Recently I interviewed Dr. Julie Greenberg, as we chatted about skin conditions and thyroid health.  If you would prefer to listen the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

With me, I have Dr. Julie Greenberg. Dr. Greenberg is a licensed naturopathic doctor and registered herbalist who specializes in integrative dermatology. She is the founder of the Center for Integrative and Naturopathic Dermatology, which is a holistic clinic that approaches skin and hair problems by finding and treating the root cause. Dr. Greenberg holds degrees from Northwestern University, Stanford University, and Bastyr University. She lectures at naturopathic medical schools and is sought after to speak at conferences across the United States on the topics of hair, skin, and nails. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Greenberg. Appreciate you agreeing to do this.

Dr. Julie Greenberg: Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Eric: I’m excited just because this is really the first time we are diving into the skin, which is relevant with any chronic health condition, but I do see it a lot with both my Graves’ and Hashimoto’s patients.

Can you start out by giving a little bit more of your background? How did you start to focus on dermatology?

Dr. Julie: Yes. It is actually apropos for this podcast because I got to dermatology through my thyroid. If your listeners don’t know, I am a naturopathic doctor. Naturopathic doctors say, “Treat the whole person,” which means we look at how the organ systems interconnect with one another. It was a very naturopathic way for me to get to dermatology.

I went to business school in my 20s. I graduated and started having symptoms that will sound very familiar to you. I was very tired. I was gaining weight. I was having some hair growth, some brittle hair, some dry skin. It turns out I had developed Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. When I finally got diagnosed, it was a very jarring experience. It was my first real experience with a chronic health issue. The doctor who diagnosed me was like, “Well, you have this autoimmune disease. We don’t know why it’s happening. We don’t know how to fix it. Here is some thyroid hormone. You will be on this for the rest of your life. You will probably have trouble with fatigue and weight the rest of your life.” Out the door I went shell-shocked.

I really had no interest in being a doctor or anything medical before that. I started researching. That just doesn’t feel right, that that’s the answer I’m getting from my doctor. How could that be the end of the story?

The more research I did, the more I found that other things in the system affect the thyroid. A lot of the chemicals that we use on our body everyday for personal care products—women use around 125 different chemicals on their bodies a day—can impact the thyroid. We have endocrine disruptors. I started making that connection between the skin and the thyroid. I started trying to make my own skincare products. I got the chemicals out and saw I could make myself healthier. That was my first foray into health and dermatology.

I became so passionate about the skin and dermatology and what we were putting on our skin. That was the impetus that ended up in me going back to naturopathic medical school to become a naturopathic doctor and specialize in dermatology.

Dr. Eric: Maybe I misheard you, but did you say that the average woman puts 125 different chemicals on their skin every day?

Dr. Julie: Yeah, you did not mishear me. When you think about the number of products that a woman puts on her skin. You wake up in the morning and are putting on deodorant. You wash your hair with shampoo and conditioner. We are applying all sorts of makeup, gels to the hair, lotions to the body. If you pick one personal care product, turn it over, and look at the ingredients list, you will see a very long list of multisyllabic chemicals that are only made in a lab. Add those up. You get to about 125 for one day.

Dr. Eric: Wow. I knew it was a lot, but if I were to guess, I would say maybe a few dozen, not over 100. That’s crazy. And that’s the average. Some people apply more than 125 chemicals on their body.

Why do so many people have skin issues? I think I know the reason. The gut plays a big role, which I know you will talk about. If you could dive into why it is so common in people with not only autoimmune conditions, but other health conditions as well.

Dr. Julie: Great question. Our skin is a very complex organ. It is enormous; it is our largest organ. Obviously, it is covering our body. Its job is so complex because it is outward-facing at all times, and it has to keep out most things but let some things in. It has to keep in most things, being our blood and water, but it has to let some things out. We have to sweat. You think about something like a turtle shell. That is much easier. They build a hard exoskeleton. Nothing gets in; nothing gets out. That’s it. It’s a much simpler job. Skin has to be soft and supple, but it has to be tough because it’s outward-facing. It’s really a very complex organ.

We’re going to get to the gut as you said, but when we think about how did we evolve? How are we supposed to be taking care of our skin? If we lived out in caves still, we probably weren’t showering all that often. We weren’t using detergents and soaps.

I talk to my patients about this: pH is really important when it comes to skin. Let’s take a scientific detour, and we will come back to the skin. Most of us maybe got introduced to the concept of pH, which is a scale of acids to bases, in junior high school. One day, your science teacher handed us these litmus paper strips, and we were dunking it into different solutions, trying to see what color it would turn up. If it was something yellow or orange, it was an acid. If it was purple or blue, it was alkaline or base. That scale of pH runs from 0-14. 0 is acid, and up high are basic or alkaline. Right in the middle at 7 is neutral. Things like water are neutral, for example.

Our body has evolved to operate efficiently at a different pH, depending on where you’re at. Our stomach is the most acidic. That can be down at a 2. That is because our stomach needs to digest food and kill organisms that we bring in through our mouth. Our blood is about a 7, so fairly neutral.

Every single patient gets educated on this. I always ask patients, “If you had to guess, where do you think skin would be? Nobody knows because we don’t get user manuals. If you need a clue, I’ll give you one.” If they don’t take a clue, everyone guesses neutral. If they do take a clue, I say, “Covering your skin is something called a fatty acid mantle. Let’s break it down. What word did we just hear? We heard the word ‘acid.’” That’s our clue. Our skin is surprisingly acidic. It needs to be acidic to be healthy.

Down at a 4 or a 5 is where we want our skin to be. Let’s pause and look at our Western hygiene protocol. We are obsessed with cleanliness. For a lot of reasons, that’s good. We tend to use soap and water multiple times throughout a day, especially on our hands. Most people shower maybe about once a day, and we’re soaping up. If we look at soap, soap is made with a substance called lye. We combine that with fat, and there is a chemical reaction that makes soap. Lye is super alkaline. It’s at a 12. All soap or cleansers by nature are alkaline.

Now we look at the fact that we want skin to be acidic, yet we are using water, which is a 7, and soaps, which are quite alkaline. Some soaps can be as high as 12 in pH. Every time we wash our skin, we are stripping off the fatty acid mantle, and we are raising the pH of our skin. We are compromising our skin. Most people then are putting on lotions and moisturizers with chemicals that are more easily absorbed through the skin now. Our whole Western hygiene protocol is compromising our skin because it keeps stripping off the fatty acid mantle and throwing off the pH by pulling it up.

I have never treated as much hand eczema as I did during the start of COVID. People were hysterically washing their hands with hot water and soap 10-20 times a day. If you want a recipe for hand eczema, that’s a great one. All you have to do is stop, and the hand eczema will go away. Unfortunately, this kind of hypersensitivity to cleanliness and all the chemicals we’re using is compromising our skin barrier and putting us at risk for skin issues. There is a lot of gut/skin relation as well that is driving the bus on this.

Dr. Eric: I’m guessing it probably depends on the person, but as far as how frequent do you recommend showering? Is it not a matter of don’t shower daily, but maybe be cautious about the soap that you use when you shower?

Dr. Julie: it’s a combination of those things. I definitely counsel patients to use more natural soaps. I counsel patients to read your skincare products the same way you would read food. Most of us now are wise to the fact that they can sneak stuff in food, and we should look at labels if it’s packaged and see what we are putting in our mouths and eating.

Same thing with skin care. If it’s a long list of multisyllabic chemical names that you don’t understand, probably shouldn’t be putting it on your skin. There is no need for products like that. With soap, you just need basic five ingredients: some plant oils, sodium hydroxide (that lye that has to happen for the chemical reaction). I don’t like fragrances, but maybe some natural essential oils. A couple of items in your soap with names that you recognize. That is the start.

The second is I tell patients unless you really get out and get dirty, pits and palms. We need to wash our armpits and our groin; those are areas that could probably use soaping once a day. Palms, so hands and feet.

Our hands, there is a very good reason to wash our hands several times a day. If we use the restroom, if there is COVID exposure, moms who are changing dirty diapers, anyone who is preparing raw meat. We are going to wash our hands, but we are going to try to do it when appropriate. I have patients follow up that soap with natural products that help reacidify the skin. As soon as we’re done washing, we can do things to help pull that pH back down again and restore where the skin was meant to be.

Dr. Eric: You’re hopefully not using chemicals. The products you use can definitely impact the skin. Let’s talk about the gut. How about that gut/skin connection?

Dr. Julie: As a naturopathic doctor, I think naturopathic doctors have been talking about the gut for upwards of 30 years. The gut microbiome. In case that is a new term to your listeners, the microbiome is the collection of organisms. A gut microbiome is the collection of organisms living in our gut. We definitely have them. The average adult human has about 3-5 pounds of microorganisms living in their gut. The vast majority are bacteria. There is a whole host of different types of organisms, including fungal, like candida and yeast; viruses; protozoa; worms; archaea; and other things.

The reason why we have those pounds of organisms is we have coevolved with them. They are really there to help keep us healthy. We can’t survive without them, and they can’t survive without us. As long as we know we have them and we need them. When it is the right organisms, they keep us healthy. When there is dysbiosis, which is a disruption of the gut microbiome with what’s supposed to be there, they put us at risk for illness.

As a naturopathic doctor who specializes in dermatology, I only treat patients with dermatological complaints. I see a lot of the spectrum of what’s in the population: a lot of eczema; acne; psoriasis; rosacea; alopecia areata, which is an autoimmune attack on the hair follicle, vitiligo, an autoimmune attack on the melanin sites and the skin. What I have found is I have to go in and treat the gut in order to treat the hair, skin, and nails. 100% of my patients have that gut dysbiosis.

Not only that, after doing hundreds and hundreds of these tests, I started seeing patterns by disease of different types of dysbiosis. My patients with acne tend to have a set of at least three problems that keep showing up. I call that the acne gut. As opposed to my eczema patients, who have a different set of problems that show up again and again. It’s not just that there is gut microbiome dysfunction or dysbiosis. It really interestingly falls into patterns by disease. It’s intrinsically related. The root cause of a lot of the skin illness is the problems in the gut. I can do some things topically to help the situation. If I can’t get in and test and treat the gut, I’m not going to be able to get to the root cause of their skin issues.

Dr. Eric: What type of testing do you do? Do you do a comprehensive stool test or a microbiome testing for the gut, or both?

Dr. Julie: There is two main tests that I do on just about every patient. One is a comprehensive stool test. One is a urine test called an organic acids test, OAT. The stool test does an excellent job at showing me the specific bacterial organisms that are living in the gut as well as agood overview of digestive function and protozoa. Those are single celled animal organisms that can exist in the gut. For example, I see those in about half of my acne patients.

I don’t find the stool test does a great job on fungal organisms in the gut. For that reason, I also use the OAT. That does a much better job on showing me things like candida overgrowth or molds, like aspergillus or fusarium. Maybe if there are indicators of some toxic exposure or methylation issues, which is related to the MTHFR gene. It gives me some B vitamin status and other information as well.

I use those two labs together to try to paint a comprehensive picture of all the things I need to fix in the gut.

Dr. Eric: Can you talk about the importance of diet when it comes to skin? Is there any specific diet that you recommend? Does it depend if someone is autoimmune or not?

Dr. Julie: There are some overarching principles to follow. Then there can be some specific ones by various diseases. Overarching, for all my adult patients, we are working up to 35g of fiber a day. I can go in and fix the dysbiosis that I see with herbs and supplements to correct it; I don’t use pharmaceuticals 99% of the time. I can’t keep things healthy if the fiber isn’t there. Most of the healthy organisms in our gut, their food is fiber. We want nice big colonies of these healthy ones. Just like any organism, if you don’t feed them, then they die. Most Americans eat the SAD; it’s pretty low in fiber. Most people are not ever going to eat 35g of fiber a day. We really work on that because ultimately, I want people to get off my schedule, and I want to keep their gut healthy. The fiber is that path forward for them.

Dr. Eric: I was going to ask if you mainly accomplish that through vegetables.

Dr. Julie: It depends. If we are working with teens and kids, and fruit is the only plant they are willing to eat, I call that my gateway fiber drug. We will start with anything we can get. But for adults who have more self-control, vegetables are the key.

I know there is a lot of debate over legumes for various reasons. I like beans and legumes. They are very high in fiber. All of the blue zone populations in the world, which means populations who have centenarians or people who live to the age of 100, more than other populations, they all tend to have beans and legumes in their diet. I do think they are beneficial.

We really work on a variety as well. Variety is not just the spice of life. It is crafting a healthy gut microbiome. The two targets are 35g a day and 30 different plants a week. That includes spices, herbs, teas, nuts, seeds. We don’t want people just eating the same thing day in and day out. Those are the two elements I work on.

Yes, definitely. Low sugar, which is vegetables. That brings me to the next point. For skin, sugar ages you. It ages skin. There is something called glycation. If anyone has ever had a hemoglobin A1C test, then you have been testing glycation. Hemoglobin A1C tests basically how much sugar is attaching to your red blood cells.

When it’s very high, people have diabetes. They are eating too much sugar, so there is too much sugar in the blood. The sugar has nowhere to go, so it starts attaching to things like our red blood cells. It also attaches to skin cells. When you have glycation or sugar attaching to skin, think of it like a crispy, crunchy caramelization. It literally makes for crunchy skin. The more sugar someone eats, the more they will age their skin. I really recommend low sugar if you want healthy, naturally younger-looking skin.

All of the vegetables that we talked about, all of those nutrients will feed skin. Fruits and vegetables that are rich in bright colors, they contain things called polyphenols, which are fantastic for both the gut microbiome and skin health.

The things that we are doing for gut health and overall health are the things that are going to build healthy skin. Sometimes, I will supplement patients with collagen. There are very good studies at this point that show at least 3-4 months of supplementation with a high-quality collagen will help reduce wrinkles and improve elasticity and suppleness of skin.

Dr. Eric: You just add a scoop of collage powder to a smoothie or water per day?

Dr. Julie: Exactly. People can also drink high quality bone broth, and that will get you a lot of collagen as well.

Dr. Eric: 30 different types of plant-based foods per week to get your fiber. That is not just vegetables, but you mentioned other plant-based foods like legumes, nuts, and seeds.

Dr. Julie: Yes. Herbs and spices. The more people cook with herbs and spices, they are just so rich in things. If you look at the ORAC scale, which is an antioxidant scale, something like cloves is one of the highest. Cooking with herbs and spices makes our food taste great, and it’s really good for us. It’s really easy to get to 30 different plants a week when you are cooking with herbs and spices.

Dr. Eric: When it comes to vegetables, do you recommend specific vegetables? Maybe more cruciferous vegetables compared to green, leafy vegetables.

Dr. Julie: It comes down to diversity. All of them. People want to say, “I eat a lot of kale.” That is fantastic. Kale gives you a lot of nutrients. We don’t want just to eat kale.

What I instruct patients to do is eat the rainbow. By that, I tell them when you go to the market or farmers’ market, if you have kids, you can play this rainbow game with them. Go to the produce section. Do your normal shop. Get the stuff into your basket. Then go through the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Look in the basket and see which of those colors are missing. You will go back out, and you or your kid will pick a vegetable from that color group and get it in the basket.

Worlds of color will start to open up. There is no purple; look around, and then this world of purple will bloom before your eyes. You will see purple onions, purple carrots, purple broccoli, purple sweet potatoes, purple regular potatoes. You can try different things. That way, you will build in the diversity.

It’s really about having different things in the diet and all the different groups. We definitely want cruciferous vegetables. We want green, leafy vegetables. We want orange things, like carrots or squash. We want diversity.

Dr. Eric: I agree. I don’t know if you have heard of Dr. Jason Hawrelak. He is also a naturopath. When I went through my Masters in nutrition, he was talking about eating 40 different types of vegetables, not just plant-based foods. 30 different types, including nuts, seeds, legumes, is attainable. 40 vegetables is very difficult. To get 40 different types of vegetables per week… I do what you say. I try to eat green, leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables. I could probably do an even better job than I’m doing now, like most people.

How about probiotics? Do you recommend for people to get more through the food they eat, through fermented foods, or supplements, or a combination of both?

Dr. Julie: You mentioned Jason. He is a probiotic guy. When it comes to probiotics, people can overestimate. I have a lot of eczema patients or eczema infants whose moms come to see me, and they’re like, “I have them on a probiotic, but it’s not working,” thinking somehow the probiotic will be magical and fix everything. That is not the way it’s going to work.

Eating fermented foods and getting probiotics naturally in your diet is always the best. But I do think there is a role for probiotics in helping, and I do prescribe a lot of probiotics. There are different types, and I use different ones in different people. I am always recommending those fermented foods, things like sauerkraut or natto or small amounts of kombucha, so we are not getting too much sugar.

For probiotics, for kids and breastfeeding moms and infants, the most common strains are the ones you get in the refrigerator section. There is strains of lactobacillus and bifidobacteria. Those I find work best in kids. That’s not usually going to magically clean up the eczema. As part of a comprehensive protocol, it can be helpful.

For adults, I like bacillus strains. Those are known as spore or soil-based probiotics. Those are a little bit different. I don’t use those in kids and breastfeeding moms because I’ve found that those species don’t work well in the guts of little ones.

There are more specialty strains. There is a bacteria called akkermansia muciniphila, which is- Its name tells us it’s a muciniphile; it loves mucin. It helps prevent leaky gut. There is a company that makes akkermansia. Sometimes I prescribe that as well.

I use a variety of probiotics. It will just never be the only thing I recommend. It’s part of a comprehensive plan where I am treating the issues I saw in the stool and OAT, using herbs and supplements to kill unwanted organisms and trying to regrow and rebalance the gut more toward the back end.

Dr. Eric: With the akkermansia, I assume if you recommend it, it’s based on it being low on a comprehensive stool test?

Dr. Julie: Exactly. If it’s either low or missing. A lot of patients show up with low detectable limits, which basically means it wasn’t found. We don’t think there is a single spore or something of akkermansia, but it’s just so low that it’s not coming out on the stool test. Akkermansiais a delicate bacteria. It can get to that point where it’s low or not found with antibiotic use. There is collateral damage in the gut. Antibiotics can be life-saving and amazing and wonderful, but at the same time, they can kill off beneficial organisms like akkermansia. A lot of patients who aren’t eating enough fiber, or if they are doing for a long time a low-FODMAP diet or a keto/paleo diet, and there is no fiber, that also can lead to low or no akkermansia.

Dr. Eric: You mentioned dysbiosis, imbalance in the gut flora. That doesn’t just pertain to low good bacteria. You mentioned candida overgrowth. How about gut infections like H-pylori or parasites? Do you see those leading to skin issues in your patients?

Dr. Julie: Yes. Just so your listeners know, H-pylori is a bacteria that lives in the stomach. I find H-pylori in almost 100% of my acne patients. I mentioned there is an acne-gut connection. The acne gut, almost all of them have H-pylori. It doesn’t even need to be massive amounts. It can be just low levels that are present. They also have candida overgrowth.

Half of my acne patients have something called protozoa. They are a type of parasite. Protozoa is Latin for “first animal.” These are eukaryotes, which is in the animal kingdom, single-celled organisms. Definitely my acne patients, I am expecting to see H-pylori in them.

Rosacea has a pretty strong connection with H-pylori and SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). I see a lot of H-pylori in psoriasis patients. It can show up in my eczema patients as well.

The stool test that I use to test H-pylori standard, there is a lot of different bacteria that are tested for. I see everything from pathogens like C-difficile or even enterohemorrhagic e-coli can show up. Even things like pseudomonas comes up a lot. Or morganella or klebsiella. Those are high histamine producers. In my eczema patients, that high histamine level being cranked out in their gut is driving that allergic response and itch. I see a lot of different things. I don’t usually see worms, but protozoa can show up in patients in terms of parasites.

I feel like a lot of people have this idea that they need to do a parasite cleanse. That’s not really what I see in my experience with skin. It’s much more that there is dysbiosis. There is overgrowth of these unwanted organisms and not enough or lacking of the good guys. We need to switch that around and heal up the gut.

Dr. Eric: I think you did say there are times where you use herbal antimicrobials.

Dr. Julie: Every time I do, yeah.

Dr. Eric: You do. Protozoa or H-pylori, you mentioned pseudomonas or these other bacteria. Protozoa are not bacteria, but these micro-organisms. You do use every time some herbal antimicrobials.

Dr. Julie: I do, yes. Types of herbs vary by the organism I am trying to address. I usually see patients every 2-3 months for follow-up visits. The plan changes every time. We are working through different things. That’s why at first, when I sit down and am assessing the stool and OAT, I am making a list in my mind of all the issues. I am sorting them in terms of order of importance. What do I need to go after first? That will be addressed in the first protocol. I want to address massive candida overgrowth, so I will use a lot of antifungal herbs to start. Now for the second plan, I really want to go after that H-pylori, so it’s a different set of herbs and supplements. Maybe the third visit is more going after the protozoa and some bacteria.

The nice thing about using herbs is they are what’s known as broad spectrum. They address a lot of different issues. Even though we have herbs that are really good at addressing fungal organisms or things like protozoa, parasites, they are still going to cast a wider net and work with bacteria or other things.

That is not true with pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals are in classes. If you use an antibiotic, it is only capable of killing bacteria and only certain types of bacteria. You can get problems. A lot of women who take antibiotics will then get vaginal yeast infections. The problem is that the pharmaceutical has killed off the beneficial bacteria in the vagina that was keeping the microbiome normal. We have a microbiome everywhere, including in the vagina. You can get fungal overgrowth. Then you need to use an antifungal. Antifungals will only kill off fungal elements, not bacteria or viruses. If you have viral, you need an antiviral.

The beautiful thing about herbs is they are broad spectrum. Plants need to exist out in nature and fight bacteria, viruses, fungal elements, parasitic elements. We don’t tend to get those kinds of symptoms and overgrowth when we are using herbs. Even though I am like, this is maybe a protocol that is focusing on the protozoa, It’s not that I am completely ignoring the fungal or bacterial overgrowth, and I won’t be driving problems with these other types of organisms. Obviously, I am an herbalist and naturopath and am using herbs for that reason.

Dr. Eric: Are there any supplements that you give directly for the skin? You spoke about probiotics for the gut. We just spoke about herbal antimicrobials. It doesn’t even have to be directly for the skin. If there are, that’s great. Do you recommend things to reduce toxic load, which might relate to the skin issues? I’m sure you recommend many of the supplements depending on the situation. Maybe a few common ones that you recommend that you find to be helpful. Or, like I said, silica as far as skin health, anything like that. You mentioned collagen.

Dr. Julie: Aside from supplementing with collagen powder, my goal as a naturopathic doctor is to restore function to the body. Most of the time, if I can clean up the gut and make their system healthy again, their skin is going to be healthy. I don’t usually give skin supplements.

That being said, I’m looking at labs. If it looks like they need liver support, the liver is the main organ of detoxification, and it relates to skin health. If they need liver support, I might give supplements like burdock, dandelion, artichoke, something like glutathione or NAC, n-acetyl cysteine. That can support the liver and thereby support the skin.

I tend not to give hair, skin, and nail supplements because I don’t really need to. If people are getting proper nutrition, their organs are functioning properly, and we are doing things topically on the skin like we talked about, not really messing with the pH and restoring the pH with things like aloe vera gel or hydrosols or water-based plant extractions. It’s part of the essential oil making process. It’s kind of like a tea. Diluted apple cider vinegar, teas, and using plant-based moisturizers to moisturize the skin. That is all you need.

We talked about not eating a lot of sugar, not eating a lot of junk. A healthy diet. Your skin is going to look and feel great naturally as long as we are supporting all the systems. We don’t need to throw a lot of vitamins and stuff like that at it.

Dr. Eric: I’m glad you said that just because there are times when my patients will ask me, “Can I have a supplement?” not so much for the skin, but especially for the hair. I say the same thing. Trying to address what is causing the hair loss. Is it a thyroid hormone imbalance? Is it a nutrient deficiency, which might be tied to the gut?

The last question I have is when it comes to skincare products, how do you recommend people find- There are databases like the Skin Deep database. Do you recommend people use databases like that to look at ingredients as far as finding clean products?

Dr. Julie: For my patients, I am giving very specific recommendations on very specific products for their condition. In general, I do think that the Environmental Working Group Skin Deep database is helpful. I don’t agree with every single thing that’s in there. But it’s a good guideline.

Reading the ingredients and getting up to speed on things, there is no substitute for it. Even sometimes within a brand, there will be one specific product which I will use, and another specific product I won’t use. I’ve read the labels, and this one is totally fine, and this one has stuff I do not want my patients putting on their skin.

What is difficult about the product market is it is not really well-regulated in the United States. It is buyer beware. A lot of chemicals that we can have in our products here in the United States are banned from Europe and other countries. The same product that you might buy by the same manufacturer, if you buy it in Europe, it’s actually a better, healthier product than if you buy it here. Europe has banned a specific substance, so it’s not in the European product. But it’s cheaper, so they will put it in the American product.

Things like fragrance, I don’t recommend patients use anything with fragrance in it. Fragrance is a catch-all for over 2,000 chemicals that are untested, and a lot of them are quite toxic.

I have a site called RootCauseDermatology. For free, your listeners can sign up for a video on this exact topic. What kind of skin care products should they be using? What should they be looking out for? If they put their email address in there, they will get this free 15-minute video of me talking about this exact topic and how to look out for themselves and get healthy skincare products.

Education, reading the labels, and I would say only buy products that you know what those ingredients are. The only exception is natural products have to have the common name and the Latin name. For example, something may list rosemary and then Rosmarinus officinalis next to it in italics. That’s fine. That’s just the Latin name.

If it’s a lot of multisyllabic chemical-sounding names, and you don’t know what it is, it’s probably things like parabens, emulsifiers, and preservatives. A lot of those are endocrine disruptors. They are things you want to get out of your products, particularly if you have thyroid issues.

If you know what all the ingredients are, and you see things that has lavender essential oil and aloe vera gel and shea butter and coconut oil, you know what those things are. Your body knows what those things are. Those will not contain endocrine disruptors. Those are not going to mess with your thyroid.

Dr. Eric: Anything else that I didn’t ask you that you wanted to chat about? I know we covered a lot, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else you wanted to cover specifically.

Dr. Julie: When I was talking about food, I didn’t really talk about gluten. The stool test that I use does have a gluten sensitivity test. This is different than testing for Celiac or a food allergy. A sensitivity is that you have issues with it. I bring it up because a lot of thyroid patients and Hashimoto’s patients have issues with gluten. If that marker comes up in my patients, I do have them eliminate gluten. Gluten can trigger something called zonulin. Zonulin contributes to a leaky gut.

Gluten is an issue for some of my patients, especially if they have thyroid disease. Thyroid is the #1 autoimmune disease. A lot of my patients have skin issues + thyroid. Autoimmune diseases go together. Especially if it’s something like an alopecia areata or vitiligo, they are more likely to have something like an autoimmune thyroid disease.

I think we eat too much gluten in our diet. I don’t think everyone needs to completely eliminate it, but I do think it’s helpful to know if you do have a gluten sensitivity, and if so, really cut it out completely. There are so many other grains and options. Some people are eating gluten morning, noon, and night. It’s really not great for their gut, thyroid, or skin at the end of the day.

Dr. Eric: How about dairy? Does that depend on the person? Do you usually let people eat dairy?

Dr. Julie: It depends. About 100% of my eczema patients should not be eating dairy. I have never met an eczema patient where dairy does them any favors. Unfortunately, we are not baby cows. That is not an appropriate food source.

I kind of tongue and cheek ask my adult eczema patients, “Do you still breast feed from your mom?” Of course, they look at me like I’m completely insane. The reason is if we were meant to drink dairy as adults, we would still be breast feeding. No mammal on the planet breast feeds past infancy. Every mammal mama cuts off the baby at a certain point. That mammal will never have milk again and will never drink the milk from another species.

We like milk because it’s delicious, and it makes things like cream and cheese. It releases endorphins, so there is an addictive nature. None of my eczema patients and none of my acne patients should be drinking milk.

Some people can get away with it, but it’s really not an appropriate food source. We weren’t meant to drink dairy as adults. We weren’t meant to drink dairy of other species.

Dairy and gluten are not my favorites. Some people can get away with it, but they are not great food sources.

Dr. Eric: I definitely agree with that. Can you take a minute to wrap this up? Maybe some action steps if someone with Hashimoto’s or Graves’ is listening to this, or another health condition or non-autoimmune thyroid condition listening to this. Working with a practitioner such as yourself is an option. What are some initial steps even before that that they should do?

Dr. Julie: We can break it up to topically and internally. Topically, the best thing you can do is turn those personal care products over. Start reading labels. Ask yourself if you understand what is in it. If you don’t, think twice about whether you should be using it. There is lots of good options. You can start with my course or the Environmental Working Group Skin Deep database to educate yourself. That’s for topicals.

For internals, if you can get 35g of fiber a day and 30 different plants a week, a lot is going to change. Your thyroid symptoms will improve. Your gut is going to improve. Your skin will improve. It is the way we were meant to eat. There is nothing we can do to get around that.

Topically read your labels. Focus on 35g and 30 different plants a week. You will see big changes in your skin health and your thyroid health.

Dr. Eric: Thank you, Dr. Greenberg. Where can people find out more about you? You said your website is RootCauseDermatology.com. I know you have some courses, besides the free video, that you offer.

Dr. Julie: Yes. I have a course on eczema, acne, rosacea, hair loss, and something called seborrheic dermatitis and dandruff. If you live in California, Oregon, or Washington, those are states where I’m licensed and where I can legally see patients. My clinic site is IntegrativeDermatologyCenter.com. If you’re interested in potentially seeing me as a patient, you can go there and sign up for a free 15-minute consult. I can talk to you about your condition and how I treat it.

Dr. Eric: Wonderful. Thank you so much again for doing this. Appreciate it. I learned a lot. I’m sure the listeners did, too.

Dr. Julie: Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

 

Recently I interviewed Dr. Eric Kempter, who is my biological dentist. And so not surprisingly, Dr. Kempter and I chatted about biological dentistry and thyroid health.  If you would prefer to listen the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: It’s pretty cool that I get to interview another Dr. Eric. With me, I have Dr. Eric Kempter, who is an accredited member of the IAOMT along with serving as the chair of their student scholarship program, which allows students to attend IAOMT meetings at no charge. He is also certified in atraumatic restorative treatment, ozone therapy, and a member of both the Academy of Laser Dentistry and the American Laser Study Club. Dr. Kempter provides specialized services at Kempter Holistic Dentistry. He is one of only a few infant lip and tongue tie release providers as well as treating all ages for lip and tongue tie releases. He is also a certified Invisalign provider, ozone treatment provider, and certified platelet rich provider. I also need to mention he is my dentist. It is a pleasure chatting with another Dr. Eric. Thanks so much for being here.

Dr. Eric Kempter: You’re very welcome. I’m happy to be here. It’s interesting I get to talk to another Dr. Eric. It doesn’t happen for me very often either. This is a fun thing for me to do. Glad I can come on and talk a little bit about what I do.

Dr. Eric O: Why don’t we start by how you started doing biological dentistry? If you could give a bit of your backstory, I’m sure the listeners would enjoy it.

Dr. Eric K: It’s not just me in our practice. We also have my older brother, Dr. John Kempter. I will give him credit that he did get me interested in dentistry at first. I can thank him for pushing me down the dental path.

As far as biologic dentistry, I don’t think most people go into dental school thinking they want to be a holistic or biologic dentist. It’s something you come to the conclusion of after doing your research and critically thinking about some things you’re being taught at dental school.

How we got into this, it was a journey with my brother and me at the same time. My grandfather actually had a pretty bad case of Alzheimer’s. John and I both have degrees in chemistry and backgrounds in microbiology. He had had a mentor that he worked with that started mentioning safe mercury removal and this organization called the IAOMT. That’s the International Academy of Oral Medicine Toxicology. It’s a fancy, long acronym for the biologic dental association or holistic dental association. We got talking when I was in dental school. He did some research into the IAOMT. We attended a meeting together. It’s history from there.

It opened our eyes to a lot of things about the danger of using amalgam or mercury fillers. It’s dangerous to us as practitioners because if we had a grandfather that had Alzheimer’s with a mouth full of mercury fillers, now we are in a profession where nobody seems to care about drilling these things into people’s mouths. We worried about our long-term occupational exposure. I certainly didn’t want to end up down that path. We started there.

Of course, in biologic dentistry, you start with mercury removal and end up down a bunch of rabbit holes. You get trained in all these different things. You start putting the big picture together: how your mouth ties into your overall systemic health. It’s not just drilling and filling cavities; it’s looking at everything from a 30,000-foot view and how all the puzzle pieces fit together.

My brother had opened the practice when I was in dental school as a traditional family dental practice. Once I got out, we took a deep dive and wanted to be honest with people about being a holistic practice. We changed our name to Kempter Holistic Dentistry.

Dr. Eric O:The name, Kempter Holistic Dentistry. I want you to talk a little bit about the difference between biological dentistry, conventional dentistry, and even if you might want to expand on the difference between- Years ago, before seeing you, I actually saw a holistic dentist who really wasn’t a holistic dentist. They did some holistic things, but they weren’t really a biological dentist. If you could talk about the differences between conventional dentists and what someone would look for if they are truly looking for a biological dentist, someone who will get into the root canals and all that.

Dr. Eric K: In terms of biologic and holistic, that is pretty much apples and oranges. They are both fruits. They are both relatively the same thing. What makes us holistic versus a conventional dentist, especially, is knowing what we’re putting in your mouth, looking at things from a 30,000-foot view, working with people like yourself, working with some sort of systemic doctor to make sure that oral health is not negatively contributing to your overall body’s health. On top of that, more things like using laser, using ozone. There are dentists out there who advertise as holistic, but they just dabble a bit. I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t believe in just about everything we believe in in holistic dentistry, or they are worried about having some sort of consequence for it. We’re not. We want to provide the best for our patients.

For holistic stuff, using things like PRF. Making sure we are not using toxic things. Not settling for using things like root canals. Saying, “That stuff is not healthy for you.” We will get into fluoride and root canals, and I will explain why. The best way I can put it is there are some dentists out there who just dabble.

If you want a holistic or biologic dentist that is actually certified, make sure they are an accredited member of the IAOMT. On their website, they have a search directory. The accredited members will be highlighted. That indicates somebody who has done extra training. They have been vetted for sure for the IAOMT. They make you send pictures of your procedures, state your removal process. They are making sure you are doing it the right way. Anybody can sign up for the IAOMT, but you want an accredited member because they have been properly vetted at that point.

As for what other things to look for, is that dentist offering root canals? That’s a big one. We don’t do them here in our office. It’s not that we don’t say patients can’t go get one. People can make whatever decision they want to. We openly don’t recommend them. There are more biologic and healthy options. If you see someone who says, “I think you should go get a root canal,” that’s a pretty big red flag in my book in terms of how holistic they are.

Knowledge of the materials you’re using. We do compatibility testing with our patients if we are concerned about reactivity. We know about what materials we’re using. You can ask us questions about it, and we have knowledge of what it does and whether it’s biologically compatible or not.

The other thing we do differently from a traditional dentist is we don’t believe in metal in the mouth. We will talk about titanium implants. There is an exception to the rule, but in certain instances with certain people. For the most part, you are not born with metal in your body, so you should not have metal put into your mouth, the gateway of your body, because it’s not naturally supposed to be there. There will be an immune reaction to it. It might be small, but it creates an electric charge in your mouth. It shouldn’t be there naturally, so we believe it shouldn’t be there. That is the most basic thing I can say. If it’s not natural or biologically compatible, we are not going to use it.

Dr. Eric O: Speaking of root canals, that was my experience when I went to a so-called holistic dentist. There was a tooth that was too far gone. He was trying to convince me to get a root canal. I knew that biological dentists didn’t recommend root canals. I found you on IAOMT, which I’m glad I did. As you said, they can go through a weekend conference and still be listed on the website. As you mentioned, they need to be certified because there is a big difference between attending a conference and going through the certification.

Dr. Eric K: The IAOMT, I love them as an organization. But they will put your information in the directory if you have been to a conference. This goes for just about any doctor you see. You have to do your research. Look at somebody’s website. Get a vibe for what they are all about. What is their knowledge level? You can read on the website however many meetings they have attended and whether or not they are accredited. There are people on there that aren’t even safe mercury amalgam removal technique certified. If you have attended a conference, you will be on that directory. It’s something I hope they’ll change in the future. I’ll have to push them toward that at some point.

Dr. Eric O: Agreed. Can you dig a little bit deeper into root canals? Why biologic dentists don’t recommend root canals. Why you don’t either in your practice.

Dr. Eric K: If somebody is asking me their opinion on an existing root canal, or whether they should get one or not, I think the dentist community does a bad job of explaining what exactly they are, what the purpose of a root canal is. If I were to ask you, Dr. Eric, what would you say the purpose of a root canal is? If you were to go to a conventional dentist, and you asked them why you needed one, what would they typically say? It’s okay to say that you don’t know.

Dr. Eric O: As far as why they would recommend one, it’s to save the tooth. It’s a less extensive procedure than having an implant, is some of the rationale they would give behind it. You can clean out the canals, which we know is not true.

Dr. Eric K: I don’t think they even get into the canals. For your basic dental consumer or patient, they are going to tell you, “Hey, this tooth still really hurts, and the pain is not going away, so you need a root canal.” They don’t explain what the purpose of it is. You have done research, so you know, given your situation previously, what a root canal is trying to attempt.

Basically, what they are trying to do is disinfect the inside of the tooth. In a situation where you need a root canal, either the nerve has died, and there is pain, or a cavity has gotten too deep, and there has been a bacterial infection into the pulp of your tooth, which is not just your nerve, but it’s your blood supply, your artery and vein that goes into the life of your tooth basically. Your pulp is not just the main root canal that they treat. The inside of a tooth is that main branch, but it’s like a tree. It’s almost like a mini circulatory system inside of a tooth. There are all these accessory canals that come off of that main canal that range in size from pretty big to microscopic. Bacteria are pretty small, so it can live in just about any part of that. It reproduces asexually, so it doesn’t need a partner. It can just grow and grow and grow inside the tooth.

A root canal, they will try to shape the main canal, so they can get their liquid bleach in there. They actually teach you in dental school to call it sodium hypochlorite. Those of us with a chemistry degree know that’s conventional household bleach. They will have a special version that is dental rated. They are trying to put that liquid bleach down into that tooth to try to disinfect that tooth. That liquid cannot physically penetrate all of those accessory canals.

An interesting statistic that they figured out with cone beam technology is that there is almost up to three miles of canal structure inside one tooth if you stretched it all out. A single upper molar, you can find up to three miles’ worth of canal, which is insane to me, that you can find that much in a single tooth. I don’t think liquid bleach is traveling three miles. While it’s disinfecting that first part of the canal, it won’t get everywhere. If you leave a single bacteria inside that tooth, it’s going to reproduce at some point, especially the type of bacteria that is down inside a tooth. It’s anaerobic. It does not need oxygen to survive. It likes an environment that doesn’t have any light in it. A root canal inside of a tooth, you go and seal it off, and you seal this bacteria off inside this tooth with no oxygen, no light. You have given it the exact environment it needs. Essentially, you have left the dead, infected tooth in your mouth. Yeah, it doesn’t hurt because you don’t have a nerve in there.

From a biologic standpoint, as a holistic dentist, my problem with it is that it is a locus of infection. Your immune system has to contend with it. Especially given your expertise with the thyroid, it can exacerbate autoimmune issues. If you have underlying thyroid problems, that is not a great thing to have.

There are certain associations with teeth called meridians. We believe that if you put a root canal there, you are blocking a meridian. You will have some dysfunction, some association with some other area of the body. The most common one that I hear, and we have observed in terms of a correlation, is upper molar root canals and breast cancer. A study was done in Germany where researchers found that out of a select pool of their cancer patients, 97% of them had an upper molar root canal onthe same side as their breast cancer. Knowing that there is that correlation—and I’m not saying cause and effect, I’m saying correlation, so there is an observation they noticed—that is enough for me to sayI wouldn’t recommend a root canal pretty much anywhere in anybody’s mouth. Who knows what systemically it’s going to do?

The other problem I have with it is you hear about people needing root canals retreated, or it got reinfected. “I had this one done X number of years ago, and now I am back with a huge infection in it. ”They will say, “It got reinfected.” Yeah, it got reinfected with the same bacteria that was already inside the tooth. It just happened to find its way outside the tooth. You will then pull this thing anyway. It’s rare you will have it retreated a third time. I wouldn’t go back into the well a third time if something fell twice.

We feel in our practice, and this is our professional opinion based off some of the research we have done and some of the clinical observations we have made in our office: If you have a tooth that is failing with pain and bacterial infiltration, it is a much healthier and safer option to have that tooth removed, as daunting as that sounds. It’s healthier for you to have that infected, dead tooth taken out of your mouth.

It’s 2022. We have great replacement options for teeth. Implants work great. Is it a longer procedure? Does it take a little bit more work to do it? Yeah. This is our health we’re talking about here. In the grand scheme of things, the whole implant process can take as short as four months. Usually, our average is about six months start to finish. That is a relatively short period of time in somebody’s life, to have a healthy situation rather than having a root canal in your mouth for 15 years, dumping endotoxins into your system, and causing potential other problems.

That’s our main issue with these root canals. They can cause more problems, and it’s not worth it for us just to keep holding onto a tooth when we have a better replacement option that’s healthier for you.

Dr. Eric O: I think I heard on another podcast where a holistic dentist was talking about possibly Lyme being harbored in the root canal. Have you heard about that when it comes to infections?

Dr. Eric K: I have heard they are similar bacteria. The one thing I have heard, and the thing they have observed, and this is traditional researchers doing this, traditional allopathic medicine. If you scraped the plaque inside of a clogged artery, somebody who has had a heart attack, the bacteria that populates that plaque build-up in the coronary artery is the same bacteria. The only other place it’s found in the body is endodontic infections in teeth. The American Academy of Cardiac Prevention, if you check their website, they will tell you 96% of all heart attack-associated problems stem from bacteria in the mouth. Root canals are a huge source of that.

Dr. Eric O: Not physically removing the root canals, but assuming someone doesn’t have root canals, and that also leads into the importance of regular dental hygiene, seeing a dentist a few times a year, flossing. Some people will blow off the impact of gingivitis or periodontitis. That can be a big deal as well as far as cardiovascular health, it sounds like.

Dr. Eric K: If you have a periodontal disease in any fashion, bear in mind gingivitis is a form of periodontal disease. I’m not saying it’s localized. Everyone gets a little bit of bleeding here and there. If you have general gingivitis with constant bleeding, that same bacteria is going to affect cardiovascular health. People with periodontal disease, there is a much higher correlation with high blood pressure, diabetes, the chances of having cardiovascular problems. That same bacteria they find in the coronary arteries is not just endodontic infections; there is gum infections and periodontal infections that play the same role in that.

If your front door is dirty in your house, you have mud and all kinds of unsafe situations there. You are dragging all these things into your house. That is the best analogy I have. If your mouth is dirty, you are swallowing bacteria constantly; you are introducing bacteria not only through your bloodstream, but also through your digestive system, your gut health. It’s going to make it through there. This is one of the only accesses into your body. We only have so many, and your mouth is by far the biggest one and the one that is most used.

Dr. Eric O: What are your thoughts about oil pulling? If you have periodontal disease, oil pulling won’t reverse that, but as far as a preventative measure along with brushing and flossing?

Dr. Eric K: It’s the best adjunct in terms of mouth, that’s for sure. If everybody had 14 minutes a day to do oil pulling, we overall as a country would have much better oral hygiene. It’s such an effective natural way to do it. Everybody likes the minty flavors of mouth rinse. If you asked my colleague Dr. Gerry Curatola up in New York, who is a big-time oral microbiome specialist, anything that has alcohol, mint, anything like that is going to destroy your microbiome.

Coconut oil pulling or sesame oil pulling is not going to affect good bacteria like that. It will pull the bad bacteria out. There is a reaction that happens there. It’s the one thing that I see clinically in my practice. If I have a patient that has a gingivitis problem, and they change their oral hygiene habits to add oil pulling, it’s a night and day difference between that first recall and that next recall for your cleaning appointment. It’s something I highly recommend. People have been doing it for thousands of years. There are records of it from thousands of years ago.

I wish some of these oil pulling direction websites would have this on there: If you have mercury fillings in your mouth, do not oil pull. It will pull mercury off of those fillings. You will dose yourself with mercury moreso than even just chewing or drinking a hot cup of coffee. It is areally bad thing to do. I have patients say, “I have been oil pulling for the last six months,” and there is a mouth full of mercury. I tell them to stop until we get all of it out. If you have no mercury fillings in your mouth, and you want to add it in as your adjunct, it is by far the best adjunct you can use.

Dr. Eric O: Good to know about the mercury. That makes sense to me. With that being said, if you don’t mind shifting to talking about mercury a little bit. One question I have along those lines is: Is there risk with doing other things, like taking chelators or alpha lipoic acid, things that people use to detox mercury, if you have mercury amalgams?

Dr. Eric K: Detox is definitely not my specialty. I obviously do work with a lot of people that do it. From a logical standpoint, if you try to do a detox, and you still have these things in here that are dosing you with mercury, it’s kind of pointless, if you think about it. Most of my naturopathic referral sources and colleagues I work with, they almost require their patients to have all their mercury out before they go through any sort of detox protocol. Again, it doesn’t make sense to be dosing yourself in your mouth with mercury, releasing mercury vapor, and then you detox. You are just rebuilding up the mercury again. Especially heavy metal detoxes, makes no sense. My recommendation from a dental standpoint, you need to have your mercury fillings taken out.

Dr. Eric O: What do you say to patients who have had their fillings for 20-30 years, and they seem fine? They have 5-6 fillings, or only one or two. They’re not convinced that mercury is causing harm.

Dr. Eric K:That is ultimately their choice. I’m a big proponent of patient choice. If somebody says, “Doc, I’ve had these mercury fillings for 25 years, and I have never had a problem with them. I’d rather keep them in my mouth.” That’s your choice. We are not going to polish those fillings when you come for cleanings because that will expose my staff if they are not wearing the proper safety gear. I always explain to them it’s healthier to have them out. By no means do I force those people.

The analogy I try to give them is you might smoke cigarettes for 20 years and not have a problem. That doesn’t mean at year 22/23/24/25 and so on and so forth, you might not find some lung cancer after that. It’s something I’d rather be safe than sorry about. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, if they don’t want to remove it, that’s their choice. I can arm them with the information to make that conscious health decision.

Dr. Eric O: That is where I was getting at. You can’t force them to get their amalgams out. As far as education, just because they are feeling good, doesn’t mean that A) maybe it’s causing some underlying problems they are not currently aware of, or B) it may cause problems down the line as you mentioned. Of course, most people listening to this have a thyroid or autoimmune thyroid condition. There could be that connection, too. I don’t know if you want to talk about, or me to talk about how mercury can affect thyroid or immune system.

Dr. Eric K: It’s your podcast. I’m all for it. I love hearing about thyroid issues. It just reinforces the toxicity of these mercury fillings.

Dr. Eric O: Yeah, the immune response is my concern. Most people with thyroid conditions, as you mentioned, Hashimoto’s, the most common autoimmune thyroid condition. I have a history of Graves’. Everybody has different triggers. If someone comes in with Graves’ or Hashimoto’s, and they have a bunch of mercury amalgams, I can’t say definitively that’s what’s responsible. It’s just a potential trigger. There are a number of different potential triggers.

Like you said, in a perfect world, you’d want to get those removed. Not everybody I work with will get them removed. There are numerous reasons: cost associated with that or fear of going to the dentist. Ideally, in the future, you would want to get those removed, if not presently.

Dr. Eric K: Yeah, the way I try to explain it when I have someone with a health issue, and they are asking me what the benefit is of taking the mercury fillings out. The better example: You have a crown that is porcelain fused to metal crowns. A lot of crowns that were done back in the ‘80s and ‘90s due to constraints of labs, they used to do these metal-based crowns that they layered porcelain on to look like teeth. The problem with those is 1) they are made of nickel, and 2) we can’t see what’s underneath them. If you have an underlying issue, or potential for it, I would rather know than not know what’s underneath these things.

If you’re having an issue, while you said, taking the mercury out may not be the trigger that fixes their problems, I look at it as more like an elimination diet. You want to take any potential cause out, especially people with thyroid or other odd health issues. A lot of my patients are coming to me because traditional Western medicine has failed to help them with their problem. They are going down the natural way of approaching different things. Dentistry is one of those things where I get the question a lot, “Doc, is taking my mercury out going to fix my problem?” I don’t know. I know it’s not healthy for you. It very well could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back here in your situation. We have seen that. It’s just not healthy to have it. If I am in a situation where I have a thyroid issue or a gut issue, I’m going to want to make sure that my playing field is completely clear. I want to give my body the best chance to heal itself, to fix this issue, that I possibly can.

Dr. Eric O: It’s similar with root canals, too. If someone has a chronic health issue, and if they have one or more root canals, you can’t guarantee that removing the root canal will cure or help to restore their health, but maybe it’s a factor. Maybe it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, and it’s a piece of the puzzle.

Dr. Eric K: It could be part of the equation. You could have root canals causing this bacterial buildup, and it could be one of the things that is making an autoimmune issue worse. It could be one of the things plus another couple issues that is causing your problem. We happen to catch people at the end, and this happens to be the last thing they need done that will solve their issue. We see really crazy health turnarounds with people.

I have others who are sick and do all this stuff, and they need other work done. They need other detox done. Sometimes, I get some discouraged patients, but I try to explain the elimination diet. This is just one piece of the puzzle. You need to see a naturopath. You need to check out other things. Get chiropractic care. Make sure we are on top of all that stuff. Optimize your body for healing. You may find that they go to another practitioner, get ozone IV therapy, something like that, that detoxes them out. The next thing you know, they are doing great. It just all depends.

For our side of things, we know these things are not good for you. The ADA may get mad at me. I know root canals are not good for you. I say it in the sense that there are better options out there. Nobody can prove to me that a root canal is going to last longer than an implant. Statistically speaking, nothing beats an implant in terms of longevity, safety, and the integration into the body is much better. While the dental board will take the company line here, those root canals fail pretty often. I believe in my professional opinion that they are not healthy for you. We think there is a better way. For those out there dealing with thyroid issues, if you just keep taking away pieces of the puzzle, a lot of times, that is where you find your success.

Dr. Eric O: You mentioned making the ADA mad. I don’t know if you want to touch upon fluoride because I’m sure they frown upon dentists- Do you mind talking about fluoride, why biologic dentists don’t recommend it?

Dr. Eric K: Dr. Eric, I’m pretty secure in terms of what I believe in dentistry. My brother and I have taken the stance that I’m not going to be afraid to speak my mind. We never have been, even since I was a kid. I am not afraid to speak my mind about what I believe because it is what I truly believe.

Fluoride is one of those things that the ADA has glommed on to. It’s at the forefront of dentistry, standard of care stuff. I’ll start off with this: Fluoride works in remineralizing your teeth in some fashion. I will say that. It can desensitize your teeth. It has to be on there for a really long time. I don’t think people realize that. The most effective fluoride is fluoride varnish. They paint it on your teeth at the end of your cleaning. They do it for kids a lot. It’s sticky, and it sticks there for 24-48 hours. That is when it’s effective.

Going into the history of it, they used it as rat poison in the early 1900s. If you type into your web browser, “fluoride rat poison,” you will see advertisements from the 1910s and 1920s. They used to sprinkle it around to kill rats. It’s not safe. It’s the most electronegative chemical on the periodic table. It’s the most reactive species on planet Earth in terms of elements.

In your body, it reacts in a lot of interesting ways that are not very good. Fluoride is an endocrine disruptor. It settles in your bones. It essentially in the most basic of terms can make your bones weaker. The thing I try to explain to people, and traditional dentist friends, about why I have a problem with it is if you look at kids’ toothpaste, it doesn’t have fluoride in it. I don’t think anybody has ever asked why. The dirty secret is that kids are not very good at spitting toothpaste out. If you look on the back of your fluoride-containing toothpaste, they tell you to call poison control if a kid eats toothpaste. It’s because of the dose of fluoride in there. As adults, the conventional thinking is an adult will spit their toothpaste out. How many people use mint toothpaste and swallow it because it makes their breath smell good? While it’s not a huge dose of it, over time, constantly swallowing fluoride is not great for you.

There was a study that was done with kids. My big problem with using fluoride in a pediatric sense is fluoride has a tendency to calcify the pineal gland. For those of you out there who are not anatomy specialists, the pineal gland is what they call the essence of life. It’s the gland that controls timing in your life. When it calcifies, it’s indicating to your brain that you’re getting older. Especially for preadolescents, it’s a good timer for when you’re supposed to hit puberty.

An interesting situation they did was they went to rural communities in China. There are a lot of these outreach programs about fluorinating the communities in well water areas around the world. In this particular village, they overfluorinated the water. Their conventional thing was, “We probably should give them more fluoride because their oral health is bad. Let’s up the dose of fluoride in the water.” They started noticing that girls as young as 7, 8, 9, were hitting puberty. That’s not normal. They had to knock back the levels of fluoride in the local drinking water because there was too much in there. It was calcifying the pineal gland. Their bodies were saying, “It’s time for us to get to child-rearing age. Let’s move along with this.” Here we are.

This probably applies to a lot of people in my age group. I’m 37. I don’t know if you had this in school: they had this swish and spit program with your school nurse. You’d swish some fluoride and spit it out. These were dental programs they did in the ‘90s. A lot of people my age have white spots on their teeth. I’m sure some of your listeners have them. What do these really white spots come from? That is actually a form of dental fluorosis. Too much fluoride can damage your teeth. You are trying to find this happy medium in a general public that does things like swallowing toothpaste because it tastes good and makes your breath smell good, even though it’s not healthy for you.

Our problem is it’s a toxic material. The long and short of this is you don’t need fluoride on your teeth if you have the proper hygiene regimen at home. The biggest driver of cavities and problems in your mouth is plaque and bacteria. While fluoride will demineralize your teeth and prevent cavities, which I don’t believe that it does, because I think some of the studies are really flawed.

I actually think there is a study out there that shows that rates of cavities are even in fluorinated versus non-fluorinated communities. I think it’s a moot point. I could go deeper into how fluoride got in our drinking water, but that’s another thing. The rates of cavities are the same. Why would you expose yourself to something that was used as rat poison back in the day when all you have to do is mechanically clean your teeth every day; use coconut oil pulling, which is much healthier; and even find a nice mineralizing toothpaste? My friend Dr. Gerry Curatola has a wonderful one  called Revitin online. We also offer Risewell Toothpaste here. We are not sponsored by them, but it’s a great mineralizing toothpaste. They are out there. There are better ways to do it without having to expose ourselves to a pretty toxic chemical.

Dr. Eric O: The reason why I wasn’t sure is if you would share is because one of my past podcast interviews was a medical doctor, not a dentist, was talking about environmental toxins. When I brought up fluoride, she was like, “Yeah, fluoride is bad, but I can’t talk about it.” She didn’t want anything to do with it.  I got the impression that she was concerned about getting in trouble.

Dr. Eric K: If you know some of the members of the IAOMT that I’m with, we have the science behind us that shows it’s not great for you. There is a documentary that is available on YouTube called Fluoride: Poison on Tap. It will give you a good idea of where our modern-day fluoride comes from in our drinking water. People would probably be appalled if they saw where it actually comes from, what it can do, and some of the effects it’s had on people. It may not get into it from a dental standpoint, what it does to your teeth, but it does show how we got to the point of- It’s a prescription drug. It’s the only one that our government forces you to consume by putting it in your drinking water. I encourage your listeners to check that out.

If you don’t have a filter at home, a Berkey water filter, which is what I recommend for most people, it’s a pretty reasonably priced water filter. Getting a reverse osmosis filter in your whole house, hopefully with some sort of remineralization in it, so you’re not drinking pure water, where you are getting cramps. You do need some minerals in your water. That’s the best thing I can suggest to get the fluoride out of your water and drink the safest tap water and shower in the safest tap water.

Dr. Eric O: Fluoride toothpaste. Cut that out.

Dr. Eric K: All of your brands of toothpaste should have non-fluoride toothpaste. Be careful about even if it’s a “natural toothpaste,” you need to check out who owns that company. The big boys like Proctor & Gamble, Colgate, those guys, have started buying up a lot of these smaller toothpaste companies that are “fluoride-free” and changing the formula on them. Keep a lookout for what you’re using. A base thing for toothpaste is making sure it’s slightly abrasive, so it will polish your teeth. Any other things in there are bonus.

Dr. Eric O: Cavitations. Can you talk about what cavitations are and why they are a concern?

Dr. Eric K: Yes. A cavitation is a locus of infection in your bone. How I can describe this is when you get an extraction done, a tooth removed, the things left over are the socket where the tooth was, where your roots used to be, and then the ligament of the tooth. The teeth are held in your head; they are not just fused into your bone. They are held in like any other bone to bone connection through a ligament. In your mouth, they are called the periodontal ligament.

After the extraction is done, if your dentist or oral surgeon doesn’t take the time to clean that site out completely, scraping the entire ligament out, treating the area with ozone, if you leave any of that material in there, the body is going to heal the bone over. That ligament tissue is going to turn into a necrotic bacterial infection essentially. While you may not notice any pain directly with it, you may have some health problems that are associated with it.

Some of the thinking of it amongst my holistic practitioners is that that locus of infection is located on a meridian, and it’s causing a problem with another organ system. The general gist of this is you need to find, if you are going to have an extraction done, somebody who will definitely clean it out the right way, and someone who uses ozone gas, which kills bacteria; sterilizes sites; and ensures that that ligament tissue is not alive and any bacteria associated with it is dead.

The other side of that is with the advent of using what we call platelet rich fiber, and I know you mentioned that in my intro, which is essentially stem cells. We take your own stem cells and white blood cells that are in that layer we extract and mix that with bone graft material or just put the membrane in on its own. That’s another way you can ensure you won’t have a cavitation form.

We have people come to us with really odd health problems. Usually, we’re looking at not only root canals and mercury fillings, but we are also looking for cavitations. The notorious place is wisdom tooth extractions. Generally, the lower jaw area, we will take a look on our cone beam CT. It’s an MRI for your mouth where we can look at your jaw bones and structures in all different directions to get a good diagnostic on it. If you go to a dentist, get a CBCT done. Get it analyzed by a radiologist. We do that for every single patient that comes to our office.

The CBCT will show an area of low density bone. Bone is supposed to show up white on a CBCT or an MRI. A cavitation will typically show up very dark looking. We will still see the outline of the old tooth root that was in there because that is the ligament tissue that hasn’t been scraped out or cleaned out properly. That is where we can see that infection. I have seen some really obvious-looking ones. Normally your gum tissue is healed over. We have to get in there, open the gum tissue out, and almost 10/10 times, we get in there and see that the bone is actually brown and soft. You can clean it out and scoop this material out. If somebody gets that treated, we clean it out, ozone it, put some PRF in there, stitch it back up. A lot of times, they will notice a big change.

That is where we see the most change with people after doing these cavitation surgeries. They start having a problem and notice that the problem got a lot better. “My immune system, I feel like I have more energy.” Their immune system is not constantly having to attack this area of necrotic bone that is here.

It is something we do recommend you have checked with your biologic dentist. Make sure they are checking for these areas here. Notoriously, it’s usually wisdom tooth spots.

Dr. Eric O: It seems like most dentists recommend for everybody to get their wisdom teeth pulled. Are you against that?

Dr. Eric K: It depends on the situation. From an anthropological standpoint, we have gotten smaller as a species. That includes our jaws. In ancient times, our jaws used to be bigger, so we had room for wisdom teeth. Some people still have room for those teeth, and some people can keep them clean. If you can keep your wisdom teeth clean, you can keep them. I don’t want to take teeth out for no reason.

The fact of the matter is that in most cases, people’s wisdom teeth are coming in weird. They are partially up. They are partially soft tissue impacted, so there is a soft tissue pocket around the tooth. They get infections on them. It’s hard to keep them clean and floss them. Rather than constantly having infections or the potential for very large decay that will cause an abscess in somebody’s teeth, we recommend you get them taken out.

Who should you have them taken out by? That’s the million-dollar question. I have several oral surgeons in my area I recommend. It’s because we’ve had that discussion about using ozone. They are open-minded to it or using platelet rich fiber therapy. I know for a fact they are really good practitioners and will take the time to scrape that site out and clean everything how it’s supposed to be cleaned the proper way.

Oral surgeons like making money, like anybody who owns a business. If they are seeing a high volume of patients, they will pull that tooth out and quickly scrape it out, not really taking the time to make sure it’s fully clean.

The best answer I have is it depends. It depends on the individual situation. That is a discussion for you and your holistic dentist.

Dr. Eric O: I’m one of the few people who have all their wisdom teeth.

Dr. Eric K: If I remember correctly, you have the room to clean them and do quite a good job of that. That is the rule of thumb.

Dr. Eric O: Thank you. You help with the cleanings regularly when I go to you as well. One question I had, which you already answered, is what newer treatments or procedures, technologies, like ozone isn’t new, but you don’t see conventional dentists use ozone. You mentioned the cone beam, which you do, and the platelet rich fiber. Are those the main things that you do that other dentists don’t do?

Dr. Eric K: That’s probably what you find as the most different in our office. People say ozone is this new thing. It’s been around since the early 1900s in terms of disinfecting surgical suites. They used to use it. It’s so old in terms of a technology from a medicine standpoint that it’s actually grandfathered in under the FDA. In other words, there is no regulation on it because the FDA can’t do it.

Platelet rich fiber therapy is relatively new. We use that pretty much in every extraction. That is something that has been around for about 12 years.

Another newer technology is CEREC. That is a relatively new thing we do. About 20 years ago, they came up with this German technology that can make inlays and porcelain crowns in office. You have taken out the middleman and given the dentists a lot more control in terms of custom-fitting your crown. I know there are plenty of people out there who have made a crown traditionally, where they send it to the lab. You wait two weeks, and the temporary doesn’t really fit well. You come back in two weeks to have the final crown put on, and it doesn’t fit. Then they have to put the temporary back on and take anew impression. It’s a very antiquated way to do crowns. The CEREC system has taken 3D technology to mill out porcelain crowns in house. You get instant feedback. They are much healthier, and you can pick the materials you are using.

The other technology I would say is relatively new is laser therapy in dentistry. They are now developing really nice lasers that can actually do fillings without anesthesia. The wavelength of laser light used under the erbium laser is done in such a way that it doesn’t irritate the nerve of the tooth, so you don’t feel pain. Is it perfect? No. It definitely will need more research and usage and clinical trials. But we definitely can do it where we don’t get pain during a filling.

For kids, I use the laser a lot on kids because I don’t want to get kids numb if I can help it. They are not the most fun people to give anesthesia to. And adults who are anxious about getting dentistry done. There are a couple lasers out there. If your dentist is using it, they usually advertise it. It’s a photon laser or water laser, something of that nature.

As for thinking of philosophy-wise in our practice, we have added a lot of things like making dental sleep a big deal. How is your sleep affecting your dentistry? I don’t think a lot of people realize when you snore, that can cause clenching of your teeth, which can damage your teeth. It’s not a new technology but a new philosophy.

There is a lot of cool stuff out there. I leave it to my patients to do their research into who they are seeing. If you are not in the Charlotte area and can’t come see us, research the technology. Ask your dentist what their technology is all about. They should know what it is, what it does, and how it works. If they can’t answer those questions, don’t have that technology done to you.

Dr. Eric O: The last thing I wanted to chat with you about is implants. You mentioned earlier how you don’t recommend titanium, but you recommend ceramic, zirconia. That is something most conventional dentists don’t do; they stick with titanium. I imagine if someone comes to you and already has a titanium implant, you won’t tell them to switch to zirconia. If someone needs a new implant, that is where you will recommend the zirconia.

Dr. Eric K: Preference is always to use zirconia. Zirconia is a ceramic implant. The technology is relatively new. We have placed thousands of these things. We have had some really good success with them.

Dr. Eric O: Including me.

Dr. Eric K: I was about to say that you have one, too. You know this intimately. It is always the preferred implant in our view because your body’s immune system doesn’t recognize zirconia. The integration into your bone. Implants aren’t in your jaw mechanically. You don’t screw it in, and it stays in that way. Your body fuses it to the bone. They found that the rates of zirconia, because your immune system doesn’t recognize it as a foreign object, and there is no electrical charge associated with it like a titanium implant has, your body integrates that thing really well, if it does it well.

The technology is limited in terms of, and I can get into it really deep, the connections inside of zirconia implants are still researching and developing those perfectly. In the next five years, it will probably be the standard of care. It’s the safest, most healthy implant to put in your mouth, in my opinion.

That being said, there are situations, like if I am working with very thin bone or certain bone type, a titanium implant that is mixed with zirconia, they have ones that are titanium/zirconia alloy. I am 100% okay with those because sometimes, you have to take the balance and weigh the good with the bad. Do I need teeth to eat? Yes. If I don’t have teeth, I need to have implants placed. If the titanium ones are the ones that are going to connect to denture the right way, which titanium has the best connections, zirconia can’t handle the type of forces on there quite yet. I’m sure they will get there.

The titanium zirconia alloy ones, we use in our practice because we find that people are not reactive to them, especially moreso the traditional titanium implants that have a titanium nickel alloy. That is my problem with traditional titanium implants. It’s alloyed with nickel. Titanium itself, while it’s a metal, is probably biocompatible. We use them in knee replacements all the time. People tend to do it pretty well. Titanium is not strong enough on its own. It needs to be an alloy of some sort in order to be strong enough to handle the forces in the body, like chewing.

Preference is always zirconia implant. 7/10 times, we are placing a zirconia implant. 3/10 times, we might need to place a titanium zirconia mix in there. They are okay. It’s not my 100% favorite, but I’m okay with it. If my mother needed one, I’d be fine putting it in her mouth.

Dr. Eric O:I didn’t realize that titanium implants weren’t pure titanium. You’re saying it’s titanium and some nickel in there.

Dr. Eric K: Most metals are actually pretty brittle on their own. Titanium especially. It will be malleable and bend and shatter. It won’t be able to take that tensile strain of chewing. It has to have some sort of alloy to strengthen it and make it flexible and give it some other properties to it. While somebody might advertise 100% pure titanium, that is patently false. There has to be some alloy in there.

Dr. Eric O: Thank you so much for sharing all this information. Anything else that you want to share? You shared enough, so it’s fine. We spoke longer than intended.

Dr. Eric K: No, you’re good. The message I have for people is just always do your research. My brother and I take our holistic dentistry very seriously in terms of how we treat people. if you can’t find someone who does that, if you can’t vet them properly, and they can’t explain what makes them holistic, or if they offer you a root canal, or they aren’t questioning these things, then you need to find someone who does. Don’t settle for your practitioner. Don’t settle just because somebody lists themselves as holistic. Do your research.

I tell my patients all the time don’t just take my word for things. I know a lot about dentistry, and I have done my research. Please do your research on your own. Question what I’m asking you. Ask me to show you proof. You should be asking every doctor that stuff. If they get mad at you, they are not the right person for you. Just make sure you do your research with it.

If you ever have any questions, or if anybody wants to contact us, it’s KempterDentistry.com. Our email address is Info@KempterDentistry.com. You can reach us there.

Dr. Eric O: You have locations in Concord, North Carolina, which I used to go to before you opened the location in Charlotte, North Carolina. Awesome dentist, or else I wouldn’t continue to go.

Dr. Eric K: Appreciate it.

Dr. Eric O: I have seen other dentists over the years, including other biologic dentists. Very open to questions. I mainly see Dr. Eric. When getting the implants, I saw your brother. I think I have seen all the dentists in your practice at one time or another.

Dr. Eric K: We have a good group here. We pride ourselves in training everybody the same way, having strict protocols, and keeping a high standard of care. We don’t get offended if you prefer other dentists here. I do work with my older brother, and I always say I’m the younger, better-looking Dr. Kempter. I always say come see me. He is a great dentist, too. He is my dentist.

If anybody needs more information, or if you want help finding someone in your local area, you could always shoot us an email. We’d be happy to help.

Dr. Eric O: Thanks for sharing your knowledge about biological dentistry. I look forward to my next teeth cleaning. I think it’s a few months from now. I appreciate this.

Dr. Eric K: You’re welcome. It was my pleasure. I look forward to seeing you in the office soon.

If you have Graves’ disease or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and if you want to do more than just manage your thyroid symptoms, then you might be interested in joining our 14-Day Overcoming Graves’ Disease and Hashimoto’s Bootcamp (starts January 9th!):

The 14-day bootcamp will include the following…

Component #1: Daily Overcoming Graves’ Disease and Hashimoto’s Video Lesson

During this daily 20-30 minute recorded lesson I will focus on a different topic that is essential to overcoming your autoimmune thyroid condition. There will be one lesson every day for 14 consecutive days. If you’re interested in the specific topics that will be presented please check out the video where I discuss the 14-day bootcamp calendar (the website link is below).

Component #2: Daily 30-45 minute live group coaching session

The live group coaching calls will take place on Zoom, which is very easy to use on computers, mobile phones, and tablets. And if you are unable to attend live you’ll have the opportunity to email your questions during the separate Q & A sessions (discussed below). For those who choose to join live, the way it works is that I’ll send you a link to join the call, and if you are using a mobile phone or tablet you’ll need to install the free app. I will record every coaching session and post the recordings in a private membership area for those who are unable to attend live. As for the time of the coaching sessions, I will rotate them to accommodate those in different time zones. Most of the live calls will take place either 12pm or 8pm Eastern time (New York time zone).

Component #3: Recording of each coaching call for those who are unable to attend live

I hope most people will be able to attend at least 2 or 3 live sessions per week, although I’ll add that with my previous live events there were participants who didn’t attend the live calls, but simply watched the recordings and emailed their questions for me to answer during the Q and A sessions (discussed below).

Component #4: Daily priority action step

I want people to take action, but I want the action steps to be attainable, which is why there will be a single priority action step each day, although at times there will be one or two additional action steps that aren’t as urgent.

Component #5: Access to a private members-only group

We want you to build relationships with one another and enjoy this bootcamp together. That being said, this definitely isn’t required in order to benefit from the bootcamp, as you will still gain a lot of value if you simply watch the daily lessons, as well as take advantage of some of the live coaching calls and Q & A sessions. The private group will be on Facebook. I realize not everyone is on Facebook, but in the past I did give the option of joining a non-Facebook group and the engagement was very low. In past events we have had people set up a temporary Facebook profile in order to take advantage of this benefit, but once again, if you choose not to participate you still will greatly benefit from the other components. I’ll pop in the Facebook group every now and then, but I plan on having my health coaches moderate the group.

Component #6: Weekly 90 minute live Q & A session

Although I’ll be answering some questions during the daily coaching calls, these will be around 45 minutes, and I will focus on answering live questions. But there will also be two separate live Q & A sessions (one per week) during the 14-day bootcamp. These will be at least 90 minutes long, although with some of my previous events I exceeded two hours with each of the Q & A sessions, as my goal is to answer ALL questions! I’ll once again rotate the day and times to accommodate those in different time zones, and so they will either be at 12pm ET or 8pm ET. However, unlike the daily coaching calls, if you are unable to attend any of the Q & A sessions live you can email your questions ahead of time.

You Get All of This For A Single Payment of $79

If you watch the video on top of the registration page (the link is below) you’ll see dozens of people rave about my live events, and I think it’s safe to say that just about everyone easily got back their investment, and many just couldn’t believe the amount of value they received for what they paid.

Optional Upgrade: 45-minute one-on-one “Find My Food Triggers” diet and lifestyle call with a certified health coach

Both of my health coaches are excellent, and I thought it was important to include an option for affordable one-on-one support, although I’m confident the daily group coaching calls will be sufficient for many people. You have the option of doing this over the phone or through Skype/Zoom. If you listen to some of the video testimonials on this page from members of the past events you’ll hear some rave reviews about the diet and lifestyle call! And so if it’s in your budget I’d highly recommend taking advantage of it for the discounted rate of $50. But if not you still will receive a lot of value from the bootcamp.

For more information on the 14-day bootcamp visit the link below:

Recently I interviewed Dr. Rajka Milanovic Galbraith, as she discussed the genetics of detoxification and how it relates to thyroid health. If you would prefer to listen the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

With me, I have Dr. Rajka Milanovic Galbraith, and we are going to be chatting about the genetics of detoxification. I am going to dive into Dr. Rajka’s bio. She is a functional medicine MD certified by the Institute for Functional Medicine. She is an international speaker and mentor to practitioners as well as a high-performance coach. She helps high-performing leaders, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and CEOs regain their energy, so they can increase their performance, productivity, and impact. She has expertise in anti-aging medicine, nutrigenetics, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, and peptides. She sees patients at the clinic she founded, Simply Health Institute, outside Chicago, Illinois, as well as leads group online programs. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Rajka.

Dr. Rajka Milanovic Galbraith: Thank you, Dr. Eric. So nice to join you here today.

Dr. Eric: Look forward to chatting with you about genetics, specifically genetics related to detoxification. Before we start with that, would you mind diving a little bit into your background and how you started becoming interested in genetics?

Dr. Rajka: It had to do with my journey partly, and partly others’ journeys. Like many of us in the field, I have had my own journey and health issues. What I wish I would have known was how deep those issues went. Mine did start with thyroid disorder, Hashimoto’s. I know that’s a large portion of your population. I just really wish I had known, and someone would have said, “It’s not your thyroid.” It really was the dysfunctional thyroid, but it was everything leading up to it that wasn’t identified by myself because it took me the better part of half a decade to train in all these things.

It was finding that 80% of the patients I could get better with a usual functional medicine approach, but you had this 20% residual. How do you get those people better that were maybe a little bit sicker and not responding to usual means?

I kept doing the deep dive, and it led me to the road of nutrigenetics. I studied under a variety of people. With the first approach, I got a bigger layer of people better. I ended up with an autism reversal. I say this cautiously; people say, “That’s incredulous. Are you telling the truth?” I’m not the first person, and people need to know that you can get reversal. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight.

It led me into looking more and more. The irony of it is that I looked at everyone else’s genetics but mine. Isn’t that the irony of it? I did a really good job with what we call the epigenetics. That’s having your diet and lifestyle influence whether a mutated gene actually is expressing. We do have the power to turn off defective genes. I didn’t really understand all the ramifications then. I wish I would have.

It would have saved me two decades of intermittently feeling very unwell and ultimately culminating into an issue where my liver enzymes were soaring, and they were entertaining a second autoimmune disease. It really had to do with my underlying detox genetics that I wish I would have known from the get-go that went from Hashimoto’s to infertility to vision-losing migraines to PMS to that weight gain that comes seemingly when you hit perimenopause, to you name it, to ultimately, this near second autoimmune disease. I thought I had autoimmune hepatitis. The statistics on that are if you are not on steroids lifelong, the death rate is 30-50%. It’s very high. I’m happy to say that by taking the approach I did, I never got that formal diagnosis. All the symptoms and numbers, the markers reversed. Never ended up on steroids. That was now over nine years ago.

Dr. Eric: Wow. You said 30-50%, if they don’t take steroids?

Dr. Rajka: Correct.

Dr. Eric: That’s extremely high. Of course, happy to hear that you were able to avoid the formal diagnosis and restore your health. You also said that you were diagnosed with Hashimoto’s?

Dr. Rajka: Yep, that was the first diagnosis. It took about 10 years for me to get that diagnosis. That’s how long I was unwell.

Here is a fear, and I’m sure some of your audience has seen this: You go to your doctor, and you feel unwell. They do the labs. I know because I was one of those doctors. They say, “Your labs are normal. Nothing’s wrong. Perhaps you’re depressed.” The worst outcome is they suggest you’re depressed and offer you an antidepressant. That was my fear. Being a doctor, my labs were suddenly abnormal. I used to check them all the time. They’re not totally normal, but I didn’t know what I know now.

By the time I got the diagnosis, the endocrinologist was a little more savvy. Even though it was more traditionally allopathic, he was switched on to following patterns. He said, “You’ve had this for 10 years. Look at these antibody levels.” It was really shocking, the contrast of how little sleep I needed. I was going from 10-12 hours back to a normal sleep schedule. My energy really soared.

Dr. Eric: A lot of the audience consists of Hashimoto’s as well as Graves’. Can you tie in detoxification with thyroid health? I’m sure some who are listening might not understand how this all relates. I could add my feedback, but I’d like to hear what you have to say here.

Dr. Rajka: I’d love to have the banter. That’s what makes these interviews so much fun. I’d be curious to hear your input.

As you know, thyroid disorders are on the rise. You have to ask why. There is a strong correlation to exposure to environmental toxins. We’ll highlight some of the big ones. Perchlorate is found in contaminated groundwater. That is one of the ones I can measure. Even for people who filter their water, they may feel like they have a good filtration system. I’m talking about more than the filter out of your fridge. That won’t cut it. More than a Brita pitcher, that won’t cut it either. I found high levels in people who are doing everything right. You have to back it down to if these are all water contaminants, we have to figure out a better water filtration system for you.

We classically think that the xenoestrogens, like BPA and phthalates, will affect your hormones. Turns out they can also affect your thyroid. What you put on your skin and clean your house with really does matter. All of these can take out the thyroid with a variety of different means and mechanisms.

I was that nerdy, geeky kid in high school and college. I learned all these pathways in biochemistry, but I didn’t know how any of them applied. I even have all of my notes from the late ‘80s. I am dating myself here. Now that I understand it, it’s so crystal clear to me what needs to happen to support first proper detoxification and things we need to be on the lookout for as clinicians if someone is unwell. You can reverse engineer it, meaning you can assume things based on symptoms and certain findings and labs. Sometimes, I like to look at the genetics.

Dr. Eric: I agree. Obviously, the toxins can directly affect the thyroid. You mentioned perchlorate. Xenoestrogens. As you also mentioned, it’s not just about the thyroid. Especially Hashimoto’s and Graves’, they are more immune system conditions. There is also plenty of evidence in the research that heavy metals, xenoestrogens, and other environmental toxins can also be at least a contributing factor, if not a direct trigger, when it comes to the autoimmune response.

Dr. Rajka: I always say you have to remove all the triggers. I look at about eight of them, and toxins is one of the eight. When I speak about detox, I’d love to segue into the general about detox, what people should know. One of the areas I have found an interest in is oxidative stress. Would that be okay?

Dr. Eric: Yes.

Dr. Rajka: We call general detox two phases, but it looks like there are three phases. Here is my theory on the whole energy thing. The majority of adults, and even children unfortunately- Children are probably worse because their diets are awful these days. If you’re eating a standard American diet, they are protein-malnourished and are not getting the phytonutrients they need. When you measure it, most adults are deficient in 3-5 vitamins and minerals. Top of the list are magnesium and B vitamins.

Phase one takes that chemical, whether it’s an environmental toxin, a medication, etc., and breaks it down into a metabolite. I always learned it was more active, but that requires B vitamins and amino acids. These are the things people are deficient in. B vitamins get depleted when someone is stressed. You start with someone behind the 8 ball, they get stressed, and the last two years put many of us to the test. Everyone had different levels of stress for a variety of reasons. You get further depleted.

The interesting thing is toxins play a role in taking up energy. Our mitochondria are super sensitive to toxins because the DNA in our mitochondria are not protected in histones. You get the environmental toxins taken out, and you produce energy less well. It’s a combination of things. You don’t have the vitamins and minerals to properly detox. Your mitochondria, which make energy, are taken out by these toxins.

The second thing that is high up on the list for phase one is amino acids. That is a breakdown product of protein. Almost everyone who comes to my clinic is protein-malnourished or has an inadequate protein intake for their weight, activity level, age, and disease status. That is pretty profound.

To go from phase two to phase three, this is my hero’s journey. It takes that metabolite and makes it water-loving, so we can pee, poo, or sweat it out. One of the pathways, and there are several, is glutathione. That is where I am lacking two full genes for glutathione recycling. The third remaining major recycling gene is defective. I’m really behind the 8 ball in producing it.

The way not to make glutathione is add stress to the mix or live an unhealthy diet and lifestyle. There are ways to boost it. That’s why I’m careful and look at that. For me personally, I supplement, but I know my genetics, and it’s not the right thing for everyone to do. It depends on the whole story. I caution people when I say that. This is what I determined for me.

One of the things in detox that will take out our body tissues is something called oxidative stress. The way I like to explain this is oxidative stress is very similar to when you cut open an apple, and it starts to brown as a result of exposure to the air. It’s the browning of our tissues, whether it’s our thyroid, and causing thyroid dysfunction; our brain causing some memory loss; our joints causing osteoarthritis. That’s the area I have started to get passionate about: looking at what causes oxidative stress. We usually think of that as free radicals. How do we clear those? What is needed in those pathways and processes?

Dr. Eric: Like you said, the increase in environmental toxicants obviously is a big factor in the increase of oxidative stress. The autoimmune process as well. It’s safe to say that anybody dealing with an autoimmune condition has some degree of oxidative stress. You said you’re missing two of the genes related to glutathione?

Dr. Rajka: Yes, two of them.

Dr. Eric: When supplementing, if someone is missing the genes, I assume they can still take something like NAC that converts into glutathione? Or would they have to take a liposomal glutathione or an acetylated glutathione?

Dr. Rajka: It depends. I saw later some data on how n-acetyl cysteine (NAC) can increase levels of cysteine and further lead to oxidative stress. Anyone who wants to boost production, definitely NAC is the way to go. I am on a very small dose at all times. That is what maintains me. If I ever go through a period where I know I am ill, I will up that dose. I am pretty well versed in turning mine on and off. I’ve used NAC before. I’ll add that when there is an acute illness, too. I do not see benefit, but my patients have. It depends on where they fall on the spectrum.

Am I moderately unwell? I probably just need to boost it with epigenetics, and NAC would be just enough. If you know the genetics and they are depleted, for all of my chronically sick patients, I have started to look at their genetics. I say, “This is what we would need as we are getting you better. This is what you need to maintain and support you to mitigate that relapse.” Of course, with the whole mind/body, diet/lifestyle, comprehensive approach. It’s not just supplementation.

Dr. Eric: Agreed. Diet also plays a big role. You can eat cruciferous vegetables and other sulfur-based foods. If someone is really deficient, diet is still important, but that is where supplementation might be important.

How about IV glutathione? Are there indications where you would ever refer people to get IV glutathione?

Dr. Rajka: It’s interesting. Some of my really sick patients don’t tolerate any glutathione. You have to be really careful to give them an IV. For some people, IV is not the correct route. There are innuendos.

As I was learning the genetics, I was in between jobs. We were moving from Boston to Chicago, where we are now. One of the benefits of the clinic I work at is we have IV therapy. That is one of the perks of the job. I did IV Vitamin C, which I’ve found huge benefit for when I am acutely sick. That has helped me recover quickly. I also did it with glutathione. I didn’t get that boost. What happened? I had my genetics reviewed with another person that was in the field. They said, “This is why. They cancel each other out.” I’m blanking on what that actual process was, but I was intrigued that IV may not be necessary for some people. I underwent six weeks of therapy and didn’t see a benefit. I was trying to supercharge myself but didn’t see a difference.

Dr. Eric: I’m glad you mentioned the IV glutathione, especially some people not doing well because it would be a bummer for someone to get it. It sounds like maybe they should try the liposomal glutathione first. Not to say that everybody should try that and then do IV glutathione, but if someone is considering IV glutathione, maybe try regular glutathione. If they can’t tolerate that then that is an indication they might not be a good fit for the IV glutathione.

Dr. Rajka: Yeah, same thing. If you are sensitive to a lot of inputs coming your way, there is a high chance you will be sensitive to glutathione. Always proceed with caution. I always say sometimes, in those who are chronically ill, to go slow is to go fast. It’s really a hard concept for anyone who has ever been high-performing to accept or follow. There is nothing worse when we’re on the road to recovery, and someone goes through the steps at a rapid pace. They are made to feel worse and worse, but they don’t stop. They push through. Then it throws them under the bus, and that recovery, for me, in a client takes almost twice as long as the original recovery. I really caution people to pay attention to how their body is responding to things, and to have that direct communication with me on how they are feeling. They are given strict provisions on how to increase.

Dr. Eric: You spoke a little bit about nutrients. You also mentioned mitochondria. That is probably a big way this ties into fatigue as well. With the environmental toxins affecting the mitochondria, potentially causing mitochondrial damage. If you have the environmental toxin exposure and/or nutrient depletion, either one of those can have a negative effect on the energy powerhouses of the cell, which can lead to fatigue, correct?

Dr. Rajka: Yes. Just add in the everyday life stressors, which further deplete your nutrients. It’s like this vicious cycle that can be hard to get out of.

Dr. Eric: How about as far as the gut? All of this is important, but if you don’t have a healthy gut, that also could lead to nutrient deficiencies. Even the amino acids, you mentioned protein. People do need to eat sufficient protein. Also, if someone has low stomach acid or other gut issues, they need to address that, or else that could be a big problem when it comes to supporting the detoxification pathways as well, yes?

Dr. Rajka: Yes. You already mentioned the first way. We absorb our vitamins and nutrients less well when you have dysbiosis or low production of stomach acid. That puts people even further less well able to tolerate being exposed to toxic substances.

Ironically, I was re-reviewing things with phase three detox. The dysbiosis will not allow you to do that phase three. Excreting it, transporting those toxins out of the body. I do have a “right order,” my 3D protocol. I do things in the right process. If you go in and detox someone from the get-go as a starting point, you can make someone very sick. It’s never the first thing. I always tell people a diet will detox you.

I’ve had one woman in all these years who ate so terribly that when we put her on a healthy diet, she complained vehemently. She was gently detoxing but really felt the effects of it because she had never provided herself with the right nutrients. She was probably getting a backlog of those metabolites and was not able to clear them as well. We had to back step. That was a rare scenario. It’s the right order, too. I have seen people be made worse if they detox first and not with all the support systems in place.

Dr. Eric: You need to make sure phase three is working, which makes sense. If you’re constipated, you probably don’t want to get aggressive when it comes to detoxification.

Dr. Rajka: Yeah. Having the appropriate nutrients, having amino acids, making sure there is NAC glutathione, making sure someone is sweating and hydrating and having daily bowel movements. Not being constipated. I always laugh when I say the only field we talk about poop as being kind of sexy is our field.

Dr. Eric: Yep, no problems talking about poop here. You said when you were giving your background, you had your gallbladder removed, which unfortunately happens to a lot of people. A couple of questions with that.

One question is if you take any support since you don’t have a gallbladder, whether it’s bile acids or anything similar. Also, if someone is having gallstones, and their doctor is saying they need to remove the gallbladder, not to say there is never a time and place for that, but if it’s maybe in the earlier stages or middle stages, and there is still hope, do you have any tips?

Dr. Rajka: I do. Back story there. We were abroad, and the only American surgeon that was there had left, and we were returning to the same spot. He had said to me when I was pregnant, “I wouldn’t operate on you here non-pregnant let alone pregnant.” He was pretty much, in his mind, the only qualified surgeon. I started to have symptoms right before we moved back. Ironically, I had an appointment with a naturopath and the surgeons. I panicked because I thought, “Oh my god, what if I get into a situation where it’s an acute gallbladder attack that is a do or die? He is telling me he doesn’t trust the system or the process there.” When you have a surgeon saying, “You have a gallbladder full of stones. Get it out,” and I wasn’t trained like I am now, you probably will follow through. Mine is more of a worry about what if? If I had time, I probably would have done what I do now.

Knowing genetics, you first want to make sure there is proper bile formation. You have to make sure you have adequate choline. A good source is the yolks of your eggs. Some people have difficulty absorbing choline. I am in this mix. That is why I developed gallstone symptoms when I was pregnant. I wasn’t absorbing the choline. Pregnancy increases the need for choline. I have a whole pre-pregnancy protocol where we support choline a little more to meet the needs of the pregnancy. That would have been my first port of call: supplement with choline, either liquid or capsule form. I still do that. Your common bile duct, which is what remains, does produce a little bit of bile. I augment and do bile acids or bile salts. Ox bile with every meal, so I absorb properly.

Here is the kicker. Even that took a little while going into functional medicine to understand that I should be on this supplementation. From a genetic standpoint, the gene that governs the choline absorption is PEMT. I do have the mutation. Typically, you will see that those with the mutation experience symptoms when they are pregnant and in menopause. Those are the two time periods. I had a young lady brought to me by her mom and said, “Every woman in our family has had her gallbladder out. I want you to spare my daughter.” The daughter was a teenager. We took a look at her genes, and now she is on gentle supplementation. We have talked about what you can do. I’m on those two.

That was also going on at the time of when I had that whole liver flare. I avoided the foods that would trigger it: caffeine, alcohol, onions, garlic. I backed off on those foods. Things like beets, beet juice, beets themselves were very healing for me at the time. Sadly with the surgery, I had my common bile duct injured, and it closed off. That will make you more sick than anything because it really escalates a backlog of everything. The bile, the liver enzymes shoot up even higher. I’ve had that duct opened twice now before I was in functional medicine.

Now that I am, I rarely get a flare. I know what my triggers are. I had one probably like six months ago. You better bet your bottom dollar stress doesn’t help that at all. I thankfully had a lot of gut healing supplies with me. I travel with a little stash of stuff in case my family gets sick. By taking the ox bile, the PC, I even had some Colostrum, which is your immunoglobulins, and a good solid enzyme, it passed very quickly. Now I’m just super careful. I just try to maintain that, striving for a healthy diet and lifestyle.

For me, if I strive 100% of the time, because I want to hit 80 or 90, I am on board and doing well. I shoot for 80, which means I will hit 60 or 70. I have more resilience to things coming my way. Even asa high performer, overscheduling themselves and being clear on what my mission and goals are personally and professionally and sticking to them. Saying no more than I say yes.

That’s off topic and not genetic. We are genetically wired when you are a high performer and busy to go, go, go, and do, do, do. It’s probably not the best thing for you. I know when I was growing up, it became fashionable to go without sleep. It was like this badge of honor or something. Now I think it’s just not a good health choice to make. It’s fallen out of vogue thankfully. In our circles, sleep is prioritized. So is preserving your most precious asset, which is time. You can never get it back.

Dr. Eric: I’m glad you shared that. I haven’t really looked into the research when it comes to sleep and oxidative stress. I know lack of sleep will cause inflammation in general, like higher CRP levels, I believe. I imagine also oxidative stress plays a role in that, too. I think it all does tie together.

Dr. Rajka: Absolutely. The other thing to know is there is a level of oxidative stress that is going to be okay. We produce free radicals every time we make ATP. A small amount of that is super important because that is how we fight off the pathogens, the bugs we encounter: bacteria, viruses, etc. It needs to be in balance. When it escalates, and you need to appropriately eliminate those free radicals that do damage, that is governed by genetics. I look at the pathways and just love it.

I tell people I had a woman who came in with autoimmune conditions. We did all of these steps without knowing her genetics, and then we reverse engineered it. It was really telling why I chose the steps that I chose, based on her history, symptoms, and labs. That worked. That is how I am able to reverse engineer. You don’t necessarily need it. In fact, I wish we had a better way to affordably measure which gene is expressing. I always tell people you want to combine symptoms with labs along with the suspected action of what the gene might be doing rather than just looking at the genetics, which are worthless alone.

Dr. Eric: Do you look at any tests when it comes to oxidative stress or glutathione? Some organic acids tests look at pyroglutamate. There is some oxidative stress markers as well on the Dutch test. They have the organic acids section that has an oxidative stress marker.

Dr. Rajka: Pyroglutamate looks at your need for glutathione, and it’s presuming that your levels of oxidative stress are high. On the Dutch test, one of the ones that you should pay real close attention to is it looks at damage to our DNA. That marker is called 8 hydroxy deoxyguanosine, 8-OHdG. If you have DNA damage that is present, you better say what is driving that? Is it stress, toxins, lack of sleep, lack of nutrients, inappropriate diet, dysbiosis? You run the list and maximize as much as you can.

The other marker I’ll look at on a NutrEval is a lipid peroxidation, so damage to the lipids on the body. I look at oxidized LDL, which is the bad cholesterol. You not only have to have an elevation of bad cholesterol, but a portion of it has to be on the small particle stick, and a portion of that is the damage. That’s a perfect storm. If you have elevation, a lot of damaged small particles, that is the storm for forming plaque and having that plaque rupture. Think about a heart attack or a stroke. I have had people come back with high levels. I am still looking at what is causing it.

There are ways that I mock that up, so to speak. There are various things I give. If I don’t know their genetics, I will use molecular hydrogen, which will usually lower it nicely. We have to figure out where this is coming from, or we will never be able to stop. “I will protect your tissues by giving you this.” If I know their genetics, I will say, “Hey, is it a breakdown of the super oxide free radical? Do we need to give you an enzyme called SOD, which breaks it down to hydrogen peroxide? Is it broken down into hydrogen peroxide, but you can’t clear it through your glutathione system, through another enzyme called catalase?” I look at the big picture. If I don’t know, molecular hydrogen has worked wonders. I can lower it in about three months. It gives me time to find the source. That is the most important question to ask: What is the source? Why is it happening to begin with?

Dr. Eric: That’s a good point. If you see any of these markers out of range, you want to know why, and not just give the person a supplement. On a short-term, temporary basis, it might be important. You don’t want the person just to take, whether it’s glutathione or molecular oxygen on a permanent basis. Ideally, you want to try to find the cause of the problem.

Again, that ties into the genetics because sometimes, we just have the genetic variations, those polymorphisms, where someone might need to take some support. You mentioned a short while ago that you do take a little bit of glutathione every single day, a small amount, just because of the two genes that you’re missing. Because of this, do you recommend genetic testing to all of your patients?

Dr. Rajka: I recommend it to the chronically sick and those that really want to mitigate any long-term risk. The two varieties now. People aren’t interested, and they have youth on their side, so those in their 20s or 30s may not need it or want to know it. Then we really hit the epigenetics: diet, lifestyle. Just by their markers sometimes, I can tell.

Let me give you a really simple example of genes. When we are trying to get someone’s Vitamin D levels up, so they have proper immune function, the range can be a couple thousand IUs a day to 10,000+. Those people who are needing 10,000+ typically have genetic mutations in either the way they are converting, or they are converting with their Vitamin D transported. There is a whole host of genes that govern that. You don’t need to know the genes; you just titrate their D that they are taking according to what their body is showing you that they need. In the winter, you will need a couple more thousand or more than you would in the summer.

So far to date, I have had one person, and she was another practitioner, have optimal levels without supplementation. She lived in Austin, Texas. She is getting sun.

It was so odd. We were living in the Middle East. We were out in the sun all the time. That was the only activity you could really do when it was so hot was swim in the chilled pools. My kids and I were all deficient despite the sun exposure. We all have those genetic mutations ironically.

I have seen a pattern where some of my patients who have the chronic environmental illnesses are missing the same two genes I am. I am starting to do some research on is that why they are so sick from it? Is that why they succumb quicker?

I talk about how we all have different detox buttons. Some of it is genetic, and some of it is diet and lifestyle. if you are small, you will present being ill earlier in life. If it’s medium, maybe a little bit later. If it’s large, you might be that one lucky person. I’ve had one in a career of over 25 years of medicine where he is the Uncle Harry who smokes three packs a day and dies quietly in their sleep with no adverse outcome. That is the rarity, and I wouldn’t bank on that.

Dr. Eric: I agree. Unfortunately, my mother smoked for 40 years, and she is still with us. She is 80 years old. No bad damage. Don’t know what the next 5-10 years will bring. She stopped smoking 10 years ago, but she did smoke for 40 years. Her genetics were kind to her compared to others, but you never know. Obviously, she didn’t know. She was just lucky with that.

I agree. You don’t want to take the chance. The good news is there is genetic testing for those who want to find out the information. Like you, I can’t say I recommend it to most of my patients. At this point, I won’t say I’m new at it because six or seven years ago, I did 23andMe, which they have since changed. I have recommended some genetic testing. I’m not at the point where I am recommending it to most patients.

If someone is dealing with a lot of chronic health issues, that might be something to dive into and see, especially if they can’t tolerate- You mentioned that you have people who can’t tolerate glutathione, but there are also people who seem like they can’t tolerate anything. in that case, maybe it would be helpful to take a deeper dive into the genetics.

Dr. Rajka: Like I said, the two varieties, the person who wants to mitigate any long-term risk. I am a firm believer that your thoughts form your words, and your words can change your life. I shudder to think what would have happened had I not discovered this. The genes were ominous. We’ll have to do that another time, maybe over a nice dinner or something when we’re out socializing. I like it for a variety of reasons. You’re right. It’s not necessary in every single person.

To speak to your mom, if I may for a minute. She must have excellent genes. We started running an epigenetic test for aging. It gives you your age based not on your biological age, if someone is 50, but it measures what your diet and lifestyle have done to you. How old are you based on the markers in your body? Smoking is one of the ways that will age you quicker than anything else since it is creating oxidative stress. That speaks mountains. Maybe you have some really good genes if they were inherited. That is one of the eight things we would do to mitigate.We just ran that test on me and my husband to see where we are at.

The other thing that plays into it is sleep and stress. As you know, the past two and a half years have been a very interesting time for a lot of us. I know I’ve pulled out all the stops. I laugh when I tell people, “When I’m stressed, I double down on the meditation.” It goes from 15-30 minutes to an hour when I can. It really does help me stay out of trouble, is how I feel and how I recover.

Dr. Eric: I am a big believer in mind/body medicine. What I tell people, if someone is not in the routine, just start with five minutes per day. Just get in that routine. I don’t want people to think they have to do 30 minutes or an hour every single time. If you can do five minutes a day, get in that routine, and once you are in the routine, you can gradually increase. Maybe some days during the week, you will do it for 30 minutes or an hour, and the other days, you do it for 5-10 minutes. It’s getting into the routine, like just with anything.

Dr. Rajka: I like your five minutes a day.

Dr. Eric: Everybody can do it. Everybody can find five minutes. I know some people find the excuse that they can’t do five minutes a day, but those are the people who need it the most. They need to do 30 minutes a day probably, but at least start with five.

Dr. Rajka: I have started saying: What is my bare minimum of the things that fuel me? I have a bare minimum for breath work and exercise. It’s interesting that when you set that lower limit, and you’re successful, then you’re able to increase it over time. I have found that sweet spot.

Another thing I will challenge people on is when you wake up and get out of bed, hopefully you’re refreshed. Say you don’t have the time even to do five minutes. Do 10 breaths before you even get out of bed. I have trained so long on heart math, which is one of my favorite things we teach every single person because the data is sound. I have seen people say they have meditated for 20 years. You look at their stress response, and it’s either in the gutter or through the roof. It’s not getting you out of fight or flight.

This is a tangible way to test. After a while, you learn what breath pattern gets you out of fight or flight. I can do those 10 breaths and know those 10 breaths are working. Think about when you are answering emails. Do a breath hold. That’s good not only for supplying oxygen and fueling your brain, but getting you out of fight or flight.

Dr. Eric: If you can’t find five minutes in the morning or at any time during the day, but I agree that in the morning it’s nice to start out with meditation or any type of mind/body medicine. 10 deep breaths is an option.

I chatted with another practitioner recently about heartmath. She is a certified heart math teacher. I’ve used Inner Balance for many years, too. Definitely supportive of heart math.

You have shared so much great information. Is there anything else I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you, or anything else you want to share?

Dr. Rajka: I am going to share three things that keep coming up when I talk to people who are thinking about investing in their health. A lot of people say, “I will DIY it.” Set a time frame. Maybe that will work in a portion.

Find that guide. It doesn’t have to be me or you. Find a guide you trust. It will take you from Point A to Z much quicker. My original guide led me on the diet/lifestyle path, but he didn’t really know all the rest of it. If someone had told me, “I am going to give you exactly what you want and get you better from this acute illness. I will also give you everything you need,” I would have said, “I’m all in. What is it that I need that I’m not aware of?” Sometimes, what you don’t know can hurt you. Find that guide, especially if you have tried to DIY this.

If you’re having such significant symptoms, and I view that as any level of fatigue because most people are fatigued and have acclimated to a lower level of energy, and they don’t realize it. I’ll say that again: Most people have acclimated to a lower level of energy and are already fatigued. By the time you actually feel it, you are behind the 8 ball. There is some kind of dysfunction going on with the detox that is affecting you, whether it’s your thyroid, brain, or joints.

If you walk in a room and don’t remember things, those are serious signs. Pain of any sort that seems not to respond to usual measures. That says there is mitochondrial dysfunction. That means there is a lot of oxidative stress going on. You need to figure that out before it gets into a serious state.

It’s mind-blowing to me because I know I can afford help and reversal for people. When they say, “No, that’s okay. I’ll deal with it in two years,” if you’re at that point, you don’t have two years to wait. I only say that kindly and lovingly because I see people on the other end of the spectrum, where they are so far gone, and it’s a real challenge to recover what little you can and maintain them there. Even that six months prior or one year prior. Just to take some of those symptoms that people tend to write off as more serious because they are.

Dr. Eric: Where can people find out more about you?

Dr. Rajka: The main source right now is DrRajka.com. That gives a wide variety of info. We have an energy quiz on there that people can take and other resources. I do have a professional Facebook page and Instagram that is @DrRajka. We are getting more up there with Reels and Lives. When we are busy clinicians, that goes in waves. I like speaking on podcasts like yours because it’s empowering to be able to convey the information so that I can open people’s minds to the possibility of how well they can feel.

Dr. Eric: Thank you for doing this interview, Dr. Rajka. I appreciate you sharing your expertise, not only on the genetics of detoxification, but so much more, like oxidative stress, which I know ties into that, and sharing your story about your gallbladder removal and how you support it. A wealth of knowledge.

Dr. Rajka: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.

 

With me, I have Dr. Alexandra Swenson-Ridley, who is a thought leader in outside the box and natural approaches to women’s health and hormones, focusing on what she has termed “selfless syndrome.” After suffering her own health challenges that resulted from focusing on everyone and everything but herself, her work turned toward helping other driven women navigate the world of fatigue, thyroid issues, anxiety, depression, difficulty losing weight, gut health, and more without the use of medications. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Alex.

Dr. Alexandra Swenson-Ridley:

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Dr. Eric:

Excited to have this conversation. I usually start off by asking people to share their background. How did you get started in doing what you’re doing? I know you have a wonderful podcast. Let’s share your background.

Dr. Alexandra:

I got started, a lot of us do, by my own health struggles and challenges in my earlier to mid-30s. I’m originally a chiropractor. I built a big practice and hit this point where it was not the dream, and my health was really suffering.

In terms of thyroid, I developed some anxiety. I was having panic attacks. My hair was falling out. I was going hoarse at the end of every day. I was exhausted. It was all I could do to feed my kid before I fell on the couch. I learned more, educated more, did continuing ed stuff that was related to women’s hormones. I understood stress and how that all interacted.

I ultimately took myself on a journey, where I knew I did not want to take medication. A) I don’t think I would have been diagnosed as having a thyroid issue because of lab ranges and how they look at that. They wouldn’t have looked at enough things. B) I wouldn’t have taken medication anyway. I was left with how to figure this out on my own.

I am happy to say that today, I have gotten there. Now I help other women do the same, whether it’s thyroid or something else. I really get to the root of why our bodies aren’t functioning the way they should and how we can get them back.

Dr. Eric:

I really want to address the cause of the problem. We will talk about your decision not to take medication as far as how that translates to others you work with. Before we talk about that, can you dive into selfless syndrome and maybe tie that into thyroid health?

Dr. Alexandra:

Selfless syndrome, most people have an idea of what it is by the label, but it applies to both men and women. I don’t know if your show is predominantly women.

Dr. Eric:

Mostly women, yeah.

Dr. Alexandra:

It’s that innate desire we have to take care of everyone and everything except ourselves. We are constantly putting ourselves last. We are the last thing on our schedule, the first thing to go. Before this, I was teaching a workshop around brain health related to this as well. Over time, the more we don’t make time for ourselves, the less capable we are of showing up for the people and the things that we really love and care about. That’s in a nutshell what selfless syndrome is.

I really talk about, especially in our modern world and society, where as women, we have taken on more roles. Some of it is self-perpetuated, and some of it is societal and generational. We have added to the plate but not had anything taken off. We have this very high level of stress that we’re always running through. We can get into the nuances of how that affects the thyroid, but it’s going to impact your thyroid function, your gut health, which has a lot to do with thyroid, and a bunch of other things.

Dr. Eric:

Essentially, doing too much. It’s something I ask when I have patients fill out their case history. Most of my patients are women just because, as you know, it’s mostly women who have thyroid conditions even though I was one of the lucky men who was diagnosed with Graves’. It’s obviously very common. Let’s talk about how selfless syndrome relates to the adrenals. Stress has a great impact on adrenals. We can perhaps tie this into thyroid health as well.

Dr. Alexandra:

We all have stress. We all know there is bad stress. The truth is we need some level of stress. Our body does need to produce some level of cortisol, and it’s supposed to rise and fall in a certain way throughout the day. When we’re living under constant stress or toxic stress-

For example, I had one woman who came in early on when I started doing this work. She said, “I’m not stressed.” As we kept talking, we got into how she actually has a daughter who is severely autistic and lots of appointments and PT and fighting for her at school. All of that is stress. Because it’s just her life, she doesn’t relate to it that way.

The first thing I would say is just be aware that just because you don’t feel it doesn’t mean that you’re not actually experiencing stress. Most of us are functioning in a way where we don’t know anything else. That’s just normal. If your body starts to break down, that’s a good sign we have some stress happening.

As that’s happening, your adrenals get more taxed. We have what’s known as the HPA and HPT axes in the body. They run parallel to each other. The hypothalamus tells the pituitary to do something with our hormones. It either talks to adrenals to produce cortisol, or it’s telling the body to produce sex hormones. It also talks to the thyroid. The pituitary then tells the thyroid, “Hey, make some thyroid stimulating hormone.” It’s released. All of that chain starts.

When you have stress, it’s taking away from that happening. That’s where we start to see a lot of breakdown, especially with hypothyroidism or even developing into Hashimoto’s or Graves’. Hypo seems to be more common from what I’ve seen.

Then you start having the symptoms. You can’t lose weight. You’re tired and cold all the time. Your hair is falling out. All of the fun that can come along with thyroid stuff. Going hoarse. That was my big one. I kept losing my voice by the end of the day. I couldn’t talk. We start to see those. But it starts somewhere. It’s not like you just wake up one day and have these issues, unless you have some genetic thing that has led to that after developing over time.

Dr. Eric:

You had a thyroid condition. Was it Hashimoto’s that you dealt with, or not autoimmune?

Dr. Alexandra:

On the scale of looking at it from a more functional standpoint, I did have antibodies toward Hashimoto’s. It wasn’t at the level where Western medicine is going to diagnose it as such. I look at it as if your body is producing any antibodies that is affecting an organ, that’s generally not a good sign.

My diagnosis on myself was subclinical hypothyroidism, meaning my levels looked more or less normal, going beyond looking at TSH, but TSH and free T3, free T4, reverse T3, and antibodies. My reverse T3 was high, which is another indicator of hypothyroidism. I had symptoms.

My rule of thumb, in all the research and reading and learning I have done and working with other clients, is if you have symptoms, it doesn’t really matter what your labs say. If your thyroid isn’t working, it needs to be for your body to feel good. That’s how I look at that.

Subclinical is everything is normal, but you still have symptoms. I don’t know how much you’ve talked on the show about the ranges they use for defining what normal thyroid is. They have bene arguing about it for about 50 years. It’s way too broad, and nobody ever changes it. By the time you hit a point where in Western medicine, they will say, “Your thyroid is off,” you are really not doing well. This is what I’ve seen.

Dr. Eric:

I’m glad you bring it up because a lot of doctors blow off subclinical hypothyroidism. The TSH, in your case, maybe it was well within the reference range or on the higher side, but either way, it was outside of the optimal range. With the conventional medicine, it’s a waiting game. They will say, “Let’s just keep an eye on it.” Maybe sometimes, if the person is experiencing symptoms, they might put them on thyroid hormone. Most of the time, they usually won’t do anything unless the TSH is overtly outside of that reference range.

Dr. Alexandra:

Mine as well. They very rarely look at anything beyond TSH. That’s the other thing. TSH is only one part of the picture. That’s what’s happening with your brain and the pituitary. You also have to look at the thyroid itself, which mostly releases T4. That goes to your gut, which is converted into T3, which is what your body can actually use.

My subclinical hypothyroidism, my T3 levels are what was hypo. Even though my brain looked normal, my body itself was experiencing being hypo because there wasn’t enough usable thyroid hormone available. That’s what’s going to help our metabolism and help regulate a bunch of stuff in our body.

Dr. Eric:

You said you also had an elevated reverse T3. Correct?

Dr. Alexandra:

Yes. That’s the one thing I haven’t totally impacted yet. I ran labs on myself recently. The other thing I experienced was I put on 50 pounds overnight and couldn’t get it off. That was a combination of I had some stuff that happened with my estrogen. I was estrogen dominant. The thyroid was also being impacted and causing part of that, too.

That’s something I see with a lot of my clients: It’s more common for women, especially in their 40s and 50s, to be in that place where,“ All the things I used to do to get weight off aren’t helping anymore.” There is a breakdown at the hormone level. Until you deal with it-

Dr. Eric:

Speak about weight gain and weight loss. Obviously, you need to get the thyroid hormone levels in balance. That free T3 is very important. Is there any specific diet that you recommend? Does it depend on the person?

Dr. Alexandra:

It depends to an extent. I’ll be honest: Food is something I love. Designing nutrition stuff isn’t my wheelhouse. I’ll leave that to the nutritionists. From my own experience, last year, I lost about 30 pounds all through eating. I didn’t exercise at all. I was exercising, but that’s not how I lost the weight.

Just recently, I found a book by Haylie Pomroy, The Fast Metabolism Diet. I will reach out to her to see if I can get her on my show. If you’re looking for something and are tired of doing Weight Watchers and all that stuff, I love her book. Her definition of “diet” is Did I Eat Today? This is a common thing I see, especially because with thyroid, if our thyroid is off, our metabolism will be off as well. If you are hyper, which is much less common, you’re eating a ton, but you’re losing weight. If you’re hypo, you probably don’t have much appetite, and you keep packing on the pounds. Those things go hand in hand.

Her approach resets all of that and is one of the first things I found that resets the thyroid as well. I guinea pig myself on everything. I think in a week, I lost about five pounds just following her plan, which has more variety than most of your diets out there. You’re eating, which is very important. It’s counterintuitive to think you need to eat in order to lose weight because we have been so trained to eat less and work out more. We have taken that way too extreme. That stuff impacts the thyroid as well. If you’re dealing with hypo, you have to train your body to eat again so that your metabolism turns back on, and it starts producing like it’s supposed to.

Dr. Eric:

I need to check out that book as well. Getting back to selfless syndrome, what do you do to help people with that? Do you tell them to slow down, block out time for stress management, incorporate mind/body medicine techniques? How do you handle that?

Dr. Alexandra:

I have come up with a proprietary combination of a whole bunch of stuff that I have done recently, grounded in a lot of neuroscience, and the concept of neuroplasticity, which is our ability to rewire our brain, what we think about all the time. Our habits are wired into our subconscious.

To really impact what I have defined as selfless syndrome, we have to go deeper than just trying to convince ourselves to do something differently. There is actually something that needs to shift in recognizing our own value. For a lot of women, there is a self-worth conversation that runs underneath all of that: we don’t value ourselves enough to take care of ourselves.

I do a lot of work there actually. I’m less in the nutritional and hormonal world. In terms of doctor hat wearing these days, I’m more in the how do we really rewire our foundation, so that it’s not such a challenge to show up for ourselves, and not in a selfish way, but to do it in a way where we are just the best version of ourselves because we are making time for ourselves?

I got there by looking at every woman who had a huge amount of success working with me. Came off medication, lost weight, balanced the hormones. It didn’t stop there. Their relationships were better. They made shifts in their career. They did a lot of the hard, challenging work. We do have to slow down some to take those steps. There is a level of having to foster some courage and confidence and clarity in yourself and where you’re going and what your values are to make those moves and make those choices.

That is a lot of what I did to heal as well. I made the choice to retire from chiropractic. I got divorced and remarried. I’m not saying you have to do those things to heal, but we have to be willing to look at what has been going on in our lives to get us to this point? Where can we start to make shifts and changes so that we have the life we love and the body to enjoy it with? That’s really what I’m about.

Dr. Eric:

It sounds like you go beyond the diet and stress management. I’m guessing you probably get people from other health care practitioners, not to minimize and say that’s all they did. Some people, that’s all they do. Maybe even on their own, they just read some books or listen to some podcasts like this one, but they just try to do things on their own from a diet perspective or stress management. It sounds like you go way beyond that.

Dr. Alexandra:

Yeah. Honestly, I’ve learned we really have to. If you’re constantly just in information accumulation, you’re missing- I’m a classic high performer who lives in my head, so this has been part of my journey recently that I’m doing with the women I work with, who are driven and in leadership roles but are struggling with their health: getting out of your head, tuning into your body, and asking it what does it actually need? As we start to do that, a lot of how you’re eating and sleeping might shift, as will exercise, in the way that they need to. We have to get out of analysis paralysis and take some action. Our bodies know a lot. If we just tune in and listen, it will tell us things that we need.

Dr. Eric:

Very true. Let’s talk about the medication. It was your personal decision not to take medication. When I dealt with Graves’, I chose not to take medication either. With hyperthyroidism, many people take antithyroid medication, but I chose to take an herbal approach while addressing the cause of the problem. Fortunately, that worked, and it’s worked for a lot of people that I have worked with over the years.

I do think there is a time and place for antithyroid medication, just like with thyroid hormone replacement. I’d like to know your thoughts on not necessarily your personal experience, but how you approach other people with thyroid conditions, more specifically hypothyroidism since it sounds like that’s who you mainly work with when it comes to those with thyroid conditions.

Dr. Alexandra:

Yeah, hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s is more of what I see. My stance on this, with the caveat that I cannot give you any advice around medication legally under the umbrella of my licensing.

However, what I do like people to know is first recognizing you do have a choice. There is more than one way to handle it. As a society, once you’re on thyroid meds, you’re on them for the rest of your life. All of that is a myth. None of that is true. Realizing it is a choice.

Like you, there is a time and place for medication. It’s not like all medication is bad. If you are really struggling and can’t even start doing the things that are going to help start turning you around, that is a time where I might say, “Hey, let’s talk to your Western medical doctor and get some help for your body, so you start feeling better” with the understanding that it doesn’t mean you’re on it for the rest of your life.

Finding someone who will work with not just looking at- They normally give more T4 combined with T3 if we need to. The gut is left out a lot of managing thyroid. Most of your usable thyroid hormone is made in your gut. While you heal that, because that’s not a quick process by any means, could you benefit from some support if you’re really struggling?

It’s a choice. It’s absolutely one that I think every woman should feel empowered to make or not. Man, too. Recognizing who you are. Are you someone who can make lifestyle changes? With selfless syndrome, you have to show up and make time for yourself to journal, meditate, and ask yourself the hard questions. Have someone go on that journey with you. I provide a road map for that experience. Just getting clear on yourself. Are you willing to slow down? Are you someone who just needs the medication to keep going? In choosing that, you’re recognizing that you’re not heading in a good direction, we’ll just say that.

Those are my thoughts. It’s there. It’s a tool. You don’t have to be chained to it forever. There are other options out there.

Dr. Eric:

Can you dive into the core pillars? You might have already touched upon them a bit, but if you could dive deeper.

Dr. Alexandra:

I keep changing what they are, but they’re all similar. The ones I’m operating with right now, there are seven of them. Most of us tend to think of how I eat, how I move, how I sleep. That’s true to being healthy. I look at them as perspectives. What is your general outlook in life?

Nourishment doesn’t just have to do with what you’re feeding yourself, feeding yourself well, but also how nourished you are by your job, your environment, your relationships, your spiritual practice. It’s that kind of stuff.

Connection is a big one these days. Especially with thyroid, I see both in nourishment and connection, if you feel you are not expressing yourself fully, there is a lot of energy that is stored in your throat. I don’t want to get woo woo on people. I talk about energy centers, not chakras. There is a connection between not being self-expressive and hypothyroidism in particular. Connection is one of the places where we get that. Especially as women, we need to sit down and talk. We haven’t had a lot of that recently.

Rest is not just sleep, but also rejuvenating activities, like not killing yourself in the gym, but when you come down from deescalating.

Attention is how you are able to focus. This is another thing I see a lot of, brain fog. We focus on somebody else or something else or allow someone to focus on you. That can be a bit confronting for people.

Your purpose and contribution. How connected are you to your passion and purpose in life? Are you doing things that light you up, and you feel you are put here to do? Or are you going through the motions?

I look at that whole picture in how we define health and how healthy we really are. A lot of those are access points to having your hormones balanced, your thyroid working right, your gut happy.

Dr. Eric:

Wonderful. What are some of the steps people with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions can take to get their life back? If someone is listening to this, they’re like, “Yeah, this is me. I have been dealing with selfless syndrome. Everything you said sounds great.” Maybe it’s not an order, but could you give some guidance about what some of the next steps could be?

Dr. Alexandra:

With every woman, the journey is a little different. Sometimes, when we help a lot with the physical side, there is an emotional side to healing. That’s the other piece I work a lot in: trauma stuff and other things that most of us have underlying. Either we feel better physically, and they are ready to let go of all of this stuff. Or they are ready to let all of this go, and the physical heals as a result of releasing that. It’s finding an avenue to work on that within.

If that’s super overwhelming, my first two things for anybody is to learn how to breathe again and drink water. Those are the two steps; we can keep it really simple. Twice a day, you take five deep breaths, breathing in five count, holding it five count, breathing out five count, doing this five times. I think we overcomplicate it often.

Water, our bodies are mostly water, so if you’re not drinking half your body weight in ounces of water, and I do mean water, not coffee or soda, etc. If you can start there, you will start to feel better.

From there, there is work we have to do, both emotionally and physically, like working through healing the gut and other things we are storing in the body. Thoughts are the power of the brain. Emotions are the language of the body. All of our experiences and emotions are stored there. Until we let them out, things don’t usually work right.

A little broad. Breathing and water are the easy places for everybody.

Dr. Eric:

I think that’s great. Everybody can start with that. Everybody can start with doing a little bit of breathing each day. Obviously, we breathe all day, but doing some focused breathing exercises, even five deep breaths to start out with.

Dr. Alexandra:

You don’t even have to count. You need to slow down your breathing and breathe a little more slowly and deeply than normal.

I was just certified in heart math. Bringing focus to the heart is another way to push reset on your nervous system and state. That will allow a lot of function to start to come back in your body.

Dr. Eric:

Can you quickly talk about heart math? I don’t think I’ve mentioned that yet. I’m familiar with it. Can you talk about heart rate variability and how you incorporate that into your practice?

Dr. Alexandra:

This is newer stuff I have been doing, but I really love it. Heart math brings a lot to the idea of coherence in our body. We are both chiropractors, so we have lots of background in the nervous system. When we are in a hyperaroused state or stressed, generally, there is a lot of chatter going on. We’re not connected between our head and our body. Heart math is a tool that allows you to start to build coherence. They have biofeedback devices that help you measure how often you’re in coherence.

I have an Oura ring that I use. I don’t get anything if anyone buys one. I happen to like the product. It measures my heart rate variability and gives me a score for the day. It will measure things like how much restorative time you got. With thyroid and a lot of the more hormonal imbalances, if we try to push too much, it’s going to make it worse. I have been someone who has needed that information to be like, “Hey, so your heart rate variability kind of sucks, and you haven’t had more than five minutes of restorative time a day the whole week. Why don’t you chill?” The Oura ring will tell me that, and it’s helpful for those who need that kind of input.

The bigger point behind it is you give your brain a chance to slow down with heart math and find that coherence. The more you can learn how to shift out of a hyperaroused state into a coherent state, coherence is where our intuition lives, energy lives, creativity lies. There is a lot of health benefits, like heart rate variability will increase. We want it to be higher. Heart rate variability is not just measuring your resting heart rate but measuring how much it changes in time. A good healthy heart is able to flux a lot. If you are on the lower end of that, which I tend to be at times still, I am experimenting with how I make this better. And you learn. Maybe I shouldn’t have worked out like that on that day. Maybe this kind of exercise helps.

Heart math has techniques to bring that in. One is heart-focused breathing, where you focus on your heart. I like to touch my heart. Some people don’t like to touch. I bring awareness by touching my heart, the area over my heart on the left side of the chest. Either focusing on something or closing my eyes for a little bit, and just breathing, a little more slowly and a little more deeply. That’s something that will start to train that coherence.

We can talk about heart math, too. Whatever you want to bring up. I think it’s really cool and a great tool for people.

Dr. Eric:

I agree. I have been using the Inner Balance for a number of years. I know others who have an Oura ring. You use the Oura ring as part of measuring the heart rate variability, keeping track of that.

Dr. Alexandra:

Mostly because I haven’t gotten an Inner Balance yet. I really like the Oura ring for that. They keep adding stuff. Now it measures blood oxygen when you sleep. It’s pretty good at measuring sleep. I find it cool when I do a great job of meditating, it will register a nap, which is awesome.

Dr. Eric:

Yeah, that is cool.

Dr. Alexandra:

We have lots of tools available to us to start to tune into how my body is actually doing. How many of us pay attention to them is another story. Those are two that I like. I don’t like the Apple Watch because it just yells at me to move every day even if my body is not ready for that.

Dr. Eric:

I haven’t thought about getting an Apple Watch. I have thought about getting an Oura ring, but I haven’t done it yet. I use the Inner Balance. Everybody is different when it comes to stress management, and I find myself not doing meditation. I’m not a big yoga person. Honestly, I haven’t tried getting into the routine of yoga. I have been in the routine of the Inner Balance and using it to measure heart rate variability for years. It works for me. I’m sure there are some listeners who have been doing yoga or meditation for years. You can continue doing what works.

As you said, there are so many tools. If there are those listening who said, “I tried getting into yoga and meditation, and it wasn’t for me,” it’s just another tool, whether it’s the Inner Balance, or the Oura ring is another option. I know there are others, too. There is a newer device that came out that someone was talking about on another podcast recently. I’m sure there will be many others in the future.

Dr. Alexandra:

There is lots out there. You also don’t really need a device if you’re capable of just checking in with yourself. One of the most challenging things I had a business coach ask me recently was I was ramped up about something. She was like, “Where do you feel this in your body?” It really stumped me, both because I am a high achiever, and I like to have answers, and I didn’t know. And thinking about it, where am I feeling it in my body? What is that telling me? It allows you to tap into that intuition. There are a lot of ways to do it. It’s just figuring out what works for you.

Dr. Eric:

Anything else that I should have asked you that you wanted me to ask you that I didn’t? Anything else you’d like to share?

Dr. Alexandra:

No, I think we hit a lot for people to think about. Bringing it full circle, it’s looking beyond your symptoms. The answers to whatever you’re dealing with, thyroid or anything else, is you have to go beyond the symptoms and be willing to get to know yourself in a new way. On the other side of that is a lot of freedom: freedom from medication, symptoms, and feeling crummy. It is possible. It takes time, and it takes a willingness to do the work.

Dr. Eric:

Definitely agree. Dr. Alex, where can people find out more about you?

Dr. Alexandra:

I’m on all the social places. I hang out more on Facebook and LinkedIn. I’m @EmergentWomanCoaching on Facebook and Dr. Alex Ridley on LinkedIn. I’m also on Instagram.

I also have a podcast, which I’m currently rebranding to The Selfless Syndrome Show. We are getting into some of the nuances of how you really overcome that. Not that there is something wrong with you, but to transform it to live and exist in the fast-paced world we have and be healthy. You can check that out on all the podcast platforms.