← 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
Why You May Have Hashimoto's and Not Know It, What TPO and TGA Mean, How to Treat It and What Happens If You Ignore It
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Dr. Amy
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 hormone specialist and CEO of a global telemedicine practice where we prescribe the right thyroid treatment and bioidentical hormones to all 50 states and most of Canada, helping you become that badass human that you're meant to be. So if you're battling weight gain and heroin, hair loss, you can't lose weight no matter what you do. Your energy levels are plummeting and your libido left town. Then you're in the right place and you have found your tribe. Remember, I want you to embrace every inch of that badass woman that you truly are. So if you're ready to dive in and fix things, let's get started. We're all looking to support our thyroid naturally, boost our immune system, and just really have more energy. I have found Purality Health. Now, the only problem with Purality Health is that it tastes so good. All of their supplements, from the Mind Boost that I'm going to tell you about to the vitamin C, tastes so good, you want to eat it every day, you want to take it every day. It's crazy. I'm addicted to it. I'll tell you more about that, but let's start with the thyroid, something I talk about all the time. As you know, Purality offers a wide range of products that can assist you with thyroid health. But specifically, my favorite is the adaptogenic mushrooms in Mushroom Mind Boost. It tastes like chocolate. I will put Mushroom Mind Boost on a spoon with a little bit of peanut butter, and it's literally a treat. But not only that, it's a liposomal blend of functional mushrooms like Rishi and Cordyceps. Now, Rishi and Cordyceps, they help regulate your body's stress response. We know we need to balance our stress, balance our cortisol so T3 and T4 can work, and so T4 can be converted over to T3. Then another amazing product to support the thyroid is the liposomal lion's Mane. That gives us focus, clarity, cognitive support. Again, bringing down stress. Lion's Mane can help boost nerve function, support your mood, both of which is significantly affected when thyroid levels are imbalanced. Now, there's the vitamin C. Ooh, vitamin C for our skin, for our immune system, for our adrenal support, oxidative stress reduction. And it tastes like you're eating a starburst. It's incredible. I put in my water and it flavors my water. It's amazing. Since a thyroid is incredibly sensitive to inflammation and cellular damage, vitamin C protection is crucial. And here's the best part. Their patented liposomal delivery system makes all of these ingredients highly absorbable. So your body is actually using what you're taking. Bonus, right? So if you're ready to finally feel like yourself again, you want to head to purality health.com Dr. Amy and enter the coupon code Dr. Amy to save up to 45% off. So you're going to go to P R A L I T Y H E A l t h.com/d r a M I E and use that same code, D R M I e. Get your 45% off because your body deserves more than you know. Just. Okay, Health. Let's talk about the power of berberine for blood sugar control and for moving you into a state of insulin sensitivity. Now, what does that mean? So when you are insulin resistant, we can look at your fasting insulin number on labs and see that's above a six. You can look at your glucose, your fasting glucose on your labs is that above an 85. Is, is your continuous glucose monitor that you're slapping on the back of your arm consistently reading above an 85. Is your hemoglobin A1c above a 5.2? If you answered yes to any of those. Oh, wait, let me also add in. Do you crave carbohydrates and sugar through the day? Literally, where your, your body is screaming at you to go get something from a vending machine or eat something sweet, then that points back to your blood sugar and your blood sugar being out of whack and being on this roller coaster. Now, what this means for you is inflammation. It means weight gain. It means an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer's. Now, if you're carrying around an extra 20 pounds, you're not really thinking about your brain and the health of your brain when you're 70 and 80. But I'm here to tell you the fastest way to age is, is to keep your blood sugar on that roller coaster and keep it high. To get control over our cravings, to get control over our weight, to be able to tap into our fat stores for fuel, we need to have steady regulated glucose. And this is where Blood Sugar Fixer comes in. Blood Sugar Fixer was one of the OG supplements in the Fixer line. And I designed this because I Kept seeing over and over again with the patients we were working with. Elevated insulin, elevated A1C, elevated glucose, inability to lose weight, carbohydrate and sugar cravings. And this is where Blood Sugar Fixer comes in. It takes that wild ride, that roller coaster of blood sugar and it squishes it together to a nice wave like pattern. See? Steady, balanced, even. So that your cravings, you no longer get those cravings screaming at you. It allows your body to literally tap into the fact that you're grabbing on your stomach or your thighs saying, gee, I really wish that this was gone. This big chunk, yes, it taps into those fat stores and uses that to burn as fuel for energy. But you can't do that if you're a sugar burner. You can't do that if you're insulin resistant. You can't do that if your blood sugar is dysregulated. So what you want to do is bring in Blood Sugar Fixer. Now I made it more economical. There's a lot of companies on the market that they only have their Berberine at 400 milligrams. Well then you have to take three per day. The therapeutic dose is 1200 milligrams. I've also seen it at 1000 or 1200 milligrams. And if you take that all at once in one capsule, you might get some loose stool that becomes a little unpleasant to deal with. So. So 600 milligrams per capsule is what's in Blood Sugar Fixer. You take it twice a day, one with each main meal, and you will start to notice a difference, really within a couple weeks of your cravings. And then as you are testing, you're going to see those numbers come into alignment. You're going to see the numbers come down on your CGM. Your A1C will come into that beautiful optimal range below a 5.2. Your insulin will become beautiful once again below a 6. And the bottom line is you will feel better, you will decrease inflammation, you will lose weight, you will gain control of your carbohydrate and sugar cravings and you will protect your brain. So that's Blood Sugar Fixer twice a day, one cap twice a day. That's it. I get a lot of questions about Hashimoto's versus hypothyroidism. How do you know if you have one or the other or both? How they interplay and connect to each other and really how to treat it. And then what happens if you don't? So let's lay all of this out so that you have a much greater understanding of what is Hashimoto and even what those tests for Hashimoto, the TPO and the tga, what do those mean? And let's go deeper into what those tests actually mean mean. Okay, so big overview. Hashimoto is hypothyroidism. They're one and the same, but you can have hypothyroidism without having Hashimoto. So Hashimoto is an autoimmune form of hypothyroidism where your body and I've said this before, if you've heard this before, just bear with me, but you're going to get some new juicy stuff today, so hang in there. It's where your body has these soldiers that think that your thyroid gland is a bad guy. They think your thyroid gland is an invader and they like to go out and they beat it up and they attack that invader. They go to war. And that's really what all autoimmune conditions are. If you think about autoimmunity in general, it's those set of antibodies toward that body part, organ, gland, joint, whatever it is, believe that that body part is a bad guy. So in rheumatoid arthritis it's your joints. In celiac it's the villi of the small intestine. So in Hashimoto's it's the thyroid gland. So those soldiers think that your thyroid gland is a bad guy and they go out and attack. So over time, what we'll see on an ultrasound, and this does not mean that you need an ultrasound. I rarely order ultrasounds on patients because we know just by labs that we're going to be going into today that someone has Hashimoto's and we can even tell what stage they're in in Hashimoto's, which we will also review today. But in an ultrasound, if you happen to get one done, you'll see that the thyroid gland is actually really beaten up and jagged and it's much smaller than it once was, than a healthy EU thyroid, thyroid gland. That's because of that constant ongoing attack, in fact over time, over decades of having Hashimoto's, which many of you may have actually had for decades and not know it. Over time your thyroid gland can actually become so small it's almost not even there. It's not even functioning anymore because it's been beaten up over and over and over again. Now that's not anything to worry about because we do have the power to replace those thyroid hormones and actually get you to that optimal state the same way we would if you had a thyroidectomy or a partial thyroidectomy. We optimize that treatment. That's what we do in our clinic. We optimize that treatment to you to bring your levels up to the point where you don't even realize you don't have a thyroid gland anymore. You don't even know that your thyroid gland is itty bitty because it's been getting beaten up all of these years. You don't even know it because your symptoms are gone and you're living your best life in optimization land. That's the goal and that's what we can do with Hashimoto. So it's not anything to be fearful of. But knowledge is power. So the more that you know about your body, know what to look for, know what to do about it, get these tips that I'm going to give you today on how to push Hashimoto's into remission. If you're in the early stages, then that just makes you even more powerful. So the two tests that we look for to test for Hashimoto's is thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin. These are both antibodies. And please, when you are getting them tested, if you talk to your doctor, please get both antibodies tested. I have seen so many patients come into the clinic from other functional, functional and integrative practitioners that only test one antibody. They'll test tpo. This is a problem because thyroglobulin antibodies tell us so much. So we're going to put TPO on the back burner. We're going to focus on the thyroglobulin because we don't talk about thyroglobulin enough. And it needs some love too. And we need to understand what it is and what it means. So thyroglobulin antibodies, they are what we call auto antibodies, soldiers that are produced actually by your immune system that specifically target thyroglobulin. Now, thyroglobulin is a protein made only by the thyroid gland. That's the only place you're going to see a thyroglobulin protein. Thyroglobulin is this large protein that's stored in the, in the thyroid follicles, like the little fingers in the thyroid. And what it does, it serves as, like this building block for producing thyroid hormone, T4 and T3, and for storing T4 and T3. So under normal conditions, in a healthy thyroid situation, that thyroglobulin protein remains inside of the thyroid and it's never released into the bloodstream in autoimmunity like Hashimoto. Inflammation and thyroid tissue destruction, that beating up of the thyroid gland itself causes that protein, that thyroglobulin protein, to leak into your circulation. And this triggers the immune system to actually form more soldiers against it. So thyroglobulin antibodies are these immune proteins directed against the thyroglobulin protein in your thyroid gland. So that's why when we test tgab, we can actually see how many soldiers do you have that are going out and they're trying to actually infiltrate your thyroid gland to get to that thyroglobulin protein that's inside. And what this does is it causes this abnormal immune reaction in the body where the body mistakenly targets its own thyroid components. Now, when we have this attack, what ends up happening? Well, we already talked about the destruction. Ongoing, ongoing destruction. But we can also see inflammation in the body. We can see an enlarged thyroid gland or goiter, or we can see scarring and just a total loss of hormone producing ability. So when our thyroid gland basically says, okay, I've been beaten up long enough, I'm not going to work the same as I would if I was healthy. It's the same analogy I always give. If I were to come over to your house with a baseball bat, I promise I won't do this and beat you up on a daily basis. Are you going to be your best that day? Are you going to have your best workout? Are you going to be the best mom, father, sister, brother, whatever, coworker, worker, entrepreneur? Are you going to work at 100% that day if I hit you multiple times with a baseball bat? No, you're not. And that's the same thing with the thyroid gland. It's not going to be able to produce T4 and T3 like it should when it's healthy. Now, when we test for tgab, I have said this over and over again and I will never stop saying it. Any antimony is an antibody. Any antibody is a soldier that is going out and attacking your thyroid gland. I don't care what the lab says. I don't care if the lab marker is less than 9, less than 34, less than 1. We want that at 0. And if you have any. And we're still focused on thyroglobulin, but we will get to TPO in a moment. The same rule applies for tpo. If you have any number under TGAB or next to tgab, that is an indicator of autoimmune thyroiditis, that is an indicator of Hashimoto's. So the current understanding of thyroid antibody markers in blood that we test for, the current understanding is that they are the primary markers of the autoimmune process rather than the main cause of the damage. So yes, those soldiers do. We can look at the mass soldiers that go out and beat up your thyroid. So if you have a 15 for TGAB, you have 15 soldiers that are targeting that thyroglobulin protein inside the thyroid gland itself. But the actual destruction, if we really get sciency and down to the nitty gritty of it, the actual tissue destruction is driven by immune cells like team lymphocytes and that invades the thyroid gland. The presence of the TgAb, the thyroglobulin antibodies, indicates that the thyroid proteins have been exposed to the immune system during this attack. So when we find TGAB and Hashimoto's, that tells us that there has been an autoimmune response underway against that thyroid tissue, with TGAB being just one byproduct of that immune assault. So these antibodies can still contribute to damage indirectly, for example, by forming immune complexes or activating something called complement, which increases that overall attack of the immune system. The T lymphocytes invade the thyroid and cause destruction from within. But really, tgab, they serve as that hallmark indicator for Hashimoto's. Now, TGAB can also appear in Graves disease. So can tpo. I often say that because Graves disease is much more rare and this is Graves's autoimmune hyperthyroidism. For those of you who don't know, we normally test a marker called TSI for Graves disease, but we can also see Hashimoto markers in a Gray's patient because Gray's patients will always swing back and forth and especially when they're being treated for Graves disease, We use something called methymazole, which actually down regulates the thyroid gland so it stops producing as much thyroid hormone. But we can also have TPO and TGA antibodies in the presence of Graves. So a person can very easily swing from hyper to hypo, from Graves disease to Hashimoto's. Now we use thyroid auto antibodies, TPO and TGAB for diagnosing Hashimoto's and distinguishing it from other causes of thyroid problems. When your thyroid gland is under attack like that, you are going to develop hypothyroidism. You are eventually going to develop low and slow thyroid function. Your thyroid gland will not produce as much T4 and T3. It's it won't be as, as good at converting T4 to T3, which the thyroid gland is one of the main conversion glands of T4 to T3. So you're going to move into that hypothyroid state, complete with all of the symptoms. The weight gain, the fatigue, the hair loss, the constipation, the dry skin, the loss of the outer corner of your eyebrows. All of the things will accompany being in that hypothyroid state. Now, most people with Hashimoto's have high levels of one or both of these antibodies. You don't have to have antibodies in each column. You can have one or the other. So TPO could be positive, TGAB could be zero or TGAB could be zero and TPO could be positive. Either way, that is the indication of Hashimoto's. Now clinical guidelines out there in the world, your conventional medicine doctor, if they even test for antibodies, we'll check for TPO or thyroid peroxidase antibodies first. Since they're present in the majority of the cases, we see much more TPO than we see the TGAB. TPO is really positive in over 90% of Hashimoto patients where TGAB is positive in about 50 to 80% of cases. So what? This also tells us, this data, it also tells us that you can have Hashimoto's without having antibodies. I'm going to say that again. We're going to be really confused about this. You can have Hashimoto's without having antibodies. If we look at all hypothyroid cases, hypo low and slow, all hypothyroid cases, 95% of all hypothyroid cases is Hashimoto's. It's the autoimmune form. Why is that? Because in that primary hypothyroidism, non Hashimoto's, non autoimmune hypothyroidism, it really only accounts for about 5% of hypothyroid cases because it's just more rare. The causes of hypothyroidism without Hashimoto's can be from an eating disorder, excessive dieting, over exercising, chemotherapy, radiation, certain medications. We know that birth control alone increases your risk of hypothyroidism by 243%. So there, there's the possibility that you can have hypothyroidism without Hashimoto's, but you only have about a 5% chance of that. You have a 95% chance of it being Hashimoto's. Now if you fall into that 95% now, you're looking and going, well, I also have a 10% chance that my TPO is going to show up as zero even though I'm Hashimoto's and I have about a 50 to, I have a 20 to 50% chance of having Hashimoto's even though my TGAB is negative. So you can have Hashimoto's still if you are. And we'll get to this when we talk about lifestyle and different things that you can do. But if you are living a gluten free lifestyle, you're controlling your stress, you're biohacking, you're taking care of yourself, you're getting good sleep, you're taking all of the vital nutrients, you're taking iodine and vitamin D and selenium, you're detoxing. Well, all of that can push your antibodies down to zero without you maybe even knowing it or trying. And then when you finally do get tested because you've gone years without getting your antibodies tested and then you finally get tested and it shows, oh my gosh, here's some antibodies. Or you finally get tested and you go, no, I have zero antibodies but all my thyroid hormones are in the toilet and I know I have hypothyroidism but oh, do I not have Hashimoto's. Well, you don't know. I've had Cynthia Thurlow on the podcast and her and I discussed, I'll never forget this conversation, we discussed antibodies and both her and I show zero on our antibodies. But you know how we know that we have Hashimoto's? Well, I know because I had positive antibodies at one point in time in my life. If you've had positive antibodies at any point of time in your life that then you have Hashimoto. I'll get back to the Cynthia story. I want to sidestep over here. Bear with me. I have my ADD brain on today. It's really interesting when I get patients into the clinic that say, well, I had a doctor one time tell me that I had Hashimoto's, but now I'm not so sure if I do. And I say to them, if a doctor at one point of time, especially a conventional doctor, for goodness sake, so saw that you had antibodies and said the word Hashimoto, then you had antibodies because nine times out of 10 they're misdiagnosing you because they're going by that standard lab value range and they're not going by my functional medicine optimal range of zero. You have to have zero. So if you were told that you have Hashi, then you have Hashi. Okay, back to the Cynthia story. So we're talking on the show, and she goes, you know, I know I have Hashimoto's because I have other autoimmune conditions. And we know that one autoimmune begets another autoimmune. Where we see one, we see more than one. So it just makes sense that I would have Hashimoto's because I have other autoimmune conditions, although I've always tested negative. That's another way that you can decipher whether or not you have Hashimoto's, is do you have another autoimmune condition? Because that's huge. Or does your mom, grandma, aunt, sister also have Hashimoto's? That is huge. I just looked at the labs of a really good friend of mine, and I said to her, because this is the first time I saw her labs, she knew she had a thyroid problem. She was on armor. I said, okay, so, yeah, you know you have Hashimoto's. She's like, what? I'm like, wait, is this the first time you had antibodies tested? She's like, yeah. I'm like, well, your TPO is at a 90. Your TGA is coming in at 234. Both of them are flagged high and colored red on your labs. So this means that you have Hashimoto's. It was glaring in her case, but what amazes me is that she's been in this health and fitness world for decades, and this is the first time anyone tested her for antibodies. Even the doctor that put her on thyroid medication way back in the day never tested her for antibodies. Absolutely amazing. Okay, let's keep going. Are you not on Hashimoto's fixer? Why not? It's part of the no Dust supplement list. Now, Hashimoto's fixer, or Hashimoto support by the fixer, to be exact, is black cumin seed oil with 3% thymoquinone. Why is this important? That's the active ingredient in Hashimoto's Fixer that lowers your Hashimoto antibodies. We have had reports of people going into full remission when they bring in Hashimoto's fixer, literally dropping their antibodies to zero. Now, black cumin seed also works on other autoimmune conditions. So if you have antibodies for Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, if you have psoriasis, it's going to help across the board with all autoimmune it's going to help decrease inflammation. It helps with all of the symptoms of low thyroid function or symptoms of your thyroid being attacked by your own body, like hair loss, weight gain, fatigue. As we lower those antibodies and push them down to zero, what we end up seeing is this full body improvement because then your thyroid works better and your blood sugar balances out. Nutrients are getting where they need to get to and is actually one of the only supplemental ingredients that we can say prevents cancer there. So, my gosh, you better have studies behind that statement if you're gonna say it out loud or the FDA will slap you. Well, the FDA can't slap us because there are multiple, multiple studies on this amazing Nigella sativa plant in Hashimoto's fixer that actually decreases your risk of cancer. Wow. Amazing. Boosting the immune system, reducing swelling, lowering that allergic reaction that we have in the spring. That is why I say black cumin should be a no dust supplement. It should be part of your life every single day. Because we all have inflammation, we all need improved blood sugar control, we all need better cholesterol levels. Well, that's what black cumin seed does. Even reduces hypertension. How about that? So add in Hashimoto's support by the fixer. We'll put the link in the show notes, but you can always go to betterlifedoctor.com and peruse all of the fixer supplements and then click on Hashimoto's and we got you covered. Add this in daily as part of your no DA supplement list and you'll see the benefits working. As your inflammation goes down, antibodies go down, and you're providing that extra layer of prevention for cancer and it even has been shown to fight cancer. Why not take it daily? So a small percentage of Hashimoto patients can be seronegative, meaning standard antibody tests are negative to seriously despite clinical disease. So 5 to 10% of Hashimoto cases may have no measurable TPO or TGAB. This I'm actually reading from a study. It's actually a document from Sheffield Laboratory Medicine in the uk. So this just proves everything I just said. You can have Hashimoto without the presence of thyron antibodies. All right, let's break down the difference. Well, let's get into tpo, TPO antibodies, thyroid peroxidase. This really is the first line antibody test for autoimmune thyroid disease. And then TGAB is measured as the adjunct. So TPO or tpoab, you might see it as has a very higher sensitivity for Hashimoto. So guidelines do recommend measuring TGAB only if TPO AB is negative. But listen, get them both done. I don't understand that. Why would we test one and then wait and go? Okay, well, now it's time to go back and do the other one. That's silly. Just get them both done now. Both antibodies indicate the that ongoing autoimmune attack TPO interferes more with thyroid hormone synthesis by targeting the TPO enzyme. We already talked about TGAB that forms immune complexes with thyroglobulin attacks inside. But TPO is more of a marker of thyroid hormone production being low, thyroid hormone synthesis being low, because that TPO antibody targets a TPO enzyme. TPO AB is an enzyme on the thyroid cell. So TG inside TPO outside on the thyroid cell, and it's responsible for iodinating the thyroglobulin and synthesizing T3 and T4. So, in essence, TPO is crucial for hormone production and TG is crucial for hormone storage and release of those hormones into the system. So the antibodies actually attack different steps of thyroid hormone biology. The only other thing to take note of, and the differentiation between those two antibodies is that there's a small association with thyroid cancer with very high TGAB levels. And an elevated tgab, especially if it's rising over time, in someone with a thyroid nodule, can raise suspicion for thyroid carcinoma. In patients treated for thyroid cancer, those antibodies are really closely watched, usually as a tumor marker. So simply having Hashimoto's and tgab, it increases the background risk of thyroid papillary cancer slightly, since that chronic inflammation can coexist with malignancy. So an elevated TG TGAB alone is not diagnostic of cancer by any means, but in the appropriate clinical context, it just adds to the pieces of the puzzle and lets us put it all together. So in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer, like papillary or follicular thyroid carcinoma, who have T tgab, doctors do monitor those levels after treatment. So after a thyroidectomy or a radioactive iodine ablation, thyroglobulin should be undetectable, since nearly all thyroid tissue is removed. So if you think about it, if the thyroglobulin is inside the thyroid gland itself, you remove the thyroid gland, there should be no TGAB present. If the TGAB aren't present, then they can interfere with the thyroglobulin blood test, making that TG level unreliable. In such cases, then we looked at the trends of tgab and we use that as a tumor marker. So a rise in that TGB AB over time may signal the recurrence of thyroid cancer. That's why we. We really focus on that post thyroid cancer, and we focus on keeping the TSH suppressed to keep that tissue from growing back. Now, can you go into remission? That's the big thing. Can we push these bad boys to zero? Yes, yes, yes, and yes, we can. Now, it could take several years, but it's absolutely possible. Like I just gave you, the story of myself and Cynthia Thurlow were both at a zero. We're both in remission. And I know my dear friend Isabella Wentz, she's put hers into remission as well. You can absolutely put them into remission. But here's the thing. I already said, well, Cynthia and I gluten free. We take all the nutrients, take care of ourselves. Here's why I don't want you to get hung up. I don't want you to think that just because you have antibodies that that's an indicator of how well you're taking care of yourself or how well you aren't taking care of your. Of yourself. It's not. I have a very dear friend that we've been working on her antibodies for four years now. And I often reference her because she's a chiropractor and she developed Hashimoto's during COVID when she was touching people who got the vaccine and was releasing the spike protein and shedding. So that was enough. And we saw a huge increase during that time of autoimmunity across the board, definitely Hashimoto's. So between Covid in and of itself and the spike proteins produced by that virus and the vaccine, we saw a large, huge increase in autoimmunity. So, yes, we saw more and more destruction of the thyroid gland. So for her, she lives the absolute best lifestyle I could possibly think of. She came from a chiropractic family. She's never. She doesn't even touch ibuprofen. She's never had a vaccine in her life. So for her to have antibodies in the 3000s, that's not a reflection of how she takes care of herself. So I don't want you to judge yourself based on your antibodies is what I'm saying. But what we can do to push antibodies to zero, we deal with the inflammatory response of the body, number one. So like I said, with tgab, we see these T lymphocytes that invade the thyroid. What we want to do, that's part of our immune system. So anything that we can do to support our immune system and lower inflammation is going to help with Hashimoto's vitamin D levels. Keeping those 80 to 100. Taking 100 micrograms of selenium every day absolutely helps. If you take 200, that's often too much and it'll push up. Reverse T3, taking zinc iodine in small amounts, starting very low and slow, not going crazy with the iodine, but iodine supports the immune system. Antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal. The big, big, big player is black cumin seed oil. That's what I put in my Hashimoto's support by the fixer. Black cumin seed works almost that well. It does. It works as well as Lotos. Now, trexone lotus naltrexone is good, but it has some side effects. So I've done podcasts on this. We can link the podcast where I compare black cumin seed and LDN in the show notes. You can listen to that and go through the pros and cons, but you can do both. You can do black cumin seed and lotos naltrexone, or you could just do black cumin seed. Black cumin seed is amazing for lowering inflammation in the body, lowering antibodies. It helps with other autoimmune conditions as well. It helps with hair loss, it helps with weight loss, it helps with insulin resistance and is one of the only supplements out there that we can say is anti cancer, reduces your risk of cancer. So that's amazing. I put black cumin seed, I put my Hashimoto's support in into my no duh supplement list, meaning, of course, duh, you're going to take this every single day because the benefits are huge. So why wouldn't you. Controlling stress, getting good sleep, the complete and total removal of gluten. Why is that so glad in? The protein molecule in gluten looks very, very similar, almost identical to the protein thyroglobulin. So when we intake gluten gladin, we are signaling our body, we're signaling our immune response to attack. Essentially, that is what leads to an increase in your soldiers and your antibodies and also an increase in the destruction of your thyroid gland itself. Now, when we move into the stages of Hashimoto, how do you know where you're at? Can you have Hashimoto without having hypothyroidism? Well, I said in the beginning they're one in the same. If you're just in the stage one where you have the genetic predisposition for Autoimmunity. Your mom has it, your sister has it somewhere in your family. Maybe you have another autoimmune condition. Maybe you happen to get some. Some testing done. And, oh, look at this, you have a couple of antibodies in your TPO and your TG, but your TSH or free T3, your free T4, your reverse T3, they're all optimal, not just normal. Remember, normal is a setting on your dryer. They're optimal. And you have. Here's the important part of stage one. No symptoms. Then you're asking, well, why would I even get tested? Well, I think we should all get tested. I believe we should all have a thorough thyroid panel, top to bottom, all of it, not leaving off one marker here and there, because your doctor doesn't believe in testing that marker. And if your doctor says no to testing, it's time to get a new doctor. We should all be tested. But if you get tested and you see that you have antibody markers, then you have to look at the rest of the picture and say, okay, well, do I have any symptoms at all? No. Okay, I'm good. I'm just going to do all the things that Dr. Amy just talked about. Add in black cumin seed, go gluten free, reduce my stress, take the support of nutrients, and I might actually be able to keep this at bay. And never, ever, ever have a thyroid problem. Push those antibodies down to zero and live the rest of your life. Stage two. This is what doctors like to call subclinical hypothyroidism. I'm okay with that term, but we really have to clarify it as well. So this is where TSH will most likely climb. We already know you have antibodies because you're moved in the stage two, you had antibodies in stage one. Free T3 and free T4 start to shift a little bit. And here's the kicker. You have symptoms. They might even be mild. They might just be, like, a little bit of fatigue. Oh, the scale's going up. Maybe I'm cold when other people are okay. Or you might even still be asymptomatic, having no symptoms. But you're starting to see your TSH climb above a 2. Your free T3 is starting to decrease, and it's out of that optimal range that I always talk about. This is where thyroid. The. Your thyroid gland is under an immune attack, but it's still compensating for that. It's still overcoming being beaten up every single day. Somehow it figures out how to do a good job even while getting beaten up. But this is a critical window to intervene. In fact, you can intervene in stage one if you happen to have symptoms. But as soon as those symptoms come on. What do I always say about symptoms? They are a gift. Buy your body a gift. Gift to tell you there's something wrong and you need to look further. Stage three, blatant screaming at us. Hypothyroidism, Clear symptoms. The fatigue, the weight and the hair, loss of dry skin, depression, constipation, cold intolerance, all the things. TSH is elevated. T4 is in the toilet. T3 is in the toilet. Antibodies are elevated. The whole thing, it's just a shit show. This is where your thyroid is just no longer putting out the hormones that it needs to put out. This is where your thyroid gland is tired. It's just done. And this is the diagnosis is typically made here, even in conventional medicine. Right? In functional medicine, we're going to make it earlier and start treating earlier. This is where conventional medicine goes. Oh, look, Susie, your TSH is above a 4.5. Let's give you some Synthroid. Then we have stage four, which is where things progress. And you have total gland destruction. These are chronic symptoms. They get worse. The thyroid gland shrinks or becomes. It develops nodules on it. TSH is high. T3 is in the toilet. You feel like garbage. And your antibodies. Here's what's interesting. Ready? Your antibodies might actually remain high or start to decline as the tissue is decreasing. Destroyed, your thyroid gland becomes fibrotic and less functional. And the thyroid gland itself, not really working anymore. And then we have the end stage atrophic thyroid end stage Hashimoto. This is where hypothyroid symptoms persist. If you're not being treated properly, and by properly, I don't mean T4 only, you're never going to be optimized on T4 only. You're always going to suffer with symptoms on T4 only. Your labs, if optimized, should balance out. And in that last stage, your antibodies might be low or even undetectable because your thyroid gland is gone. It's just gone. There's so little tissue, thyroid tissue, to attack, your antibodies drop down. Now, this is where patients will need, or you will need lifelong hormone replacement. But that's okay. It's okay. I don't care what stage you're in, it's treatable. Me telling you about these stages is not to scare you at all. Well, it's to kick you in the ass a little bit, to do something about it in earlier state rather than waiting, waiting, waiting. Let's get going with it. Let's start treating it. I don't want you sick and frustrated. Let's do something about it. But I don't want you to beat yourself up because your body's already beating your thyroid gland up. Don't beat yourself up. And I don't want you to put off treatment. Now, in this stage five, this is also where we see other autoimmune conditions happen, because autoimmune begets autoimmune. Where we see one, we see more than one. Where we see one, we see more than one. So this really is the time to jump in, start working with someone who knows what they're doing to get your thyroid levels up and running. Now, last thing I'll say with food and this, this does bear repeating. A lot of patients will come in and say, do I need to do the autoimmune protocol? If you are in a flare, if you all of a sudden your symptoms just got worse and you are in this, this autoimmune flare, maybe you got gluten. Even having another viral infection can kick up antibodies. Large amounts of stress can kick up antibodies. You can do the AIP diet for a short period of time. You could do Carnivore for a short period of time. But I don't want you to think that you have to totally, radically change your diet to get this under control. Yes, going gluten free is important. Removing processed foods and, and these high inflammatory foods, definitely going to benefit you. But you don't have to go crazy and lose your mind. I couldn't do the AIP diet, so I certainly wouldn't expect you to do the AIP diet either. My hope is that all this information just shines some light on what is Hashimoto's versus hypothyroidism. What stage are you in? And what do these antibodies actually mean? And what does it mean if I just ignore it? Well, we already said your symptoms are going to get worse, worse, worse, worse. And then, then you get rheumatoid arthritis. Then you get Crohn's disease. We often see celiac with Hashimoto's and God forbid, lupus, Mississippi, all the other really big bad autoimmune conditions. So let's take care of it now. Knowledge is power. You, you got this. Be your own patient advocate. Work with someone like us. Just saying that knows what they're doing with a thyroid and can get you to the next level. 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 or regarding a medical condition treatment, or before making changes to your healthcare regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. 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