A Woman's Blueprint To Thyroid Health: Why You're Still Tired, Gaining Weight & Why So Many Women Are Being Misdiagnosed Ft. McCall McPherson

Unpacking Women's Thyroid Health with McCall McPherson I am going to give you the playbook to a woman's thyroid. We have McCall McPherson. She is a pioneer physician, associate and entrepreneur specializing in thyroid hormone and metabolic health. And in this episode, she is going to walk you through all the things that you need to know about your thyroid. McCall, welcome to the show. OK, I found you on Instagram late one night. I was scrolling, you popped up into my feed and your frequency and what you were saying was something I was so attracted to and I personally have so much, so many questions about my own thyroid. So I invited you on the show. Speaker 2 To tell you how excited I was to see you slide into my DMS, I can't Even so happy to be here. Speaker 1 I love sharing information that I'm curious about with a bunch of different people. It's one of my passions. And for this episode, I did kick Michael off because we're talking about women's thyroid. I felt that was fitting. Speaker 2 I think that's totally fair. Understanding the Master Hormone: Your Thyroid's Role OK, OK, let's get in to what a thyroid is, because I think you'd be surprised how many people don't really even understand what it is or what it does. Speaker 2 Right. So it's a little, everyone always says butterfly shaped gland on the lower part of your neck. It kind of sits below the atom's apple and it is our master hormone. It affects everything in our whole body, from our metabolism to our energy to our mood to our hormones to our skin, our hair, our digestion, our libido, everything. Reversing Hashimoto's and Persistent Hypothyroidism Explained What do you think people are getting wrong about the thyroid when you see content being made on social media? Speaker 2 Oh, Lauren, we could unpack so much, but you know, I think a couple things. There's a lot of talk about reversing hypothyroidism and reversing Hashimoto's, and I think people get those conversations confused because they're two different things. One is quite reversible. 1 is actually pretty hard to reverse, or sometimes impossible. Often impossible and people are confusing those terminologies and it can cost people their health. Speaker 1 Which one can you reverse out of both of them 'cause I'm curious for my own self, yeah. Speaker 2 So Hashimoto's can be reversed. I've been in remission for over 12 years. It is an autoimmune disease medicine. Traditionally, my traditional training didn't look at Hashimoto's as being able to be reversed, but it actually can be. And it's measurable. It's objective on labs and you can put it into remission minimally. You can reduce your antibodies, which is incredibly valuable in and of itself. Speaker 1 And why can't you reverse hypothyroidism? The Full Thyroid Panel Your Doctor Isn't Ordering OK, so let's talk about it. 80 to 90% of hypothyroidism, so low functioning thyroid is due to Hashimoto's. So think about it. Hashimoto's in autoimmune disease, your body gets confused. It thinks your thyroid gland is a foreign invader. It starts attacking your thyroid gland and eroding away the tissue that secrets hormones and replaces it with scary inflammatory tissue that doesn't work as well. It doesn't secrete hormones as well. And that is what leads to hypothyroidism. So let's say you have Hashimoto's. Let's say I wave a magic wand right now and I reverse your Hashimoto's. You're in remission. But you had it for 10 years. You had 10 years of your body attacking your thyroid glands again, eroding away that tissue, and it's not going to grow back just because you're not further attacking it. You won't magically regrow that tissue, so you're left with persistent hypothyroidism. Speaker 1 So how do I know if I have hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's? Would that have been in the blood test that I took? Speaker 2 For sure. So you can test both of those. So Hashimoto's is looked at in blood work as TPO or thyroid peroxidase antibodies and thyroglobulin antibodies. Hypothyroidism is looked at ideally with a full thyroid panel that happens less than 4% of the time. But people need TSH free T4, free T3, reverse T3 to look at hypothyroidism adequately, really be able to diagnose you and give you an understanding of what's going on. Why Optimizing Thyroid Health is Crucial for Longevity So if someone is listening and they're on Synthroid, how do they get off if they want to get off or can they even? Speaker 2 Get off. Good question. I would say that is a case by case basis. OK, so I'd have to know what their labs looked like before they started Synthroid and if they did in fact have Hashimoto's. There are subsets of people that didn't have Hashimoto's that kind of have what I call a pure conversion disorder. Basically they have difficulty activating their hormones, but they produce enough hormones. Often those people can successfully come off of medication. People with very, very mild hypothyroidism can come off of medication. But I want to reframe the conversation a little bit. OK, so mild thyroid issues that medicine often wouldn't even want to treat. OK, so Wing goes deep in this as you want, but mild thyroid issues lead to an increased risk of heart disease, the number one killer of men and women. In fact, if you have a mild subclinical thyroid issue, your chance of having heart attacks increased by 68%, your chance of dying of a cardiovascular event is increased by 37%. So these medications, when you need them, they protect you, your increased risk for infertility, depression, obesity, diabetes, fatty liver, dementia. There's so many chronic health diseases that come from improperly treated, poorly diagnosed and poorly managed thyroid issues. So I would ask yourself the question, not necessarily how you can come off of medication, but how can you get everything right because it is the core aspect to your longevity. Crude Oil vs. Gasoline: Why Synthroid Falls Short So if someone is on Synthroid and they want to switch to something that's more optimized, which you mentioned off air, what do they need to do and what do they need to know about that switch? Speaker 2 Yeah, so 91% of Americans on thyroid medication are on the same class of meds like Synthroid. So these are all levothyroxine based drugs. And you don't love this? I don't love it alone. OK, deal. So I was, I was this person. I was 27 on Synthroid and I was spending 16 hours a day in bed. And I went to my doctor and I, I was already practicing medicine. So I knew enough, oh, I must just need an increase in my meds. Went to my doctor, was told no, your labs are normal. He didn't run adequate lab data. He didn't look at the information correctly. And I was kind of sent away and told eat less, exercise more. And by the way, here's a Lipitor prescription for your cholesterol issue. That was just due to my thyroid. So anyway, 91% of Americans have that same experience. They have persistent symptoms, They go to their doctor, their doctor says your labs are fine. And it's because Synthroid, levothyroxine, Tiricent, levoxyl, unithroid, all the same thing. OK, I want you to think about it like crude oil. We don't put crude oil in our car to make it run, OK? We need it to make gasoline to put in our car to make it go. But guess what? If I give you all the crude oil in the world and you can't convert it to gasoline, you're not going anywhere in your car. And what we're doing in medicine, ubiquitously across the board, it's the only thing we're actually trained how to do, is give people crude oil, hormone, give them levothyroxine. The vast majority of women in our country cannot take that medication and convert it to its usable form. It's called free T3 to actually fuel our body to function. So we're stuck. Speaker 1 I swear they name these prescriptions leva blah, blah, blah to confuse us because it's confusing and these words are overwhelming. And it's to me, to be honest, the thyroid is overwhelming, which is why I want you on the show. But then all these names that they have, it's you don't even know where to start. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's it's foreign. Does that make sense? The Widespread Issue of Inadequate Thyroid Treatment Oh, absolutely. And you know, thyroid is so underappreciated. It's very much looked at in medicine as, oh, you just give them this one medicine, they're fine. You increase it every once in awhile, it's not a big deal. It is destroying the lives of 10s of millions of women all over our country. I see them every day and it's devastating. Meanwhile, no one actually believes that it even matters. How is it destroying women's life to be on thyroid medicine? Well, it's destroying their lives because we're stuck in this interesting loop. So they're on a crude oil based medication, 91% of them, right? That's pretty much everybody is is on this inactive hormone. They can't activate it. So they persistently have hypothyroid symptoms that really do destroy your quality of life. Again, it's like fatigue, it's weight gain, it's hair loss, it's Constipation, it's low sex drive, it's depression, anxiety, infertility, high cholesterol, diabetes, all of these things. OK, so they're on these meds thinking it's fixing the problem and their doctors assuming it's fixing the problem. But no one's checking the right labs to see if their medication is working. We are all simply assuming the medication is working. Our research always operates under the assumption that levothyroxine based medications work and they don't and we don't realize it because no one is looking at the right labs. Your First Steps to Fixing Thyroid Issues So let's say there's someone listening on the Synthroid and they want they want to fix it. What's the steps to fixing it? What do they do? Is there a vitamin? What do we do? Speaker 2 Yeah, so get a full thyroid panel. That is not what you're going to get 99 actually, 96% of the time research says you will not get a full thyroid panel when you go into your doctor and you ask for one. OK, So write these down. You're listening. I hope you did too. Get a pen and paper. So it's TSH free T4, free T3, reverse T3 and then TPO and thyroglobulin antibodies. So that's step one. You're. Speaker 1 Going to have to text that to me. Oh, I will. OK, we'll put that in the show notes. You guys. I know that sounds normal to you to say, but that is a lot of information. So we need to ask the person who's drawing our blood for not only a full panel for these specific ones, because if you ask for a full panel and then they miss something, you're fucked. Speaker 2 Pretty much, and they will never check all of these unless you tell them to. It's going. Speaker 1 To happen. So we need to ask for all of these and then what to do with that? Why Your 'Normal' Thyroid Labs Might Be Misleading OK, so can we talk a little bit about the issue with normal labs, please? Can I go deep? Can I get nerdy? Get nerdy. All right, I love it. So the women's experiences, they go to their doctor. Their doctor says your labs are normal, you're fine. And that's the end of it, right? They leave and they assume their labs are normal. But there are layers to this. So step one is getting the right labs. Step 2 is looking at them in the right way. OK, So normal in medicine, you think, well, there's an accepted range for blood sugar, there's an accepted range for cholesterol, for inflammatory markers, there has to be a normal accepted range for thyroid, there is not. So what's happening is clinicians look at patients, lab reports, they scan it and they look for things in bold or off to the side, OK, If it's not in bold, if it's not off to the side, you're normal. The reason they do that and the way the mechanism that happens is they are basing their clinical decision on what the lab tells them is normal. OK, so the lab arrives. If we're going to base our clinical decisions on what our patients look like, if they're normal, abnormal, we should be asking ourselves how do they find these normal ranges because Quest Lab is different normal ranges than LabCorp is different than the local hospital. Speaker 1 Oh my goodness. Speaker 2 In fact, Quest lab by my house is different than Quest lab by my office. So there is, they vary in and of themselves even between locations. And the reason is because they collect samples of a bunch of patients and they formulate averages of patients in their database. They take, you know, maybe they take out the extremes, top, bottom, and then they create averages and that's what's normal. So we should probably again, ask ourselves who's going to the lab if we're going to base normal ranges of healthy people on this population of people. And the answer is not people who are like, Oh my God, I feel so great on this Wednesday afternoon. I think I'll take 1/2 day off work, go down to LabCorp and see what my thyroid looks like, right? You know, these people are sick. They're looking for answers, they're trying to find solutions. So in essence now we are basing normal labs off of sick people. Speaker 1 Whoa, right. So the average is coming from people who are already sick. Speaker 2 Right, They're going to the lab trying to figure out what's going on, managing their own thyroid condition. Speaker 1 Does this have anything to do with the Pharmaceutical industry and them wanting to push thyroid medicine on everyone? Or is this is is that not the problem? Is it more than just the labs are just treating sick people? Speaker 2 I think the problem honestly, like at the root is medicine is not invested in a conversation about thyroid. Environmental Factors and Women's Thyroid Vulnerability And it is one of the most common conditions in our country. Levothyroxine is one of the top five prescribed medication every year. So it's a big problem. No one really cares to talk about it. No one's really pushing for improvement. Speaker 1 My question, before we even get into how to fix it, is how did this even get started? Is it because we were all on birth control? Like there's got to be something systematically that's wrong years and years ago because everyone I know is on thyroid medicine if they're, especially if they're a woman. Speaker 2 Right. It's my belief if you're a woman, especially if you're a woman with children, you will have a thyroid condition in your life if you're properly worked up for it. Yeah. So I really believe the same, like I echo the same thing you just said. The incidence of thyroid conditions is skyrocketing. And I wasn't around treating my grandmother's generation, so I can't say clinically first hand, but even from when I started doing this 12 years ago, I feel like we're seeing earlier and earlier, younger and younger, more and more people. Speaker 1 You know, there's something going on, there's something fishy. Speaker 2 There's something fishy. And here's the thing, like environment impacts our thyroid inflammation, environmental triggers. I get studies in my inbox pretty much every week talking about environmental, you know, plastics, microplastics, Yeah, things that are in our air, in our water and what we consume every day. Speaker 1 Dr. Hashimoto's But what's interesting to me is there's an emphasis on the woman. Postpartum Thyroid Issues and Lauryn's Personal Journey So to me, my brain goes, what do women do that men don't? Well, we use tampons covered in bleach and formaldehyde. Look, look it up. I'm not crazy or we will go look it up. We use pads, We use birth control, right. It would like if it's a more women is or it could be the pregnancy thing like you just said. What's what do you think it is intuitively so? Speaker 2 We're most vulnerable around hormonal changes. OK, we really are. So it has to do with the hormones. It does. Like our hormones are so protective and or they can wreak havoc when we hit changes in our hormones. Puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause we are risk increases substantially. Speaker 1 That's what happened to me after my first baby. I gained literally 70 lbs and I this is 6 years ago when I tried to get myself like backed put put myself back together like Humpty Dumpty. After that it was a nightmare. I could not figure it out. I had postpartum depression, anxiety, I could, I just was a wreck. And I remember just dragging my ass to a hormone specialist, could not fit in any of my clothes. I was tired, like just a mess. And she went in and she said kind of what you're saying, which is everyone looks at the bed, but they don't look under the bed when it comes to your thyroid. And so she tested me for all some of these things. I don't think all of them. This is really weird. And I don't know if you've ever heard this, but as I have been on the medication, I have been able to cut it in half. Have you ever heard that? Absolutely. OK, so now I take a half, but I'm kind of unwilling to accept for the rest of my life that I need to be on this medication. I feel like there has to be another way. And that's kind of why I wanted to have you on the show 'cause I know there's a lot of women that have had a very similar experience. I want to know ways to support it, whether it's supplements or minerals or can I get off of it? I have questions about just being told like shut up and take this every single day. Root Cause & Lifestyle for Thyroid Recovery Yeah. So I definitely think, let me look at your labs. You know, not uncommon to be able to reduce, especially as you lose weight, you need less thyroid hormone. So where you are postpartum is really different than where you are right now. Speaker 1 So it because one day I felt faint and I was like, I think this has to do with my thyroid and the next morning I just cut it in half and it worked. Speaker 2 Yeah, I felt better. Let me help you, OK? Let me help you so. Speaker 1 I'm shooting in the dark. Speaker 2 I know, don't be far too nuanced to shoot in the dark. Like it is incredibly complicated and and the stakes are high. Honestly, the stakes are high. So a couple thoughts. You know, there are things in your lifestyle. So at Modern Thyroid Clinic, we take a functional medicine approach, meaning we try to look at the root cause of what's driving a thyroid condition. OK. We also use medication, and the conversation really is both of those things are necessary for a large portion of people, not everyone. But reversing Hashimoto's, the same thing that often does, that impacts thyroid function in a positive way. OK, so when we're thinking about hypothyroidism, let's hone in on the activation of your hormones. Again, I want you to think we're taking crude oil and we're making it into gasoline. In a lot of situations, your body doesn't want you to do that. It halts the activation of your thyroid hormones, and it does that so that you recover. OK, so in order to think about coming off of medication, in order to think about even reversing Hashimoto's, there's a lot of parallels here. You can reverse engineer this. So your body wants you to lay down, rest and recover when you're sick, right? That's why we're tired. That's why we sleep more when we're sick. When you're inflamed, when you have like a high inflammatory diet, when you're exposed to a lot of inflammation, when you're micronutrient depleted, when you're calorically restricted, when you're over exercising, when you're pregnant, when you're breastfeeding. And so if we can reverse those, eat a low inflammatory diet, exercise, but not too much. Some of the craziest conversion issues I see are over exercise and under eating, undernourishing. Eat a whole food diet, low inflammatory, high in protein, high in micronutrients. Get enough sleep, reduce your stress. The lot of the things you do, I think lifting weights has. Speaker 1 Helped. There's something that I intuitively feel it, even something out in my body. No, I believe that. Speaker 2 Yeah, it it fuels your mitochondria, your thyroid need mitochondria input and the most dense mitochondria we have except for in our eggs as women is in our muscles so incredibly, incredibly valuable. Fueling Your Body: T3 and Essential Thyroid Nutrients OK, so if there's. Speaker 1 A way for me to taper off this. What do you do to support that tapering off and where, where does it go? Yeah, so it. Speaker 2 Would depend. I can almost guarantee that you're a poor converter. You don't activate your medication well, So what I do with my patients, you know, generally when people come to see us, they haven't compensated as well as you have. Like, they can hardly function. They can't really get out of bed. They're having a hard time showing up as a mother. They're definitely having a hard time at work. You know, they can't sleep. They're Moody. So the first thing I try to do is help these women function in their lives. Like, what can I do to give them more energy and more capacity so we can leverage that? So I give them some form of active thyroid hormone. I give their body gasoline to fuel basically every biochemical situation that we have going on. And you do this. Speaker 1 After looking at the labs. Or you can do it before looking at the labs. Speaker 2 Always based on data. Got it. Always based on data, but we're able to do it pretty efficiently because this is all we do all day. We can make we can do about a year's worth of work in one treatment cycle. And that's valuable for people who can hardly get out of bed every day, right? So we do that first. We want to create again, capacity so that these women can function in their lives. And then, hey, maybe they can eat better. Maybe they can go lift weights. Maybe, you know, they can exercise and do do all the things that they need to do to take care of themselves, but leveraging the power of T3 is incredibly valuable. There also are micronutrients that can help with conversion too. So things like selenium, ensuring you have enough iron, enough magnesium, zinc, all of these things help take your crude oil and make it into gasoline, right. So it's not that I would switch everyone to like a desiccated pig thyroid gland some I would, and I know you think about it like a medication. I want you to think about it like supplemental thyroid hormone, the same way that you would hormones when you give. Speaker 1 That gasoline to these women that can't get out of bed, What's what's the transformation? Oh, it's life. Speaker 2 Changing so in one treatment cycle their brain comes back online. Almost all brain fog goes away within, honestly, days, weeks. They get energy. They're not where they'll be in the long run. When everything's perfect. I can't just give them the amount they need. You have to break it up into cycles. It's not crack. Speaker 1 It's not crack, right? We don't. Speaker 2 Want too much so you know I give it to them in cycles. But their energy comes back. They can think, their mood lifts like changes happen so quickly. The Cost of Pushing Through Thyroid Symptoms You know what's? Speaker 1 Funny and I will just tell the audience this, I do have brain fog a lot. I have it a lot. And I just attributed to I had a baby a year ago. No, I got to push through it. I'm the type of person too. I have a high expectation of myself. Like I'm, I can tell you're the same way. It's like I'm intentional in every area of my life, which sometimes isn't always working for me, if I'm being honest. Like sometimes I have to like give myself a break to rest. And I think that to me, like my inner dialogue is like, OK, push through. Like you, you know, you have to finish ABCDEFG before the end of the day. And like this is just what you committed to and like be disciplined about it and don't complain. So I think that's my inner narrative. And if I am, as you said, functioning on crude oil, like I think what has helped push through is the is that inner narrative, But I don't know that that's that works forever. I think that eventually leads to burnout. But if the audience thinks that I'm like, I want to like be very honest. This like super superwoman. I have brain fog all the time. If Michael tries to talk to me before 10:00 like I'm a zombie, I, I, I have to like, I have to actually, the thing that helps me most, and I'm curious what you think is cold plunging. It feels like it. And I know that a lot of women hate that, and I've gotten so much pushback for that. But for me, what it does is if my windshield wipers are like fogged, it clears them for me. And I don't know if it's the shock of the cold, but it's kind of almost ridiculous. And now that I'm even saying it that I have to shock my body into getting it in gear and it's funny. Even if I if I have two cups of coffee you would think it like would make it better than one. Even sometimes after 2 cups of coffee I still have brain fog so. Speaker 2 I'm. Speaker 1 Listening to what you're saying and I feel like I'm a candidate and I feel like my labs are going to say what you said. Speaker 2 Yeah. No, I can almost guarantee. And what I think is so interesting about that is a couple things. Number 1, I think what you said in the beginning echoes the story of so many women. I'm tired because I'm pregnant. I'm foggy because I'm postpartum. Oh, now my kids are in elementary school. Now I'm going through teenagers. Now they're in college. And I've had so many women show up to my office that look at me and say all my children are in college. I'm an empty nester. I still feel like this and I have no excuse. And they've missed out on the most joyous years, some of them of our lives. They're surviving. Like there's a hierarchy for women. And yes, we can push through. We can show up. Especially when you're really driven, joy, creativity, like the freedom to just hang out with your kids and actually connect, Those are later on the hierarchy, right? So when we're busy trying to survive, we miss out on all of that. And the story for so many women that their whole motherhood experience of that, their whole 30s forties, which is I think the most magical times of our lives, infuriates me. Like it's so frustrating. Women do not need to live like that. Connecting Thyroid Function to Adrenal Fatigue and Coping Mechanisms And I I. Speaker 1 I get it. Listen, if anyone's tired and you know, this is also even on days I want to like be honest about this on like a Sunday when I don't have anything, I still feel that tiredness and I sleep. I mean, people are like hot like I sleep. I'm I like want to be in bed at 7:30 like that. I know if I could pick, I'm in bed at like 745 latest and I, I sleep till about 7. I sleep, I read for about an hour. I go to bed probably my lights are off at like 845 nine. So it's not like I'm not sleeping and then I'm tired. I'm sleeping, but I'm still like, I still have that brain fog during the day. So you think that has to do with my thyroid. I really was like, oh, Lauren, like you're postpartum. Oh God no. Speaker 2 I could get rid of your brain fog in like 2 weeks I'm sure. Did you guys hear that? Speaker 1 Maybe. Speaker 2 Last time. Speaker 1 I know be. Speaker 2 Be afraid if you get rid of my. Speaker 1 Brain fog. I thought that was just a part of being a mom. No, no. I. Speaker 2 Can totally get rid of your brain fog. So I think it's part thyroid and part of it is adrenal. So they're your thyroid and your adrenals are connected. That makes sense, right? When your thyroid is not functioning, your adrenals are compensating. So they're picking up the extra work. And like anything that's being overworked, they too get tired eventually, and they need more and more demand to respond. Which is why the cold. Speaker 1 Punch works exactly so. Speaker 2 One Cup of coffee used to work now, then two cups of coffee has to work now that doesn't even work anymore. Now you have to stimulate your body and get into a complete fight or flight situation for your brain to come online, which is not. Which is why. Speaker 1 When I'm like in New York City, I, I feel, I almost feel so clear there when it comes to work because it's kind of a fight or flight city, right? There's all these noises, their sounds. It's like right in your face. It's back-to-back. I have that fight or flight. You know what's interesting? The best thing that I've ever done for myself is cranial sacral. And I've been talking about it like no tomorrow. And that works on the fight or flight. So everything you're saying is like really making sense to me of what maybe I'm so attracted to that because the fight or flight is fatigued from the adrenals. Oh. Speaker 2 Absolutely. And you know, for Someone Like You who has a high demand job, you have a family, right? It's not like you go home every evening and just recover all night. No, that's not what we do. That's not what we get to do. Yeah. Hang in by a. Speaker 1 Thread hang in by a. Speaker 2 Thread and then, you know, the thread gets thinner and your body gets more and more taxed until it can't keep up with that demand anymore and you have like a total and then when my. Speaker 1 Husband wants to have a full monologue at 7:00 in the morning. I'm like, I got to get, I got to get the water, the electrolytes, I got a cold plunge. I got to have a coffee and like then maybe so. Speaker 2 It's, it's so interesting because if people in our space, they want natural solutions, they want to come off of medication, they don't want to go on thyroid medication. Have me back, sister. Let me fix your thyroid before you try to go off of thyroid meds. See what life actually is supposed to look like. Speaker 1 Before. Speaker 2 You make the decision to taper off with whoever you decide to do that with myself or someone else. But I can promise you when I fix your thyroid, you will not want to not have it because it is essential for your body to function and you're going to feel what it's supposed to feel like to be a woman. You can. Speaker 1 Come back. Well, should we say six months? A Call for a New Era in Thyroid Health Oh yeah, six months. I swear to God, I think I'm really a big believer in everything's happening for you. And I believe that you were put in front of me in some way to meet. And there's a frequency that I was attracted to with you. And I swear I even kicked Michael off 'cause I, I find this topic so fascinating. And I hear from so many women about their thyroid. They'll DM me like asking me questions about it. And I'm not an expert in it, and I don't want to give medical advice. That's why I go to experts like you. And this is the subject that in 1000 episodes, we've never talked about. Yeah. Speaker 2 It's so, and I hope, I hope that we're about to be in our thyroid era because what we're living in right now in terms of thyroid is what women have been living in with hormones. We're, we're exiting that now. We're leaving the era of the Women's Health Initiative where hormone replacement therapy was like the dark ages for us. But we're in the dark ages of thyroid right now. And it's a conversation that really needs to be brought to the surface because it impacts, like you said, pretty much every woman we know. Speaker 1 Tiny Hell. 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I would try stuff off Amazon, etcetera, etcetera, and finally I found this brand and it's the world's first invisible fiber blend. You do not taste it. You don't believe me? Try it, DM me. OK? You do not taste it. I have two packets every single morning. What I do is I like to mix it into something with a little bit of sweetness, and I'll put the two packets of loam into my aminos and mix it in and it's invisible, like you can drink it in your coffee. I think Michael has his and his coffee every day. This is my favorite fiber on the planet, OK. I liked it so much that I reached out to the brand and asked if I could promote it. Loam is a clinically validated prebiotic fiber blend that adds 10 grams of prebiotic fiber to virtually anything. So like I said, I do 2 packs. So just in the morning, first thing when I'm doing my sexed up water, I get 20 grams of fiber and let me tell you, things are moving and grooving. OK. You can visit loamscience.com and use code SKINNY 20 at checkout for an extra 20% off your first subscription order. That's LOAMSCIENC e.com. Use code SKINNY 20 for an extra 20% off your first subscription order. Quick, Greg to talk. Speaker 3 About Court Furniture Rental, one of my favorite companies, one of my favorite products to talk about, That's because I love efficiency. I love saving money. I love making sure that people are maximizing their efforts. Here's the thing, moving season is here. You get that new apartment, that new jaw. Maybe you're moving to a new city, but then comes the furniture problem. Buying furniture is expensive and delivery takes forever. Assembling it, forget about it. It's a nightmare. I know when I was younger, when I was on the go, when I was constantly on the move, this was always such a big stress for me because furniture is expensive. I hated furniture shopping. I hated trying to figure it out and I really hated the expenses of it. Think stylish, durable, move in ready furniture delivered, set up and picked up when you're done. This is one of the key components of court. When you're done with the furniture, you can just return it. You don't have to store it. You don't have to get a storage unit, and you know that it's going to work for the space that you're in. So if you're thinking about making a move and you don't want to fully furnish the place, you're not sure how long you're going to stay. This is an incredible platform for you to go get your place furnished, but do it for a fraction of the cost and know that you're not going to get stuck with it when you're done. There's no ownership headaches, no buyer's remorse, just furniture rental that works for this chapter of your life. All you have to do is choose a curated move in ready package or create your own custom package. You pick your delivery date in court, delivers and sets everything up so when you walk in, your place is already done. No assembly required, no trauma, no furniture waste, no fast furniture guilt. And when life changes, your new job, new roommate, new city, court moves your furniture out as easily as they move it in. So check them out. Rent today at court.com/podcast. That's cort.com/podcast. Balancing Inflammation with GLP-1 Microdosing On my notes, I have that you are into balancing inflammation with GLP ones. How does that play into women's thyroid and and are you a fan of using GLP ones to balance that inflammation? Yeah, so. Speaker 2 This is my other passion project. I didn't think I'd ever be as passionate about anything outside of thyroid, but I am. I started using GLPS in my patients because they're metabolically resistant. Like we lose our metabolism with years and years of hypothyroidism, we become insulin resistant, leptin resistant, metabolically dysfunctional. And that doesn't unravel immediately just when I fix your thyroid hormones because you have to unwind those years, decades of that dysfunction. So I used GLPS initially for weight loss. And what I found was it's great people start it for weight loss. They continue it for entirely different reasons. And I think this is the biggest thing that will happen in my lifetime in medicine, these medications, and it has nothing to do with weight loss. So do I think they lower inflammation about 1000 times better than anything else I've ever seen. Wow. Speaker 1 Yeah. And which one do you like out of all of them? Good question. So. Speaker 2 They all have inflammatory impacts that are similar to one another. I've seen inflammatory reductions in a massive way after one microdose injection. Literally in black and white on labs. Not even, Hey, they look less inflamed. They feel like, no, this is like lab data. Yeah. So it's immediate, really. It happens within like 48 to 72 hours. But as far as inflammation goes, they're equal. Now, if I took someone that wanted to lose weight, that also had inflammation, that had Hashimoto's, that had thyroid problems, if it were up to me, the vast majority of people, I would not start on tirzepatide. Choosing the Right GLP-1 for Weight Loss and Inflammation I would start on semaglutide because the biggest risk for these people is their appetite gets overly suppressed. They don't eat, they don't consume enough micronutrients, they don't consume enough protein, and tirzepatide tends to bomb out people's appetite when you start it initially almost too much. And I'm so protective of that. That's part of the reason I advocate for microdosing. So if I had to pick, I would say to start, I do most people on somagglutide. OK, so. Speaker 1 I know so many people who are on GLP ones, and I have one girl I know who's on 10 units. I think it's 10 units. Is it 10 units or milligrams? It depends. Speaker 2 So most people on compounds, compounds, it's tricky. They're all concentrated differently. So 10 units of 1 even the same. I think it's tricipatide. Speaker 1 10 What does that mean? Speaker 2 I mean, it doesn't mean a whole lot 'cause it could be. Isn't that high though? Speaker 1 She said that it caps at 12. OK, so. Speaker 2 Hers caps at 12. OK, so then obviously she's very high. She's high. Speaker 1 So I have one person I know who's really high, and then I have another friend I know who's on a micro dose, and then I have another friend I know that's on a mid dose. How do you know what to be on? How do you even gauge that? Call me. Speaker 2 Biased Lauren. Call me biased, but I think we have used diabetic dosing and we've applied it to non diabetics for weight loss and what's the diabetic? Speaker 1 Dosing over what so. Speaker 2 These meds used to be diabetes meds. We've repurposed them for weight loss, right? But like. Speaker 1 What's on the spectrum? What is is it? Is it a diabetic on a mid? Speaker 2 Or oh, it's on like I think people should not be on diabetic doses of medication to lose weight. So you're a micro dose fan. Why Microdosing GLP-1s Minimizes Side Effects I am. I started standard dose and I'll tell you people had side effects. I wrote Zofran prescriptions, anti nausea prescriptions every day and people weren't eating enough food. They were under fueling their bodies and they were losing muscle mass etcetera. I started doing micro dosing with our patients before it was a term that was used and I haven't written a Zofran prescription in, I don't know, two years. People do not lose muscle. I mean, it's a completely different ball game. And what? Speaker 1 Is a micro dose. So this is where I'm confused. I don't understand is my, I, I told you 3 different friends which is the the 5 milligram, I think it's milligram or unit micro dose so. Speaker 2 Let's say you know the the starting dose of simaglutide 2.5 milligrams, OK, that's like what people get initially put on and then they double every month initially so they they get. Speaker 1 On five at first they get 2. Speaker 2 .55 you know, and it just keeps increasing, increasing on a scheduled basis. We start people on 1/4 to 1/10 of the lowest dose of medication you're talking about. Speaker 1 Like micro dose, absolutely. Speaker 2 OK, so none of. Speaker 1 My then my friends aren't on micro dose right the. Speaker 2 Lowest available dose is not a micro dose. OK Yep, that makes sense. When GLP-1s Become a Lifelong Tool for Health And a lot of our patients never even reach the lowest available dose and are they on it? Speaker 1 For the rest of their life. Good question. Speaker 2 About 80 to 85% of our patients come off. There is particular things that we're looking for in our lab data that show us. I don't share them. They're the only thing I hold private. There's particular lab markers that we look for in certain ranges that show us these people have restored their metabolism, they've reversed metabolic dysfunction, and the likelihood they can come off successfully is really high. Now, the flip side of that is people. So I'm an inflamed person. I'm constantly managing. You don't look like an. Speaker 1 Inflamed person to me. Go look at her on Spotify. This is not looking like an inflamed person. I love you guys. Speaker 2 That's not what I'm so excited to be here and I didn't want to be here inflamed. You do not look inflamed. Speaker 1 Well, thanks. Thanks at all. Speaker 2 You have to work at it. I really do. And so my genetics, you know, they, they lend me to be inflamed. So I actively have to work on it. There's a lot of people that are the same outside of lifestyle. Some people are genetically prone to it. Those people often don't come off like they're going to get inflammation returned. So do you. Speaker 1 Like it for yourself and you do. And so do you feel like you're going to be on it for the rest of your life 'cause you're an inflamed person? Good question. Speaker 2 So I've just been able to restart it in the last month after taking a few years off and I will probably be on it for the rest of my life. But I'll tell you this, on a GLP, your chance of dying for any reason whatsoever is about 13 to 25% less. OK. Your chance of dying of a heart attack or a cardiovascular event is about 13 to 39% less cardiovascular disease pills 1 1/2 times more people every year than all forms of cancer combined. It's the thing we should be focusing on. GLPS are a magic bullet for cardiovascular disease. I lost my brother in November at 48. He was perfectly healthy of a heart attack and we are genetically almost identical. So I will be on AGLP for the rest of my life. I'm so. Speaker 1 Sorry to hear about your brother. That's amazing that you're able to take preventative care of yourself based on that, though. Yeah, absolutely. That's crazy that you can almost look at someone and know if they're going to be on it for the rest of their life or if it's just something they can use as a tool. Yeah. Graves' Disease and Overactive Thyroid Explained Let's talk about hyperthyroidism. Oh. Speaker 2 OK, different. Speaker 1 I like it. Speaker 2 What's? Speaker 1 What's that look like? If someone is experiencing symptoms or they are being treated for hypothyroidism? What is the difference between the hyper and the hyper and the hypo? Hypo and the hyper. Speaker 2 Yeah, I got you. I got you. So hyper is is a beast. But I love that you brought this up because these people are never brought into the conversation and they always feel kind of left out in the cold. So hyperthyroidism is overactive thyroid. So you're secreting too much thyroid hormones. OK, so instead of feeling like tired, gaining weight, sluggish, you feel jittery, shaky, anxious, agitated, you can't sleep, you're losing weight, you're losing hair, you can't exercise at all before your heart rate hits like 200. So a very different experience. It's most commonly due to Graves. Graves is an autoimmune disease that attacks your thyroid. Instead of making it tired and slow, it speeds it up. OK, there aren't, I don't know, another practice in the country that treats hyperthyroidism like we do. So there's a few things that I want these people to know #1 if you can reduce the autoimmune disease level, if you can reduce your antibodies, you reduce your overproduction of thyroid hormones, and that can happen. Medicine doesn't realize that that's possible. It can happen quite quickly in most people. And Graves people are on what I call a roller coaster. They are strapped in. Sometimes they have crazy high thyroid function, sometimes it's really low and it's unpredictable. It's up and down. So the goal is in medicine is to make these people go from high to low because high is dangerous. No one cares if you're hypothyroid. So they'll just make everyone hypothyroid with medication or by taking out their thyroid gland. OK. And they rush to do that. And that's a very serious thing. And I always tell people really get like 3 opinions before you get your thyroid taken out because there's no going back. But the goal with these people is to reduce their antibodies, reducing the severity of their graves, which is possible, just like in Hashimoto's #2 is we use enough blocking thyroid medications to make them hypothyroid, but hypothyroid life kind of sucks. So then we replace those hormones with actual thyroid medication. So these people are no longer condemned to living a life like full of anxiety, jittery palpitations. They're not condemned to living a life feeling miserable and exhausted. They're in between and they get to actually enjoy their life and thrive. It's called block and replace therapy. It's a big one. That's like a whole hour long conversation. Speaker 1 This show is sponsored by Vorosity. Do you want a drug free, clinically proven and Dr. formulated solution? Let me introduce you to Vorosity. OK, this is an all natural way to get the protein that you need. They are revolutionizing health by tackling the root cause of so many issues, one of which is the metabolism. So let me put you on to Vorosity's doctor developed metabolic power protein. So if you're looking for something that gives you energy and appetite control, you will love this. OK, just two scoops. You get 20 grams of protein to fuel your metabolism without unnecessary sugars or toxins. I took this on vacation with me and I really liked it because I was eating, I was drinking, and I just needed something that had protein in it. So I was able to have a solid protein that gave me a lot of energy but also a happy gut and targeted my metabolism. I'm still in the midst of losing 10 lbs. For me, protein is so important. Most protein powders don't help with cravings, but vorosity does. OK, so if you want to check out a great protein that supports your metabolism, check out their Power Protein. Get the protein in your diet you need and satisfy your craving the natural way with vorosity. Head to vorosityhealth.co and use code SKINNY for up to 65% off your order. Once again, that's VERACITY health.co for up to 65% off. And make sure you use our promo code SKINNY so they know we sent you. I have been on the methylene blue train. Have you guys tried this? It's great. If you want energy, you want to feel fresh, you want to get a little drudge, you got to try methylated blue. The brand that I use is Transcriptions. OK? What I like about this brand is it small logans. So what you do is you tuck it between your gum and your cheek and you let it dissolve over a few minutes. So there's no pills, there's no powders, there's no swallowing. You just pop it in your mouth and let it dissolve. Troscriptions has everything from methylated blue to targeted GABA boosters to things that support focus, energy, calm, sleep, immune system. You can go on and pick, you know what works for you. For me, I got my blood tested and I noticed that I was a little bit low on B, so this is something that I needed most. Wellness products today are built for mass appeal and they have a big ingredient list with fixed dosing and a lot of guesswork. But Transcriptions was built from a completely different starting point. To give you a background, it was created by two practicing physicians with over 50 years of combined clinical experience and they created it alongside a team of healthcare practitioners. So it wasn't in a boardroom. OK, there's a completely new way to optimize your health and give it a try at TRO daily.com/skinny or Intercode Skinny at checkout for 25% off your first order. That's TRO daily.com/skinny for 25% off your first order. Quick break to. Speaker 3 Talk about something that has become a non negotiable in our lives and that is the chili pad 2 point O. We love this product because we take sleep so seriously. On this show, we talk all about the importance of supplements, taking care of yourself, diet, exercise, all of the things human optimization. But what sits at the center of all of that is a good night's sleep. Here's the problem. Lauren and I sleep with two different temperatures. We're constantly arguing over the thermostat. We're constantly fighting about how many blankets. This is where the Chili Pad 2 point O steps in because when you share a bed with someone's sleep becomes a team sport and not always a cooperative 1. So what is the chili pad 2 point O? It comes with a mattress Topper that is a premium waterproof cover that unzips for easy washing. It's actually built for real life. And then it comes with these base stands that actually actually pump water through this mattress while you sleep comfortably. And you can control your temperature from 55 to 115°. So for me, what I do is I set it to drop down right before I get into bed, it drops to a cool 65. And then in the morning, it wakes me up slowly by adding a little heat. I don't need an alarm clock, and I sleep cool all night long. Lauren sleeps a little bit warmer. But like I said, you can climate control each side. So each of you gets to sleep with the comfort of your choice at the temperature of your choice as well. So check them out. Visit www.sleep.meslashskinny to get your Chili Pad and save up to $255 off a new Chili Pad 2 point O with code Skinny. This special offer is available for the Bostix listeners and only for a limited time. Order it today with free shipping and try it out for 30 days. You can return it for free if you don't like it with their sleep trial. Visit www.sleepsleep.meslashskinny and calm your racing mind with Chili Pads Cool sleep technology. You invest in each other and you invest in your health. Your sleep deserves the same commitment. Look what we've got here. Speaker 1 The new mint roller, we did a new colorway. It's baby pink. It matches with your ice roller. And this for me is everything when it comes to travel. So how I use this is if I'm traveling or I'm running out the door and I want to use ice on my face. So I keep these in my freezer or my fridge, just depends on what I'm feeling. And then I'll throw it in my handbag. So one side is a contour which is amazing. So you're going to feel nice and tight and lifted and sculpted when you use this. And then the other side bite size is an ice roller. So this one you could use on your neck so you can feel refreshed and de puffed in the morning. I am obsessed with this because it's compact. It's like a compact ice roller that you can just throw in your purse. If you have not tried our mint roller, go grab it now. Also, it comes in a little dust bag that we designed which is so fun. You are all set to be tight, sculpted and de puffed with the skinny confidential mint roller. Go to shopskinnyconfidential.com to shop the limited colorway now. Your Action Plan for Optimal Thyroid Function OK, let's give everyone the blueprint of what to do. If they're listening and they think they have a thyroid issue or they want to taper off or they want to try other things. Can you give us a list that they could write down right now of what you would do if it were you? Yes. Speaker 2 So obviously the full thyroid panel, you can look, you can find our optimal ranges. I share them. You can find them at gift.modernthyroidclinic.com. I can also say them out loud if you want. So that and then #3 for hypothyroidism is consider going on AT3 based Med in addition to levo instead of levo. Whatever it is, it's unique per person for Hashimoto's, the autoimmune disease associated with hypothyroidism that can be reversed with lifestyle. OK, you can put that into remission. I'm in remission. Minimally, you can reduce your antibodies. I would say if I had to pick #1 takes selenium 200 micrograms everyday. Research shows that reduces antibodies #2 use glutathione, our body's most potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory. You can do it orally. Sometimes they even have people put glutathione on their thyroid gland transdermally. It works great #3 is red light therapy about 6 inches from your thyroid. And it has been shown to reduce antibodies and even improve conversion. So improve the activation of those hormones 10 minutes twice a day in a perfect world. Change your diet. So I like to test people's inflammatory food responses, but number one is dairy. So the number one most common food group that I see causing these people's inflammations, dairy, number 2 is gluten. So pick one of those. Check your antibodies on day 0, go gluten free. Check them on day 90 and see if they've reduced. How do you check your? Speaker 1 Antibodies you do you do a blood test. Can't we think of something else other than the blood test? If you can, you like please can we do a saliva test? What is with these blood tests? Everyone wants to do a blood test all the time. I know we have everything someone. Speaker 2 Needs to invent. Speaker 1 Something I thought Elizabeth Holmes was on it. I know. Speaker 2 I mean, bummer about that. Come on, Can. Speaker 1 We do saliva. I would rather shit in a box and send it off than do a blood test. So. Speaker 2 Here's the thing. Thyroid's nuanced, my friend. If guessing is throwing darts at a dart board blindfolded hoping to hit a bullseye, you don't want me to guess to do like 12. Speaker 1 Vials of blood, can we? Oh, I don't need. Speaker 2 12 How many do you need just for thyroid? Yes, maybe 2 at most. OK, I hope. Speaker 1 I'm I'm praying to the universe that the blood test that I did already has your whole 20 lists. Speaker 2 Of things I know Boo me too. I'm praying. Accessing Expert Thyroid Care and Future Collaborations To the universe, if someone wants to work with you specifically, I'm sure you're booked and busy. Speaker 2 What do they do? Yeah. So we are nationwide at this point, virtual practice. We started here in Austin and ended up with like a 9000 person wait list. So now here we are, we're in 48 states. We have clinicians that this is their life's work in the same way that it's my life's work. And all of them also have a thyroid condition themselves, so they know exactly what it's like to sit because the whole world. Speaker 1 Has one right True. Speaker 2 Right. So you can find us at modernthyroidclinic.com. OK, we want to change the landscape of thyroid for good. What if? Speaker 1 Someone wants to work with you. That's the question we're going to be asked. Like me. Yeah. Well. Speaker 2 I will work with you. Oh yes, I will do that. There are like it's on a case by case basis. I really haven't taken new patients for the last few years, but I have somehow circulated the Hollywood scene and I get this question a lot. So I will, I will figure out a way to have people work with me and set up a system again that I've previously shut down, but I'll make it happen. You need like. Speaker 1 An avatar that's like a program or something that people can the. Speaker 2 Closest thing. Speaker 1 Right, I do have. Speaker 2 One of those you can actually go on our website and you can talk to me. OK, that's cool endlessly and I've checked it, it's pretty, pretty damn accurate. The closest thing we have for people working with me is we have a VIP Elite program that's the like very, very intensive. I oversee every case. We have a retreat together once a year. It's pretty magical. That is probably the closest thing as of right now to working with me. But my clinicians are amazing. They're incredible. I'm sure they're. Speaker 1 Amazing. If you're OK by you, I'm manifesting that you come back on the show like towards the end of December and I don't have brain fog and I can talk to Michael at 8:00 because we're not going 8:00 instead of 10 Yeah, no, the. Speaker 2 Fact that you are out of Commission from 7:00 PM to 10:00 AM is wild No 7. Speaker 1 AM. Speaker 2 Right, but you don't you can't like you can't do anything really till 10 till you do everything else to tell you I, I'm. Speaker 1 Out of Commission mentally, I feel like like I could not do AI mean I could do a podcast, but it would be pulling teeth from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM. All right, Lauren. Speaker 2 So I got a book coming out in February. Bill, I'm going to change Your life and you'll have me back on and. Speaker 1 We'll talk about your book deal. Speaker 2 That's literally. Speaker 1 I mean, it couldn't have worked out better. I swear. Everything's happening for you. That's like 6. Speaker 2 Months from now 66. Speaker 1 Months is a long time, right? Yeah. Speaker 2 We're golden, so. Speaker 1 I'm not going to make the excuse that I'm postpartum, so my should not. Speaker 2 We're a year out from that. No sister, come to me. Let me help you because. Speaker 1 What I've thought, and we mentioned this earlier, but I've had three kids, so I'm kind of just always postpartum, you know what I mean? Yeah, No, I. Speaker 2 I have women tell me consistently they feel better postpartum 2 months out than they did before they ever had kids OK when I. Speaker 1 Fix this. Very interesting. Yeah, I'm very into this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on. What's your Instagram handle for everyone to say hi at McCall? Speaker 2 MacPherson, PA. Thank you. Speaker 1 McCall.