Episode 95: How to Have More Energy, Five Steps You Can Take Right Now, with Dr. Rodger Murphree

Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the functional gynecologist. I'm a board certified OB, GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome. Hi, ladies. So this week I'm really excited because we are going to talk about five, five common energy robbers. I know that you're all feeling a little bit tired at this point. It's been a long year and a half, two years almost. So there are reasons why we are struggling to have energy. And my guest today is going to talk about the five most common reasons that you have no energy. So this is a really good episode because he gives you, like, tangible things that you can start doing now or things that you can look into and research. But he also works one on one like I do. So if you're feeling like you're at the point where you want testing done and you really want to get down to the root cause of your issues about why do I feel like crap, why am I struggling? Why can't I lose weight? Why do I have so much brain fog? I can't think of. I can't handle the things I used to. So many reasons to reach out to either Dr. Roger or myself and work with us one on one, because there is hope. You don't have to stay in the broken system of waiting until you have, you know, some diagnosis that, you know then can have a medication to treat you. Those medicines are just covering up your symptoms. They're not actually fixing the root of the issue. And so if you come to us, we will do functional medicine testing, more in depth testing to get a complete picture of what's going on. You know, I was trained in conventional medicine and I was trained very much in a systems approach of we focus on your sex hormones or we focus on your thyroid, or we focus on your, you know, bone structure. We don't connect to the dots. We don't remember that the systems are integrated and, you know, working together to maintain homeostasis in your body. And so when you take that, you know, specialist symptom approach, you go see the endocrinologist for your hypothyroidism, they never think about anything outside of that system. As a potential cause and way to treat you. So it's very much, you know, specially specialty specific medication and surgery driven. And I really want to help you understand that that is not going to keep you on the right track to getting better. That's going to keep you in a sick state. It's going to possibly prevent progression of your disease so that it doesn't get worse, you know, right away, but it's not going to get you well. You're not going to actually return and restore your health and be optimized and feel well. I see this all day, every day in my practice. So it's a total different philosophy on healing the body. So I would love for you to, you know, question the care that you're receiving if it's not making you feel any better and don't be afraid to leave the system and look for alternatives. That is where functional medicine, integrative medicine, natural medicine, they all shine because we're actually figuring out what is the root cause of the issue and how do we fix that as opposed to how can we prevent you from worsening your disease. So I hope that you enjoy this episode today. Share with everybody. You know, I would be super honored if you would hit the like the subscribe button. Leave me a five star review. Let me know what you're thinking. Because I do this for you ladies and I want to know what do you want to hear about? What are you struggling with? How can I help you? So let me just sing Dr. Rogers praises really quickly before we get on. Dr. Roger Murphree is a graduate of the University of Alabama, Birmingham. He's Board certified Chiropractic Physician and board certified Nutritional Specialist. His Murphrey Method, a combination of functional and orthomolecular medicine, has helped thousands of patients get healthy and feel good again. He's the author of three books for patients and doctors including Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Treating and Beating Anxiety and Depression with Orthomolecular Medicine and Heart disease what your doctor won't tell you such good books. Dr. Murphy is the founder of Essential Therapeutics, a company focused on providing pure pharmaceutical grade natural supplements to help others get healthy and stay healthy. He is also a frequent guest on local and national radio and television programs including NBC, Fox and abc. He writes for several professional and public health related publications. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post as well as peer reviewed professional journals including Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Chiropractor, Economics, Alternative Fibromyalgia News Magazine and The American Chiropractor and Nutra News. So he's been doing this for a long time. He knows what he's talking about. And some of this stuff is common sense that we have forgotten, you know. But he's going to explain to you something as simple as sleep, why that really does have such an impact on our daily lives and our health and what you can do about it. So lots of great information in this episode. Here we go. Well, welcome, Dr. Roger, to the Functional Gynecologist podcast.

Oh, Tabitha, I'm so delighted to be here. You're such a delight. And this is. This is going to be a lot of fun.

I know we always have great conversations together. I loved the fibromyalgia summit you put out. That was such amazing information. And I'm so glad that you're back today because we have a lot more to talk about, right?

We do, we do. There's a lot, a lot we need to talk about. I think, given this, you know, the world we're living in right now, I think the topic we're going to be focusing on today is really going to be well received.

Yeah. I would say energy or lack thereof is probably the number one complaint in my patients. They seek me out because they are tired of being tired and they can't figure it out. So it sounds like that's what you're seeing as well.

Hey, you know, I saw this article. I know. If you saw it, I think it was in Wall Street Journal, maybe New York Times, that it was. It was. The headline was, why is everyone so exhausted right now? And if you just look at what we've gone through over the last year and a half, two years between the pandemic and, you know, this whole rift we have with politics, you know, I'm right, you're wrong. And everything we're coming to terms with with race, it's just, you know, it's exhausting. And so it's no wonder people are exhausted right now. I mean, if you ever were a time that you could raise your hand and say, legitimately, you have a reason to be exhaustive, this is it. Right?

Yeah. And it presents phys in so many ways. But fatigue is probably the biggest thing that comes from all of that mental exhaustion. So I would love to talk about the physical reasons we also feel exhaustion.

Yeah. So, you know, I kind of boil down to five. There's lots and lots of reasons that we get run down, but really, I boil it down to five, really, that I think people can really, if. Or to focus on these five things, they could see a big improvement in their energy, both mentally and physically. And number one is lack of sleep. I think between the stress of everything that's gone on, people are working from home now, which is for a lot of people is something new. They don't know how to turn it off and they're working probably more hours than they did when they had a physical place to go to. But I think that combined with just the worry, whether it's financial worries or worried about, you know, just getting caught up in the politics of everything or getting worried about the virus. But I really have seen that in the folks that I reach out to, whether through my podcast or in private practice, that I think people are really struggling to get that deep restorative sleep that they need each night.

Yeah. What are the main reasons for that?

You know, I think there's several. One, I think that people are just stressed out. And so when you're stressed out, hormones are being released that really sabotage your sleep hormone melatonin. I have numerous people that tell me that they wake up tired and then, you know, around after six or seven cups of coffee or Red Bulls or whatever they're poisoning themselves with, you know, they finally get a little bit of energy in the afternoon and then they, you know, they, they can't fall asleep at night though. And so part of that is this increased caffeine consumption or sugar consumption where people are kind of self sabotaging themselves to be able to get that good, good night's sleep. The other part of it, I think people are just physically exhausted and, and they wake up tired and they're tired all day and then somewhere close to bedtime they get their second wind. So there's some of these night owl people that have been tired all day and they should be getting ready to go to bed, but lo and behold, about 9pm they catch their second wind and it's the only time they've had any energy. So the next thing you know, they're, you know, they're doing everything around the house that they couldn't do earlier, or they're doing, doing tasks that they put off all day long and then they miss their window. To be able to get into bed and be able to sleep at a decent hour.

Yep, that sounds definitely like some adrenal dysfunction that we're all feeling. Do you usually do testing with your clients?

I test, I test all the patients that I work with one on one for adrenal fatigue. Yeah, absolutely. And it's in one of the specialties that I really have focused on for the last, you know, couple of decades is fibromyalgia. And that's the common denominator of anybody with fibromyalgia is they struggle to be able to fall asleep and, or to be able to stay asleep and they never feel refreshed. And, you know, a big part of that, I think, is, is knowing some, some tips and tricks, you know, some good sleep habits that people may have never, may have never developed. And you know, one of those is, is, is winding down, you know, as it get. It's, it's Mother Nature's sign that we're supposed to really start, you know, to, you know, tuning, tuning off or tuning out, you know, getting rid of all the stimulation that can really sabotage us from sleep.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've had patients who tell me they're exercising after dinner, you know, six o' clock at night. I'm like, that's not a good idea because that is why you can't fall asleep. But I think more so it's more that we're stimulated by our phones and our TVs and our iPads until we tried to go to bed. Right. And we haven't processed any of our thoughts all day long. Well, your body's ready to process that now.

Yeah, I think, you know, sleep to me is the number one thing you got to get right no matter what health condition you're challenged with. Because if you're not getting deep restorative sleep, the body's not able to repair itself. You're going to be more likely to have more pain. We know that if you're not getting deep restorative sleep, your inflammatory chemicals go up by 40%. If you're not getting deep restored to sleep, your metabolism goes down, so you may be gaining some weight. Puts more stress on your thyroid, which can cause you to develop Hashimoto's or hypothyroidism. It further further depletes your stress coping hormones like cortisol and dhea. So it's really lack of sleep is a recipe for poor health. So to me, it doesn't matter what illness I'm working with, that's the first place I look to see if that's something we need to fix. And so no matter what health challenge you're facing, or if you just want to be healthier, you just want to have more energy mentally and physically, you've got to get sleep right.

Oh my gosh, I couldn't agree more. That was definitely my issue as an OB gyn. Being sleep deprived destroyed me mentally and physically. And it wasn't until I quit delivering babies and took back my sleep that I was able to heal myself. So I couldn't agree more. So that was number one, what's next?

So number two really kind of goes right with number one, because if you're not getting this good restorative sleep, you're more likely to feel stressed out the next day. And so I kind of use this analogy that we're all born with a stress coping savings account. And as we go through the day, we're using these chemicals, hormones to allow us to deal with the stress. So any kind of stimulation, loud noises, bright lights, but a letter from the irs, any kind of stressor, we have to deal with our body's releasing certain chemicals to allow us to deal with the stress. One of the ways that we make deposits into our stress coping savings account is by getting enough rest. Big part of that is this deep restore to sleep. But if you're not getting this rest or you're just staying stressed out, which I see so many people are, you deplete certain chemicals that your brain and your body needs. So I see that one of the things that has to happen to really get that energy back is that you've got to calm everything down because if you don't, you're running on this nervous energy. And I'm sure you see this with your patients as well as you see these nervous Nellies who not to, you know, be little, be mean or anything, but you just see these type A's and they're, you know, they just go, go, go, go. And they're just such warriors. And that, that, that nervous energy is mentally exhausting and then eventually it's exhausting too.

Yeah, exactly. So, and then you're stuck in this vicious cycle and you can't sleep and you have, you know, more nervous energy. So. Oh my goodness.

You know, and I know in your practice, I know you see, you know, obviously female females, but, but oftentimes, you know, when they relate that to their family practitioner, then it's, it's, you know, that's, that initiates the prescription pad to come out and then they're writing them an antidepressant, you know, something, you know, or Klonopin or you know, anti anxiety medication of benzodiazepine. But there's natural ways to really fix that, that I think we're very, very well. And as you, you know, as a functional gynecologist, you know, from your training that one of the things that we can do is just encourage them to take amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. But these amino acids, when they're combined with B vitamins and minerals, they turn into the brain chemicals. So one of the amino acids that I use a lot with my patients is gaba, Gamma aminobutyric acid. So this is an over the counter amino acid. You can get this anywhere. And GABA works very, very well to calm things down within. Within minutes after you take it. And so for my patients who are really struggling, just feeling anxious, I will encourage them to take a product that I develop. But the main ingredient in that is gamma aminobutyric acid, or gaba, which is very calming and very relaxing.

Yeah, I love, I call it gaba. That's a southern thing versus a northern thing. But no, I couldn't agree more. I think it's so helpful to just bring you back down, help you get restorative sleep. And we're just, we're not making it like you said, we're not getting the amino acids, the protein that we need. We're not absorbing from our gut for gut issues, most likely. And so we just are depleted. We're using it all up. So I love that idea. Thank you. Okay.

I think, but I think, you know, I think you, you touched on something that I would. Haven't really even thought about, but your digestion. So, you know, if you're not digesting, you know, we think about, are we here you are what you eat, which is very true. That's number five of the common five. Your diet really plays a big role and, and how much energy or how. Or the lack of energy that you have mentally and physically. But part of that is it's not so much what you eat. I think, I think, don't want to give you any excuses. You need to eat healthy, but it's also what do you absorb? So we have a lot of folks out there that are trying to eat healthy, Tabitha, but they're not even absorbing that food. So it just sits there and it doesn't get digested. So those amino acids that they're taking in and the protein foods, it doesn't turn into the brain chemicals that they need to be able to help them to be able to navigate stress. So one of the things I think would benefit most, most everybody, especially after the age of 40, is to take a digestive enzyme with every meal to make sure you're digesting your food and getting those nutrients out of those foods so that your body has the chemicals it needs to Be able to handle the stress and make the hormones that you need for energy.

Yeah, I think there's a huge issue with pancreatic insufficiency over the age of 40, like you mentioned. It's just the, the lifestyle we live and the natural aging process. We're not making our digestive enzymes properly and then we're worsening it by taking antacids like Tums, Zantac proton pump inhibitors, Prilosec Protonics. And so you're suppressing your own acid production and then you're not making digestive enzymes. Yeah, that food is not getting digested and assimilated properly. I think that's a huge issue.

Yeah. So, you know, a couple things. One is wanted to share just a couple of tips. Go back to sleep. Because I want to make sure that people watching this, that they get the most out of it. So, you know, a lot of people have tried melatonin and I think melatonin can be very helpful. I'm not sure what your opinion is, but I also like 5 hydroxytryptophan. So if you have low moods, maybe you're depressed. That's an amino acid that you can take at bedtime that helps to increase your natural melatonin. I like gaba. I usually combine GABA with Ashwagandha valerium root, a couple of other things that I have in a formula called Delta sleep. That's very relaxing and calming to, you know, to help you wind down, turn your mind off. And you can also take that during the night. If you wake up in the middle of night. You know, you don't want to take melatonin at 3am because it make you feel a little, little lethargic the next day or maybe hungover. But you could take GABA or something similar that would allow you to fall back to sleep. And then. And then for that, we were talking about being nervous. So GABA works very, very well. But just to point out that some people will find that they would do better instead of taking gaba, they would do better with L Theanine, which is something that makes you hang on to GABA and is absorbed better than gaba.

Yeah, I love L Theanine. I think that's a really nice addition to help women sleep. So if anybody's listening and they're on Ambien or Nortriptyline, Elavil, any of those things, like, it's really. You can get off of them. You can try something natural that your body's just depleted in and just needs restored. I mean, that's where the issue is. I don't know about you, but I see women on Ambien for five or 10 years, and they don't get that deep restorative sleep. So they. You don't really feel any better, you know? Right.

Yeah. And the thing not, not to scare anybody, but just to point this out, the studies show that anybody taking a sleep medication, whether that's Ambien, Lanesta, Klonopin, Restoril, whatever it is, that they increase the risk of death by 500% across the board. Every health condition, whether that's heart attack, stroke, Alzheimer's, it doesn't matter. And again, that's not to. To scare anybody. It's just to say that I bring that up just to point out that you want to look for natural options when you can. And in my practice, I see that 95% of them are able to get off their prescription sleep medication by doing natural sleep protocols that I use. So it definitely can be done. And I don't have any problem using natural supplements like GABA 5 HTP Melatonin, along with sleep prescription sleep aids, at least initially, until they can wean off that, you can't. I mean, you can't just stop those things. But if you're proactive, you can learn about some natural things you can combine with the prescription medications. And if you're working with the right person or get the right information, you can get off those medications.

Yeah, that's such an important point because you want to get off those medicines. They're not safe long term and they're not safe short term. I mean, there's so many cases of women doing things in that sleep, you know, medicated state that isn't safe. People getting in cars and driving or going to their fridge and eating. I mean, you never know what that medication is going to cause you to do. So I love the idea of like, let's wean off. Let's replace what your body needs, and let's actually get you having some real restorative sleep. Okay, so we got awesome tips so far. What else is depleting our energy?

Dr. Roger so we've already, we already brought it up. You mentioned it earlier, Tabitha, you talked about adrenal fatigue, which is so common. So we have a stress coping savings account that we're born with. And as long as we're getting enough rest, enough sleep, we're making deposits into that stress coping savings account. So we can deal with stress. But we also have stress coping glands, the adrenal glands that are responsible for Releasing cortisol and DHEA and adrenaline. And if we get under too much stress for too long, so chronic stress, we tend to develop a thing called adrenal fatigue that in conventional medicine, they really don't acknowledge. But in functional medicine, where we're looking at how well or how poorly the different systems are working, we acknowledge there's a thing called adrenal fatigue where your stress coping glands are not able to meet the demands that you're putting on those glands. You're under too much stress for too long, and so you deplete your cortisol levels to the point you start to have physical and mental fatigue.

Yeah. Oh, I remember living through that, you know, like, hitting snooze 10 times, not wanting to get out of bed. Like, you have to talk yourself into everything because you just don't have the energy to do it. I even got to the point where I, you know, had a few episodes where I woke up in the morning and I passed out because my blood pressure didn't rise. My aldosterone was being affected. Like, I was just flat lying and crying across the board. My adrenals were like, nope, we're not doing this anymore. So I completely relate to that. And I think it's so important for women to realize that if you're just feeling apathetic and, like, you don't want to do anything, you're not motivated, you have no energy. Yeah. You're probably just not no longer making your adrenal hormones the way you need to be.

Yeah. I mean, so the common symptoms of adrenal fatigue are obviously, number one, fatigue, but number two, it's the inability to handle stress. So you lose that stamina, that resilience that maybe you had in the past where you could, you know, work an extra hour or two at work and come home and be fine, or you could get out in the yard and garden all day and enjoy it or, you know, whatever it is. But you've lost that ability, that stamina. So stress really becomes magnified to the point that some people get so run down with adrenal fatigue that anything sets them off. So they become vulnerable to any kind of stimulation. Loud noises, bright lights, things that you and I would just take for granted. Traffic jams. Okay. It is what it is. But for these individuals, they get to where it can be so bad, they don't even want to leave the house. They become a hurtful permit because they just can't handle any stimulation.

Yeah. So how would you even begin to help a patient like that?

Well, and you're probably familiar with. And now just drew a blank. William Jeffries. There it is. So as an endocrinologist, pretty pretty well known in the functional medicine circle, he wrote a book, the Safe Uses of Cortisol. And this was years ago. And it's all about using replacement doses of a prescription drug called Cortef, or cortisol, which is the body's own natural cortisol. And how that is different than using something like predisone, which is four or five times stronger. When I had my medical practice years ago, we would use cortex, so we would use 5 milligrams, four times a day to raise that cortisol level, replace that cortisol so that individuals have that energy eventually over time. The idea was that they would be able to get enough rest and they would build their cortisol stores back up and they could come off cortisol. Unfortunately, I found that that often times is not the case. So what I use, I use an over the counter glandular cortex. It's adrenal cortex, which just has the cortex, part of the adrenal gland. And that's important because what I have found is if you use a whole glandular adrenal, it's going to have the cortex, which is cortisol and dhea, but it's also going to have the medulla part, which is norepinephrine or adrenaline. And I point that out because I found early on, years ago, when I started using adrenal glandulars, that if I used a combination, that it would rev people up too much. And I found that you really need to calm everybody down before you start adding these things that are stimulating. So hope I didn't muck that up. Hope that made sense. But if you go online, you can find adrenal glandular supplements. And just be careful that if you, if you start to use those, you try to get one that's just adrenal cortex only.

Yeah, exactly. You want to stay away from the medulla or the whole adrenal glandular because of that adrenaline that's in the medulla. Yeah, perfect. I love that. Good golden nugget for everybody. So what else you got for us?

So tied to adrenal fatigue is low thyroid. And if you look at the symptoms of adrenaline, adrenal fatigue, we didn't really go over all those, but if you look at the symptoms, they're very similar to low thyroid. Cold hands, cold feet, tingling in your hands and feet, mental fatigue, lethargy, low moods, very similar to what we see. With, with low. With low thyroid. Right. And typically what I will do is look at the, the adrenal part of it first. I'll make sure that they don't have a problem with their adrenal, which by the way, you can sel. You don't have. Even though I do a four sample saliva test and or blood test to see if someone's cortisol level is low. But you can self test for. Do you have a problem with your adrenal gland? By taking your blood pressure lying down and then standing up, make sure your left arm is perpendicular out front at heart level and take it again. What you should see is that that top number, that systolic number should go up. If it drops, that's a sign of adrenal fatigue. Another way you can test for adrenal fatigue is go into a dark bathroom and cover one eye, take a pin light and shine it in the other eye while you're looking in the mirror. Now, what you should see is that the pupil should constrict. It should get smaller. If it pops, if it gets enlarged, if it dilates, that's a sign of adrenal fatigue. But I always want to treat adrenal fatigue issues first because I find a lot of times that takes care of a problem with low thyroid. But low thyroid is definitely number four. It's in, it's, it's, it's a, it's probably more common. I'm sure it's more common than conventional doctors. Whatever, you know, whatever. Agree, you know.

Right, right.

And I know you see that in your practice all the time as something that's missed. Unfortunately, routinely it's just missed by conventional medicine.

It sure is. I mean, we're trained to just check a TSH level because that is the master hormone coming from the brain, thyroid stimulating hormone. And the assumption is if you're making enough thyroid hormone, that level will be normal. But they're negating the fact of other factors changing that TSH level, namely reverse T3. I see all of the time when reverse T3 is elevated from inflammation and heavy metals and infections that skews the tsh, makes it look normal when in fact they feel like crap. Am I right?

Yeah. It's really frustrating. I know, for the patient. But you and I, it's frustrating too, because we see people that come to us who've kind of been on the medical merry go round. You know, they've been to all these different doctors and, and they're on probably half a dozen drugs that are treating symptoms of Their own Adderall for no energy. They're on cholesterol medication because their thyroid's not working correctly. Maybe they're on antidepressant because they're depressed. They may be on a rotten or gorillas or Lyrica because they're getting tingling in their hands and feet. It's really frustrating because if just one of those many doctors that they'd gone to had done the right testing, found the problem with the thyroid and treated the thyroid problem, instead of treating all the symptoms triggered by the low thyroid, this person would have their life back.

Yes, yes, I know. We see it all the time. Right. That's mainly what we do. But I really love the point that you made that you treat the adrenals first, because I see that all the time. Time as well, that the thyroid is just taking on the burden of other systems. When other systems are struggling, the thyroid works harder. It's like a workhorse, and it will step in and it will take on that burden. And once the adrenals are balanced and the sex hormones are balanced, everything the thyroid will oftentimes, I find, go back into balance because it's no longer doing all that extra work. Do you see that as well?

Absolutely. And I think we. We probably both agree what's the number one catalyst for disease? And that's stress.

Yeah.

And you know, in particular on the thyroid, that HPA axis, the hypothyroid pituitary adrenals. That system, when it gets under too much stress, it's. It starts to work ineffectively. And, you know, the symptoms we see is. Is a problem with your thyroid that. Whether that's hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's.

Yeah. So definitely the development of an autoimmune process. I would love for you to touch on that a little bit more as it relates to stress.

Well, I think, you know, what happens is as we. It's another analogy, but to kind of get a picture, I think we, you know, we're born with a bucket, and this bucket. As we go through life, we're adding stressors, toxins, you know, things we breathe, things that we, you know, that we eat that are toxic to the body. And for the most part, our body does a good job of getting rid of these things. But we're, you know, we're all exposed to toxins, mental toxins, you know, stress as well, real or imagined stress. And for most people, you know, we have this innate inborn healing ability. The body is healing itself all the time, making the needed adjustments to keep you healthy, but you get into middle age and you get under one too many stressors, and something comes along that's a straw that breaks the camel's back. And when that happens, the body's not able to handle that, and the bucket, it overflows. Maybe in the years past, you had a big void. I mean, you had a room for error. So you could, you know, you could eat bagels every day and donuts and drink Pepsi and whatever and get away with it. But as you get older, you know, and you get under more and more toxins, what I see is that there's something, you know, these stressors. And then when the bucket overflows, now what happens? You start develop things that you never even thought about. You start getting these crazy reactions to foods that you've eaten for 40 years. Now all of a sudden, you can't eat dairy anymore or you can't eat gluten. And these food allergies start to trigger autoimmune reactions. But it can be all sorts of things that develop from stress. Nutritional deficiencies create deficiency in vitamin D or B vitamins that then trigger these autoimmune reactions.

Yeah, and it's so important to figure out that you even have that process going on. This is what I see all the time, is women will come to me and, you know, oh, I have hypothyroidism, but it's no big deal. I'm on Synthroid. When in fact, they have an autoimmune disease, they usually have Hashimoto's. And that autoimmune process is just creating chronic inflammation and impairing their ability to heal and feel well. So it really is important to know if you have an autoimmune process. Right.

I think in, you know, in conventional medicine, and the reason why Hashimoto's is really not. Or the beginning of Hashimoto's is really not acknowledged is because in conventional medicine, they don't really have anything for it. Now, in functional medicine, you and I do a really great job of being able to, number one, catch it early, and then, number two, being able to treat it. But in conventional medicine, it's all about letting the thyroid burn itself out and waiting until the TSH goes, you know, elevates, which is a sign you have hypothyroidism. But until that happens, this individual could have all the symptoms of Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune disease where the body is erroneously attacking that thyroid tissue. But you could have all the symptoms. Fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, depression, high Cholesterol, tingling in your hands and feet, cold hands and feet, swelling, weight gain, all these things can be there for years. And your TSH may be normal for years, but eventually when the body attacks the thyroid to the point there is no thyroid tissue left, then finally the TSH goes up and your family doctor or endocrinologist, whomever it is, says, oh, well, now we can put you on Synthroid or levothyroxine, a synthetic T4 medication. And. And then. And as you mentioned, the patient thinks that, well, that's all I need is to be on this prescription thyroid medication. But it's not that you need the thyroid hormone. You need to see what is the trigger or triggers that's causing the thyroid to be attacked and fix that. And then along with that, if you need to be on hormones. Yes, but as you said, you got this inflammation that's driving probably all sorts of other problems that's going on, even though you're on thyroid medication.

Yeah, I didn't reclaim my energy until I stopped that attack on my thyroid, you know, and that's what I see in all of my patients. You know, it's a very common scenario. They come to me saying, I've been on Synthroid for 5 years, 10 years, and I've just never felt well since I started it. I can't lose weight, I have no energy. I just don't even feel like me anymore. And they get frustrated because they're being told that they should feel better on this medicine, when in fact, it's not that you need the medicine, it's that you need to stop the attack. So it's such an important point. Thank you.

Well, so, and so I would encourage people. I know you. You do as well. It's very important that you get a thorough thyroid panel. So I think you need to get a tsh. I'm sure they're going to do that. And if you got a real radical doctor, he or she may do a total T4, but you really need total, free and total T3, T4, TSH, reverse T3 you mentioned earlier. And then the thyroid antibodies, TPO and TGB to really get a complete picture of what's going on with your thyroid. If you're not getting all those labs, you run the risk of missing a big part of the puzzle.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's awesome. So what else robs our energy?

So number five. And number five is diet. And, you know, I think that, you know, if you really, really run down, it's hard to get your health back to where you want it by just eating healthy. You can, that's the long game. It's going to take you a while, but you can't do it without that. So looking at the long game of restoring your health, you really have to fix your diet. And that's because if you're just eating junk day in and day out and your body's trying to work using this junk as fuel, you're just not going to feel good. And I think that most people put more thought into what they're feeding their pets sometimes, sometimes than they do their kids or themselves. You know, when I go in a supermarket and I see people with a grocery cart with blue and orange water flavored drinks and, you know, Kellogg's cereal for breakfast and, you know, all this just packaged food, I'm just thinking, you know, what is, what is that? You know, what is the health like of this individual? And, and you know, it's not to be, you know, to belittle anybody or be mean. It's just people don't know. They just don't realize what it, what is healthy and what's not. And to make it simple, I think if you just eat on the outside aisles of the supermarket, so if you stick with the fruits and the vegetables, you know, that's on the outside, and then typically you'll come to maybe the meat, you know, or maybe the seafood, and then maybe you come to the dairy. And if you can tolerate dairy, not everybody can. And some individuals with asthma, chronic sinusitis, or where, you know, mucus production can be triggered from dairy, you know, that could be a problem. But I think if you'll steer clear of the stuff on the inside of the aisles, all the prepackaged foods and the colored drinks and goodness gracious, I don't know what, you know, what's there. If you'll steer clear of that, I think you're going to be in good shape.

Yeah, I call them franken foods because it's not really food. It's just these things that they make up in the factories. And it sickens me that we, I can even call them food. You know, it's chemical experiments. And I know personally, when I got rid of all the inflammatory oils in my diet, you know, I stopped eating the potato chips and the, the cheap salad dressings and deep fried food from restaurants like that had a huge impact on me because I was just piling on the inflammation and not getting any of the healthy fats. You know, I couldn't even make my hormones and Heal my cells. So I. I love the idea that you have to change your diet in order to reclaim your health, but that's not the only thing that's going to do it right. You have to do. You have to replace the vitamin and minerals that are missing. You have to decrease your toxic burden. You have to prioritize sleep and get your stress under control.

Yeah, it's not easy. You know, it's not easy for us. It's easy, but, you know, people think it's easy for us, but, you know, it's no different that, you know, than for us, than it is anybody else. We had a learning curve. I mean, I grew up eating white bread and white sugar sandwiches. I mean.

Oh, I did, too.

It's disgusting, right? I mean, you think about. Oh, my gosh, seriously. And, you know, just the stuff that we grew up eating, and especially here in the south, all the. I think of all the fried food, you know, that I ate growing up. And. And so we had a learning curve, too. But what I found, you know, as you found through your own health, you know, your own health, navigating your own health, was that I felt better when I ate better. And, yeah, when I was training as a triathlete or in, you know, competitive sports, I found that one of the things that made a difference in my competitiveness was how I ate. And. And I got to the point where, you know, I didn't. I didn't want to feel. I didn't want to feel bad. It wasn't. And this isn't to say that you can't ever have, you know, a glass of red wine or a piece of pecan pie at Thanksgiving or. Or, you know, or some potato chips here and there, you know, whatever. But in the. The grand scheme of things, if you make the time and that's it, I mean, you've got to learn this stuff because no one ever taught it to you. But if you'll make the time to learn some basic principles about healthy nutrition, as you mentioned, the oils, you know, if you can steer clear of the seed oils, you know, sapphire and corn oils, these kind of things that really deplete you of the essential fatty acids, the good ones that you need, you'll find. And it does take some time. It does take some time, but you will find that eventually you're going to start reaping the benefits of being a little more disciplined in your diet.

Yeah. And I think, like, let's make things special again. We've gotten to the point where eating cake and pie and having Pop and stuff. That's all just like a daily thing, you know, you eat that stuff every day when it really should be a special occasion, you know, so let's get it back to that. And I know personally that it was hard to not feel well and be miserable and it's hard to eat healthy and make the right choices. So it's like, which hard do you pick? For me, it's a no brainer now because I know how much better I feel and I focus on that. I don't focus on, oh, I'm so deprived, I can't have gluten or sugar or whatever. It's like I feel so much better and I can enjoy my life and that's what I focus on. So it's all mind shift, you know, perspective, right?

I think it is. I think it is. And I, and, and again, it doesn't mean you can't have a treat, you know, here and there. I mean, you, you can, it's just, I think that like you said, make, make it more of a treat, you know, make it more of a treat and really enjoy it instead of a daily habit.

Yeah, exactly. So where can my listeners find you, Dr. Roger?

Well, so they can learn more, more about some of the things we've talked about today@super healthyhuman.com.

Love it. That's so good. And that's the name of your new podcast, right?

Superhealthyhuman.com. yes, that's the podcast Super Healthy Human.

Yes, I love it. So what kind of stuff are you going to be talking about on your podcast?

You know, it's a little bit of everything, as you know, because you were on the Fibro summit for 20 years. I specialize in fibromyalgia and I still have a pretty big following around the world for fibromyalgia. But the thing about fibro, if you don't know much about it, is number one, it's very complicated. It's a syndrome made up of a group of symptoms that people have in common. So we give it a name called fibromyalgia. And the symptoms include diffuse achy, muscle pain, sometimes disabling pain, low moods, restless leg syndrome, fatigue, insomnia irritable bowel, low thyroid, adrenal fatigue. All the things that we've been talking about have to be resolved in someone that has fibromyalgia. And what I have set out to do, not to abandon my fibromyalgia people, but I really now with the Super Healthy Human podcast, it's more generalized. So that anybody hopefully will be able to listen to that podcast and find a segment or, you know, that that will benefit them, whether it's on hormone replacement therapy, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, or how to overcome anxiety and depression with orthomolecular medicine, which is natural approaches to mood disorders, or how to fix your Hashimoto's thyroiditis. So it's much broader in scope, even though it's what I've been talking about for 20 something years.

Yeah. Well, that's awesome. I love it. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. This has been great. I hope that women really take it to heart that there are some changes that they can start to implement on their own and see if you can get into a good sleep routine, if you can get control of your stress. But I would encourage women to, to reach out, you or I, and work, get that one on one help and guidance and really figure out where the issues lie and tackle those well.

And I so appreciate this opportunity to be on here and so appreciate you. And just thinking about 24 years ago when we had our first child. We have three, but in a big spread. But 24 years ago when we were looking around for someone, you know, for my wife really to work with, that had more of a natural mindset. There really was no, you know, we, we were kind of celebrities. Tabitha, when we had, when we had our daughter Dakota, all natural. I mean, they literally brought interns in and come by. Hey, yeah. Can you believe she, like some kind of weird creatures that elected not to have any drugs and, and now, you know, fortunately, that's changed. But it's such a, such a wonderful thing that you're doing. And, you know, I really, really appreciate the fact that you're putting that work out there and women have a place to go now that they, you know, they really didn't have, you know, even, you know, five, 10 years ago.

Yeah, I could. Thank you so much. It's definitely my passion. I just feel like women need more choices, you know, know they're stuck in that broken system and they need to find people like us. So we got to keep doing this hard work. Right?

Well, this is fun. I don't think it's hard, but, you know, you make it easy. So. Thanks so much for having me on. I really enjoyed it.

Oh, thank you. Okay, so what did you get out of that? One of my favorite golden nuggets. Nuggets was the Gaba, or as Dr. Roger calls it, GABA. I love the difference in just the regions of our voices and our accents. But Gaba Gaba or L Theanine are both critical for us to have proper restorative sleep and to control our anxiety so that we feel calm and collected and able to handle the situation. So those are some awesome supplements to really help you get back your health. I would be so honored if you reached out to me because you felt like you need some one on one guidance. I would love to work with you. I see women all over the country, even beyond the United States. So, you know, go to my website, drtabitha.com it's D, R, T, A, B, A, all A's, no eyes. My Instagram handle was hacked and it was a nightmare. I will tell you, I was very heartbroken by what those hackers did. They were trying to scam my followers out of money, sending money to some account. I pray that didn't happen to you. But please follow me at my new Instagram handle. Your voice, your health. Because we can't let them win, right? We have to get right back at it. We have to keep spreading the word that you have choices to get healthy. You don't have to do what your doctor says. You don't have to just take that pill and keep feeling crappy. There are other options. And it really is about discovering what your body needs, how it needs to be supported, what you need to remove from your life so that it can get back to optimal health. Your body has amazing innate intelligence. It wants to be in homeostasis, it wants to heal. We just need to know what's triggering it, what do we need to remove, what do we need to replace to get us feeling amazing again. So I am here for you. Dr. Rob Rogers here for you. All the links are in the show notes for you to connect and check us out. So go out, have a kick ass week, share this with your girlfriends because it's a sisterhood. We gotta support each other, right? So use your voice, find another choice to feel better.