Hashimoto's Disease: Treatment and Ongoing Care for Hypothyroidism

Hi and welcome to how humans heal. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson and today I'm looking forward to introducing you to Annie Maldonado. She is a creator of the Hashimoto's Summit where she's raising awareness for Hashimoto's and really helping people around the world to feel this connection and support in their journey to reversing Hashimoto's. Thank you so much for joining me today, Annie.

Yes, thank you so much.

I'm so glad to get to talk with you and share about your mission. And because Hashimoto's is really quite common, I think a lot of people are, may not even realize that they have Hashimoto's because it's not often diagnosed. And then when they find out that they have Hashimoto's they're quite worried like what the heck am I supposed to do about this? And so it's so amazing that you've created this summit and way for people to learn more. So tell us more like what inspired you? How did you find out about Hashimoto? Because I know this has also been a health journey for you.

Yes. So I really, it has been quite a struggle for myself especially because there's been times where I thought I had it figured out and then things happen, change. I'm not sure why or what, what I did because I'm maybe not changing things with my diet or my routine, but things happen. And so I have struggled a lot and I know there's so many out there. I've talked to a lot of different people and it's just not an easy way to live life if you don't have it figured out. So.

Yeah, I put this summit together because I was so excited to spread more awareness and.

I was diagnosed five years ago with hypothyroidism before that and it's just been quite a journey and I, I still don't have it all figured out so.

Well, I love that vulnerability that you share, you know, like hey, we're in this together. Let's, let's understand all aspects of this and what we can do about it and what it means because I mean I know that for, for many years people would be diagnosed with Hashimoto's and that was kind of like the end in fact because to be diagnosed with Hashimoto's what has to happen is blood work that measures for the auto antibodies. But many practitioners first of all might not, might only just test TSH, which is thyroid stimulating hormone. Maybe they test T4 free T4 and identify because you mentioned you had you identified as low thyroid function before they found out about the auto antibodies. And so then you're like, okay, that's already a piece of information. And then finally a practitioner measured for the antibodies and say, hey, actually you have Hashimoto's antibodies, which is that I call them the TPO and ata, the thyroid peroxidase. And some people have both TPO and ATA or one or the other. And so then what, what happened? What did your doctor say to you when they found these antibodies? What did they, where did they, where did you go from there, if you don't mind sharing?

No, I don't at all. It's so funny that you even said it that way because it's, it's true. I was in Texas and right after my son's birth wasn't feeling good and my primary did some blood work and she told me I have hypothyroidism. And so I went on level thyroxine and, and.

You know, nothing really changed. And I also didn't educate myself enough. And then a few years later we're in Colorado and I had a different primary and she was very confused on why I was still on medication for the thyroid. And so she helped me discover that I had Hashimoto's. So, and then it really, it kind of dug in even more because I had tried to go gluten free before, I had tried a couple different things and I, I wasn't consistent or good with it. And then once I got the Hashimoto's, it was like, okay, this has to happen. And there's some things that has to happen. But I've learned so much. Like I still don't know a lot, you know, as much as I could know.

And yeah, it's just, it's been quite a journey.

Well, that's the thing. There's, I mean, I, I look at, I mean I've been a practitioner for over 20 years and I feel like we're constantly learning more about understanding autoimmunity in the human body and what we can do to help reverse it. But I think that's probably the first piece of information is it's actually possible to reverse Hashimoto's and turn it off and get these antibodies to decrease. And that's not often something people are hearing from their endocrinologist or other practitioner. Is that, do you find that to be true when you connect with other people around the world who've been diagnosed with Moshimoto's?

Yes, definitely. And you just don't know, and, you know, honestly, I had sort of a bad experience with a functional doctor. And that was just my personal experience. I still, I would love to seek out and because I know so many people have had success, I know how amazing you are with your clients. And.

I just.

I learned about new things. About what hormones. I had no idea about hormones. And, you know, once you get that, he did do a full blood draw, of course. And I found out about hormones and fight or flight. And, you know, he said I. I had that really bad. And other things, like I had very low testosterone and estrogen was through the roof. And I had no clue when you're diagnosed with Hashimoto's how many other steps there really are. It's not just diet. It's not just, you really got to get your body in tune.

So, yeah, and there's a lot of other people out there like me who are the exact same. And you just don't know.

And then it also become overwhelming. Right? Then you're like, what you're describing is like, firstly, you're like, still trying to get used to the idea that there's Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune condition, and then you all of a sudden, it feels like there's this big long to do list and it feels over. And then it's more stressful. Right. And you're already like, oh, my gosh, Hashimoto's was triggered by stress. And now I'm more stressed about all the things I got to fix. And so it just becomes a vicious cycle. Yeah, I can totally see that. And I unfortunately see a lot of patients who you come in with that similar experience or story. And, and actually, I want to go back to, because what you mentioned is that this started either during pregnancy or you found out about it after pregnancy. That's actually a common scenario that when women go through the hormonal changes of pregnancy, let alone the potential stresses of pregnancy and labor, it's a common time for thyroid issues to come out or even for it Hashimoto's to get triggered. And so I want to just mention that to listeners if there's others of you who might be like, oh, yeah, I also found out right after I was pregnant. And. And you'll see that it's a. It's a common pattern that women experience during and after pregnancy to identify thyroid issues.

Yeah, I know.

It's.

I had no idea. And I have talked to several women who have said that you know, the same thing right after giving birth. I know I had a very traumatic delivery. My body went through a lot, like where I needed a blood transfusion and, and things like this. And so things changed drastically after that, how I was feeling. So I haven't technically found the root cause, but I to this day truly believe after I had my son, that's what it was. And everything changed because my body had gone through so much stress. And I mean, there's, there's more to that. That's too long of a story to go through. But yeah, it definitely. And it makes you not feel alone that there's others after they had their child, that they discovered this so.

Well, and this is why I, A lot of my research into stress started with women in labor. Interestingly like, that was one of the first things me interested in researching stress because it is such a common. Of course, even with the most smooth labor, there's stress, but of course when there's complications, there's even more stress. And if you needed a transfusion, it tells me there was likely some anemia and low iron levels. And so you, it starts to become a snowball effect of stress. And what we know is that stress of various types, including something as beautiful as having a baby, is so stressful on our bodies. And it's the stresses that can turn on genetic susceptibilities. And so again, Hashimoto's, for anybody listening and is like, what are we talking about? Hashimoto's is an autoimmune condition where the immune system starts trying to protect from a person's own thyroid gland.

Right.

And the thyroid gland makes thyroid hormone, which helps us with our metabolism and our energy and mood and so many other factors in the body. So if these antibodies start attacking the thyroid, it starts destroying the thyroid. Now, at first when a person is diagnosed or first when these thyroid antibodies start happening, the thyroid is likely still functioning pretty well. And so sometimes the thyroid function is fine and the thyroid antibodies are just there present. Over time, what we find happens in some people, it happens faster than others. The antibodies start damaging the thyroid and that's when the thyroid function can start dropping. And, and, but this is all from the immune system, the genetics turning on a susceptibility to autoimmunity where it turns on the thyroid and it's, it's. The thing is, I always like people to know is it's possible to turn off. Even though that genes were turned on, it's possible to turn them off. And we can do that through recovery from stress. And also there's other nutrients, herbs and Many lifestyle and dietary factors that have been shown to turn off the thyroid antibodies so that they're no longer attacking the thyroid. Now in conventional medicine, the treatment is as you said, levothyroxine or Synthroid, which is an external source of thyroid hormone. So it's filling in for the amount that the thyroid function has decreased. So we were just filling in, oh, your thyroid's not making this much, we'll just replace that much of function. And there is some research to show that that helps to decrease the antibodies because we're filling in for your thyroid. And so now the immune system has less to react to. So theoretically that treatment helps reduce the antibody auto antibodies a little bit. But that's as much as conventional medicine offers where is in nature, public medicine and in the work I do, there's so much more we can do. You mentioned already, I mean we can make dietary changes. We know that gluten is associated with triggering those Hashimoto's antibodies. So you, you know, a lot of people start with okay, let me avoid gluten. But as you said that that doesn't always fix the whole thing. And, and so you're like, you find out, oh, there's all these other things I can do. So what have you found since then that has helped you think with, with, with your, and your process of addressing Hashimoto's.

Well, I, I have tried to do first of all the diet. That was the big thing. When I first found out, I kind of went all in and did, I don't know if it was the best thing to do for me personally, but did sort of a paleo diet. So cold turkey, gluten, dairy. I, I'm still soy free, grain free. Once I was pregnant with my daughter again, I started eating a little bit of grain, but.

So I, I've done that and I did feel better. I think for me personally it's been, there's some lifestyle things I still need to address because.

I feel like I'm in the biggest flare right now, the longest flare.

Things really got thrown off when I switched my medication from Senfrate to Armor. And I thought I was doing good doing that, but I, I gained 15 pounds in a couple of months and.

And I think there's a lot of lifestyle pieces that I still, I've tried the, I know I've had leaky gut.

So there's still things that I need to do. And I'll just be honest. For me personally, the, the.

Financial part comes into it. You know, it is hard when you have all These things and.

Stuff that you want to address. But you know, it comes in financially and stuff. But I have found lower impact workouts were really good because I was one of those people that was on the treadmill for an hour and doing all these crazy things and exhausting my body. So I did find like yoga and Pilates and those things I really love and enjoy. And then just still working on relieving stress.

I've done a lot of detoxes over the years and many of them made me feel a lot worse. Not only that, but I've had a lot of patients come in and tell me how after doing a detox they have a stomachache and headache and they can't asleep and they're feeling anxious and I'm like, I can't just recommend that my patients do a program that's going to make them feel worse. So I finally decided to design my own detox program. It's a 14 day detox program that's not like other detox programs out there in several ways. One is that I'm focused on helping you to get the top toxins out in a safe and effective way using nutrients, antioxidants and supporting our natural detoxification pathways in the body. Also, I'm helping you to decrease your exposure to toxins by learning the ways that you've been exposed to toxins and how to change your day to day lifestyle to decrease your toxins over time. And I'm helping you to look not just at chemical, environmental, toxins, but also emotional and energetic toxicity. And yes, it's possible to accomplish all of this in 14 days. I have so many patients who have done the 14 day detox and report back to me how much better they feel. And I think it's also because I help you to know what to eat. You are getting adequate food that tastes good plus protein shakes that I developed that are good for your body, that your body knows how to use these nutrients and take them in and use them to help you safely detoxify without feeling worse. Also I help you to balance your blood sugar levels, get better sleep and introduce things like meditation, biofeedback and other types of stress recovery into your day to day routine. So I just am so excited about it. I want to make sure you know about this 14 day detox. I'm going to put the link, you can find it at Dr. Donnie.com forward/detox-program but I'll also put the link below so you can find the 14 day detox program@doctor donnie.com. i look forward to guiding you through this detox so that you can actually feel better on your way to better health. And that's it. I think, you know, like you're making a really good point that it's a lot of it is like it becomes a practice in your day to day life. Like what are the things that we do on a day to day basis and that we constantly are trying new things and correcting for? I mean I, I mean I also been, you know, like I'm, I've been in this world of natural health for, you know, over 25 years and I still feel like every day I'm learning something new from my body and how can I, how can I integrate in more support to help counteract stress on a daily basis? And so just knowing that it's not just aiming for like perfection or a fix in a certain time period, it's like, how do we keep learning? How do we keep listening to our body? How do we keep, you know, kind of working on it little by little, knowing we can't do it all at once, but we can work on it little by little. And, and you mentioned with, with the armor. Armor is, or what, what I might consider like a glandular thyroid is a, it's using an animal source or pink source of animal of thyroid hormone that has both T3 and T4 in it. Because the syndroid we mentioned before is just T4. And yet a lot of times if a person has decreased thyroid function, they actually may need T3 and T4, which is where the potential benefit of using a glandular thyroid is there. It's just that what I find with my patients is it does take some fine tuning and it does take like saying, hey, I'm not going to expect that the first dosage is going to be right and our bodies change over time. Right? So yeah, I'm always checking in on my thyroid patients on a regular basis. Even if we think they're on a good dose, we're going to check it every year and say, hey, is this still a good dose for you or has there been some stress in your life or different variables that, you know, sometimes through a pregnancy or through perimenopause or things that throw it off a little and you're like, hey, now we need to tweak it a little bit and, and to be able to have a practitioner who's willing to adjust the dose, make a little tweak and recheck your blood work in six weeks, because it takes six weeks for the thyroid to really show us a difference based on a dosage change and recheck it. But I see so many practitioners, they are waiting six months or a year to recheck it. And now the person has not optimal thyroid for a long period of time. And I'm like, no, yeah, insurance will cover to do blood work for thyroid. Let's get your thyroid rejected and really dial in your dose so that you know at the very least that you're on a good dose of thyroid replacement for your body. And once we have that dialed in, then, as you mentioned, we can go through a process of, okay, how can we work on healing leaky gut? And there's ways you can do that without having to spend very much money. Right? We can do helping with digestion, helping with supporting intestinal cells. We can check out the gut bacteria. Does that need to be addressed and optimize them? And then as you and I talk about in, in the upcoming Hashimoto summit, we can address the adrenal glands.

Right?

So anyone listening? By the way, the Annie's Hashimoto summit is. We'll put a link to it. So you can go sign up. And she and I go into depth about talking about the connection of the adrenal glands, which means cortisol and adrenaline, and how they affect the thyroid function and Hashimoto's. And by addressing the adrenal glands can make such a huge difference on reversing Hashimoto's and optimizing thyroid function and such a common missing piece. Right? Like, well, so many people may be aware of Hashimoto's, but they're not paying attention to their adrenal glands.

Or maybe they just don't know.

Like me, they didn't realize it was even because it doesn't show in the blood work. Right, so you might be going in for blood work and you go, okay, I have low thyroid or I have Hashimoto's. But then it kind of stops there. And, and, and most practitioners are not doing the testing to find out. But then there is testing for cortisol and adrenaline, which is generally out of pocket. So as you mentioned, sometimes that's an additional cost. And people like, maybe like, okay, I don't, I don't, I right now can't invest in that test. But what you, what people can start with is the stress type quiz that I developed, which is free. And this way they can find out what likely their imbalance of cortisol and adrenaline is and start to understand how their adrenal glands are being Affected and to address them. And then if, if you want to do testing for cortisol and adrenaline, then that's something that I offer through my office. So we can really understand what's happening with your adrenal glands. How do we optimize cortisol and adrenaline to help with the Hashimoto's and thyroid situation? And so then you're just little by little, step by step, working through the process.

Just. I'm so glad that you brought up the different testing because.

That'S something that I was unsure of if adrenals are tested through blood or. I know you mentioned urine and one other thing going on.

Yeah, saliva. Yeah.

Oh, saliva. Yes. So, yeah. So I was curious about the different ways. So it's good to know that.

Yeah. Because it's, and it's, you know, it's not going to show in the blood work. But there are things we can look at in blood work, like iron levels and selenium levels that also play a role in thyroid function. And so we can be, we can be optimizing thyroid while at the same time optimizing adrenal function. And the cool thing I think is the more we address optimizing adrenal function, not only do we improve thyroid, but we also improve the immune system, the digestion, the nervous system. So like so many things can improve. And that's one of the things, I think, just to mention, like, because you were saying how often people are so overwhelmed. Yeah. With, with Hashimoto's of all the things they can do. So I'm always looking at it as what's the thing we can do that has the greatest ripple effect for benefit. And, and to me it's the more we can address the adrenal glands, the more we have this positive ripple effect down the line. So I'm so excited for people to come listen in to the Hashimoto summit to hear us talking more about this and how I suggest helping the adrenal glands and all of your other speakers tell us a little bit more about the summit and what people can expect.

Me, I'm so excited. And I mean we have everyone from all angles and talking about all different things, of course, diet and balanced meals, also about. And.

As well as blood work, like going more into blood work with your primary maybe or what you should do maybe outside of your primary, but as well and.

Exercise and I mean literally anything that, that you want to know and that will help you.

Live a better life. A better life that you want to live with less stress and have you know, all this information and expertise is so amazing. It's going to help so many people. I've already learned so many different things talking with you about adrenals and stress. I wasn't as knowledgeable about those things. So I've learned so much and it's just going to be incredible for everybody.

Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. It sounds. Yeah, it sounds perfect because again, when people, you know, even if someone's known they had Hashimoto's for many years, they might have been still in such a state of confusion of what's the possibilities and how do they take this into account? And so I'm excited for anyone who is aware of, you know, Hashimoto's or afraid of they might develop Hashimoto's, this could be such a good resource for them to. Just because I always believe that the more information you have, the better you can make choices about your health and. Right. Like we can't. If we don't have the information, we don't know what to choose. But as soon as we have information and a community, because you're really creating this community of people who are going through the same thing. And those two factors can make such a difference for people. So I'm really so glad to share your summit with everyone and I encourage you all to sign up because it's free.

Yeah.

And it's. And this way you can listen in and learn and then be able to make choices for yourself. Or you can always come back and contact me if you'd like me to help you more along the lines of anything that I mentioned, I'm happy to help because it's actually something that I've seen such incredible improvements in my patients and that it's like I just wish for everyone to be able to know that it's possible, even though it's not something that's common out there in the medical system and it can be very confusing out on the Internet. When we get the right information and you've got the right support, you can really see so much improvement as. As you mentioned, Danny, so much improvement in your health. So thanks again so much for coming. Is there anything else you wanted to share?

Um, maybe just that I think. I love that you said community is so important knowledge. Of course. But I think community is really comes into play and to get the right support and just people who are going through what you're going through and probably to stay patient. And it's a process, but little by little so you're not, you know, stressing yourself out and things like that. That's really what I want to get across this.

And then, you know, just one more thing that I would love is for people just to know they're not alone, because it's really hard, especially if your family doesn't understand.

You know, and then just go do what you can do one step at a time, and we will all get through this together. And also that you know, that you can.

Be symptom free or almost symptom free.

And yeah, just, it's a process.

Oh, I love it. Thank you so much. And, and I'm so, I'm excited to be sharing in the summit with you coming up soon.

So I can't thank you enough.

Welcome. You're welcome. And thank you so much for joining us here today. Anyone listening, please make sure to follow the link down below to the Hashimoto Summit and also to subscribe and follow so that you don't miss the next episode of How Humans Heal. Thanks for joining me today.

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