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Medical malpractice is one of their biggest fears that drives behavior. So they choose safety over actually being truthful. They choose compliance over being curious as to what will actually help their patients. It's a shame, but it's real. Welcome to the Thyroid and Hormone Fixer podcast. If you've been told everything is fine, but you're gaining weight, despite doing all the right things, struggling with brain fog, mood swings, low libido, or feeling like a stranger in your own body, you're in the right place. I'm Dr. Amy, the thyroid Fixer, and I want you to know right now, I see you, I believe you, and you don't have to figure this out alone anymore. We're going to do this together. But I'm also not here to play nice with bad medicine or empty promises. This show is meant to disrupt the entire health space. We're going to challenge the status quo, connect all the dots other providers miss and give you real practical science back. Tools you can use. Today. You're not going to get any more recycled biohacking advice. Just truth, strategy, and hope. Let's get you back to feeling like the badass human you're meant to be. Okay, ladies, are you in your 40s or 50s like I am and possibly wondering why your energy is just fell off a cliff? Well, you're not imagining it. And it's not just thyroid and hormones. A huge part of midlife fatigue happens deeper, like at the cell level because of your mitochondria. We talk about this all the time. Your mitochondria, those parts of your cells that make energy and it naturally declines with age. So I totally noticed this myself. Turned 52 in February. And of course my labs look good, I'm optimized. But sometimes I just don't feel like the same person, energy wise. So I started taking Mito pure gummies. My friend told me about it. I'm like, okay, let me try it. And it's a gummy, so it's not another pill, which is nice. So, Mitrepure gummies from timeline nutrition. These little bad boys have the clinically proven form of urolithin A, which. That's a whole big science word, right? But basically, what urolithin A is, is it helps to renew your mitochondrial function and remember your mitochondria, key driver, healthy aging, strength, stamina, and it's just simple. It's two gummies in the morning. So no more pills, no more supplement fatigue. Plus they taste good. So you're going to want to pop the gummies in the morning. It feels like I'm supporting my body at the root instead of just chasing symptoms with more caffeine or nootropics. Think of Mito Pure Urolithin A as helping your cells make energy basically the way they used to back in your 20s and 30s. So if you are experiencing midlife fatigue and it's dragging you down, this is a great place to start. Go to timeline.com T I M E L I N E just like it sounds timeline.com forward/doctor Amy-R A M I E to get up to 3939 of your Mito Pure Gummies. So that is timeline.com forward slash Doctor Amy do you want to burn fat while just sitting around? Do you want you have extra weight to lose? Do you want less inflammation? Do you want to reduce your oxidative stress? Do you want to improve your lipid panel, maybe become more insulin sensitive? And once again burn fat while you're sitting there at rest at your desk or on your couch watching Netflix? Well, now you can with the power of T2 that is in Thyroid Fixer. Now, Thyroid Fixer is not just for those with a thyroid problem. It's for any anyone looking to lose body fat to improve their metabolism to have better energy. Thyroid Fixer actually works at your mitochondrial level. So it is stimulating your metabolism. It's also activating ATP, which gives you more energy, nice and steady through the day. Here's the other really cool thing that Thyroid Fixer does. It turns on a gene that prevents fat from from accumulating all over your body. So that means, yeah, if you slip up and you have the Oreo cookie or the sweet potato fries, which are my two favorite, they're my downfalls. That is not going to put extra fat on your butt, your hips, your thighs and your abs. Oh, and your arms, you don't want those jiggly arms. So why don't you just improve your fat burning potential and actually turn on a gene that prevents fat from accumulating on your body with the power of Thyroid Fixer. So as a listener of the Thyroid Fixer podcast, your first time purchase, you can use the code listen 20L I s t n 2 0. We'll put that down in the show notes and if you've already purchased it, but you just want to save a little something, something extra, then use the code listen 10 L I s t e n 10 and grab some Thyroid Fixer. Stock up today because it will help you burn extra body fat. And who doesn't want that today we're going to talk about doctors, prescribers and the truth about this whole system. And this is a question that I get asked over and over again. Why? The question of why? Why won't my doctor write for these tests? Why won't my doctor prescribe T3? Why am I being told this misinformation? Why am I being fear mongered into taking this pill? Why? Why? Why? So I want to shed some light on these answers. Now usually when I'm being asked that, and it's a live Q and A, my very fast answer is, because that's all they've learned. And I give the story about a time many years ago, this is maybe 12 years ago, I was lecturing to a group of integrative wellness practitioners. And basically they were conventional doctors moving over into the integrative wellness space. And we were talking, of course about the missing labs, especially as it relates to thyroid. We were talking about treatment and what proper treatment is and how many doctors are stuck in the T4 only box or the Synthroid box. And I said to these doctors, I propose the question, why is it that you are in this box? Why is it that you won't include reverse T3 on these labs? And the one doctor raises his hand and says, that's all we've learned. So that's usually the answer that I give. But today I want to go deeper and look at some really foundational truths of why good people, good doctors, participate in a system that harms patients. So first of all, this isn't about evil doctors. It's not about financial coercion. Well, it is about financial coercion. It's not about bashing doctors or the medical system because they are there for a reason for those immediate acute injuries, traumas, accidents, heart attacks, breaking a leg, absolutely all day long. But when it comes to prevention or when it comes to treating something a lot deeper below the surface, that's not a break or a wound or an obvious screaming skin condition. When it comes to treating thyroid and hormones, let's face it, you need to go a little bit deeper. You need to spend time and you need to think. So first of all, insurance companies, now, I mean, this is a no brainer. You're probably nodding your head already as I say this. But we know that insurance companies literally dictate what counts as a diagnosis. So you could be going in with all of the symptoms and then your doctor, you know, test, tsh. We'll talk about labs here in a moment. And if there's not A reimbursable pathway. If there's not an ICD code, if there's not a billing justification, if something doesn't have a billable code, it doesn't actually exist in the system. Fatigue, brain fog. Those aren't reimbursable. Those are not diagnostic. Now, hypothyroidism obviously is diagnostic, but subclinical hypothyroidism isn't. So many doctors are not able to actually give you that diagnosis of Hypothyroidism unless your TSH is above a 4.5 and gets flagged high. Because remember, they've been told simply this in medical school, and we're going to get into this topic as well. They have been taught you test TSH, if TSH is above a 4.5, you give T4 medication, you send them out the door, you tell that patient, we'll recheck them in six months, period. That is literally the simplistically taught diagnostic to treatment model of hypothyroidism. But you have to have that TSH above a 4.5. Now, we know in functional medicine that anything above a 2 is indicative of hypothyroidism. So you could be still, I mean, and, and functional medicine still does. Look, especially us at advanced thyroid hormone clinic, we look at TSHs that are a 1, that are a 0.5, because we know that there can still be something more in all of the labs that should be ordered. So basically, when it comes to insurance companies, if it can't be billed, it can't be treated. If a test isn't screaming that there's an issue, it can't have a diagnostic code. It cannot have that ICV10 code. Also, in the whole realm of insurance dictation, insurance controls what labs are ordered. Doctors don't order necessarily what they want. They order what insurance will pay for. And if insurance denies a test, then either you're eating that or sometimes the doctors eat the cost. Now, you may have heard this already that we can't order that test, Susie, because your insurance won't pay for it. And then you say, well, wait a minute, has anybody actually called my insurance company? Can I call my insurance company or can I have the choice to pay out of pocket for that test? Oftentimes patients aren't even told why the doctor won't order it. They're not told, hey, Sally, insurance won't cover that. They're just told no. They're not even told the reason. Because if you're told that, hey, maybe your insurance won't Cover it, then that should be technically your option. As to whether or not your doctor orders that test, that is your choice. This is why TSH is ordered over and over again, because it is considered by the insurance company as a baseline. It's a very cheap test to order, but once you start getting into that free T3, free T4, reverse C3, and God forbid, TPO and TJ antibodies, now you're stacking up the cost. Now the insurance companies have to reimburse the lab for all of those markers. That's a lot of money. And the insurance company doesn't actually believe that those markers are important. Well, to save some bucks, let's face it, nobody at the insurance company actually has a thyroid problem, or else they would be saying that those markers are important, but they're trying to save their butts for reimbursement. And then the doctors, again, are basically being pressured to only write for those tests that insurance will cover. The other layer of testing is that doctors are often taught that if there's not a pill for what that result is, that comes back. If there's not a pharmaceutical drug for whatever that result is that comes back, then you shouldn't be ordering it. Because if there's a test for it, then you better understand how to interpret that test and you better understand how to treat. Now, if you're savvy and you've been listening to me for quite some time, you know that well, hey, wait. There is a pill. It's. It's called thyroid hormone replacement. And according to Dr. Amy, if thyroid hormone replacement is done correctly, it's going to be T4 and T3 together or a nice, like armor thyroid. Or it's going to be a compounded T4, T3, or maybe T3 only. Yeah, you're right. However, remember, the doctors were taught if TSH is above a 4.5, then we give T for only and pat you on the back and wish you luck as we kick you out the door. So if you're coming with this boatload of tests, if you're. You're actually getting your free T3 reverse T3 tested, and your doctor looks at those and goes, okay, well, everything's coming back wnl within normal limits. It's within that standard lab value range. Off to the side. Then there is no medication, there's no pill. There's no pill to give you to treat that because they don't know how to read that per functional medicine. They don't know how to look for patterns. They don't know how to look for the optimal range. They're looking for that standard lab value range. Insurance companies also audit doctors for deviation. What do I mean by that? So they are routinely audited for ordering too many labs. Ah, we're circling back now. There's not a pill. And if I order all these labs, the insurance company is going to be pissed and I'm going to get audited now. Whoa, wait. What if I order all the labs and then I prescribe outside of the guidelines of T4 only and I give this patient T3? Oh my gosh. I'm going to be audited again. And this could mean my license, this could mean my employment with a hospital. This could mean contracts with the insurance companies to cover our services. We can't piss the insurance company off and risk an audit. So it's best that we just don't order too many labs, don't prescribe outside of the Synthroid box, and for God's sake, do not by any way, shape or form spend too much time with a patient. You stay inside the lines or you pay the price. This is what doctors learn very, very quickly. A 7 to 10 minute visit is reimbursed. Anything longer than that is not. Reimbursement punishes thinking. Anyone who thinks outside the box is not going to get paid for that. A 60 minute deep dive is not going to get reimbursed. It's just not. So that doctor is essentially wasting 50 minutes of their day of not being paid if they spend an hour with you. And actually, if you're a complex case, if you're a chronic case, if you have mold, Epstein Barr virus, Lyme and Hashimoto's, if you have a hormone condition and multiple autoimmune conditions, you are considered a complex case, you are considered a chronic case and you are actually seen as financially undesirable. Do not be too sick. Do not be complex because you are a financially undesirable patient to doctors and insurance companies. So what happens next? Symptoms get compressed. The nuance art of treatment is gone, it's lost. Patients are rushed through the appointment, rushed out the door. And if you're complex, forget it. Make another appointment and another one, and another one and another one. Come back 10 different times for 10 minute appointments each. And then maybe we'll figure out your case and then I don't know if you've experienced this too, but. Well, we're not going to test that until this one comes back. So if TSH comes back high, Sally, then maybe we'll add in that free T4 and free T3. And if that comes back wonky, then maybe we'll test your antibodies, but not until. So you're going back to the lab five different times for something that could have been tested all at once. If you are exhausted, gaining weight, you have brain fog, you just feel off, and you're tired of doctor hopping and wasting money. Listen closely. So many women bounce from provider to provider, trying supplements, protocols, and then functional approaches that never truly address the thyroid. Months turn into years and you're still stuck feeling like garbage, wasting your precious life. So this is why we offer a thyroid and hormone solution call. It's not a lab review. It's not treatment. It's clarity and strategy to determine whether you're a good fit for working with our clinic. We specialize in thyroid optimization and hormone optimization together. Because they go hand in hand. You can't do one without the other. You have to do them both. We prescribe in all 50 states, and if you become a patient, we take care of you from start to finish. Testing, treatment, optimization, and ongoing support. You don't have months or years to waste feeling this way. And you shouldn't have to keep throwing money at people who don't truly understand the thyroid and hormones. So if you're ready for real help, go to doctorami.com, that's D R A M I E.com.com and click book a call in the top right corner to schedule your thyroid and hormone solution. Call and just let us help you get your life back and be that badass human that you are meant to be, that you deserve to be. Now let's go back to medical school. This is really where the brainwashing starts. And I saw it with my own eyes with a patient. So she's actually, she was a patient many years ago. Her mother and her were both patients in the practice. And I've tracked her and stayed friends with her mother ongoing through the years. And she the. The younger patient went to nursing school. Now, her mother ended up working for me, so she was deep in functional medicine. She understood it, she got it. She saw it working for her. She saw it working for the thousands and thousands of other patients that we take through the clinic. But her doctor went to traditional nursing school, medical school, training, and it was just mind blowing to actually watch unfold in front of your eyes. It's like, you know, watching a car crash happen before your eyes. This beautiful young woman who we were treating her thyroid properly, she was feeling great, goes to nursing school and learns exactly that simplistic Pattern that we already talked about. If this, then this, if TSH, then T4, T4 only. T4 only. T4 only is all you need. Recently, she hasn't been feeling that great. Symptoms of hypothyroidism are just slowly creeping back in. And her mother, with her knowledge, after working for advanced thyroid hormone clinic for a long time, tried to have a conversation with her and said, you know, sue, there's this thing called T3 that you were on before. Remember that? And remember how you actually felt a little bit better. Why don't, why don't you bring that back in? This girl went off on her mother because she is so deeply brainwashed. There's no conversing. All she needs is T4. T4 only works, Mom. Don't you know that? That's what I was taught in nursing school. So she told me this story and I said, okay, well, when she's 30 pounds heavier and can't think for herself and she's half bald and as it pooped in a week, she'll come back. She'll come back around. It's kind of like the doctor becoming the patient. There was a movie out many, many, many years ago, might have been called Doctor. I don't even know what it was called, but I remember it was a doctor who was. And then, my gosh, I mean, this is so many years ago, maybe the 80s, 90s, where the doctor became sick and the doctor was rushing treatment, pushing people through. You know, you saw him in daily practice until he himself got critically ill and actually experience what the conventional medicine system feels like, got tossed around, got mistreated, was given a taste of his own medicine, pun intended, there. So unfortunately, it starts in medical school. You are actually rewarded for memorization, for protocol adherence. You are punished if you question these guidelines, if you explore alternative options for treatment, or if you think outside the algorithmic box of medical school, you're not passing. The early lesson learned in med school is there is one right answer. Don't look for another. Now, there is pharmaceutical influence embedded in medical schools Pharma funding of medical textbooks, educational grants, continuing medical education, or CMEs, are funded by big pharma drug reps coming in, providing education, providing meals, providing samples, providing travel and trips. I remember my sister who's a geriatric doctor in the conventional system. When I was younger, in college, she was in practice and oh my gosh, she would go on the most extravagant trips and cruises, all paid for from big pharma. She would bring home full meals for our entire family, all provided by drug reps. So even when doctors deny this influence, it's happening. And behavioral psychology shows that exposure alone to these brainwashing thought processes changes prescribing behavior. The pressure will influence prescribing behavior. And that influence doesn't require the doctor saying, oh, please influence me, or the student saying, please influence me, request. Repetition, repetition, repetition will drive this into their minds, into their subconscious. And then guidelines become gospel. So guidelines in medical school are taught as evidence based. They're taught that this is the safe way to go. This is non negotiable. What's not emphasized is that these guidelines lag behind emergent research, lag actually behind the evidence that is being presented now. Case in point, the federal government has removed the black box warning on hormone replacement. And yet months later, patients are still being told that hormones are dangerous and will cause cancer. So even when the emerging evidence comes out, comes screaming out, they are still told the same thing. Deviation is not accepted. Guidelines, guidelines, following protocol, that's what's going to protect you. Now, fear really is the primary control mechanism here because if you ask any doctor, and I remember Ken Berry said this on our podcast together, the biggest fear is being sued, losing their license, being flagged, being ostracized by their peers, or being reported to the board. Medical malpractice is one of their biggest fears. That drives behavior. It drives behavior. So they choose safety over actually being truthful. They choose compliance over being curious as to what will actually help their patients. It's a shame, but it's real. Now, why do good doctors still gaslight patients? A lot of people out there have really good caring, maybe long time family doctors that really do give a shit. They really do. But this, this is the hardest truth for patients to hear. When a doctor says your labs are normal, just aging, it's just anxiety. What they actually mean is, I don't have a reimbursable answer. I don't know what else to do. I'm not allowed to go further. Now I go into this in the thyroid fix when we're talking about how to talk to your doctor, how to find a doctor, and really kind of deciphering that language of what doctors are saying. So just like we talked about earlier, when a doctor says you don't need that lab marker tested, the underlying message beneath the surface is your insurance won't cover it. I might be penalized for ordering too many tests. I don't have a pharmaceutical drug necessarily, more so a band aid medication for low free T3. Now I can give you an antidepressant just based on your symptoms alone. I can give you a statin if your cholesterol just eeks over 200. I can give you a PPI medication if you tell me that you have heartburn. But I cannot give you a thyroid hormone replacement therapy medication if your TSH is within normal range. And if we test that free T3 and I get penalized for it, I also can't order anything else because you're within normal range of that free T3. So now I'm going to get penalized for ordering it. And there's no drug because it's within normal limits. Unfortunately, it's this cognitive dissonance that keeps the system intact. Doctors truly do believe they are helping. They do. It's like the lie that you tell yourself over and over and over again. You will believe that lie. They really do believe that they are helping, and many times they are. Sometimes they aren't. Because when patients keep getting worse and they keep coming back over and over again saying, hey, I'm still not feeling good, again, they're dismissed or their symptoms are reframed as psychological. This patient has psychosomatic symptoms. It's all in their head. And this is where the gaslighting comes in. And this protects the provider's identity and it protects the system. At the same time, symptoms without labs threaten this whole entire model. The medical model prioritizes objective data, measurable disease, those ICD10 codes, diagnostic codes. Early dysfunction is subjective. It's just you and your symptoms. And it's invisible on those standard lab panels because you're not going to get flagged. We're looking at it at from the standpoint of standard lab value ranges within normal limits. So the reality is you as the patient will feel symptoms before the labs change. And this is where we need to intervene. And this is really where functional medicine intervenes. However, functional medicine can also epically fail. Epically fail. Functional medicine is still a business. The cash pay model of functional medicine does remove insurance and it introduces more testing, longer treatment timelines, root cause, all of that. But the issue is, is that now that conventional doctors have seen this functional medicine model, they have decided, you know what? I'm not going to deal with insurance companies anymore. I need five employees to build the insurance, to call the insurance company when something goes wrong. It's just too much. I'm spending too much money and I'm not getting reimbursed properly. And If I spend 20 minutes with the patient, I didn't get paid. So I'm Going to move over here and call myself a functional provider. I'm still going to treat with all of my. Now they're not thinking through this, but I'm just saying this. They are still going to treat with all of their conventional training, all of the medical brainwashing from big pharma in medical school, except they're going to charge you for it instead so they don't have to deal with the insurance company. It's unfortunate, but it's true. Now there are groups of true functional integrative naturopathic practitioners that they started there. They didn't even dip their toe in conventional medicine. They started with functional medicine because they knew this is the only way they were going to properly treat patients. They studied functional medicine, they practice it, they test thoroughly, they spend the time and, and they specialize. Here's the other thing that we don't see enough in functional medicine that is rampant in conventional medicine specializations. Now, endocrinologists for actual endocrinology are a joke, but let's just use that. Endocrinology, the endocrine system, supposedly. Although they're only good at diabetes, dermatology, the skin, cardiology, the heart. See where I'm going? We have segments of specialization. So you wouldn't go to the gastroenterologist for a heart problem. So why are you going to an in general functional medicine practitioner for a thyroid problem? Why don't you go to a functional medicine thyroid and hormone expert, jack of all trades, master of none. That's what I say. There are many functional practitioners out there that if you see on their website that they test your gut, your adrenals, autoimmune, Epstein Barr virus, Lyme mold, thyroid hormones, your big toe, your hair, your, your eyesight, your poop. No, that is a jack of all trades. They are a master of zero. And if you go to this person with thyroid and hormone issues, you are going to get treated like conventional medicine. I'm sorry, I have seen functional medicine practitioners not test reverse T3. I have seen functional medicine practitioners give T4 only or only NDT. They are scared shitless of T3. And this is wrong. This is wrong. And in my opinion, it's one thing if conventional medicine bills your insurance and you have a $20 co pay and you lose out. And then that's you. If you keep bouncing around, that's on you. That's a you problem. If you keep bouncing around, spending $20 co pays everywhere, hoping for a different result. But when you jump over here into functional medicine, you spend thousands of dollars and they are lying to you and bullshitting you over here, gaslighting you at the same time. That is to me medical malpractice. And if there was a board that could strip the title of functional integrative Alternative from doctors, many, many, many would be going back to the conventional insurance based system because they would have their functional title stripped away. Stripped away. Insurance companies exist to manage risk. They do not exist to optimize health. Medical education exists to produce standardized providers, robots, monkeys that will just follow the guidelines. And these guidelines exist to reduce liability. Big Pharma exists to sell products. Functional medicine exists within capitalism. None of these systems are evil, but just none of them are designed for you. So what do you have to understand to survive the system? You got to stop believing that doctors know everything. You have to stop believing that normal labs mean optimal health. I think you're there already and that more authority equals more truth. The higher up the chain you go, that does it. Even if you move into the specializations and conventional medicine like endocrinology, that's not going to necessarily produce a better outcome for you. So you have to learn. Which is exactly what I teach you in the Thyroid Fix. How to read your own labs, how to ask better questions, how to find the right doctor or recognize dismissal, and how to advocate without apology because your body is giving you the data before the system is willing to see it. Be your own advocate. You can respect doctors and you can still question the system. You are not broken. You are not crazy. You're navigating a system that was never built for chronic complexity. The most radical thing you can do for your health is to stop outsourcing your understanding of your own body. 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 healthc care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, treatment or before making changes to your healthcare regimen, including medications, supplement, 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 necessarily reflect those of the host or affiliated parties. Statements regarding dietary supplements or health related products mentioned in this podcast have not been evaluated by by the fda. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Some episodes of the thyroid fixer Podcast 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 clearly disclosed during the episode. All opinions expressed are those of the host or guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsors. The inclusion of a product or service is not not imply endorsement by any healthcare professional featured on this podcast.