Natural Healing for Thyroid Issues

Introduction to Dr. Sharon Stills 0:00

Hi, it's Dr. Jen. Welcome back to the Heal Your Thyroid and Reverse Hashimoto's summit. Today we're going to talk about natural healing with Dr. Sharon Stills. She is a naturopathic medical doctor. She provides comprehensive care, therapeutic and diagnostic services to patients worldwide. She campaigns, she combines her medical, conventional, medical training, data driven science and cutting edge diagnostic tools and a deep knowledge of natural healing to effectively identify and treat health conditions ranging from allergies to end stage cancer and everything in between.

So welcome, Dr. Stills. I would love for you to tell our audience about how you overcome your serious health issues. Hi. It's nice to be here. So, yeah, I think a lot of us in this field, we're kind of the wounded healer. And we we get into this because we've had our own journey and then we want to share it with others. And so I could spend 8 hours talking about all my different health journey and what I've overcome and my children and how I helped them overcome. And that's actually why I went to Naturopathy Medical School.

I was going to become a pediatrician because I had helped my son and this is back in the 1989, 1990, there was no computers, there was no Internet, there was no summits. And so there were there were books and very few of them and just finding, you know, in-person doctors. And so I definitely have my own story. My thyroid was something that never functioned properly. Growing up, I was overweight. I was depressed, I had anxiety, I was fatigued.

Personal Thyroid and Adrenal Healing Journey 2:00

And so throughout the years I have seen I think it's there's so many things that traditional medicine misses, but something that stands out to me and why I'm so glad you're doing this and sharing this is that in the 21 years of practicing, I think that women, especially men too, but have their thyroid issues overlooked. They're either not properly evaluated or even, you know, just this past week, I've seen about three new patients who saw another holistic doctor and had the right tests, but they weren't properly interpreted, so they were still told everything is fine, even though they're sitting there with like a poster child of hypothyroidism.

And so I, I kind of jokingly, sort of jokingly, but I don't know what endocrinologist did during their medical school. You would think that they would really understand how to drill down, which we can do today, and look at the different things that can be driving thyroid dysfunction. And so thyroid has been so watered down in mainstream and it's such a a huge player in overall health and how we're feeling and so many things that we struggle with. And so, you know, I'm my weight is normal. I'm not depressed.

I have can see it, but I got lots of hair back here and my skin is great and all of these things. Constipation was another huge one for me. And so and also my adrenals, which to me the adrenals and the thyroid kind of play on a play on a seesaw. And so it's really important we are loving up our adrenals. And in fact in my practice, if someone has thyroid issues, I've got to first look at their adrenals because if you drive the thyroid and you haven't paid attention to the adrenals, you can further worsen the adrenal situation.

And so that's very common. If you're someone who tried to take a little thyroid hormone and you couldn't handle it, you couldn't tolerate it, it made you anxious and your heart racing because that was me. So I learn you learn on myself, right? And so you have to take a step back and you have to look at the adrenals and you have to support the adrenals and then you can move on to the thyroid. Absolutely. And I love how you took your own healing yourself and your children and turn that into a passion career to to help others.

So, so great. Now, when we talk about thyroid and thyroid health and adrenal health, you know, it does you know, we do have to talk about some natural healing. You know, what what can we do from, you know, an outside the box approach where you're not going to see or hear this at your under chronologies? You know, what kind of natural things can we do that are are missed by conventional medicine? And that's that's a big question. So for starters, I think we have to first understand what is out of balance with our thyroid.

And so we have to get that full blood panel where we're looking at the TPO antibodies and the thyroid globulin antibodies to first see if this is a autoimmune and an immune mediated issue because if it is, it changes the treatment. And so I'm sure you see it too where women have been diagnosed with Hashimoto's because finally I think it's becoming a little bit more in vogue to actually check the antibodies. So the diagnosis is being given out, but then women are just given, you know, in a typical office they're just given some synthroid and then that's the end of it and we lose the whole wait a second, this is an autoimmune issue.

And so what is triggering that? Because we want to yes, we want to support the thyroid if it's being affected, but we want to get to the root causes. And this can be from diet. And so a big one is gluten. But then we have to remember that there's molecular mimicry and so there are other foods. It can be dairy, it can be chocolate, it can be rice. Even if you've taken gluten out of your diet, that's still can be driving that process. And so we have to do deeper testing and really look and see what should you not be eating.

And then even beneath that, we have to look at, well, what's the status of your gut? And so we talk a lot about leaky gut, which is almost always an issue. And leaky gut, intestinal permeability is when the foods you're eating, large proteins are getting out into your system. That shouldn't be getting there because there's gaps in your intestinal tract.

Root Causes of Hashimoto's and Thyroid Dysfunction 7:00

And so we have to seal up the gut and we need to make sure we do that. I see a lot of people come in who've been food sensitivity tested, but they haven't had their leaky gut or permeability addressed. And so they come up, you know, they're allergic to everything. And so you get all these false positives. So already you've heard me say like two things, like it's really important that, you know, we know all these things, but they have to be executed in the right order. Otherwise you can be driven in the wrong direction.

And so so looking at your gut, looking at the foods that you are or are not eating, looking at grains, I find often. Yes, it's great to go gluten free. And this was my journey. So I've been gluten free for oh my gosh, I think it's like 29. I'm getting I'm getting older this year. So I'm like I think it's like 30 years I've been gluten free. I'm like, gluten free. OG And yes. I was going to say, you're the original gangster. Yeah, sure. So and it was a huge game changer for me. And I don't have Hashimoto's, I just had a hyper thyroid situation, but it was a huge game changer.

But I was gluten free. But I can remember being at a restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, where I was living at the time, and I was like, I would like a burger, but I would not. I would like it on the plate without a bun. There wasn't the option of like, Do you want a lettuce wrap? Do you want a gluten free bun? Do you want a grain free bun? There was none of that back then. And even just saying, I want my burger on the plate, not on a bun, it like blew the waiter's mind. They had to bring the cook out like it just was.

So they had never. I was like, You just need to quit the burger on the plate. It's not that simple, but it was so far out of the box for them that it caused this little ruckus in the restaurant. And I remember not maybe a couple of years after that, there was like the grain free movement was very slowly starting. And Dr. Mercola, I remember, I think, had written a book about it, and I thought, oh my gosh, that is I can't do that. Like, how will I survive without rice or quinoa or millet? And I didn't do it.

And now I am grain free. And again, it's so much easier. I mean, you can eat lentil caster, black bean caster, and there's grain free buns and there's grain free. Well, I mean, it's much easier to do now. And that's not to say if you're going from a typical American diet, there's a bit of a learning curve and it can be overwhelming. So I don't want to discount that. But going grain free can often be a huge help in this journey and in supporting the thyroid. I also think that we have to be thinking about glyphosate and the foods we're eating and the glyphosate toxicity.

It's not we do or don't have because I do urinary glyphosate testing on pretty much all my patients and it's just a matter of the degree and the the lab says you know, if they're 75% or below, that's considered normal. And I'm like, no, no, no. That's just because we see that in everyone, that doesn't mean it's normal. And so I know there's some controversy. Is it really important to eat organic or not? And I would say yes, because what I have seen over the years in my testing in my clinic is that the patients who do eat predominantly organic, like myself, like I keep an organic house, I travel a lot, I eat out, I do the best I can do.

But it's what we do 80% of the time we don't. You know, if we get so rigid, that also becomes a pathology. And so we need to give ourselves some grace and flexibility and how we how we heal ourselves and how we go about our day and the choices we make with the patients who we predominantly organic. They have lower levels of glyphosate, but they're still there. And so we need to be paying attention to that as well. And I'll agree with that. It is it's kind of terrifying that when you get a patient, they're eating organic and they still have glyphosate in their urine.

When we when we do this glyphosate test and it's it's in the rain, it's in the snow, you know, if your kids are eating snow, they're eating glyphosate. But it's you have to realize that if we're following all of these other things, detoxification, if we're making sure or pooping every day, then your body can handle some. It's not a perfect world, though. I wish it was out. I wish it was banned. Can it be? Yeah, it is in some places, right? I mean, not where we're at, though, but yeah, it's it's kind of scary.

But yeah, like you're saying, the grain free is great. When I have a patient that's really can mentally handle taking out gluten and grain, I say go for it. But sometimes just gluten free will really accelerate your healing. But you won't hear your endocrinologist saying this. They really just do not believe that the thyroid in Hashimoto's specifically that you can't heal it, you can't reverse it. They are very, you know, kind of brainwashed because that's what the guidelines show. And the guidelines, even though there's literature out saying that a diet can impact Hashimoto's disease in a positive way, that they're still just stuck with these guidelines that will probably take another couple ten, ten years, maybe, you know, up to ten years to reverse these guidelines.

So we know it's frustrating, but that's why Dr. Stills is here. Right, to to guide you. So you're more optimistic than I am about reversing in ten years. I you know, so then we think about toxicity, which because it's it's not it it is sad and it's kind of I see a lot of patients and I've even had this experience myself where if I'm in Europe, I can actually tolerate some gluten. And so glyphosate is a big part of the issue because when you're not getting that glyphosate exposure, maybe you can tolerate it a little more.

So we have to think about chemical triggers. One of the big ones is mercury and mercury toxicity. I mean, also bisphenol A and benzene and perchlorate, which is in the water which I see show up a lot in patients. And we know that has an effect on the thyroid air pollution, which is a whole issue here. Fire retardants, there's all pesticide aids, there's all these issues of mercury is one specifically that I do a lot of focusing on because of the European by regulatory medicine perspective I practice from and come from.

And so I'm always, you know, you come in with your thyroid and I'm like, all right, we got to evaluate your adrenals. Let's see what your cortisol circadian rhythm is doing. Let's make sure you know. And adrenals as a whole, it's not just your cortisol production, but it's your lifestyle and your sleep and your self nurturing and your movement and your diet and your blood sugar. So but I'm looking at the tooth teeth. And so if you have had mercury fillings, there's a good chance that these have negatively affected your thyroid.

And most people have had mercury fillings, amalgam fillings. And so it's one of the first things I do where if you have a mouthful of fillings, first of all, don't let anyone like do a mercury test on you. If you have fillings, you got to get them out of your mouth first and they got to be removed by a biological dentist who actually understands the proper way to do it. And you need to be supported by a physician who knows how to prepare you to make sure your drainage is happening and that your train is ready both before and after.

And one of the things that I see that's often forgotten is that even if you've had your mercury pop properly removed, that no one goes in and then does pre and post heavy metal testing. Because now you've turned off the faucet, but you've got to still address the body burden that is there. So that's a really important piece for people to think about after they've done that, to make sure you're working with someone who's now going to test you. And look and you know, there is no perfect way

Toxins, Mercury, and Environmental Triggers 15:30

to check your entire mercury load. We get an idea, we give, we give like DM assay, we give a chelating agent, we collect the urine and we see what's released. And often as we're going through that chelating process after the amalgams have been removed, when we do another check, we see that now there's more mercury coming out in the urine. And so a lot of times patients will be like, I don't understand, it's getting worse. But it's just that we've opened Pandora's box, so it's not getting worse. We've just set the system into the mode of detoxing and we're pulling in so often.

That first read is just the tip of the iceberg. And so we we can really see what's going on. And so that is a really important thing to be thinking about, to be thinking about the health of your mouth, to be thinking about your lymphatic system. The thyroid, we know sits here and there's a lot of lymphatic drainage, lymphatic drainage from the head. So we need to make sure the system is flowing. We need to make sure that our iodine is not too high, not too low. Goldilocks It needs to be just right.

But that's a huge thing that I see where a lot of times patients are iodine deficient. So that needs to be addressed. We need to be looking at our temperatures. And so there's lots of different ways to find out that your thyroid isn't working, even if your test looks good. So take eight. You know, the lab range is like point 4 to 5. Anything over one, I've got like suspicion up. And then when you look at a free t three where the range is usually like 2.2 to say 4.4, I see a lot of patients like this is what I was talking about before they come in and they're at a 2.4 or 2.5 and they're told they're fine.

So my experience over all these years is that most women and men, but I see more women than men, have to be at least mid-range. And most of them, even with that, they need to be at the high end of range. So the high end is 4.4. They need to be at a 4.3 or 4.4 or they need to be above that. They need to be at a 5.6 to really feel their best. So we have to remember that ranges and lab ranges are just that their guideline is, but they don't determine whether or not I'm going to give you some thyroid hormone so often I'll do a trial of some thyroid hormone and say, you know, let's do this for nine, 90 days and let's see how you feel.

Even though your levels, you know, even though you're free, T3 is 3.7, you still have all these symptoms. And so nine and a half out of ten times patients like, yeah, I'm staying on that because my brain fog is gone. I've lost that £5 that was hanging on. I have more energy, I'm coping better, I'm sleeping better. My hair's never been healthier. I don't wake up with headaches anymore. I can tolerate the cold. And so we have to. Oh, you want to find a doctor who understands how to evaluate and look at labs, but also understands that you are a human being with your own set of needs.

And what's perfect for other people may not be perfect for you. So in the alternative field we have lab ranges and within them we have optimal ranges. And then even within that I have just who is sitting in front of me and what are they dealing with and how do we optimize? And even if you're and so the same thing for like a reverse T3 which a lot of people don't run, but reverse T3 is kind of the brakes where you're not producing. Instead of producing free T3, you're producing reverse T3, which looks similar but doesn't have the positive actions.

And so it's blocking thyroid hormone. And this can be mediated from stress, emotional stress, chemical stress, toxic stress, physical stress, etc., hormonal imbalances, nutrient deficiencies. And so if you just give more T4, you're just making the problem worse, you're just creating more reverse T3. And so you really have to go in and look at all these factors so you can figure out what's going to be the best treatment for you because you have all these different things. If someone has a high reverse T3, then you just want to give T3.

You don't want to give on like a nature thyroid or something like that. You want to just and you want to work on why is the reverse T3 high so we can get that down always at least I'm always looking at, you know, what's causing this, what's the root factor, what's underlying this. And so it's really important to kind of break it down and look at. So, you know, we're talking about diet, we're talking about chemicals and toxins. There's also viruses that can drive these issues, whether it be the HPV six family of viruses, which would include like your EBV, which I see a lot can be Lyme disease, can be H pylori, it can be toxoplasmosis.

There are lots of different. So we have to be thinking about infection as well. And then I also, because I always marry the mind and the body, I'm thinking about the emotions. And so I'm thinking about, you know, the thyroid is right where the throat chakra is, which is this energy center. And so and again, especially as women, this is our our communicate patients and this is speaking to our truth and this is voicing our feelings. And I, I feel like it's connected to the sacral chakra, which is our creativity.

And so are we in our energy or are we in our zone? Are we living our passions? Are we doing the work we love? And then are we expressing it and sharing it with the world? And so health, whether it be the thyroid or your lungs or your gut to me is always what's going on emotionally and how is that energetically expressing? And then what's going on in this physical vessel we have and how can we strengthen the physical vessel. That's so beautiful. I love that you're piecing it all together because it is so many different pieces for healing.

It's not just give a medication. We really have to look at the labs, interpret them and apply them to the individual person and it can be frustrating because I just had a patient this week like you were saying earlier, you had similar her test was 4.4 and and you could even see the little note in the porthole from her practitioner. It said everything looks good. So it's not it takes expertize to look at thyroid labs and look at the person. You know, if they're if they're having complaints and their thyroid is within range, but it's not optimal, then we need to address that.

So and it's not just give everyone thyroid hormone because there there was a doc that I get a lot of patients from that's retiring who would put everyone on high doses of NP thyroid just no matter what

Optimizing Thyroid Labs and Treatment Strategy 23:00

their labs look like and those and I'm sure this happens to you doctor so so when patients come to you and other people have kind of done stuff, sometimes it's harder to kind of back up and then move forward. So that's where I'm at with one of these, because when you're when you're healing all the different facets, the gut health, the emotional health, the nutrition, their thyroid is going to get better. So sometimes things shift around, their adrenals are less stressed, their gut health is fixed. So then you can fix the medication and get it back.

So it's not it's not super easy. Sometimes it takes a long time, and especially if you've been sick for a long time. Healing takes a long time, but your body wants to go towards healing. It doesn't want to stay stuck. And that's what you've seen in you know, both of us have had similar stories where we've had the diseases and we know that there's a better way. Yeah, I think that I come from the the mindset of a little can go a long way and we can always raise your dose. But if we can get there with a small dose because and it's true if you you know, the things we've been talking about and, you know, we could talk about this all day, there are lots of other factors.

I'm just bringing up some of the more common ones. But if you handle these things, then maybe you don't need three game grains of thyroid, maybe you just need a half a grain of thyroid. And that's going to support you. And can you I do a lot of cell therapy, which so I'm regenerating the thyroid and I'm cleaning out the toxins and I'm cleaning up the mouth and I'm moving the lymph and we're working on the emotions and we're supporting the adrenals and we're healing the gut. And so when you do all these things and as you said, yes, if it takes time, I think they used to say when I was in medical school a long time ago, like you have, you know, if a patient comes to you and they've been sick for five years, you know, they need to give you at least half that time, if not that whole time, to reverse the process and get well.

And so my thing and that with patients is like, I just want to see you moving forward. And often it's really dramatic and you can have big changes from just a little thing. And then we go in and we kind of tweak it and make it perfect. And this, you know, the thyroid especially I work with a lot of menopausal women, perimenopausal, post-menopausal, and it's just something I was reviewing a patient's results the other day and I just reminded her, like, your levels look really good right now, but that's right now this is something that needs to be monitored because it changes as we age, as our other hormones go out of balance, as we have stress in our life.

Because if you're alive, you're going to have stress. You know, it's just it's it's not a matter of getting rid of stress. I always say it's a matter of how do we interact with stress and how do we dance with stress and how do we dialog with it. And so it's learning not to like knee jerk react, but to respond mindfully. And so all of these things change. And so these levels need to be checked every six months at a minimum every year, because as you changes, your diet changes and things change, your needs can change.

So just because something looks good now or on the flip side, as you were saying, like something doesn't look good now, that doesn't mean it can get better and doses can be reduced. There's definitely different seasons of health to I was talking to my husband today, my elementary school kid I just we it's hard to get him out of the house and I just I've given up and we're just late we've been late four out of five days, I think. And I wrote when I signed him in, I wrote he needed to take a bath.

Like, you know, I'm not I'm looking at you have to look at stress differently if you're all bundled and tired and frustrated and yelling at your kids because they're going to be 5 minutes late for school again, I mean, you know, that's small in the grand scheme of things. So I think that, you know, really looking at things different, adding in meditation, realizing that things are hard but there's bigger obstacles that we're going to see. So we really have to build up our resilience, right? If you hold anger or, you know, my husband kind of gets more short temper than I do with the kids and I'm like their kids.

Like, you know, they're going to try to get out of going to bed and, you know, not wearing socks with their shoes. So we're always, you know, I mean, we're always going to have that stress. So I a lot of patients I see they are mothers. They're in their late twenties to late forties. And this is where everything is just kind of disrupted. And they know that there's a reason why they don't feel good. And a lot of the times they're blown off and told, Oh, you're just stressed out, you're a mother, deal with it.

Here's some Prozac. But you know, Dr. Stills night, we're saying that that's just not true, right? There's things you can do if you're willing to put some work in. So I think I'd like you to touch on that, that maybe,

Stress, Mindset, and Daily Healing Practices 28:30

you know, that this is work, right? This isn't a pill. You know, natural healing is is a little bit of work. If you could discuss that for us. Sure. And yeah. And I love that word. You know, there are different seasons of life and of healing. And even just in interacting with the seasons and what we choose to put in our bodies fluid wise, food wise, exercise wise, etc.. And so I, you know, it is it's not just a pill, it's taking responsibility. And one of the things and I know, you know, I raised two children, so I'm in a different season of my life.

But I was I mean, I raised two children on my own while I was putting myself through medical school and then running a very busy practice. So I've been there, I understand. And so and so, you know, back then it was more like, what are my non-negotiables? Because I didn't have the space that I have now in my life to to do more self-care care. And so but it was like, what are my non-negotiables for me to maintain a level of health? And for me it was making sure I got 8 hours of sleep. It was making sure I got some aerobic exercise, like 30 minutes.

That was all I had time for. But 30 minutes on the stair style stepper or the bike or the treadmill and making sure I meditated for 30 minutes. And so those were my bare minimums that kept me afloat so that I could be healthy and do all the things that were expected of me. Now, that list is much longer because my children are grown and I don't have to take care of another being. But one of the things I think, you know, if you are in that busy stage, which is a beautiful stage, like if you can really learn to embrace it because it goes so quickly and you know, now I have grandchildren and they are they are the best thing ever.

But, you know, I look at my kids and I'm like, you know, my my eldest son is also a natural Catholic physician. He's 33. My younger son is 31. You know, they're they're like big, giant adults now. And it's like, oh, my God, it went so quick. And so really appreciating even the, you know, not putting the sock on. There's such beauty in small things. And but to to be less stressed, I find one of the most important things is really thinking through your schedule and how you're going to do things and looking at your non-negotiables.

And I hope that sleep and movement and meditation are in there. And maybe you have another one or morning sunlight, but you can kind of do morning sunlight and meditate and hug a tree and put your feet on the ground so you can kind of get a few things in at once. But really looking through your schedule and giving yourself not stacking it. Okay, at 8:00 AM going to meditate. 9:00 I go to the gym. At 10:00, I got to make the lunches at 11:00 are going to be at work. And, you know, when we stack things and we don't give ourself any space for someone to be a little slow, I have a child.

I'm my eldest son. Was like that, too. He's still like that. So, you know, knowing, all right, we're going to have to do this a little earlier because he's sluggish in the morning or, you know what, if there's a traffic jam, so I'm not going to book this at four and then book that at five, I'm going to book it at 515. So I have some grace. So I can breathe. Because to me, one of the best forms of medicine is mindfulness, is regulating your nervous system, is learning to harness your breath and learning to be in the moment.

And if we are constantly rushing because think about it, the thyroid is about metabolism. And so, you know, it drives it revs metabolism. But how are we metabolizing our everyday life and our experience and how our not just our food, but our experience, our interactions, our relationships? And are we are we able to be present and take the beautiful little mundane morsels that make up the beauty of life? Or are we just crossing it off? Okay, meditated. Let me move on now. I got to make this movie.

Let me move on. Time to take a shower. I'm going to do my face mask. But I mean, you know, if we're in that energy, I'd rather you do less because less is more and really be present when you're washing the dishes and have gratitude and for big things and small things. But this is part of the work of healing. It's not just about what are my labs, what am I taking? It's about you as a human being and your experience. Because this life is fleeting. This life is a gift. We never know when it's going to be.

You know, we all hope to grow old and be 120 and rocking on the porch and looking back and reflecting. But we never know. And so really slowing down. And I know I you know, I'm I know I know what it's like to be busy. I know what it's like to raise kids and work and all of that. So it's like really looking sometimes your calendar can be your best healing tool. Like, what's a hell yes and what's and what can be. There'll be time down the road when you're in a different season and really, you know, being present with your family, with your children,

Where to Find Dr. Stills and Final Thoughts 34:00

the things that matter the most, not waiting for a crisis to occur, to remember what's important, but remembering what's important every day. That's so beautiful. And I love that you said gratitude and I am so grateful for you and your time here today. So if there's anything else you'd want to share, I would love to here where everyone could reach you. Where is your practice? Where you where do you hang out online? What's your favorite platform? All of that. So I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona, originally from New York, but hang out in the more sunny areas and the warmer weather these days.

It's Dr. Sharon Stills on any platform. DrStills.com is my website. I'm pretty easy to find. I'm the host of the mastering Menopause Transition Summit. We have another one coming up in September. I I'm inconsistent with social media working on being more consistent and sharing there, but that's part of my self-care. And, you know, I need to find a better, better relationship where I can do it and get off. And it doesn't take a lot of time because we didn't even get to talk about that. But like EMFs and addictions to phones and tech and like, you know, there's great things like if we didn't have technology, I won't be listening to this wonderful summit and my interview that I hope has inspired you, giving you one little morsel.

But we have to learn how to modulate it. And I've even found it myself. Well, I'm a little to think we need to have maybe not a full divorce, but like a little separation trial with me and my phone. And so it's just, you know, we just have to be thinking about these things. But I do have Instagram and Facebook and all those things. I, I, I like to post pictures of my grandbabies. I like to use social media. You know, for me, I love, like seeing and having a record and a memory that comes up on Facebook a year later.

Like, Oh, remember we did that or this is so to me, it's like a nice way to keep an online journal. Absolutely. Well, it's working really well for you because I can't believe you look so amazing. And I've met Dr. Stills in person. We hung out at a conference and she's full of energy in life. So it's working well for you, Grandma. I'll call your grandma buddy. I have. They call me baby. I love it. Thank you so much again for joining us. Thank you. Nice to be here and good to see you.