. 

Heather: 

So common that I have to rule it out before we even start working on Lyme. There are usually three things I have people rule out before we can start walking down that path. 

One of them is cavitations. If you get your wisdom teeth or had a root canal done, Western dentistry is not different than a lot of Western med. There are a couple funky practices. They leave something behind and close it out. 

A root canal is keeping something dead around, taxidermy in your mouth, which is so bizarre. It causes an infection in your jaw, which is so close to your brain. My troops were scattered for years. They were trying to protect my brain from this low-level infection. No wonder it couldn’t keep Lyme in check. So having to check cavitations. 

They have to rule out mold. That was one of the things that I ran into. I said about three months later, my whole life completely changed. Then I hit a plateau. That plateau was because I was living in mold and didn’t realize it, so we had to take a couple steps backwards. I had to detox from mold. I divorced my husband at the time and moved out of the house, so that started to get better. 

I talked about the detox genes earlier. I have a detox thimble. Most people have stuff that their body will tag as mold for your immune system to take out. I’m missing that. Mold just keeps circulating. People could literally be out of a moldy house for years and still be experiencing symptoms of mold toxicity because it’s recirculating in their body. At some point, it starts to populate in their body. Now they’re the source of the issue. 

The third will be sleep apnea. No amount of amazing supplements or lifestyle changes are going to do any bit of good if you’re not getting enough oxygen at night when you sleep. That’s a new one for me. These little tracker devices- I don’t snore. I never in a million years thought I would have had sleep apnea. This thing was showing me that my oxygen was dropping to 83% at night. Legit brain damage level. That’s the next journey I am healing back right now. 

I just met with an ENT person yesterday after trying a couple alternative therapies. I have a wickedly deviated septum, and something else is happening. I don’t have the passageway to get enough breath in. Being in Colorado at a higher elevation kicks my butt. 

Dr. Eric:

Yeah. Based on what you just said, you want to rule those three things out. Do you refer people to a biological dentist and also have them test their house for mold and refer them to an ENT specialist? 

Heather: 

It usually starts off with a couple intake forms that I have that are ridiculously in-depth. I have found a lot of clinical correlation. If on their medical history form, they say they’ve had a root canal in the past or mercury in their mouth, your next visit is to a biological dentist. If they have a lot of symptoms that looks like mold and not Lyme, let’s talk about mold. Same thing with sleep apnea.

I got lucky. In my last client who came to me, he’d already had a CPAP, so he knew he had sleep apnea. I can often rule things out with the intake forms and their medical history and symptoms. Oftentimes, I need them to go somewhere else to get that taken care of. We can still work on the things we’re working on if it will help with the other stuff they are dealing with. But they won’t get completely better if that stuff isn’t addressed. 

Dr. Eric: 

With sleep apnea, they can see what their oxygen saturation is during the night while they’re sleeping. If they measure it and see it’s less than optimal, they can go see an ENT. 

Autoimmunity. How common is it for people with Lyme, toxic mold, also to have autoimmune conditions? Especially thyroid since the audience is thyroid. Hashimoto’s is the most common autoimmune condition. Do you see a lot of people specifically with Hashimoto’s? 

Heather: 

Absolutely. It’s so sad that people don’t realize that the majority of autoimmune out there is lifestyle. It sucks. A lot of their doctors are telling them, “You have to be on this biologic or this pill for the rest of your life, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I reversed 2/3 of my autoimmune conditions. I no longer have Hashimoto’s or endometriosis. 

Celiac is a different one. My gut has just been through the ringer. Wheat is so toxic and inflammatory anyway that even if I were to reverse the Celiac, I’m not sure I’d ever go back to eating that kind of food because I know all the damage and havoc it causes between being heavy with mold, heavy with pesticides, genetically engineered to have more gluten, so our bodies don’t recognize it as food anymore. There are so many things about Western wheat that I just leave alone. 

Dr. Eric: 

It’s not as challenging these days to be gluten-free. We should be eating mostly whole, healthy foods, which are naturally gluten-free. If you want to indulge a little bit, you could have a gluten-free pizza or a cauliflower-crust pizza. Not that these are healthy options, but if you absolutely wanted to be gluten-free, compared to 10 years ago, when pizza tasted like cardboard, there is even paleo cookie options. 

You can make your own, too, which is the best option. Make your own paleo or AIP-friendly cookies and pastries. Now, if you walk into a Whole Foods, you have to be careful when it comes to reading ingredients. Just because it’s gluten-free, who knows what else is in there? The point is, it’s not as challenging as it was 10-15 years ago to avoid gluten.  

Heather: 

I like what you said. With processed foods, I find so many people just skip one crappy, processed, Western, standard American diet for a crappy, processed, gluten-free diet. Then they wonder why they’re not feeling any better. Sticking as much to whole, real food as possible. 

Not eating out as much, especially with all the seed oils restaurants are cooking with, which cause a lot of brain inflammation and inflammation throughout the body. We are making bad copies of fat-soluble things with a subpar product. Seed oils are horrible. I try not to eat out at all anymore. When I do, every single time, I pay for it.

There is only one restaurant in the three towns around me that have gluten-free, paleo, no seed oils, non-GMO, organic. It’s amazing. But it’s just sad. That’s one in a 60-mile radius. 

Dr. Eric: 

You just need to open up your own restaurant. 

Heather: 

I’ve thought about it. I’m a badass cook. I like to cook. I am a front of the house person. I’m an extrovert on steroids. To put me in the back of the house, cooking, no.

Dr. Eric: 

Let’s talk about different treatment options for Lyme. You’re big into addressing the foundations, which is important. Honestly, I was guilty: when I found out I had chronic Lyme, I jumped into ozone therapy, IV ozone, even though I knew that wasn’t necessarily a cure. I was terrified of being debilitated when it came to dealing with Lyme and bartonella. It helped. 

Even before that, I heard of people getting IV ozone, and a few months later, the Lyme symptoms came back. With antibiotics, they destroy the gut microbiome. There are people who are on long-term antibiotics for that. There are other treatment options like hypobaric oxygen, herbs, homeopathy. If you don’t address the foundations—heal the gut, reduce your toxic load, do things to manage stress and improve adrenal health—these other therapies aren’t going to be nearly as effective. 

I’ll let you take over as far as your approaches and your philosophy to treat Lyme.  

Heather: 

That was my experience. I’d get better for 3-6 months, a year, and then relapse. Then I’d clean everything up again. I would get better for 3-6 months and relapse. That happened about three times. 

It was right around 2020 that I was relapsing. I was gaining weight, getting reactive again, in a lot of pain. My brain was foggy. I was living in a moldy area. I also never dealt with the early childhood trauma. That type of trauma, the heavy metals, the mold toxicity, chronic disease, all these things act like trauma in the nervous system. They get stuck in the body. 

I was always such a great functional practitioner, doing my supplements and diet, being in bed on time, doing my coffee enemas. You want me to get in touch with my feelings? What are those? Who has time for that? I thought it was woo-woo, all the things. 

It’s sad to me, too, because in that industry, people talk about Lyme flares or autoimmune flares like they’re normal. They don’t have to be normal. There’s still an area they haven’t addressed, a part that’s not healed. The Body Keeps Score, that book was an intro for me into that world. Two weeks later, I was doing an ayahuasca journey. I have done four or five types of psychedelics. I have done neurofeedback, somatic experience work, breathwork, tapping in the name of healing that trauma from my nervous system. I wasn’t reactive. I could then heal. 

When we are stuck in fight or flight, that tiger is always chasing us, we are not in rest and digest, we can’t heal. A lot of gut issues is my nervous system stuff. I just got back from Dr. Drobot in Scottsdale, AZ, and he has some amazing machines to help calm the nervous system. There was one in particular that he did on me. “You see this number? It should be around 45.” Mine was 550. It pissed me off at first because I do so much work around this. 

Sometimes, it’s just so far gone that you need a bigger system reset in order to calm everything down. He has given me a breath app to do homework at home. There are a couple new supplements I’m taking to help calm the nervous system. I’m a type A, tightly wound person to begin with. It takes me a lot to get me to calm down. I realize how important it is. 

Speaking on those foundations, I put together an online course going over those very things. It’s amazing when we get back to the basics how well our body then takes over and knows what to do. It’s beautifully designed for healing once we remove the blocks out of its way. Making sure that you’re getting to bed on time, getting enough sleep. Making sure that you’re pooping every day, eating the right kind of diet, getting the right kind of exercise.

After I went through all the foundational stuff and really cleaned up my lifestyle and environment and detoxed my body, I didn’t have to treat the Lyme anymore. About once every six months to a year, I go to my doctor, who gives me IV silver. I have an ozone machine. I’ll do some vaginal. I’ll do them in my ears. Once a year, I do a round of herbs. My bioenergetic stuff, just to keep things at a dull roar. 

For the most part, I’ve never had to go back in and retreat. After I cleaned up, my body went, “Okay, I know what to do.” If I’m keeping things clean and healthy, my immune system works like it’s supposed to. I don’t drink. I don’t eat out. There are a couple sacrifices I make on a daily basis. I’m operating at a level that most even healthy people I know don’t operate on. I’m very blessed that having all these things I’ve had my whole life, that I’m able to have the energy, the brain power, the stamina to do what I do in life. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s wonderful. I agree with you about incorporating the foundations with any health condition, not just Lyme. If someone has an autoimmune condition, without having Lyme or toxic mold, you still want to incorporate the foundations. With pretty much any chronic condition. I can’t agree with you more than that. 

Bioenergetics, I wanted to talk to you about those. Frequency therapy. I have told you that I have been intrigued but also on the skeptical side, even though I have the NIKKI. I got something called the Wave 1 along with the NIKKI. I have been thinking about Rife and all these other things. I have heard some great success stories. I have heard other people with Lyme and coinfections where it doesn’t help them. 

I’m at the point where if you didn’t tell me I had Lyme and bartonella years ago, I would not know. I feel pretty good. It’s hard. To me, I just got it because even though I feel pretty good with that, I got hit really hard with COVID a couple of years ago. That made me think twice. I’m not one who gets the flu or anything like that. That made me think twice about that. 

Talk a little bit more about how long you have been using frequency therapies. From listening to you on other podcasts, you have experiences with different ones than the ones you’re using now. 

Heather: 

Almost from the get-go. I don’t remember where I heard about Rife first. It’s so funny to me because I was just a silly hairstylist who didn’t have a background in medicine or physics. Anything along those lines. For some reason, when someone explained to me Rife, I was like, “Oh my god, yes. Where do I find this?” I found an acupuncturist in my town who actually had a Rife machine. I was feeling a lot better really quickly. It was amazing. 

From there, I branched out into all different kinds. The premise behind it is everything is frequency. We’re all energy. We can measure the heart’s magnetic field with an EKG. We can measure the brain with an EEG. If these things in our body aren’t talking to each other in concert, if they’re not in coherence, then we have disease. 

A lot of times, the bioenergetic field, if that’s out in a person, the supplements that they’re taking or a lot of these other therapies they’re doing, aren’t going to have its true potential because they are out on a bioenergetic level. We are energetic beings first and foremost. 

It’s sad because there is a lot of great machines out there that do really awesome with diagnostics, which you’re not supposed to say. I didn’t find a whole lot that helped move the needle when it came to actual “treatment.” 

I do the NIKKI. That one I’ve found to be really helpful. I dismissed it for six months because there is no way that works for that inexpensive. At the time, I was using the Nest machine, which was a $20,000 investment. Here comes the NIKKI, and it was at the time $1,500. I was like, there’s no way that works at that price. 

I got one, and it does. There is no diagnostic feature to it. it’s just a menu that you pick out of what you want to do. It’s where becoming a muscle tester comes in handy. I’ll muscle test the frequencies during the day. Should I be running inflammation or detox or gut health today? I run on a daily basis almost to keep everything at a dull roar. 

AO, I really liked as well. I’m thinking about getting back into AO. They have an awesome mental, emotional program that helps with that nervous system stuff that we talked about. They also have a cool, new watch that puts red light into your wrist and a methylene blue supplement. I have been loving playing around with methylene blue lately. 

It’s funny, when it comes to the frequency stuff. It was so controversial, and there was no standard of care. We had to think outside the box. Most of us have done some crazy crap in the name of healing. I have taken something called MMS, which is chlorine dioxide. I do coffee enemas. Silver in my veins. Bioenergetic stuff. 

Like I said, there was no real standard of care. There were no real answers. I knew that the Western medicine route was going to kill me if I kept doing it. The more controversial ozone rectal insufflation of ozone, these things work. The future of medicine is absolutely bioenergetic. I don’t think they’re quite there yet, but it’s getting close. 

Dr. Eric: 

How long have you been taking methylene blue? You said a few months now? 

Heather: 

Four or five months now. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you think it’s helping? 

Heather: 

Huge. I remember the first day I tried it. You’re supposed to supercharge it with red light or get out into regular light because it’s a big word that I can’t pronounce right now. I’ll take it and wait 10 minutes and put my red light patch on my belly for about five minutes. All systems on. I could feel the energy coming back into my body, into my brain. It was amazing. My husband really loves it, too. 

Recently, I was hanging out with this Dr. Jon, his last name starts with an L. He puts it in his eyes. He has a bottle of blue eyes. I have been trying that. I am getting to an age now where I am presbyopic, where I am starting to need readers. My distance isn’t so great. I am not going down without a fight. I don’t want to wear glasses. I have been doing the methylene blue and the red light in the eyes to help. it’s actually helped out quite a bit. 

It’s a phenomenal antibiotic, antifungal, antimicrobial. It’s a great antioxidant. It’s protection against COVID and viruses. There is a lot of really awesome uses of methylene blue. I am not a big fan of the World Health Organization. They even have it on their list of the top 15 supplements that everybody should be taking. 

Dr. Eric: 

Interesting. You take it multiple times a day? Once a day? 

Heather:

I just take it once a day. If I have someone who has some chronic stuff we are working with, it might be multiple times a day. I take it in the morning. Usually only five days a week. Cycle on, cycle off. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you think it would be just as effective if someone is listening to this, and they don’t have a red light unit, just to take the methylene blue? Is it worth taking without the red light? 

Heather: 

Absolutely. But you will get way more out of it if you can charge it. Even take it and stand outside in the sun. Take it during a time when there is sun outside. Just standing outside in the sun for five minutes. Or if you have an infrared sauna, take it and get in the sauna. 

Be careful with methylene blue. It needs to be pharmaceutical grade. Because it’s so new out there, there are a lot of people doing things wrong. It can be contaminated with heavy metals. Be careful that you are sourcing it from a good source that you know is clean and helpful. That’s the one caveat with it.

It’s sad because what it can do for depression and anxiety is amazing. It counteracts with SSRIs. Disclaimer there. 

Dr. Eric: 

Good to know. 

Heather: 

I took it. I was in a women’s circle where they were microdosing an hour later. I didn’t think anything of it. That microdose isn’t supposed to touch you, just to open things up. Because I had taken the methylene blue an hour beforehand, and it inhibits detoxing of this stuff, I actually had full-on tripped. While everybody else was sober in the group, I was full-on tripping. 

The teacher learned a lesson the hard way that day as well as I did. You better ask people if they have taken methylene blue before you do psychedelics because you can supercharge your experience. Not for the best. I’m always learning things the hard way. 

Dr. Eric: 

You also mentioned MMS. Do you still do that? 

Heather: 

I don’t have a need to. I still have bottles in my cupboard, but they are probably old and expired now. I need to throw them away probably. In the beginning, I felt like it really helped, but not anymore. 

Dr. Eric: 

You do the methylene blue just to keep up with the foundations. The frequency, wearing the NIKKI. Those are some of the main things you currently do. 

Heather: 

Silver and ozone. Herbs. 

Dr. Eric: 

You said the IV is silver. You also take it orally on a regular basis? 

Heather: 

Up my nose. If I feel like something is coming on, I will take it orally. I’m a big fan of silver. 

Dr. Eric: 

Very cool. I was taking silver regularly. It’s funny. Since I got diagnosed with chronic Lyme in 2018, I started taking silver. I did ozone as I mentioned. I took the silver, and I got upset because I got hit hard with COVID in January 2022. You know what? This silver is expensive. It didn’t prevent me from getting hit hard with COVID. Since then, I stopped taking it. 

Being a healthcare practitioner, getting exposed to so many supplements. I could take a break from one or two things. Maybe a coincidence, I haven’t gotten sick since then. There were other things, too. If anything, it taught me that I felt like I was doing a good job of maintaining my health. 

There were things I could have done better. It’s always a work in progress. Trying to reduce exposure to electronic pollution, the blue light, all these things, getting enough protein, all these little things that sometimes we don’t think about. Let alone trying not to get too stressed out. Even that single thing alone will make you more susceptible to viruses.

The last question I have for you is whether or not in your opinion, or maybe you have factual evidence about Lyme, whether it can be completely eradicated. Some people do think it can be completely eradicated, but I haven’t come across any evidence that shows that once you have it, you could get it out of the body. It is intracellular from what I can understand. 

Heather: 

If you catch it within the first year, I think there are pretty good odds of getting rid of it. Me, 27 years? Absolutely not. It is a part of me. There are so many practitioners who do not walk their walk. I have to. Literally. I take two steps off my Lyme, and I’m getting sick. It’s ridiculous. 

I’m grateful that I get to operate at this level. I just have to be careful. I was just telling you before we got on here that I recently traveled to eight cities in 10 days. I’m paying for it a little bit right now. There were a few slip-ups. I don’t normally drink. I had a drink. It was crazy how bad one drink messes up my sleep. It does mess up people’s sleep. These trackers. I am seeing all these red lines. At one point, the tracker is telling my phone to tell me to calm down. I was asleep. I normally get a 90 sleep score. It jacked it down to a 70. It was horrible. 

I have to walk my walk and keep my lifestyle clean, and I can operate at a really awesome level. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. Keep up the good work. Keep on helping others with Lyme, mold, and coinfections. 

Before we wrap up, for someone who has been suffering, whether it’s for a few months or many years like you, it’s really a good idea to work with an expert, someone like you who works with Lyme and mold on a regular basis. Before they do that, what are some words of advice you could give for someone who is suffering before they start working with a functional medicine practitioner? 

Heather: 

Not to give up. I get their frustration. Honestly, I was there. “What could you teach me? I have already seen 20 practitioners. No one has answers.” You have had 20 different things that don’t work. That’s awesome. Next: never give up. Keep digging. Keep looking. Keep being an advocate for yourself. You never know if that next person could have the answers you need. Never give up. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s awesome. For those who might be interested in working with you, where can people find out more about you? 

Heather: 

I am @TheLymeBoss everywhere. I have two entry points. I have a freebie on my website, so if you go to TheLymeBoss.com, get a free cooking series. Real cooking for real life. I know how stressed out and how little time people have. You still need to get real food in your diet, so I teach you how to make delicious meals in 20 minutes or less. That’s free.

I have my foundations course, which I am giving your crowd a special $299 off with the code DOCTORE. Learn how to dial in your sleep. Learn how to dial in your diet. Learn these exercises to keep your nervous system calm. Learn how to detox properly. Learn how to set down the foundations at an inexpensive price. It took me years and years and tens of thousands of dollars to learn everything I put into this really awesome course. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thanks for the discount code. This was a great conversation. You covered a lot of different things. Some things I knew you were going to cover. Definitely want to talk about the frequency therapy. Didn’t expect you to talk about the methylene blue, which I was excited about. Talking about cavitations, oral health. This was an amazing discussion, and I appreciate you sharing with everyone. 

Heather: 

Thanks for having me.