Hope, Healing And Hashimoto’s: Your Guide To Optimized Living

Opening and the importance of hope 0:00

I hope that you are enjoying this summit and are taking in as much information as possible. I'm your host, your co-host, Doctor Amy Horniman, aka the Thyroid Fixer. And one of the things that I have seen, hands down, through the years is that you as a patient, need to have hope. You need to have hope that things will change. And the reason I know this is because I've been in your shoes. So for those of you who don't know my story, this is 2530 years ago now. I was, I know, six different times after my body rebelled against me, put on well over 25 pounds.

I became so fatigued I could not get off the couch. I was losing my hair and I was in my 20s and every single doctor I went to misdiagnosed me and dismissed me. They told me, you're normal. Everything is fine. It's all in your head. Eat less and exercise more. Which is medical gaslighting to the 10th degree. Right? But I knew that there was an answer. I knew to not stop at doctor number two, doctor number five, doctor number six. And I kept going until someone listened to me, until someone actually sat down with me, went through all my symptoms.

Amy Hornimanu2019s thyroid journey and treatment lessons 1:22

I felt heard for the first time and actually customer buys a program for me. Now, at that point, I was beyond reversing my Hashimoto's. Naturally, I had to implement the dietary and lifestyle changes, implement the detoxification that is so vital for our thyroid to work properly. But I also needed thyroid hormone replacement and the right thyroid hormone replacement was key. Two often, of course, in conventional medicine we see many, many patients being put on T4 only if we're listening to this and you're on T4 only.

I want you to know a stat that T4 only T4 monotherapy. This is your levothyroxine synthroid even compounded T4 or 10% only works in 2% of the population with hypothyroidism. 98% of US need T4 and T3, or sometimes even T3. Only. Now what I see in functional and integrative medicine that you have to be aware of, you have to be cognizant and look for this is that many functional practitioners will put people only on and now natural desiccated thyroid armor and thyroid. It's better than T4 only because it does contain T3.

It is 80% T4 and 20% T3. So you're getting a little bit of that active thyroid hormone which your body absolutely loves. Now here's the problem. 80% T4. What if you don't convert properly? What if you have issues with conversion? What if you have a reverse T3 problem like our Russell and I talked about on here? Then you have to be cognizant that you are taking an 80% T4. The only thing that converts to reverse T3 is T4. So even just being pigeonholed into a category that functional medicine pigeonholes you into here, here's some neat.

This will make you all better. Not necessarily. Thyroid treatment needs to be nuanced, and I want to share a few stories with you and real patient examples so that you can see it. You can grab hold of it and have hope that things absolutely can change, because they can not.

Patient success stories with personalized thyroid care 3:43

And I don't ever, ever want you to give up. I don't care if you want to stay in the conventional system and go through 100 different doctors. If you want to move over to the functional medicine system, learn to ask specific questions before joining a program that may just disappoint you and leave you thousands of dollars less in your pocketbook instead of actually fixing you. Okay, I'm going to start with the story of a patient. We're going to call her Amy. I'm not using real names, of course, and Miss Amy, she went through the functional medicine system.

The problem is, is exactly what I talked about. She was given natural desiccated thyroid medication and now again, better than T4 only. Right? It's at least giving her 20% of that active thyroid hormone, T3. However, she has a severe reverse T3 issue very similar to me. I am on T3 only because after working with a functional doctor who gave me my life back, I continued working with him. And what we discovered is that even though I improved with arm or thyroid, I had a genetic snip that prevented me from properly converting my T4 over to T3.

So the more T4 I took, even in the form of medication, the worse I would get. Well, Miss Amy, my patient was the same way. She started off very overweight. She tried implementing keto and carnivore to lose that weight, and she did successfully lose some. But it really wasn't until she took it to the next level that allowed her to to truly thrive. So you can see that she absolute rocked her life, lost a boatload of weight, and now is just thriving. She loves working out. She is on T3 only she has her life back.

She lost 110 pounds and by the way, she also has a very happy husband because she also has the libido back and she has energy back and brain function back and she feels amazing. Next up, you may have heard Erin on my podcast and the really remarkable thing with Erin, and we shared her story of hope. This is a couple of years ago is that you can really see it in her face. One of the classic signs of hypothyroidism is that moon phase that mimics edema, that we get where our face gets really round, and it's not necessarily fat, it's just water retention.

And we can get really what abnormal water retention through your whole entire body. So you can really see the difference in Erin's face. And this is all about getting on proper thyroid hormone replacement for Erin. She came from the conventional system. She was on T4 only. We added in T3 at the right ratio with the right dose to give her that active thyroid hormone. And of course, we're doing all of the lifestyle and nutrients support, the hormonal support. It's all tied in together checking adrenals, checking the liver, checking detox pathways, checking the gut.

But it really is about being on that, right? Thyroid hormone replacement and not stopping until you get proper help. That really moves the needle and changes lives. Now Barbara, she started off type two diabetic, severe type two diabetic, along with hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's. She had a gastric bypass surgery that did not work. It helped her lose a little bit of weight, but ultimately it did not bring her to the place that she needed to be a healthy weight where she was not carrying around excess fat.

That, as we know, increases your risk of all cause mortality from heart disease to cancer. Barbara is now down over 100 pounds down and just absolutely looks remarkable. And her diabetes is reversed. Her agency that started well into the 80s is now down 5.4. And she is rocking life and continues to improve this Colleen again. She sees her waistline again. She's thrilled. And it's all about getting on that right? Thyroid hormone replacement again. Another one Sherry that you can see the changes in her face.

I mean, you don't even recognize the woman that she was in the before picture, but now you can see her beautiful blue eyes, her gorgeous skin. She literally looks ten years younger. Gabriella, who's been on my podcast, you've seen her all over social. She is just an absolute rock star. She suffered within fertility. She was on T4 only through conventional medicine was for years. She has Hashimoto's. Her mom had Hashimoto's, two miscarriages, infertility to follow and now she has two. This is of course is the before picture in the beginning.

Or I'm sorry before picture is in the blue, the after is in the pink. But we have some more of her because she just kept documenting. She just kept documenting her rockstar progress. She had two beautiful babies. She opened her own business, started her own business, and ultimately ran A5K and that was her ultimate goal was to run A5K and she did I. Well, you know what she actually did? I think she did the Disney marathon as well. So I think she's run a full marathon now to really hitting life goals.

Living in optimization land and final encouragement 9:20

And it all comes down to that personalization of treatment. I wanted to show you those pictures too, that you have hope so that you can hold on to that hope and know in your heart of hearts that things can change. You're not a tough case. You're not a lost cause. I don't care if ten, 20, 30 different doctors have told you that nothing is wrong. You're normal. I'm using air quotes here. Everything is fine. If you've heard, eat less and exercise more and you're literally thinking, I can't. I can't eat any less, I'm already borderline starving myself.

I'm working out twice a day. I'm starting to tax my adrenals because of the amount that I'm stressing about this and working out. Just stop, take a breath. Have hope that things can change. Yes, it may take working with a thyroid expert to get on that right treatment, but it's there for you. The answers are there, the proper treatment is there, and your path is going to be different than your your friend's path. Who has Hashimoto's. You have to find that nuanced, personalized treatment for you. But when you find that it changes your life, I would not be here with you today.

Talking to you today, feeling my best living in optimization land, which I invite all of you to come live with me. And it's a beautiful place to be. You can you can go on a vacation and eat a little bit of this or that, and you don't gain 10 pounds. Doesn't that sound amazing? Yes, you can go out with your friends and not panic about eating an appetizer and having a glass of wine because you know that you'll end up bloated and holding 10 pounds of water the next day. You can make it through your day without needing a nap on the couch.

You're not losing your hair and counting the hairs that come out of your head every time you shower. It absolutely is possible to live in optimization land. I encourage you to just hold on and have hope. Everything that you learned in the Reversing Hashimoto's Summit can be implemented and can make significant changes. And if you need to take it to that next step, I'm here for you. We're here for you. Find a fire. An expert. Ask the questions. Ask about treatment. Ask if they use anything and everything to treat you.

Ask about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Ask the hard questions so that you know that the person you work with. If it's not myself and my team that you know the person you work with knows what they are doing with your thyroid and there is hope and things can change. So I hope this inspires you. I hope this entire summit inspires you to live your best life because as I always say, you deserve to be the badass human that you are meant to be. You deserve to live life in optimization land.

You deserve to live your best life. Not worried about gaining 10 pounds? Looking sideways at a brownie. Not worried about how you're going to get to the day and how many Red Bulls and cups of coffee you need to drag your butt through the day. Not worried about do I need to get a wig because I'm going to lose all of my hair? All of that can go away and never be a worry again because you are optimized. So I ask you to have hope. I have hope, hold on to that hope because there absolutely is change for you.

Waiting and optimization land is waiting for you to.