← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
562. The Unknown Trauma Affecting Your Thyroid Function and Hormone Balance with Dr. Aimie Apigian
00:48:05
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Whether it came from stored trauma, whether it comes from our environment, it's all still contributing to nervous system dysregulation, being in survival mode. And this is the predictable outcome. It always creates disease. Always.
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Welcome to the Thyroid Fixer podcast, where we dive deep into the world of thyroid and hormones. Especially for you ladies navigating perimenopause and menopause, and really for anyone struggling with hypothyroidism. I'm your host, Dr. Amy, thyroid and.
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Hormone specialist and CEO of a global.
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Telemedicine practice where we prescribe the right thyroid treatment and bioidentical hormones to all 50 states and most of Canada, helping.
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You become that badass human that you're meant to be.
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So if you're battling weight gain and hair loss, you can't lose weight no matter what you do. Your energy levels are plastic plummeting and.
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Your libido left town.
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Then you're in the right place and you have found your tribe.
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Remember, I want you to embrace every inch of that badass woman that you truly are.
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So if you're ready to dive in.
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And fix things, let's get started. Are you absolutely frustrated with working with doctors that keep telling you that you're normal and everything is fine, or are you frustrated with going the functional medicine or integrative medicine route and you're still not getting optimized? Maybe because they're focusing on other things other than the thyroid and hormones or they're not a thyroid and hormone expert. Listen, just because you go to a functional medicine practitioner, it does not mean they know what they're doing with your thyroid and with your hormones. They might tell you they do, but the reality is, if you claim to be good at everything, you're really good at nothing. That is why we focus on thyroid and hormones now.
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Yes.
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What else is involved in thyroid and hormones? You got insulin, you, your adrenals, you got cortisol. Of course the gut is important. Of course it is. Nutrient deficiencies, all the things. But we look at all of that and the bottom line is you could do all the gut healing protocols, detoxes, adrenal fairy dust sprinkling that you want to do. And if your thyroid is in the toilet, if you're not being treated properly, if your free T3 is low, if your reverse T3 is high, if your hormones are in the tank, then it doesn't matter. You're going to be wasting your time, you're going to be wasting money, you're going to be throwing a bunch of supplements at it. Just getting more and more frustrated and getting supplement fatigue. You need to work with people that will hold your hand, actually care about you, ask you how you're feeling, not have a cap on any kind of dosing. Oh, that drives me crazy too. All those docs out there that say, well, you can't go above XYZ dose of T3, that it's complete BS. Do not listen to them. Or doctors that tell you that hormones cause cancer. No, no, do not listen. We can get you to Optimization Land where you feel amazing, where you're not gaining weight, looking sideways at a brownie, where you have consistent energy through the day, your hair is not falling out, and yes, you actually poop and detox every single day. That is a win. So you're going to want to book a call with my team. And this is totally free. And this is where we go over, hey, what have you tried? What has worked, what hasn't worked, where are you at on the frustration spectrum? And here's how we can help. And we are going to tailor a program for you and your needs to get you to Optimization Land. Because I always talk about it. It's a beautiful place to live, and I invite you all to join me there. Because in Optimization Land, you are confident and strong. You want to go out, your brain works, you have energy, you have motivation, and you feel so good every time you get dressed. Oh, and you have a libido.
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It's a beautiful place to live.
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So I'm going to invite you to click the link below. We always put it in the show notes how to work with us. So you're going to book a free call, no obligation. We're just going to go over everything with you and at least you'll have some guidelines and know what your next steps should be. If you really want to get optimized, we got you. We've been doing this long enough. You're not a tough case. I always say that. But it is time to put you first. Because like I say, we only have so much time on this planet. Let's live it in Optimization Land because you deserve to be the badass human that you're meant to be. So I look forward to seeing you in one of our programs so we can help you level up and bring you into Optimization Land. Have you heard about the incredible health benefits of fasting? Of course you have. But do you struggle to go without food like I do? Or maybe you're a season faster and you're just looking for that next level.
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Edge.
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A 36 hour fast without skipping meals. This is amazing.
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We know that fasting turns on powerful longevity pathways.
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It promotes cellular repair, it boosts metabolic flexibility, supports cognitive health, and even helps slow the aging process.
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But let's face it, fasting for 24.
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Hours, 36 hours, 48 hours, it's not easy.
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It's not always practical and it's not easy. That's where Mimeo Health comes in. After over seven years of clinical fasting research, the team at Mimeo has developed a daily supplement that replicates those same cellular benefits without forcing your body into a true fast. Mimeo has been clinically validated in three human studies and the results are stunning.
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In just eight weeks, users experienced a.
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Reduction in biological age by over 2.5 years. That means better metabolic and cardiovascular health, sharper thinking, more autophagy and cellular regeneration. That's the kind of resilience and longevity.
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We'Re all looking for.
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As someone who understands both the science.
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And the real life challenges of fasting.
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I can honestly say MIO is changer for me. I personally have tried Mimeo and I was blown away by the energy, mental clarity and just how much easier it.
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Dr. Amy, we've had you on the show before, but it's been a long time and really, even since I've had you on, I have dealt with so many more patients and really you help open my eyes to the fact that trauma as we know it is not always what we think about it. You know how we define trauma when we hear that word, it doesn't fully encompass what it's doing to Our body, and I think as human beings, even as thyroid patients, as perimenopausal women, as menopausal women. Right now, we are in this time of hearing so much about hormones and bhrt, and I'm talking about thyropause and thyroid treatment, and then we'll hear these people talk about gut health and adrenal health and detoxes, but nobody is talking about trauma and how it actually affects our biology or affects our ability to properly heal and go all the way to that optimized state that we want to be in. So I love that we're having this discussion today because I often find that those things that we don't always think about or don't pay attention to, we push it off. That's not me. That's.
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I don't.
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I don't have trauma. That's not me. Those are the very things that we need to address in order to. To move the dial, to get from point A to point B, to figure out what's holding us back. So I'm super excited for our conversation today, and thank you so much for jumping on.
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Absolutely. Well, even just as you're saying that, I'm reminded of Kelsey. And Kelsey came in. She was just otherwise a normal patient. And she came in because she was dealing with a little bit of weight gain and metabolism issues. But, you know, as we looked at it, she had had Hashimoto's since going off to college, and then she's got this kind of chronic pain from sports injuries because she was very athletic, and she just thought that this was normal. She thought that this was life.
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And it.
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No other physician would have or had actually already asked her about her past. And yet if you ask her, she would have been like, oh, me, trauma? No, I. I don't have trauma. That's for other people. That. That's for those people who've had those types of bad, bad experiences. And yet digging deeper with just the right questions. She grew up needing to be the responsible one in her family. She grew up needing to be the one who was actually taking care of her brother because her mother would get drunk and then do some things that weren't always great and would put them into danger. Sometimes she had to learn how to drive younger than other kids because she didn't trust her mother's driving when she was under the influence. And so just looking at her upbringing again, she never would have used that word, trauma. Because when we look back at our own life, it's so easy to downplay something and Be like, I mean, that was just my childhood. It wasn't trauma. I wasn't beaten. I wasn't abandoned. Those are the words that we associate with trauma. And yet, actually, when we look at the science of it, as you're saying, the science of it is that our body goes into this place of survival with things that we would not always associate with the word trauma, but the effect is the same. Hashimoto's is never normal, especially even in your early 20s, that's not normal. And so even just looking at the impact of trauma and trauma biology on the thyroid and the increase in the reverse T3 and making the active thyroid hormones less effective, this is what trauma does for us. And unless we know that association, we do go down this rabbit hole of, is it gut? Is it adrenals? Is it this? Am I missing this supplement? Oh, no. This is the magic supplement that I've been missing and not realizing that actually what it all is is the nervous system. And the nervous system, our body never got the message that the danger is over. It still thinks that the danger is here. So it has still kept us in survival biology, survival responses, survival patterns. And when we can learn to recognize these patterns, like you say, they're not always ones that we would know to associate with trauma. So when we can recognize them, it helps us know. I need to do some nervous system healing and regulation here, and then everything downstream will become more balanced, and I won't need to chase one thing or the other, because it will just be everything that is more balanced than more effective, even with the protocols that we're. That we're implementing now.
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Real quick, what you describe Kelsey went through to. To me, to the listeners, we would go, damn, that's a lot for a young person to take on. That would be, in my mind, considered a big T, right? We hear those terms, big T, little T, big trauma, little trauma. Now, I want to ask you your opinion about that, because I'm actually kind of wondering, should we even be classifying trauma as big and small? Because it's. It's perception. It's perception to that person, to Kelsey, that trauma of literally having to step in and become an adult with an alcoholic mother who does God knows what when she drinks too much. That's huge. But to her, it was like, well, no, that's just childhood, you know, just went with the punches, whatever. So I guess my dual Questions for you, Dr. Amy, is, number one, should we even be using the big T, little T to define trauma? And then how is that that our perceptions of trauma are so all over the place.
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Yeah, it's been a. A bit of a chaotic. Let's either call everything trauma or nothing trauma, and then, no, let's try to classify it and. And that way everybody can be included.
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Okay. It's the inclusivity piece. I got it right.
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The me too movement in trauma. So this is actually where I decided to start with my book was saying there is one response that the body has to trauma. So it doesn't matter whether that trauma was a car accident or that trauma was a sexual abuse or just your entire childhood. The body only has one trauma response. And so that's how we can really define a trauma, is did it create a trauma response response in your physiology? If it didn't go through those five steps I lay out in chapter one, well, then it would have just been a stress for you. And stress is very different. We can work with it differently. It takes different tools than a trauma. A trauma and stress are very different. And that's part of the science that I lay out in my book so that we can start calling it what it is. If it's stress, well, then let's work with stress in this manner. But if it's trauma, then let's work with it in this manner. And here's how to know that your body went into a trauma response response in that moment with that experience.
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Okay, so can you give us the steps to look for or how we can determine? Or is that kind of giving away the book?
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That's just chapter one. So, no, I'm not giving away the book, just chapter one. But that's where I decided that I needed to start the reader, because everything else really hinges on that. I had actually intended to have that be later in the book, warm people up with this idea that the body can experience trauma. And then I'm like, no, we're just coming out of the gate. Here it is. Here is your body's trauma response. The first step is the startle. Now, this seems obvious, but yet it's actually one of the most overlooked steps where we can have a turning point and not let something progress into trauma. But most of us are not paying attention to our startle responses. We get startled all the time, Whether our phone ringing or buzzing, and we didn't expect it, or the doorbell ringing, or we see something on our phones or TV that like, whoa, wasn't expecting to see that, whatever that is. So we have these startle moments, but we are not paying attention to those. And so we're letting those build over time. But it always starts with a startle. And the startle is that first moment when our nervous system recognizes that something might be off. And it's that twist in your gut that says something doesn't feel right, something doesn't look right, something doesn't sound right, whatever it is. And it's always some information coming into our senses. So what we see, what we hear, what we taste, what we smell, what we feel, all of those are our senses. And our nervous system is programmed to remember everything from our past that would help inform us, does this seem normal or does this not seem normal? So the moment that it says this seems off, this seems like it could be dangerous, then it engages our sympathetic nervous system, but in a way in which it makes us hypervigilant. And it releases a hormone called noradrenaline that's prepackaged in our tissues. That's what makes us jump. And so we. We jump even before we realize that we're jumping. And I think many people can remember instances where they've heard something, even. Even something that ended up being fun, like their child jumping out from behind the corner to scare them. And you jump before you even realize that you're jumping. Because that's just what your body does. That's how fast your body is primed to go into survival mode. So it's interesting that we have about 15 seconds in this startle physiology, and then something has to happen. And either we've realized that we're not in danger, it was just our kids, and we pick them up and we cackle and then we tickle them and we do the whole co regulation and we both come back to a sense of safety and we're good, our body has shifted out of that survival response. But if that's not the case, if either we confirm that, no, this is a danger, or we still don't know, we haven't yet figured out, well, then that is now a danger. And so we move into the stress step. So stress is the second step. This is a very active process. So this is now driven by adrenaline, and adrenaline is the making us move. So I want people to think about the high energy of adrenaline. You're super focused. You are thinking so clearly, and your muscles are the strongest that they will ever be. That's the adrenaline. That's the gift of adrenaline. That's why many people become adrenaline junkies. They love this feeling of being in the stress step. And we're going to stay there as long as we're able to make that amount of Energy that our body's asking us to. And so it's interesting to know that the amount of adrenaline is really the amount of energy that is being asked of our cells and our mitochondria to make. So if we have just a little bit of adrenaline, well, then our mitochondria just need to create a little extra energy. But if there's a lot of adrenaline, our mitochondria are needing to make a lot of energy or ATP. So it's based on the amount of adrenaline. And the amount of adrenaline that our sympathetic nervous system releases is based on the size of the danger that we see. This is where things become very interesting, because we can be responding to dangers that aren't actually there. But we've created a story. We've created a danger that feels huge. And because it feels huge, we. We are secreting a ton of adrenaline. And it actually is just a story or belief that we hold. It's not actually happening. This is what happens when we even go into the stories of our past. All of a sudden we're back in that story, and this danger feels huge. And so the adrenaline is huge. And. And yet it's actually not happening. Like we're an adult now, and that was when we were a child, but yet we're back in that moment and still feeling and recreating that whole internal experience. So here's what then happens, is that we reach a point where we've either successfully overcome the danger and we can relax, we can recover, we can rest because we've successfully overcome. But what happens if we can't? Then that is the next step in the trauma response. I call this step hitting the wall. And hitting the wall refers to this moment where you cannot do anything else. You have done your best, and you have tried to fight, you've tried to run away, you've tried all of the things that you can do, and now there's nothing else for you to do. That's the important distinction between a stress response. You're doing something, and a trauma response, which is, I'm giving up and there's nothing left for me to do. And at that moment, when we hit the wall, our nervous system says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. If running away or fighting is not going to be successful, then I've got to switch survival strategies. And so now I'm going to go into the fourth step, which is the freeze. I'm going to paralyze you for a moment. And this freeze response is due to the shock of us realizing, I'm trapped. I'M powerless. Wow. And there's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can do. It's the shock of that that causes the freeze response. And then the body, our physiology says, well, that's not sustainable. So I'm going to take it one step further and I'm just going to shut everything down. And that's when we feel the energy drain. We feel the shame, we feel the heaviness. Now we feel like we just want to curl up into a ball because there's nothing else for us to do. And in that moment, we feel so alone. Even if there are people around, we feel all alone in that experience. And that is part of being in that trauma response. So then there's these survival mechanisms and then the patterns come out of that as it becomes chronic. But those are your five steps for how the body goes from feeling like it's a normal everyday life to something's wrong, something is definitely wrong. And I need to take action. I've done my best and it wasn't enough. I can't believe what's happening. I need to shut down to survive.
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So I know the listeners are hearing you just as I am and literally thinking of a time in their life where their body went through and their mind went through that process. And every step, as you were explaining, is so impactful. It's like you can, you can feel it. You go, oh, yep. Oh, yeah. I remember when I was there. I remember that too. I was also thinking of it from a biological standpoint. So literally, as you were talking, Amy, I was thinking, and then the body is pumping out excess cortisol in that beginning stage and it's, it's just high cortisol. High cortisol, adrenal adrenaline and cortisol and, and norepinephrine and everything is elevated. And you're running on that, that fuel source that is not sustainable. It's, it's a, it's a high burn. It's like a high burn fuel source. It'll get you from point A to point B really quickly, but eventually it's, it, it's not going to get you from point A to point Z because you're going to lose gas and put her out and stall. Then I'm thinking as you're talking, how. Then the body just gives up. And then there comes the reverse T3 elevation. That's going to put your body in survival mode. It's going to just shut it down. You don't need to burn fat, grow your hair, have energy, make major decisions, get through your day, you don't even need to poop. Technically, you just lie there and deal with your body shutting down because you are now helpless. And there is nothing you can do because you are stuck. And the body responds to that. So literally, as you're talking, I'm paralleling this with what is occurring internally as it relates to our health, our thyroid, our hormones, just our whole longevity and vitality and enjoyment of life as well.
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A
And this is exactly why I wanted to write this book. This is not the training that you and I got in medical school. And yet this is what people need to know, that when they experience situations that feel overwhelming, that leave them feeling like I'm a failure, I'm not enough. It is creating a biology in them. It's not just these are my emotions. It's not just I've formed these beliefs about myself. This has become your biology. And now you're trying to become healthier. You're trying to improve your metabolism, you're trying to improve your gut and your detox, and nothing is working well. You. And of course it's not working well because your biology is still stuck in this trauma state. It's become a chronic state where you are still living in fear, you're still living in insecurity. And that's not going to change until we know how to do the nervous system work. And how would we know that? Well, when you wake up in the morning and your first thought is, wow, isn't it great to be alive? Can hardly wait to see what this day brings. That's when I know that your nervous system is in the state that is helping you be in your best health. But as long as you're waking up and your first thought is, shit, yeah.
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Like most of us, right?
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That tells me that this is your inner state. Now, it is true that you can come in, you can say, but, Dr. Amy, I just change my thoughts when I think those things. Well, that's fine. You can change your thoughts, but it doesn't change the biology that created that thought. And that's what we need to go to. That's the root level that is still going to drive your physical health, your reverse T3, your autoimmunity. For some people, this is what's driving that. It's not the thought that's creating that. It's your trauma biology that's just creating the thought, creating these expressions in your health, creating the problems in your relationships. You can kind of do the inventory across your life to see where all of these patterns are showing up. And realize this is the pattern of chronic trauma.
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So you're saying that trauma is. It becomes biology. So, of course we can think about it from thyroid dysfunction. And I want you to share what you have found working with people as it relates to thyroid. But before we go there, I'm going to go a little bit bigger. And I know everybody wants to. To tiptoe around the C word and cancer, but I can't tell you the amount of messages I got when I announced that I had uterine cancer. Have you looked at your trauma? You know, do you have stored trauma? And, you know, of course I pushed it off. I was like, no, it's not that.
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That's not going to cause the cancer.
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It's going to be the glyphosate that's being sprayed down the road on some crops, and then it's going to be my genetics, and it's going to be this and it's going to be that. But I didn't really go deep enough and think about could it be actually stored trauma that caused my cells to morph into, like, frankincense, essentially? And that's what cancer is. Let's start there and then go to thyroid. What have you seen in working with people that either have active or overcame and are survivors of a cancer journey as it relates to trauma?
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A
There have been many who have come into my program after having their cancer and some during their cancer treatments because they felt that there was a connection and they wanted to do that deeper work now before waiting to see, well, what else happens? So, Amy, you and I are good friends. When was the first time in your life that you remember feeling terrified?
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I would say going all the way back. This memory just sticks in my mind for some reason. I was. I'm in my bedroom. I'm. I think it's in a crib, actually, and having a little night light on. And every time I would hear a noise, I would say, if anyone's there, they can come in. If anyone's there, come in. And it's like, I just wanted somebody to come in my room and be with me, but there was nobody there. So that. And then, you know, layer upon that, I would say, going through my scoliosis surgeries at the age of 11 and then again 14 and. And just all of the, you know, the brace that I had to wear and the shame going to school with this hard brace on. So there was a couple times, I mean, I would say really, really early on, and then a bigger T would be, you know, my having rods put into my spine at the age of 11 during a 12 hour surgery and being in pain after that and wearing the brace and. And all of those things that came with it.
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All of those things that came with it, yeah.
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So this is something crazy that I learned about electrolytes that I did not know before. Low sodium diets, you know, when you cut back on your salt, can actually contribute to insulin resistance. So number one, we don't want that. We know that that is going to definitely increase our weight. Low potassium status suppresses your growth hormone, your anti aging hormone, and that even just having low thyroid function disrupts your electrolyte excretion. So I mean, if your magnesium is low, we know that that's going to interfere with thyroid T4 to T3 conversion. Now you have this whole electrolyte excretion issues that you're pushing out more electrolytes, but you need to keep them in for that conversion. I'm telling you, the data is crazy on the importance of electrolytes. So I use the OG of electrolyte powders. Element number one, because they taste absolutely freaking amazing. I want to use probably too many packets in a day, quite honestly, because I keep putting them in my water because they taste that good. But of course I also know that I'm getting my balance of electrolytes. And in the summer I need more. Even in the winter when I'm skiing and snowboarding, I'm sweating that all out. You need more. So if you want to try some of these amazing, just amazing electrolytes and actually feel the difference, I mean, you will feel the difference. You'll feel more energized, you won't cramp up and you will get better. Sleep with this as well. I'm telling you, definitely better sleep. Go to drink lmnt.com so spell out drink D R I N K L M N T.com Thyroid and this is going to save you some money. You can get the sample box, you can try all the different flavors. My absolute favorite.
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C
Just side note, grapefruit and orange.
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B
Drinklementi.com Thyroid Are you familiar with the.
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A
Idea that scoliosis is related to perfectionism?
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B
No, I have not heard that yet.
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A
Would that surprise you?
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B
No, it would not.
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Not at all.
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A
So, I mean, I can be making up stuff, but I've seen this pattern so many times, Amy, that when we are really young, we are terrified to be alone. Being alone when we are really young is the worst thing that can happen to us. And so for you to have that sense that I Think I was in a crib. You would have been really young and all alone and no one was coming. And yet you're even, like, making the invitation, Please come in. Even if, even if you're not a person that I know, just come in. Just come in. Just don't let me be alone. Being alone is what makes a stress become a trauma. And this is how a lot of people start to have trauma responses in their body. And even though they would never look at their childhood and be like, oh, I definitely had trauma, we can have the best parents, we can have the best intentioned parents, but they're still creating these experiences where we had these responses. And that's why I truly do believe that trauma is a human nature experience. Every human experiences a trauma response because this is just what the body does in certain circumstances that feel overwhelming. So it's not anything to be labeled as bad or not at all. It's just what the body does. It's just what the body does. Kind of like, you know, you and I got used to even being able to joke about poop even while we were eating meals. Why? Because it's just what the body does for other people who aren't so used to working with that, they're like, ew, gross. Like, that's bad. Don't talk about that. And for us, we're like, it's just what the body does. We're so used to it because of being a doctor that it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just what the body does. Same thing with the trauma response. It's just what the body does. And especially being able to look at when we were young, even when we're old. Well, probably both. Yeah. When we're really young and when we're really old, being alone is the most terrifying thing. And so then sometimes we can come to the conclusion we can have a part of us that develops that says, I know how to not be alone. I just need to be perfect. And then we start these survival patterns. I need to be perfect. I need to bring home the good grades. I need to be the pretty girl. I need to do this, I need to do that. Because, well, if I'm not, I'll be all alone again. And we go back to that place of that's terrifying. It's not just scary, it's terrifying. And so to not be perfect feels like a life threat. I feel like I would die if I'm not perfect. Because that's what happens when people are all alone. They die. And so very early on, we can develop these roles. Right. For Kelsey, it was being the responsible one. If I'm not responsible, if I don't take care of my mother, I might die, because I'm going to be all alone. She's going to die. She's going to leave us. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know that I'm going to be all alone. And so I'm going to become the responsible one. Maybe for you, you became the perfect one. And this is all the ways in which it started to show up. Scoliosis, right. Like medical school and the pushing yourself and all of the things and probably things that I still don't know about you, even though we've been good friends for years. Because this is how these patterns show up in our life. They're not just going to show up in one place. It's going to show up in lots of places. So then we look at something like cancer. And I'm going to be the first to tell you. It is a combination of our past experiences and how early we started experiencing trauma responses. And it's also the glyphosate down the road, and it's also this and it's also that. So it becomes the perfect storm. And that's really what I cover in my book, is that it's not just that trauma becomes our biology, it's that our biology, even the exposures that we have to the pesticides, to the toxic radiation, to all of that that's in our world, that creates nervous system dysregulation as well. And so whether it came from stored trauma, whether it comes from our environment, it's all still contributing to nervous system dysregulation being in survival mode. And this is the predictable outcome. It always creates disease, always. And so it's going to be both. It's going to be, how do I reduce my exposures and how do I improve my nervous system so that the exposures that I do have, it has more of the ability to clear those out. Because my detoxification pathways are working well, because my lymphatic system is working well. All of those things that shut down because we're in trauma biology now.
- [35:26]
B
That makes sense.
- [35:27]
A
Okay.
- [35:27]
B
So for a person like myself, I'm not going to go to talk therapy. I'm not going to rehash why I felt alone at the age of three in my crib. You know what I mean? Let's just talk about it and talk about it and not resolve anything. Yeah, I think everybody has Done some form of talk therapy. And maybe somebody listening is like, hey, listen, it saved my marriage, whatever, that's fine. But my opinion of it, and I'm gonna turn it and ask you as well, even though I think I know your answer, my opinion is you're just like vomiting up your trauma and eating it all over again. I mean, and know that's a disgusting kind of visual, but that's what I mean. Trauma's nasty. So let's just like talk about it and talk about it and relive it and trigger our body to send that cascade of inflammation and high cortisol and shutting down and elevator reverse D3, three once a week while paying $150 an hour for it. Like, it doesn't. It doesn't even make sense to me. But what is your opinion on talk therapy? To deal with trauma and then what do we actually do about it? To deal with it.
- [36:35]
A
Oh, so good. So this is. We want to look at it in terms of are we resolving trauma? Because we can have past traumas, and if they are resolved, they don't lead to problems. They don't continue to give us problems. They don't continue to make us sick. Resolved trauma is just that. It's allowed to be a memory in the past that no longer affects us and creates problems in our life. So we're really looking at unresolved trauma then being the issue and we need to look at is what we're doing actually bringing resolution? That's going to be a very individual question for me as well. I had the experience that most of the talk therapy that I was going to seemed to only stir things up, but not resolve. And the impact on me was that at that time, I was so deep into my own chronic health issues that I was having flare ups of my fatigue, of my thyroid issues, of my autoimmunity. When I would have these talk therapy sessions and stir things up, and it was my way of knowing I'm not actually resolving this stuff. Yeah, that's how I knew I wasn't resolving this, because it was still actually creating flare ups of my physical health. So if it makes me feel worse, it's not working. How's that for a simple equation?
- [37:59]
B
Yeah.
- [37:59]
A
And here, mentally, I had this idea that if I go in and I do a bunch of crying, that means that I did a bunch of releasing and that was a good session. And that's not true because those were the sessions that I found myself curled up on the couch and a ball with a tub of ice cream. An hour later, Right. And it's like, wait a second. If I actually resolve that and let that go and release that, like, why am I, with this tub of ice cream, finding solace and relief in numbing these emotions? And it's because I wasn't doing it the right way. And the right way. So now let's talk about. That would be a way in which we can not overwhelm ourselves in the process of opening back up to life. And when we've experienced trauma, we go into protection mode. We stay guarded regarding our heart. We're guarding our gut. We're guarding, we're bracing, we're tensing. We're always waiting for that next shoe to drop. So the healing journey is about being able to let that bracing go and to open back up to life, which, if we don't know how to do that, is the most terrifying thing. And our body will block us, which is what the tub of ice cream was about. The tub of ice cream was saying, we're not ready to feel this stuff. We're not actually ready to open up because we don't know how to do anything different. And so I was trying to do things in the good things, perhaps, but just in the wrong order. And what I needed to do first was actually create the safety to open up. I have to make it safe for myself to open up or my body will block the process. And so what I do now is that I help people create that safety for themselves. And then when it is time to work on stories of the past, we work on the story without going into the story. And there is a way to work on the story in a way that's not just going to re traumatize us and put us back into those emotions and stir up the problem without resolution. But we have to create the safety first. And most people don't know how to do that. Amy Most people actually don't know how to create the safety that they need to open up. They just feel like it's two choices, either stay guarded or open up. Open up. Sounds terrifying. Okay, I'll stay guarded. Because they don't know how to create the safety to open up. So this is where a lot of people then try to go faster and try to force this change and force the opening up, and that actually makes things worse as well. And so being able to go slower to create that safety first is what allows us to go faster later on. Because when we create the safety, then we don't have to fight our body when it's time to Open up. We've made it safe to open up. But that's not the first step. And that's what most people don't know how to do, because they don't even know how to work with their nervous system. They're still at the mercy of their nervous system. And wherever their nervous system is going into whatever story of the past or belief about themselves, that's where they're going. And they're all in. And being able to become the expert in their nervous system and say, no, this is where we're going. And this is how to get back to this felt sense of, I'm safe enough right here. That's the most important thing that I see that my patients have been able to do for their physical health. And none of my patients ever came in knowing how to do that. This is just not what people are taught.
- [41:26]
B
No, it's absolutely not. We're taught the complete opposite. And not only taught it, but it's pounded in our heads through media and tv, movies, television shows, everything from your neighbor down the street. Like, that's basically what we have been taught as to, this is how you deal with anything bad that's happened to you. And let me even go one step further. You mentioned our thoughts, our anxieties, the stories that we're telling, whether they are just perceptions of something bad that's happening or will happen, or whether it really is a situation in life going on. You're saying that, and you actually address this, how depression and anxiety are not just thoughts or emotions, but it's also the biology that's related to the trauma. And obviously, thyroid patients, perimenopausal ladies. I mean, as soon as our hormones start to change, our progesterone drops. We experience more anxiety to a situation than we normally would. Our thyroid is low. We experience more anxiety and depression. Our brain just isn't working. But you're beautifully bringing everything together and you're going, well, yeah, not just that low progesterone, not just that low thyroid. There's something else going on, too. It's tied together, but there's something a lot deeper.
- [42:46]
A
And the lot deeper is really coming down to our default responses to stress. And so when we've been through these trauma responses and we have these experiences wired into our programming now, it changes how we respond to problems. It changes how we respond to change. And so how have we navigated change? What has been our relationship to change? Because that's really what perimenopause is as well. It's a change. And so when we can look at our life and say, oh, yeah, like, I haven't been one that's handled change with grace, whether it was I had to move or whether that was moving where I live or moving in a job or just a change with a relationship with someone, whether that was a romantic someone or whether that was a change in the relationship with a friend or a child or my parents dying, there's life is full of change. And so one of the key ways that we can see and almost predict, like, how am I going to navigate, what are my symptoms going to be like with menopause? Well, how does your body handle change? And for many, the amount of trauma that we have unresolved has impacted our ability to navigate change with health and with flexibility. And that's exactly what will happen with menopause. Our body is not equipped. It doesn't have the capacity to be flexible and healthy with change. It's been rigid and reactive. And that's what we're seeing with a lot of people as they navigate perimenopause. This is the pattern. It's just the pattern. It's just another way the pattern is expressing itself.
- [44:25]
B
So are you literally seeing women who maybe they've worked with you, they've gone through your program, they're going into that perimenopause menopausal state with ease, with grace, with, like, no symptoms? They're like, yeah, no, I'm. I'm good. And then you see people that maybe haven't gone through your program or just starting or just on the struggle bus, and their transition is a lot rougher. I mean, you've actually seen the two sides of the coin 100%.
- [44:56]
A
This is the. The result of nervous system work. The nervous system is the system that is responsible for navigating change. So when we can work on that system, well, then all of our changes will be handled with more grace, with more flexibility. If we're not doing that nervous system work, our pattern of responses to change will always be the same.
- [45:21]
B
See, I'm even wondering. I'm just sitting here thinking about. Every so often, we'll have two sides of the coin with a thyroid patient where I'll look at a set of lab values and I'll say, oh, my gosh, you must. You must be struggling with your weight, and you must be so tired and feel so bad. And they go, no, I really don't have that many symptoms. I'm okay. And then you'll look at another set of labs.
- [45:45]
A
Wow, this really looks good.
- [45:46]
B
You're on the right track. And that person's, no, I'm not losing any weight, I'm still tired. It's like, wait, why? And just in this conversation alone, it's, it's, it started shifting my perception to maybe not necessarily go deeper with more labs and more testing, but let's have a discussion about kind of where you're at and what is your trauma. And have you read Dr. Amy Pigian's book yet? Because I think you need to maybe take a course. Because it could be as, I don't want to simplify it and say as simple as. But it could be as simple as, this is the next step in uncovering why you're not getting better when all of your numbers say you should be, or why you are overcoming symptoms when your numbers say that you should be on the couch, they're in the toilet. You know, it's very interesting. You're totally opening up my mind to look at patients differently.
- [46:45]
A
Well, what I have found really helpful is giving them a nervous system journal to fill out. And so I teach them these three states that we can be in and then I send them home with three day journal to fill out. And about every hour on the hour, I ask them to pause and just mark on the graph. Where is your nervous system right now? Is it in parasympathetic and you're feeling calm and alive and creative? Or are you in the stress zone and you've got high energy and you're worried about something and you're anxious and you're doing something about it? Or are you in that heavy exhaustion shame place? I need to know where your nervous system is at so I can give that context to the numbers that I'm looking at on your lab panel. Without that, I don't know. There's so much that I don't know. And it also allows them to see how much time they are spending in either stress or overwhelm. It gives them that eye opening moment to say, whoa, this explains so much much. And now I see that part of the work that I need to do is to get myself into parasympathetic and stay there as much of the time during the day. And then they start noticing the difference and after that they're sold. I don't need to convince them anymore of like, hey, you should really do your somatic exercises. Hey, you should really do this. They are so motivated because they have seen the difference between living in stress or overwhelm and actually living in a state of feeling safe, safe and secure. And the Effects that it has on how they feel regardless of their labs.
- [48:21]
B
Yes, yes.
- [48:22]
A
And actually I share that nervous system journal with those who order the book. So I've got a link to that in chapter two.
- [48:27]
B
I was just gonna ask you about that. How can people. I'm assuming that you put that in the book so people can grab that and then there's so much more. So talk about what inspired you to write this book, what people can get from it and then obviously what, where they can find it. Because at the time of this release it's either out or they can at least pre order it. And it will be out within days.
- [48:50]
A
Yes, it is actually coming out September 23rd. So we are just on the cusp of that. And why I wrote this book. I really wrote this book, Amy, for those people like me who would never have said, oh yeah, I've got trauma, but yet I've got physical health issues, I've got relationship challenges, I seem to self sabotage myself. I have these coping mechanisms that I don't want, like what I do and I've struggled with perfectionism and yet I don't have trauma. These are all the patterns. These are all the patterns. And for me, it really kind of goes back to my experience being a foster parent and then adoptive parent and learning to recognize these patterns of trauma. Because then I started to recognize it in myself, started to recognize it in my patients. And that's when I realized the whole world is walking around restored unresolved trauma. We don't know it. Some of us don't know it. Some of some people do. And if they knew this, then they'd be able to do something about it. And when I finally knew that I had stored unresolved trauma, I got lost in the process because I tried. I went to what I thought was the right thing to do and this therapy and that therapy and realizing that even as a physician, I got lost on my trauma healing journey. And how many other people then don't have this information that if I could share it with them, it would help them accelerate their healing journey and they wouldn't have to be as lost and confused as I was.
- [50:19]
B
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Well, thank you for writing this book. We're going to have down in the show notes exactly where people can click on and pre order order. Now you're also, you're, you're giving people a chance to be part of the insider circle if they're pre order your book. Can you talk about that?
- [50:38]
A
Yeah. So the insider circle is something that I formed with this book. And for those who order right away, you'll be able to join me for a launch party on Wednesday, September 24th. So this will be at 12pm Pacific, and we're going to have a good old virtual zoom launch party for the book coming out. And for most people who order it on Amazon, they will get their copy by the time of that launch party, which will be very exciting.
- [51:04]
B
That is amazing. I cannot wait. Yes, I'll be there. I'll be there. And I'm excited for this book. Please tell me it's unaudible because that's how entrepreneurs read books, right?
- [51:13]
A
It is on Audible and I read it, Amy. I read my own book from start to finish.
- [51:19]
B
Well, I love that. I think authors should. I want to hear from the author. I want to hear the voice of the author. So I love that. That is, I'll still pre order the hard copy because I love having the hard copy. But I will listen to it on Audible. I cannot wait because I know this is going to help me as we just kind of unpacked a little bit there during this session, which I love. I love your questions and planted a seed in my head to really think and, and look a little bit deeper into my own life. So this is going to be a game changer for health, for people, for outlooks, for their enjoyment of life, their interactions with their loved ones. Like you said, even relational issues, and you know, those come from your past. Trauma usually doesn't have anything to do with what's going on in that moment. It's all people's past. And that can be a whole other separate podcast in and of itself when we're talking about relationships as opposed to health. But it's just so valuable. It really is. Like, I'm at a loss for words. Even though I keep talking, I, I, it, it's so valuable for every single person listening. I need them to order this book, to listen, to read it, because it's going to take you to that next level with your health and really with your life overall. So I thank you for writing a name.
- [52:33]
A
Oh, well, thank you. I'm looking forward to when your book comes out.
- [52:36]
B
Well, thank you. Yes. And like Dr. Amy Opan said, she's a dear friend of mine, colleague. But, you know, I've known her for years and I know that she, she has you in mind when she's building things, when she's writing a book, building a program, she literally has you front and center in her mind and in her heart. So this is not just oh, it's another book that's going to change your life. This is coming from such a deep, heartfelt, experiential place that I give you my word that this book will shift something in your biology, in your health, in your life, in your outlook, in your relationship. So definitely click the link below and order a copy of this book. I cannot endorse it more. Dr. Amy and Pigian, thank you so much for being on the show and for writing this for all of us, including myself.
- [53:30]
A
Thank you so much.
- [53:31]
B
All right, until next time. I want to hear everybody. I want to hear your reports. So jump over into the Just Picture Thyroid Facebook group after you read the.
- [53:39]
C
Book and let me know what you think about it.
- [53:41]
A
Until next time.
- [53:44]
B
Foreign.
- [53:48]
C
The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition treatment or before making changes to your healthcare regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. Use of the information provided in this podcast does not establish a doctor, patient or client provider relationship between you and the host or between you and any other healthcare professionals featured on the show. Any medical opinions or statements made by guests are their own and do not.
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B
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- [54:28]
C
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- [54:39]
B
Some episodes of the Thyroid Fixer Podcast.
- [54:41]
C
May include sponsorships or affiliate links. The host may receive compensation for discussing or promoting certain products or services. Any such sponsorships or affiliations will be.
- [54:50]
B
Clearly disclosed during the episode.
- [54:52]
C
All opinions expressed are those of the host or guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsors. The inclusion of a product or service does not imply endorsement by any healthcare professional featured on this podcast.