Unlocking the Secrets of Autoimmune Wellness with Michele Spring

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 345. Today we are talking about unlocking the secrets of autoimmune wellness with Michelle Spring. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris and I will be giving you your intro for today's episode. Before I go further, I just want to remind you if you haven't taken the chance to do this yet, please rate us five stars on your go to podcast platform, be it Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and leave us a rating. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts because it helps the show more than you know. So for today's episode, we'll be speaking with Michelle Spring from Thriving Autoimmune. Her journey is nothing short of inspiring because she was diagnosed with Hashimoto's and Celiac disease and spent years navigating the complexities of autoimmune conditions. So in today's episode with Beverly, she shares her story of transformation and from struggling with debilitating symptoms to thriving on a paleo ish diet and becoming a health coach, Michelle dives deep into the challenges of living with autoimmune diseases and and the power of autoimmune protocol or AIP diet and the importance of stress management and mindset. Whether you're dealing with similar health issues or are a health coach looking to support clients better, this episode is packed with valuable insights. So sit back, relax, and get ready to be inspired by Michelle's story and expertise. Let's dive in.

What's up, Michelle? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

Oh, I'm so excited to dive in. So for those of you who are not familiar with your work, would you share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Sure. So my name is Michelle Spring of Thriving Autoimmune, and I got to where I am because I actually have two autoimmune diseases myself, Hashimoto's thyroiditis and celiac disease. And I had been diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2016 and told there Was nothing I could do other than take medication. And for eight years, I suffered with all kinds of symptoms. Like I was exhausted, my hair was falling out, I had ridiculously heavy periods, I had brain fog. I mean, you name it. There was all of these, like seemingly unrelated symptoms. They were all happening with my doctor. Nothing worked right. Because all he said was just take this medication. And a lot of times he would say, labs came back to normal, you're fine, it's all in your head, all of this kind of stuff. And then eventually after I had two kids and I, I got really, really, really tired. Like I could barely function after work, I would come home and I would just crash on the couch. My husband would have to make dinner. I couldn't play board games with my kids. Like, I was so tired that I was like, all right, this has to stop. This can't be my life. I'm 37. This is ridiculous, right? And my mom had actually died of cancer a couple of years prior to that. And I was like, okay, so she died and missed out on my, my children's life. And I'm like, but I'm alive and I'm sitting right here and I'm missing out on my children's life, right? So I have to do something. So I actually went to a functional medicine practitioner and he diagnosed me with the Hashimoto's thyroiditis and celiac disease and told me, because they're autoimmune diseases, you can actually do something about it. And so I went on the auto autoimmune protocol or AIP diet. And within a few weeks, I felt better than I had in 15 years. It was like, it was absolutely incredible. And so then I reintroduced foods. Cause it's an elimination diet that you reduce a lot of different foods that just kind of give your gut a chance to heal. And then you reintroduce foods to see what you still tolerate, what causes issues, all that kind of stuff. And I got back to mainly like a paleo ish kind of diet. Cause that, that seems to work the best for me. So I, I kind of switched between gluten free, I'm always gluten free because of the celiac disease, but a gluten free kind of paleoist diet. But I also noticed that I had to really pay attention to my stress levels. I couldn't exercise the way I used to. I used to be an ironman triathlete. I've done three of them and now I can barely run a mile. But I like to still go hiking and I live in Colorado and I love to go hiking in the mountains and I will do six to nine mile hikes, but then I know to take off and really rest my body and all of that for the next week or so. And so I have to listen to my body, I have to pay attention to my stress load between my stress from like stress stress and exercise stress and all of the other toxins and stress kind of things. And then I've also really worked on my mindset as well because I was a people pleaser, control freak, overachiever, type A, all of those kind of things. So I always put everybody else's knees in front of mine and caused myself more stress and more I wasn't doing the habits I needed to and all of that kind of stuff because I was always trying to prove myself worthy to other people. So I was just like working on all of these different kind of things. I really got myself to a point where now I don't feel any of the thyroid symptoms whatsoever and I live as almost I don't have a disease except for the exercise part. And then I eat that special Paleoish diet. But other than that I feel great and I fully participate in my life and everything is wonderful. So I got into all of, I'm a health coach now and I help people go through all of this as well because so many people are told by their doctors that there's nothing that they can do. They're told just take the medication or they're told there's nothing wrong with you, your labs are fine. And so I really want people to understand that they have so many options and they have the power within them to feel great again.

So no, no, I have so many questions. This is good. So now my question for you is couple a couple things. How long did it take you once you went on the AIP diet, the elimination diet, like how long did it actually take you to, to navigate and manage your symptoms and actually start feeling like a, like normal human being again?

It was only. So six weeks is for some reason, it's the weird magic number for both me and most of my clients. There's like this six week mark where the inflammation, especially if you like chronic inflammation, especially in your brain with the brain fog and all of that, it just magically goes away at six weeks. And then I stayed on the AIP diet for three months just to make sure I really healed my gut and everything and then started to methodically reintroduce foods at that point. So it took me about a year to really get to my, like, current kind of format. Things like, I had paprika, and I would get depressed for a couple of days afterwards. It was the weirdest thing. I would never have thought that you get depressed from a food, but there was a direct correlation. Every time I had paprika, I would be depressed. So I had to. To get through a couple of those things. But as I healed, I was able to introduce more. So, yeah, gluten. Right now, gluten, corn, and dairy are my kind of the things that I. I avoid as much as possible.

I'm curious about the celiac, because usually from what my understanding of celiac is that it is, like, a matter of life or death, essentially, when you're eating gluten or not. So how many years did you suffer from celiac without even realizing it? Was it excruciating pain? Like, anytime you ate gluten? Like, how did that show up for you?

So it's. I mean, it shows up differently in all people, right? So it's, you know, with, like, autism, for example, there's a spectrum, right? And so there's the same thing with autoimmune disease. There's a spectrum. So some people will have, like, henaphylactic almost kind of responses if they have any sort of gluten and really be in a lot of pain. Then there's the rest of us that I would go. I remember we went to the model homes when I was looking at our homes and had to go to the bathroom number two in the model home because I was. I couldn't find a bathroom fast enough, that kind of thing. But it wasn't. I had been eating gluten multiple times a day, every day. So your body kind of gets used to that and doesn't necessarily cause all of the huge symptoms. It was just more, oh, well, I'm accepting the fact that I look pregnant because I'm bloated, that kind of thing. My big problem, too, there's a thing called gluten ataxia, which actually, it's the same antibodies that attack your intestines but attack the cerebellum in your brain. And so they cause balance issues, memory issues, dizziness, all kinds of stuff like that. And so I had that. And so as soon as I removed the gluten for that, a lot of that brain fog and stuff, like, went away because I didn't have that anymore. And I was having some balance issues. So, like that proprioception, where you stand, if you close your eyes, especially on one foot, I would fall right over. But now I can do that. Right. So like I was able to rebuild, but so there are certain things that gluten can affect that isn't necessarily your intestines.

Interesting. Okay, so what were. Now you kind of mentioned some of the symptoms that you, you know, were experiencing. And it is interesting to me that you, you also talked about the spectrum. Right. So what are some of the symptoms that people who are suffering and would do very well with an AIP diet to at least just see it? What are some of the things that they experience? Is it all of the symptoms? Is it a few of the symptoms? What are some of the things? And especially as coaches, when we are working with clients, what are some of the things that we should be paying attention to to at least go get this looked at?

Yeah, So I specifically was feeling hypothyroidism or Hashimoto symptoms. But there are certain symptoms that are kind of across the board for all autoimmune diseases. Like things like a fatigue can be like endless fatigue where you just are tired all the time, that kind of thing. That could be a thyroid issue, but it can also.

Were you sleeping eight hours a day? Because what I see is a lot of people will have this and they're like, well, I'm not sleeping well. And I'm like, yeah, but you're getting enough.

No, I was sleeping 10 hours a day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's the problem. That's usually so a thyroid issue. You usually can tell is because you're sleeping more than what you probably expect and you're still waking up not feeling refreshed and having this fatigue. And then especially if you have a 3pm fatigue, that's going to be a lot of times that's tied to thyroid as well. It's a cortisol response. Your adrenals are kind of like fried because you're always stressed. But usually the, they're tied between the adrenals and your thyroid. It's if there's like a feedback loop. So yeah, so I mean, so exhaustion fatigue is definitely one of them. Low grade fevers is a strange one, but if you feel low grade fevers throughout the month, especially like menstruating females tend, you know, you tend to have a fluctuation in your, your temperature throughout the month, but it could be at any time of the month that you might have a higher temperature. When you're like, typically when you're right after your period, you have a lower temperature, but you could have a higher temperature. And that could indicate Something like that, like joint pain, little aches and pains. A lot of times that can represent chronic inflammation in your body. But a lot of people that have any sort of autoimmune symptoms will have chronic inflammation as well. And joint pain. I had teeth pain, which is the strangest thing. But my dentist says there's a lot of nerves right there, so if it's inflamed whatsoever, then it's going to hit those nerves. And so it's just a lot of these different. There are a lot of symptoms that don't seem to be related. So it's, you know, if you have rheumatoid arthritis, for example, you're going to have joint pain, right? And you're going to. It's going to be very hard to move something. So you're going to look at that and you're like, okay, well, I probably have, like, arthritis or something like that. But like, with autoimmune in general, a lot of times there's just all of these random kind of signals from your body saying, hey, we're not doing so great right now. Like, we need. We need help.

Yeah, okay, great. One of my favorite reels of yours that I remember seeing from back in the day, and if you don't know, her Instagram is absolutely hysterical. And you must go watch it. Even if you are not someone who suffers from autoimmune or work with people. It's just such a good account. But one of the things that you talked about was, you know, being cold in the summer. Right. So is it. Is it your whole body? Is it your extremities? What are some of the, like, body temperature dysregulations that you experience and that. That potentially a sign.

Yeah. So that's definitely going to be a. More of a thyroid kind of symptom. But so the thyroid regulates your metabolism, the rate at which you, like, use food for energy, but then also your body temperature. And so if you have any sort of issues with your thyroid from autoimmune disease or whatever, you're going to feel cold. And it's. You feel like you're just. You need a sweater or a sweatshirt, and when it's 90 degrees out, it's the craziest thing. My, My family used to make fun of me. We would be in Hawaii having dinner, and I'd be in there in a sweater, like, with my, you know, pulling the sleeves over my fingers. Because your fingers, they feel like ice blocks at all times. You always, always wearing socks, always wearing sweaters. It's just. And Then I used to love when I used to work in a corporate setting where they had the air conditioning on during the summer. I literally had heated gloves. I would wear a winter jacket, a hat and heated gloves in the middle of summer because the air conditioning would just push me over the edge. I couldn't handle it. So, yeah, it's just, it's your whole entire body is just a lower temperature in general.

Okay. Okay, cool. And then, you know, you talked about stress. And I feel like this is such a powerful conversation because you talked about exercise stress and then like normal stress and then invisible stress.

Right.

I see a lot of my clients and my friends who will tell me that they're not stressed, but I can. I know without a shadow of a doubt that their sympathetic nervous system is firing off. Even though they're sitting and watching television, they just cannot get to a parasympathetic state. So what can you talk and unpack? Like how you define stress for your clients and how they can actually know whether or not they're experiencing. Experiencing it or not?

Yeah, so I talk a lot about stress load. So there's stress that we know, like bills, deadlines, taxes, traffic, all of that kind of stuff that causes stress. And you know, the stuff that we love. Right. Which always happens. But then there, like I exercise stress. So exercise is a great thing. Don't get me wrong when I say exercise, like, can be bad because you should be exercising because too little exercise can be stress on your body as well. You need to find a sweet spot. But too much, and when I say too much is too much of a duration, like too long or too intense or too frequently for your body can cause stress on your body as well. And especially if you have like chronic inflammation and autoimmunity going on, this is definitely too much of a stress load for a lot of people. So it's just, it's just piling on. So now you have the deadlines, the taxes, the stress of that kind of stuff. Plus you're working out too much because society tells you you have to do 90 minutes of cardio a day or something like that. And then you're being exposed to air pollution and toxins and going around and drinking water out of BPA laden bottles and, you know, eating pesticides and all of this kind of stuff. So now you have that kind of stress load on your body. Right. So your body's trying to take care of all of this stuff. And then you got your emotions. So you might be watching TV to kind of zone out, but yet at the same time, you just got done a whole entire day of trying to please your boss or deal with clients that are, like, not really listening to you and you're frustrated that they're not doing what you're asking them to do, or, you know, maybe somebody got mad and asked for a refund or, you know, all these kinds of things. And so you're dealing with all that. And so you may be zoning out for a little bit, but at the same time, you still have all this other stress going on. So it's. It just accumulates. And so it's. I really. When I talk to my clients, I talk a lot about practicing getting into a parasympathetic mode. So it's not necessarily about being in parasympathetic at all time, because we actually switch between parasympathetic and sympathetic at all times. Right. So it's like right now, you and I are probably in sympathetic because we are conversing and thinking and being very thoughtful. Right. Which is a great thing. We need to be in that state to do a lot of different things. But yet, at the same time, if we're not in parasympathetic, then we're not digesting foods, we're not repairing tissue, we're not removing toxins, all of those kinds of things. So I have my clients practice a lot, doing, like, deep breaths or maybe doing a quick eft. Tapping or humming to activate the vagus nerve, or all these different things. Because every time you teach your body to go back into that parasympathetic. Parasympathetic mode for even, like, 30 seconds, you're building those neural pathways that tell your brain, hey, this is what I do. Right? And so the more you can tell that, especially when you're not stressed, if you're just sitting there and you're practicing this, when you are stressed, your body's going to be like, oh, I know how to do this. And so it's just like money in the bank. Every time that you practice this, then the more and more you practice, the easier it gets. And then when it really counts, you can do it. So, I don't know. It's a lot to try to kind of focus on it at first, but, yeah, it's just like, little things definitely make a big difference.

Yeah. So I'm curious.

Two things.

I'm going to ask you two questions, so if you need me to repeat it, because I do this all the time, but I forget. That's why I have this pen and paper that I'm like, oh, I'm going to write my questions down. So. And then I just do it anyway. People, people come to get to know me now. But I'm curious, you know, for you, what was the grieving? And was there a grieving process around, like, foods that you ate and exercises that you loved to. To do? How did you manage that grieving process and what was it like for you specifically? And then what are some of the things that your clients struggle with adhering to the most?

Yeah, so there's definitely a grieving process, for sure. I mean, that's. It's something I definitely address a lot because I think people don't even think about that. You're going to get rid of something that is probably part of your life all the time. Right. And the foods, gluten, definitely. It's so much better now because there's so many more options. But when I did this a decade ago, there wasn't as many. There was still quite a. Quite a few, but still not being able to travel as easily or going out to restaurants as easily or anything like that. So I definitely went through a process of. It was. It was full on grief. Like I felt like I had lost a friend for a while. And so I don't think I necessarily went through it the right way at that time. I have since learned better methods and I definitely. That's eft tapping to me is like one of the best things for grief in that regard. So you can speak out loud the feelings that you're having about that grief about something like that. And then as you do that, you. You activate certain acupressure points along your face and your chest, and that helps to release those emotions around it. So I really find that to be very helpful for a lot of my clients. Now, the exercise part, that was very, very difficult for me because I identified as an athlete. I was always an athlete in like high school, middle school, college. And then I went on to do the Ironman triathlons. And then suddenly I couldn't do anything right. And so it's like I could barely, like, walk. I could like, I could walk, but I couldn't go four walks without feeling very tired and sore and everything for a few days afterwards. And I've gotten so much better over the years. But at first it was really hard. And I remember going to my doctor and my doctor saying, are you exercising? And I said no. And I felt so much shame. And she says, well, you're not walking or doing yoga or anything. I said, well, yeah, I'm doing those because to me, those were the recovery day kind of things. Right. It's just like I'm laughing.

I'm only laughing because that's how I feel. And I remember I was working with a friend of mine and she's, well, I do Pilates three days a week. I'm like, oh, so you don't work out? But that's not true. And I know that that's not true.

I've worked.

Listen, I know that Pilates is a real deal, okay. This is just my, my at the, at the time. I mean, I'm just used to that. That was my perception. That's how I thought of it.

Yeah, no, I know. And yeah, so, like, I had all this shame about the fact that I was only doing those things and my doctor had to say, hey, you know, that's working out, right? Yeah, Now I understand. Okay. Like, walking is one of the best things that you can do in all of this kind of stuff. And. But so it took me a while to really get over that identity. And I still grapple with it 10 years later because sometimes I live in Colorado, right outside of Boulder, Colorado, where it is like athletes central. And so I'll go in the mountains or go into Boulder and you see all these people really, really fit and doing things that are like, they look fun and I can't do those. I don't really want to. Still, sometimes it's that I tend to see that just pops back up.

So I'm curious, just out of curiosity, if we go back to that time when you were performing those Iron Man's, like, how did you get through those? Were your symptoms just not as pronounced as they were later? Like, how did you do that?

Well, the first. Was it the one. The first one, I was fine through that. I do think that probably triggered the hypothyroidism that I originally was the Hashimoto's really. I wasn't diagnosed with it at that point in time, but I do think it triggered because I got diagnosed six months later because I could not recover. I never felt like I like, you know, like the day after you do something like that, you're really tired. I felt that way for six months, so I thought I had mono and I went to the doctor and I'm like, no, no, it's your thyroid. So I do think a lot of that triggered that. So I didn't necessarily feel it then the second time and the third time I definitely had a harder time recovering, but I didn't even. It didn't Even cross my mind that it could be my thyroid at that point in time. I just thought I was getting older.

Yeah. That's my other thing too is that were you tired of fatigue during the training or was it just the adrenaline combined with the exertion?

I think it was all. All things. Yeah. It's just I think it was too much on my body. Plus the fact that I did not eat properly for someone who does that. Like I would go to fast food restaurants afterwards. I mean, I started to do Ironman triathlons because I wanted to eat as much as I wanted to, to be honest. Right. Because I was having a hard time losing weight probably because my thyroid was not working properly at the time. And I mean I loved doing like it was. I loved the, the process of it. I love the running and all of that kind of stuff. But it was just I, that was why I went to the really long. Because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and so I could lose weight, but that isn't so I could eat whatever I wanted. And so I would eat fast food and Lucky Charms and Fruity Pebbles and all kinds of stuff that probably wasn't nourishing my body at the same time. That's how much. Yeah, I'm a health coach. Hello. I wasn't then. I was a computer programmer back then. Yeah.

I mean, listen, I get it. Half of us get into this. For me, sir, let's just be real.

Okay.

So anyway, so then, so then you. So you were just not recovering and it was taking extra long, you thought you had mono.

So.

You know, I'm curious now that you're aware of it, now that you are, you can eat right for the body, for that type of stress load, Is it something that's just not recommended? If you wanted to go back to it, could you. Like what. And if you were to. What would that look like?

Yeah. I actually have a couple of friends that do quite some crazy things with autoimmune disease. I have one that's an Ultra Runner, does 100 mile plus like runs and she's fine. So it's not like you can't do it. But there are certain people like me. I try to go out for a mile long run and if I try to go out for another mile long run the next day, then I start to feel very, very heavy. Almost like I'm wearing weights on my feet and I'm pushing against a brick wall if I'm walking. And then I will get cold and flu like symptoms like it's crazy. Like you actually feel like you have a cold, but it's not. And then just like some of the autoimmune kind of symptoms will start coming back as well. So it's just, it's too much for me to do it. So therefore I run twice a week right now just for fun, you know, that kind of thing. And I'm very, very cautious about my, my stress load. So that way if I do exercise, I won't exercise if I have too much stress or if I maybe went out to eat and had some corn and dairy that aren't necessarily great for me, or if I haven't had a lot of sleep. So I kind of like make sure I balance all of those. And if any of those are really off, then I'm not going to go into any more kind of exercise. So that's, that's what I have found personally works for me. But there are people that can go out and do, you know, high intensity workouts three times a week, four times a week and be fine. So it's just really highly individual.

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because, you know, you were talking about if I'm really stressed, I don't work out. But that is for me, that's how I expend my stress. I get stressed. I'm like, I need to work out. I just need to move my body and I need to use this energy that is being bubbled up.

Yeah. And I 100% am the same way. And that's why I walk now. So I'll go out and I'll walk. And I've also practiced qigong, which is like one of my favorite things, because then you can move the energy out as well. So I've actually become a qigong teacher for that reason because, like, I wanted to teach it to my members of my community. Community. Because it was such, you know, helpful to me in that regard. Yeah.

So now what are some of the things that you're. Cause it's, it's so individual. I'm curious, you know, what are some of the things that your community struggles with the most? What is hard? What are the hardest parts, like, in.

Terms of like symptoms or just in terms of just everything?

I mean, in general and kind of trying to go through the process. Right. If, if they're so used to eating gluten a million times, is the I, is the AIP something that they avoid? Do they want to do that? Do they not want to do that? Do struggle with it? Do they just say, well, you know, forget it. I lived this long. I'll just keep living this long.

I think there's a couple parts to it. One is a lot of times people are so used to hiding their symptoms because they are invisible symptoms. Being tired and all of these kind of things. So you kind of mask them. And so people are very used to that. And it has to sometimes get to a point where people are so bad off, like I was. Where you couldn't even get off the couch before they actually start to do something, which is a problem sometimes because then people are definitely. They've gone too far over the edge kind of thing, like into burnout or something like that. And then it's a lot harder to recover at that point. So it's a lot easier to do this earlier. But people don't want to change their diet, you know, go on a different diet than their family or give up their favorite foods. So, yes, I think the next part is struggling to want to do the diet. Finding a time to do to the diet because they always have excuses of, hey, I'm traveling, I've got my sister's wedding coming up, my birthday is coming up, you know, all these different kind of things. So it's, it's kind of like once people get on it, it's usually not that bad.

What is it?

What the actual diet. So it, you remove all grains, dairy, legumes, which is beans and soy and things like that, nuts and seeds and probably something else that I'm not thinking of, you know, processed sugars, things like that, and toxins. So it's, it's, it's a lot of the foods that research and anecdotal data have shown can trigger leaky guy and autoimmune triggers like issues in people. So, yeah, it's typically recommended to remove those foods for 30 days and then you start reintroducing them.

So what were, what do you eat on it?

You eat vegetables, meats, fruits. You can have cassava flour and tiger nut flour, which. Tiger nut sounds like a nut, but it's actually a small tuber. So you have that arrowroot, tapioca flour. So there's, you can have baked goods, you can have breads, there's a lot of stuff. And, and it's very nutrient dense, which I think is also a thing. It's like a lot of people are like, oh, well, there's nothing to eat because I'm taking all these things out. But then you're actually replacing it with a whole bunch of vegetables and meats and Proteins and seafoods and fruits and stuff that have a lot of nutrients in them versus eating Lucky Charms, which don't necessarily have that.

What about fodmaps? Do people deal with any of the fodmap, you know, high fiber?

Yeah, and I do have people that do struggle with that. And so you can do a low fodmap aip? It's. Yeah, it removes a lot. What are you doing?

Water?

No, because. And then you're just removing a lot of, you know, just not having onions and garlic and those kinds of things. So there are substitutions for it. But I don't typically like when people go that far at that point. I'd much rather them work with a functional medicine practitioner or somebody that's going to really be able to like a dietitian or something that's going to be able to walk them through getting enough. Because I mean that that's one problem with these eliminations diets is that people do take out, you know, a lot and then people get stuck in. They're like, well, I like this food, I like this dish. So I'm going to eat that every day. But that's not helpful either. So it's. I encourage everybody to eat as wide a variety of diet as possible because you want all of those fibers and you want all of that gut bacteria to be very happy and all of that. So yeah, so that is something I do struggle with, with my community.

And then you slowly put things back to see aggravating it. How long is it and what's the process? And in adding that, so it's typically.

Three days, 72 hours of. So you, you reintroduce a food, you take a little small bite of it and if you have no reaction, then you take a little bit of bigger of a bite an hour later and then you can have a normal serving of the food. And then within three days, if you haven't had any sort of reaction, then you can say, okay, cool, that that food belongs back in my diet and you reintroduce it and eat it as normal. So you just keep doing that. We have a specific schedule that we have people go through like of the foods that most people can reintroduce successfully come first so that you can start getting that confidence and, and then you start to reintroduce more and more and more. But.

What do people, what can people usually tolerate first?

Some of the easy things are actually like black pepper is one of the first ones. Ghee, which is actually, it's clarified butter. People seem to have no problem with that or not a lot as many people have problems with that. Some of the, the seed and nut oils, they'll be okay, just things like that. And sometimes like white rice, there's no nutritional value whatsoever in that. It's just kind of a thing. So those are usually like some of the first to be reintroduced that people have no problem. And then like, then like nuts and seeds and things like that come after that. But eggs whites typically are some of the hardest things to reintroduce as our nightshades. Nightshades are probably one of the hardest things for people to introduce.

So what, egg whites over dairy?

Well, dairy's up there too. Yeah, but I find because egg whites come before dairy in the reintroduction process. So I think that's why I notice it more, because people talk about it more. But. And there's a different, there's a spectrum on the dairy too, because it's like the hard cheese, like Parmesan, a lot more people tolerate that than liquid milk because there's a lot less lactose, you know, that kind of stuff in there too. So it's interesting, right?

I mean, I had a daughter, I have a daughter. Had a daughter. I have a daughter who was allergic to milk, but not the sugar in milk, it was the casing. So the way it was the casein that she was allergic to. And it was so hard to find protein for her that she eat or drink because there's a reason milk.

People take milk for kids because it's.

Like such a nutrient dense punch, essentially. It was hard to replace that for her. It's so gross what we had to do. So, you know, just say it was gross. We had to like liquefied chicken with soda.

My son has issues with dairy as well, and we let him. Actually we took him off it for many years when he was a young toddler. And then we let him have it because he's diabetic, Type one diabetic now. And so that's one of the only things that he can have that's low carb. But now he's 14 and a teenager and breaking out all over his face. And we have tried all of the creams, all of the things, and nothing was working. So I said, hey, can we just try removing dairy for a couple weeks? He said, sure, because he's a teenager and they don't want to have this. And within two weeks it's already mostly gone. Yeah, it's. It's crazy. So why does it have to be that way?

Yeah, we we don't really drink milk proper anymore either, but when they were little, it was central anyway.

Okay.

So I'm also curious, right, about, you know, are you still supported with medication as well, on top of all these protocols?

Yes, yes, I am. I have to take a thyroid hormone replacement because during that, the eight year period or may have been prior to that as well, where I wasn't diagnosed with the autoimmune disease, I was just given medication and unfortunately the medication does nothing to stop the autoimmune attack against my thyroid. So my thyroid tissue was slowly destroyed. So I still have my thyroid, but I have. I'm missing some tissue. And so I can't produce enough thyroid hormone to survive and be healthy. So it's, it's a tool in my toolbox. I. I use it as like another thing that I do that makes me feel my best. So I don't, I don't view it as a failure. It's just. Just another thing.

Yeah, love that. So now I'm curious. Is there autoimmune in your family? Is this a genetic. Is this genetics or is this developed, this.

It's usually genetics. I don't know if it's in my family. My mom passed away of cancer, but based on a lot of the things that she used to struggle with, I definitely think she must have had it. They just never diagnosed her with it. She didn't really go to the doctor very often until, you know, the very end. So I, I really do think that she probably had that as well. And then I mentioned my son has type 1 diabetes. So Hashimoto's celiac disease and type 1 diabetes and Addison's are all actually from the same gene group. And so they actually test my son for all of these things every year to make. Well, he already knows he has diabetes and we already assume he has celiac disease. So it's just. He's just on a gluten free diet. So we can't test him officially because he's not producing any antibodies. But so these are the kind of things that, like, they come in groups. So it's, you know, lucky genetic lottery.

Well, yeah, I mean, I know it doesn't feel lucky, but you're helping so many people.

Yeah, no, I truly believe I have been given a gift from my autoimmune disease. I definitely didn't see that that way at first, but I do believe that this is what I've been put on this earth to do, is to help people to start to feel better. I used to help people with a computer program to make them save five hours a week. I wasn't fulfilled by that. But like this, this is what I'm, I'm here to do is to help people. So it's definitely a gift for me.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Okay, so now as coaches, you know, when we're working with our clients, like how, you know, are people present to this? Do they know that they could be suffering from autoimmune? Like how, how does this go undetected for so long?

They the average, I think it's 4.5 doctors in five years. I may have that gotten that transposed. But to get diagnosed with an autoimmune disease because there are a. Not a lot of tests to diagnose a lot of these because they have to know the specific antibodies to look for. A lot of times insurance won't pay for things unless you are presenting with specific symptoms. So yeah, it's crazy for that. A lot of times doctors don't even know what to look for. I ask. That's the very first question I ask people when they join my community is how many doctors in how many years? And most people have been at least five or so years with multiple doctors. Some have gone 20, 30, 40 years before they've gotten diagnosed. So it's. And it's like the symptoms are always like I've mentioned before, so unrelated. So it's just you have all of these strange things going on. So it's just hard for a lot of people to quite put it all together and say, oh, you have autoimmune disease. So it's more. And a lot of people think it's just getting older. A lot of these things are like, oh, you're just getting older, you're just tired, you're losing your hair. You know, all of these things just, it's just normal getting older, but it's not okay.

So. And then also too, you know, you were talking about how everyone's symptoms just show up so differently too. So people think, oh yeah, well I don't have that. So I don't have that.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's hard.

It's hard. And it's hard because of that spectrum thing too. Like I have Hashimoto's, my mother in law has Hashimoto's and I said something one day about oh, I can't do that because it's, I'm too tired for my Hashimoto's and she's oh, suck it up. I have that too. Right. So it's there's a spectrum though. So some people have it and they don't really have very many symptoms. Other people can be really, really affected by it. So it's. You have to understand that if you do have it, like not to feel shame or anything about the fact that yours is worse or anything like that. And you just have to honor your own feelings and your own journey with it.

Yeah. So if you are listening to this or you have clients that are, that are listening to this or clients that you think you could, you know, could benefit from going and taking a look, a deeper look, what are some of the questions that they should ask their doctor if they're concerned at all about any or all of their symptoms that they're experiencing?

I would probably just tell their doctor all of the symptoms that they're experiencing and ask them to really advocate for themselves to push for a diagnosis and not to just be written off and dismissed saying, oh, that's all in your head. Or maybe here, have an antidepressant or an anti anxiety med or something like that, which is a very common practice because a lot of these do seem like they are depression and anxiety or whatever, but to keep pushing until they actually are able to get a diagnosis.

Were you put on antidepressant or anti anxiety?

No, they discussed it, but I refused to do so. And I was like, I, I want to try this diet thing first before. And my doctor laughed at me and said, there's no way that that was going to help. But, but I have so many clients that have been put on those and now that's part of their task is to, to wean themselves off of them because a lot of times their doctors won't even let them. I'm off of them.

But what I'm also curious about is.

Did those meds help to most of my clients? No. Most of my clients actually have said that it's been worse because they're not treating the right thing. Right, Exactly.

That's what made me. It's a treating a symptom, not a root cause.

Exactly. I mean, no. Like my clients are put on Ozempic because they're gaining weight, anti anxiety meds because they have anxiety, because their thyroid is going back and forth between hypo and hyper, which causes anxiety depression because when they're in hypo, it makes you feel very low and depressed. Like it's just all of these things, you're just treating the symptoms. You're playing whack a mole with the symptoms, but not actually treating the root cause. So it's not going to help. When.

How young do these symptoms tend to show up?

Eventually getting younger, which is interesting. I actually noticed them, I think, when I was a teenager because I used to go through a several week period every so often where I'd feel like I have to sleep a lot more than usual. And I thought that was just being a normal teenager. But then as I've gone back and looked at it, I don't think. I think this was actually maybe the very beginning of my thyroid starting to kind of have some issues, like some flare up of some of the symptoms. But I find it really manifests a lot more in people in their like late 20s, early 30s. Seems to be like the main point. I think at that point it's like we have children because the hormones really kind of cause issues. But then also weddings, very, very stressful events. You know, having jobs, buying your houses, you know, things like this, very, very big life events that happen that put so much enormous stress on you that your thyroid just. Or thyroid or any other organ or whatever just kind of gives out at that point.

Yeah, interesting. And then now, nowadays, just out of curiosity, and this is going to sound ignorant, so, you know, hold space for me here, please, but isn't there like a genetic marker that you can test for to see if you're. You're predisposed for autoimmune?

There are some things that you can kind of test for, but there's not really. There's not much. Yeah, so Even the type 1 diabetes, for example, they have certain antibodies and certain things they can look for. And so we've done that with my younger son because we were trying to, you know, see if he was starting to develop it or anything like. So they've. We could do early intervention, but even at that point there, it's. There's not much that they really can do. They can test to see if you have the genes for it, but even if you have the genes for it, it doesn't mean the genes actually going to trigger because it has to. You have to have like the environment and what you eat. I. All these different, like all these different things. A lot of times it's just luck. See?

Yeah. Perfect storm. It has to be a perfect storm. Yeah, yeah. It's hard. It's hard.

And a lot of times in families, people will have autoimmune disease throughout the family, but they'll be different diseases. So one family member might have rheumatoid arthritis, the other one might have psoriasis, the other one might Have Hashimoto's, like that kind of thing. So there's. It's not necessarily one gene for that particular disease. It's just you're predisposed to autoimmunity in general. Got it, got it, got it, got it.

My mom has autoimmune.

She's got lupus.

And my sister, we don't know, but she's got. We haven't figured out what it is, but she's. There's something. Yeah. So I'm also curious, like, how has people's diagnosis impacted the family dynamic? Do your clients struggle?

Some do. Some don't have the most supportive spouses or friends, and some do lose some of them because it's an unfortunate situation where they. Their whole entire life is based on going out to eat or going to bars or, you know, that kind of thing. So it is. It can be very difficult. But I'd say the majority of mine have mainly supportive people around them, but they just. It's more that they don't know how specifically to support them. Right. So they come to my community so that they can have somebody that knows what they're going through, whereas their spouse is just, okay, I'll help you out. I'll do what I can, but I don't know what to do. That can. Totally. Totally.

I mean, I've been with you when I've seen you order and I've seen people's impatience, somehow. It's. You're trying to be picky and it's. Do you want to call the ambulance or do you want to just spend the three extra seconds to answer my question about what's gluten free on the menu?

Yeah, yeah. And. And that's part of that whole part where I said in the beginning where you have to, like, learn too, like, about the type A overachieving, all that kind of stuff. You also have to let go about what people think about you, because if you're so worried about that, then you're gonna, of course, you're order the gluten and not care because, you know, because.

You don't want to upset this person who's busy.

Right, Right. But I have to stand up for myself. And this is my life. I live in my body 247 every day. And so these are the certain things that, like, I have to just deal with. And so if I inconvenience somebody, I. I usually try not to as much as possible, and I tip really well. But.

Yeah, but I mean, it's.

It's still.

Yeah, it's. It Was interesting to observe. I'll say that.

Yeah. Because it's like, it's. It.

You should know. I mean, it's two seconds. You asked one question.

Yeah. What's gluten free?

Like, you weren't like, can you make dance gluten free? It was like, literally, just tell. Just point me for what, what my.

Choices are, which is one choice. Just tell me one of these things.

Just tell me what I can eat so that I don't, you know, get sick. Like, it's pretty plain and simple. It's interesting how people, you know, but it's again, other people's stress responses. So that's. It's interesting to observe and that, you know, I know that it's getting better. Maybe because my reticular activation system is turned on because I'm around people who have gluten intolerances or who are celiac, like my nephew celiac. But they used to have really trashy food. Like, the food tasted disgusting. But now they're getting better.

Yeah, they are getting so much better. And I mean, I am very fortunate that I live in the Boulder, Colorado area because, I mean, we can go to entire restaurants that are gluten free. And we had a festival the other day that was gluten free. We have bakeries that are gluten free. So it's. We have a lot of options. And so I don't run into that situation where people get impatient with me very often at all. It's usually when I go and I travel. But yeah, I mean, like, for the most part. For the most part, I do seek out places typically that have gluten free options. And then I do my research, if I can, ahead of time, knowing which things are. It's just a lot of times it's on the menu. That place just didn't have it on the menu for some reason.

It was a weird place. It was just.

Oh.

Anyway, Michelle, I want to be really respectful of your time. So thank you so much for pouring into me and into us who are into you who are t tuning in. So for those of you who want to go deeper with you, what are some of the best places that I can send them?

Probably Instagram. I am at Thriving autoimmune or my website, Thriving AutoImmune or my YouTube channel, which take a brief break from. But I'm starting it up again soon. And that's at Michelle with 1L Spring, where you can just search for thriving autoimmune too. I should pop up.

Okay, we'll make sure that we link all of that up in the show notes.

Okay.

Amazing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me.

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