Your Doctor Says You're Fine But You're Not | The Thyroid Problem They Miss

If you have symptoms and your doctor told you you're normal, you're fine, nothing to see here, just part of getting older, you know, you're just getting older. So that's just what happens when you get older. No, no, no, and no, you cannot accept that because we can look deeper. We can get answers as to exactly what's going on with you.

If you're tired of doing all the right things and still feeling exhausted, stuck in your body and disconnected from God, this podcast is for you. I'm Dr. Tabatha Barber, a triple board certified functional medicine physician, and I help women stop fighting their bodies and start healing them God's way. Let's get into it. Fatigue that won't quit. Brain fog you just can't shake. Weight that won't budge. Are you over it? Because I am so over it. I'm tired of people saying, "Your labs are normal. What's the problem?" Right? Ladies, this episode is for you if you have found yourself walking out of the doctor's office frustrated or even crying in your car. Like, if you have been to 10 doctors and you are losing hope, I'm telling you, you're going to want to listen to this entire episode. So let's dive right in. Welcome, Ashley.

Yeah, hey there.

Are you excited for this?

I am excited for this episode. I know there's going to be some good banter and we're going to really help women understand what's happening.

Yes, my beautiful good friend Dr. Amy Horniman is joining us, and you ladies probably know her. She was on my Midlife Reset Summit. We have podcasts swapped a few times because our message is so similar. You don't have to struggle anymore. So let me just drop real quick about Dr. Amy, because, uh, I'm gonna swear if that's okay. I don't usually on the podcast, but she's a badass. And that, that's what she says, like, I am here to not give in to the status quo. I'm going to shake things up a little bit and tell you the truth. So let me introduce her. She is known as the Thyroid Fixer, and she is dropping her book, The Thyroid Fix. I cannot wait. It's the no-nonsense guide to fix your fatigue, fogginess, and fat that won't budge. I, I just love how real you are, Amy. And for anybody listening, Dr. Amy runs a telehealth practice all over the United States and Canada. So there's absolutely no reason to not get help at this point, right?

Well, exactly. And hi, Dr. Tabatha Barber. I love you to death.

Oh my gosh, I love you so much for having me on.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I always say be the badass human you're meant to be, and that's the context of it. So it's more empowering instead of like an official swear word. It's like, it's a strength infused into the ladies listening to this.

Yes, I love it. And that's what I want women to just feel encouraged, like, wait a second, I don't have to just listen to my doctor or take the medication they're giving me. I can question them, I can push back a little bit. And I've read your book, amazing. I cannot wait for women to get their hands on it because I want them to know, like, yeah, there is another way, right?

Exactly, exactly. And you and I are so passionate about this, and just like you said, we share the same message. We want to get this message out to the ladies listening that you don't have to accept all the symptoms that you're dealing with right now, even if you've been to 5 or 10 or 15 doctors that all told you you're normal, everything is fine. Like I say in the book, normal's the setting on the dryer. It should never be used to describe your health, your body, your labs. And we know that frustration that these ladies are going through. So I love that you're helping me spread this message because we're both so passionate about really taking these women that are caught up in the medical gaslighting current system that we have and really giving them the power to get better and enjoy their lives because that's how God created us. We were created to be alive and vibrant and healthy. We weren't created to have disease and to throw in the towel after the age of 40 and give up on life. That's nowhere in the Bible officially, ladies. Nowhere does it say just throw in the towel after the age of 40. So that's what we're here to do.

Mm, so good. And Ashley, you are the Academy Director, so you hear from a lot of women. What are they being told by their doctors?

Yeah, I actually wanna take it to the end of Amy's book. So there, you, I love how you wrapped it up. Like you, and if you're listening to this podcast right now, you're, you're gaining so much knowledge, but you gotta do something. Like you gotta take some action. So think about how many times women sign up for stuff and then they just don't even use it. They buy a, a $7 book or they, you know, sign up for a challenge and they don't actually do it. Like it's time for you to take some action. And that's what our podcast is designed to do, to give you that kind of fire. And that's what Amy, your book does. And so I loved how you wrapped it up, like, "Hey girlfriend, get it together. Now that you've read this book, go do it. Do something about it." And so I think that's what women, they come to us and they're struggling with the same thing over and over and over, but they just lose sight of where to actually start and they just keep gathering all this data and not actually doing anything with it. Just like information.

Okay, so why don't we just be the number one resource for thyroid issues today and trust that Dr. Amy Amy's been through some stuff and she knows what she's talking about because she's helped thousands of women through this thyroid journey. And maybe you should share why you even are doing what you're doing so that women can know, like, this girl's the real deal.

Well, and, and so they know that, that I've walked in their shoes. Yeah, you know, and, and that's really the story behind it. So it's a pain to purpose story. And I'll be brief, but in a nutshell, way back in my 20s when I was doing everything right, the eating, the exercising, everything was regimented, I was disciplined, the scale was going up instead of down. I was actually getting ready for a bodybuilding competition. So that tells you the level of, of discipline that I was kind of in at the time. And every single time I got on the scale, every single time I had to do a weigh-in to check in with my coach, The scale was going up 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 pounds came onto my little 5'2" body in the matter of a few months. It was pretty rapid. So at that time, I naturally felt like, oh my gosh, my body is literally rebelling against me. This is something so— there's something so wrong and I don't know what it is because biologically this isn't making sense that I would be eating clean, restricting my calories, burning calories at the gym and yet laying down fat at this rapid of a pace. Never mind the fatigue and the hair loss I was experiencing as well. I was more focused on the fact that all my clothes were tight. So I ended up going to a total of 6 different doctors who all misdiagnosed me. They all told me I was normal. Everything is fine. One of them actually told me to eat less and exercise more, which was basically impossible at that point.

Right?

Like, that's all you're doing.

And I would hand over my diet. I would literally write down what I was eating as proof, as if to validate myself to these doctors that I just kept seeing, hoping and praying that one of them would have an answer. Finally, the 7th one actually did touch my throat. First doc to actually lay hands on me, touched my throat, said, "Swallow." She goes, "I'm feeling some nodules on your thyroid." And according to your labs, it looks like you have hypothyroidism. Here's a pill. So I took that pill. I mean, listen, at the time I was excited. I actually had a name for what was going on with my body. And then I had a pill that was going to fix me, right? So I gave it 5 months. I didn't lose a single pound. I didn't feel any better. It was, it was absolutely frustrating. I went back to this doctor and I said, you know, doing my Dr. Google research like we do, this pill that you gave me is T4. That's the inactive thyroid hormone. So now, you know, of course I'm learning more about the thyroid, right? 'Cause I was thrown into hypothyroidism. So I'm like, I better learn about this. And I found that, you know, there's these other thyroid hormones out there. There's something called T3 that's the active thyroid hormone. There's T2 that's an active thyroid hormone. You're giving me this inactive thyroid hormone in this pill and you're expecting my body to take it and convert it into the active thyroid hormone that's actually gonna give me a metabolism and give me any kind of shot at losing this excess weight that is now on my body. And she looks at me and she goes, that's not standard of care. I don't do that. And I said, well, thank you. I'm gonna find someone who does. That's what led me into the world of functional medicine where my mentor actually spent, I always joke about this, spent 83 more minutes with me than any other doctor, meaning every other doctor gave me that 5 to 7 minute visit. This guy actually sat down, went through all of my labs and asked me the 4 most important words that any practitioner can ever ask you. How do you feel? No one had asked me that before, and he actually cared. And he took those symptoms that I listed off and layered them over my labs to explain to me what my body was doing and to direct me in the right way, put me on the right thyroid hormone replacement that actually gave me my life back and turned everything around. So it was at that point, it was that experience, it was that frustration, that pain that led me into changing careers and, and doing what I do now. Because I knew at the time, wow, I was in a major medical system and I still was misdiagnosed 6 times. So how many women out there are in a small town? They can't go to Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, where supposedly the best of the best docs are, right? They can't go there. How are they going to get the help that they need? And that's really what fueled my passion to get into this and start changing lives.

Oh my goodness, yeah, I feel all of this so deeply. I had the same challenge at 17 years old when I developed Hashimoto's after delivering my baby. And nothing is explained, you know, it's just things are done, procedures, ultrasounds, biopsies, and here's your medication, here's your T4, we'll see you later. And I lived with that for 20 years. I actually went through medical school And still didn't understand the thyroid after I got out of medical school. How sad is that? So let's break down myth number 1, that if your TSH is quote unquote normal, you don't have a thyroid issue. Please speak to that. Drop some truth bombs on us.

Oh girl, well, I know you see it in your clinic too. When patients come in and they have had their thyroid tested by another practitioner, What do we see normally on there? We see TSH and maybe, maybe a free T4. Now, the reason why this isn't enough and we can't stop there is because TSH is a brain hormone. It's thyroid stimulating hormone. It's released by your pituitary in your brain. It's not even a thyroid hormone. You know, if it's screaming high, if it's jumping off the page at us, then that's easy. Say, okay, Julie, you have hypothyroidism here. It's obvious your TSH is a, you know, 10. It's screaming at us. But what if it's not? What if it's actually within that normal range, but yet you still are suffering the same way I was with weight gain and fatigue and hair loss and constipation and brain fog? We have to look deeper than just the TSH. We have to test further. So what do we do next? We test the free T4. That you may have had tested by your doctor as well. That's an inactive thyroid hormone. Okay, again, it gives us a small piece of information, but I got to tell you, and I know that you say this to your patients as well, if they come in with a TSH and a free T4 and they go, "Well, I know it's not my thyroid because my doctor said my thyroid is normal." You go, "Oh honey, you know, we're not quite sure about that yet." let's actually get all of the testing done so that we can see what your entire thyroid profile looks like. Do you have Hashimoto's? Do you have enough of the active thyroid hormone, that beautiful T3 that I mentioned earlier? Do you have too much of something called reverse T3, which blocks T3 from actually doing its job in your body? There's so much more information that we need outside of just TSH and one other marker, free T4.

Yeah, and I feel like I need to share this. I know I've said this before, but those lab ranges, they are for ruling out disease, for ruling out you needing to be hospitalized. So if the free— the range is like 0.5, it used to be up to 6 or 8 when I was in medical school, then they kind of dropped it down to 4 or 5 depending on the lab. But literally, that is so the doctor knows you're not going into a mixed edema coma, we don't have to hospitalize you. It has nothing to do with actually functioning well or, or God forbid, feeling optimal or good, right?

Correct. Exactly, exactly. And, and when women get told that, you know, I always think back to what if I would have stopped. Yeah, at doctor number 3 or doctor number 4, doctor number 5. I mean that would have stopped me in my tracks. I would have accepted that there's nothing wrong with me, and I would have just continued suffering. I would have gained more weight, lost more hair, because— and I wouldn't be here today. So that's the message, is you have to go beyond. If, if you have symptoms and your doctor told you you're normal, you're fine, nothing to see here, just part of getting older, you know, you're just getting older, So that's just what happens when you get older. No, no, no, and no. You cannot accept that because we can look deeper. We can get answers as to exactly what's going on with you. We don't stop at just one or two tests. We keep going to get that full picture.

Yeah, and I just think like if that were happening to you right now in this day and age, you would have been offered a GLP-1 instead. And we would have continued to not actually diagnose you correctly and caused way more issues with you going forward, right? Are you seeing that?

Amen. Honestly, that, that's a— yeah, that's a great point. You're right, I would have been offered a GLP-1 just to lose the weight, just to address the weight issue, and then that would not have addressed the fact that ultimately I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's as well. Which is the autoimmune form. So I would have been walking around with an autoimmune condition, which we know can, can turn into multiple autoimmune conditions, and I would have never had the actual reason. So actually, yes, a GLP-1 now can go into our Band-Aid list of medications, just like women used to get, oh, here's an antidepressant, here's a sleeping pill, here's a statin. Now we can throw in GLPs as a Band-Aid, as opposed to looking what actually is going on beneath the surface.

Yeah. Oh, so sad. So we want to hear all about these labs that women should be ordering because this is essential, ladies. I know Ashley sees a lot of women come into our practice and they have been told they had their thyroid fully checked. Oh, we got the full panel. And we laugh just like you do in a sad way. Like, yep, it was a TSH and a free T4. You know, have you ever been diagnosed with autoimmune or checked for that? I don't know. What is that? Look like? So we just need to break it down for women.

Exactly. So we mentioned earlier T3. So I want you to have the free T3 tested. That is the unbound active thyroid hormone ready to attach to your cells. So if you think about a lock and key, every single cell in your body has this, this perfect little lock, and T3 is the key. So it inserts in, turns it, and that's what's turning on your body, turning on your metabolism, growing your hair, lighting your brain up, giving you energy every day, letting you poop every day. We need enough T3 to run your body. I always say from head to toe, it runs the show, meaning the thyroid, but specifically the active thyroid hormone T3. That T4 pill that I was given, I, I like mentioning to people, especially those listening that might be on levothyroxine, Synthroid, some kind of just T4-only therapy, that T4 medication, you don't have a single receptor on any cell for T4. It is completely and totally inactive. So it's almost ridiculous to give someone T4 only and then in this day and age hope that their body is going to convert it. There's a lot of things that can get in the way. Of that conversion of T4, the inactive thyroid hormone, to the active thyroid hormone T3. So what do we want to check to see if a person is converting properly? We wanna look at reverse T3. So that's the next marker. So we wanna look at free T3, your active thyroid hormone. We wanna look at reverse T3, the anti-thyroid hormone. Basically reverse T3, it puts your body into survival mode. It shuts things down and it's built into our bodies beautifully because we need it in times of crisis. If you are fighting for your life, if you're in a car accident, if you're lying in the ICU or the ER, we hope that your reverse T3 is elevated because at that point in time, you don't need to burn body fat. You don't need to grow your hair. You don't need to make major decisions or feel good. You need to lie there and survive. So our bodies are so wonderfully made that when reverse T3 goes up, it's basically saying, let's shuttle all of our energy to healing this person and keeping them alive. The problem is, is if reverse T3 is elevated when you're walking around trying to live life and you're not lying in hospital bed, we don't want reverse T3 to be elevated and our bodies to be in some kind of hibernation state when we're trying to live life and take the kids to school and run a household and run a business and do all the things, take care of ourselves. So we have to check reverse T3 every single time, and that's going to give us an indication of how well you're converting your own thyroid hormone that your thyroid is producing, or how well you're converting that T4 thyroid hormone that you might be taking in the form of a medication. I always want to look at that. And then we want to check TPO and TGA antibodies. This checks for Hashimoto's. The most common form of hypothyroidism is Hashimoto's. About 95% is autoimmune. You know, you have that 5% that can occur— chemo, radiation, severe restriction like eating disorders. We'll also see it in the overfasters. So the, the women that fast like one meal a day, Sometimes that can downregulate their thyroid, but 95% is Hashimoto's. We want to look at those antibodies and confirm that. We also want a baseline for your antibodies to see where we're starting, especially as we're, we're going to be trying to push those antibodies to zero.

I'm so glad that you acknowledged that the body is designed to function well and to heal and to get back into balance despite all the crazy things we do to it, and that your thyroid is not failing. It's actually a normal response of your circumstances, right? So that's what we hear a lot from women, is they just feel like their body is failing them, or it's, you know, doesn't know what it's doing. And the truth of it is, if your reverse T3 is elevated, there is a reason. So You mentioned we want that to be elevated when we're hospitalized, when we're trying to heal, when we're going through some stuff. But what also drives it when we're out living life and we're not actually quote unquote like post-op sick healing, you know, going through COVID, that kind of stuff? What else is driving that that you see? Because women are about to have some ahas right now.

I know, I know. Well, here's the thing. That T4 to T3 conversion, I equate it to running 10 Tough Mudders in a row. Like, really, really, really hard for your body to do, especially these days. We have to admit that we are not living in the same world that our, our parents were living in, right? Even you could go back 20, 30, 40 years, and we are in a completely different toxic soup environment, higher stress, lifestyle than, than ever before, and it's only going to get worse. So now we have bombardment with EMFs. I mean, everybody is on technology, right? You and I are sitting here with phones, computers, Wi-Fi, monitor. I mean, every— we're being bombarded with EMF. We have more stress than ever. Like I said, societal stress, um, Instagram stress, right? Face— Facebook comparison stress. We have more stress now than ever, and that elevated cortisol absolutely will drive up reverse T3. Nutrient deficiencies— we are all deficient in magnesium. That's chronic. Iodine, I know, is a controversial supplement, but low iodine absolutely will drive up reverse T3. Low selenium, low vitamin D— there are essential nutrients that we need to support that T4 to T3 conversion. There are amino acids that we need, like L-tyrosine, to support that T4 to T3 conversion. And then there's even genetic SNPs. So there's these little SNPs that we can get on our DNA. Some of you may have had a genetic test done in the past, but you have these little SNPs that, that show propensity. So we can actually now test the DIO1 and DIO2 SNP on your genes to see how well are you converting. Are you a non-converter? Are you a, partial non-converter. I actually have a genetic SNP where I don't convert. I actually knew that before I took the genetic test, but the genetic test basically confirmed it, that I flat out don't convert my T4 to T3 well at all. Even when I check all of the boxes from, you know, lowering stress, the nutrient support, all of that, I still tend to push toward reverse T3. So sometimes we can look at your genetics and see how well you're gonna convert your inactive to active thyroid hormone as well.

Yeah, that is really important. There are some deeper things that most doctors are just not talking to you about when it comes to the thyroid. That's just the truth of it. So now we know we gotta get this whole thyroid panel, But more importantly, we have to have someone who understands how to interpret the levels because it's not whether or not they're in range, right?

Correct. And so I go into that in the book and I structured the book to be almost like a step-by-step guide. Or if you really wanna do a throwback, Ashley's probably too young for this, but you probably remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Oh, actually, do you remember those?

Yeah, I do.

I do. Okay. So I wanted to structure the book kind of like that, so where people could get their labs. And then of course we have the optimal ranges, right? Just like you said, you can't go by that standard lab value range that's on your report, that's on your lab report, because those are taken from sick people. We don't want you to be sick. We want you to be optimal. So I have the optimal ranges in the book as well. And then based on where you fall, then I guide the reader into that next step of literally knowing what you need to do next. So let's just hypothetically say you're on T4 only, which I'm gonna throw out a stat just because I know, and you know, so many of our listeners are stuck on T4 only, right? Because that is standard of care. Just like my doctor told me, that's standard of care. I'm not gonna give you T3. That's all you get is T4. Well, the issue with that is that only 2% of those with hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's that are on T4 only will thrive, will do well. 98% of us need T4 and T3. So accounting for the fact that the majority of the listeners out there are probably on T4 only, or maybe you're on this little baby dose of T3, I— then I take you in the book to that next step. Of knowing exactly what you need to ask your doctor for. So for example, let's say Susie Q is on 100 micrograms of T4, Synthroid, Levo, and her reverse T3 is coming back at a 20. Well then we need to move over to this step, and she now knows I need to lower my dose of T4 because that T4 is just pushing the reverse T3. It's putting my body in a lockdown survival mode. And I need to add in a little bit of T3. Now we have some options there. We can go the natural desiccated route, we can add in some lyothyronine, but I'm literally walking the reader step by step through this process so they know exactly what their body needs. And then of course the next step is talking to your doctor to get him or her on board to collaborate in your health, which that can be the most challenging part. But I also give tips for that as well.

Oh my gosh, so good. I think that's going to be really helpful. And I would love to hear from you because you have women coming to you all over the country. What are their doctors saying when they come to them saying, oh, I think I need T3, Dr. Amy said so on this podcast, or Dr. Tabatha Barber did. Um, like, what is the most common pushback that you're hearing?

Uh, so I, I have a feeling we hear the same thing. Uh, the ladies get told that their heart's going to explode or they're going to lose bone, which we now know. And I mean, I can even use myself as an example. I've been on T3 only now for the past 25, 30 years, and at a higher dose because that's just me. I tend to need more of everything. I need more estrogen, I need more progesterone, I need more of everything. So if anybody was going to lose bone or suddenly develop AFib or tachycardia, it would be me. And that hasn't happened yet. I have DEXA scans every single year. I have the bones of a 20-year-old. I'm good. And really, we have seen that— we'll call it a myth debunked through the years. Now, can there be the random person that has a propensity or has a history of AFib and you give them too much T3 and they get the heart palpitations or they get tachycardia? Sure. Can you have the random woman that maybe she's a little bit elderly and she doesn't take vitamin D and she doesn't take magnesium and she doesn't do any kind of weight-bearing exercise whatsoever for her bones and she's not on BHRT. If you give her a little bit too much T3, can it affect bone cell turn up? Sure. But again, it's those extreme cases where maybe we'll be a little bit more careful with the T3, but that is not a universal answer that women should be told when they're, you know, 45, taking care of themselves, lifting weights, and my God, they just wanna feel better. They just wanna feel better, and the reverse T3 is showing that they don't convert well. We have to bring in that active thyroid hormone.

Yeah, I wanna say as a conventionally trained doctor, we're just not trained to use it. We don't understand it as a medication.

I literally was going to say that. I was like, that was what I was sitting here thinking like, The women who are listening need to hear, need to know, and you say this so much, it's not the doctor's fault. Don't be upset with your doctor. They really truly only have 7 minutes with you and it sucks, but that's just the honest to goodness truth and that's where you have to make the decision. This is kind of where that, I feel like, going back to the end of your book, you might have to take action and go and see someone like you, Dr. Amy, or you, Dr. Tabatha Barber. You're going to have to step outside of insurance and you're going to have to do it. This is where the action really matters.

Yeah, I had to go on and learn it and get trained in functional medicine to understand the thyroid and how to prescribe T3 medication and natural desiccated. And so you're going to have to do something different as the patient. That's just the truth of it in this day and age.

Well, and I, that's one thing when I do discovery calls, women will say, well, you know, this is a big investment. And this is where I kind of share my story. Like, I remember sitting across from Tabatha in 2019 and going home and sharing with my husband how much it was gonna cost us. But he would tell you today, like, it was worth the sacrifice because I am who I am because of that. And so you, you do, you, there's gonna be some sacrifices, but we were able to make them for me to feel good. Like that's, it seems so silly, but I needed to feel good. To function, to be a better mom, to be a better wife. And so I, I think you have to make those sacrifices. It's important.

Real quick, I just want to interrupt this conversation for something super important. Even though we need to take care of ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and physically, we do have to take care of ourselves at a cellular level. And that is why I have my fasting Face supplement line. So let's just take a minute to hear about something that might be the game changer that you need in this season. We didn't talk in detail about the difference in omega-3s versus omega-6s when we talked about Omega Lift, and it's so important because the standard American diet, one of the worst aspects of it is the high levels of omega- 6s. Like, that's what's destroying our cells, right?

100%. You know, oftentimes we don't really have a choice. I mean, if you look at your labels, if you, if you go out to eat like the average human being, you are going to have omega-6s. Omega-6s and omega-3s are called essential fatty acids. What the name implies, they're essential for the functioning of your body, mostly stored in your fat, um, but they're very essential for the functioning of your body. Both of them are But however, in a 1:1 ratio, meaning you don't need a whole lot of omega-6s. Now, omega-3s are phenomenal. Omega-6s though, in too much— like, you could have a ton of omega-3s and you're— it's omega-6s though, if you have too much of that particular omega, it turns into inflammation. So you do not want to have too much omega-6s.

Before the food industry really existed, You could get away with eating salmon once or twice a week because you were not getting omega-6s in your diet. But now we, we're getting them everywhere we turn. We're getting them in their coffee drinks in the morning. We're getting them in our, you know, everything. That's why potato chips are bad for you, not because of the potatoes or the salt, because they're soaked in omega-6 seed oils. And so We're just combating this, and that is why we need omega-3s in such high levels. I can't even tell you how different I feel when I add in Omega Lift because I do tend to consume a lot of omega-6s, um, just with traveling and having two teenage kids. So we're never eating dinner at the same time, or we're always grabbing and on the go. And so I have to combat that. I have to counteract it. I would love for you to tie in the fact that the thyroid is the master gland. It's controlling literally everything that's happening in your body. That's why the symptoms are head to toe, hair loss, poop, you know, constipation, dry skin, terrible nails, all the things, brain fog. But it's also affecting our sex hormones and our gut, like all of the things. I would love for you to talk about that a little bit.

Well, yeah, and I'll even add in the chronic diseases that we tend to push aside because I'm, I'm, I'm guilty of this as well. I only talk about, usually only talk about the aesthetic part. The weight gain, the hair loss, and even just fatigue, you know, how it starts affecting us, how we feel. We just schlep through the day, we don't work out, all of that. But what about the chronic disease too? So just like you said, it affects every single aspect, every single organ, every single system of our body. It really can be the root cause of many of your symptoms. So we also have to think about it in terms of long-term longevity and chronic disease. I just saw a study that came out last week that showed that being in a non-optimized state, just being hypothyroid, and this could be that you're, you're diagnosed and you're on T4 only, but you're not optimal. You're just falling in that within normal limits category. So an untreated or a non-optimized thyroid actually puts you at a greater risk of Parkinson's. So now they're tying this to neurological conditions, which we already knew about Alzheimer's. We know there's a strong correlation between insulin resistance, low thyroid function, and even low estrogen that you talk about, and your risk of Alzheimer's and dementia. Now we're seeing it branch out into other neurological diseases of aging like Parkinson's. Heart disease— I mean, your, your heart has T3 receptor sites on it. We know that there's a higher propensity to, to have hypercholesterol— hypercholesterolemia. Oh my God, say that 5 times fast. Insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, low blood pressure. I mean, everything becomes dysregulated in your system, which feeds something else. So the thyroid controls your insulin response, right? You could be insulin resistant and/or type 2 diabetic, and you could be eating keto or carnivore, and you're looking at your numbers going, why is this? Why do I have this elevated A1C? Why is my insulin elevated? I'm not even eating carbohydrates. Well, if your thyroid is not functioning well and you're not being treated properly, that will literally drive insulin resistance. Okay, what do we know about being insulin resistant? We know that will drive cardiovascular disease, that will drive, um, again, Alzheimer's, as type 3 diabetes, as we're correlating Alzheimer's with insulin resistance. So there's such a tie-in to every aspect of our body, but we also have to think about it from a longevity standpoint too, and, and avoiding chronic disease as we age.

I'm so glad you said that. I'm just having flashbacks to when I was on T4-only medication. You know, I was still an OB-GYN, I was studying functional medicine, I had met you, and I was like, I think I need to try some T3. And at the time, you know, I was super constipated. I probably pooped like once or twice a week, right? So I always felt miserable. I was always tired. But my hemoglobin A1C was like 5.6, you know? Hello, that's way too high. And, um, I was having heart palpitations, and everybody kept saying, well, you must be on too much thyroid medication. And I'm like, I'm on like this baby dose of T4. It doesn't even make any sense. I think I was on 50 micrograms at the time, and my labs were showing a TSH 4.5, 4.7. And when I added in that T3, the heart palpitations actually went away. And I was like, okay, I'm on to something. This is crazy. And then the more I talked to you and continued to study, I was like, wow, like, we actually need T3 to have a healthy beating heart for it to not go into arrhythmia. So there's this balance, right? And ever since I got my thyroid optimized, the functions started working in my body again. I started feeling better. But yes, the hemoglobin A1C came down. Now it's hanging out like 4.9, 5.0, you know. I, I don't have the heart flutters, all the things. It's like when you start putting these dots together and you can just see like, oh my goodness, it is really all connected. And you're right, you cannot have longevity and prevent these chronic diseases if your master gland is not optimized.

Exactly. And just touching on, on one thing Ashley mentioned earlier too, it just kind of sparked something in my head. Ashley, when you were saying, like, when you first started working with Dr. Tabatha Barber, how it really changed your life and how you felt, I would even argue that a lot of our listeners, our patients, they, they don't even realize that how they feel is not optimal. So I would ask you, Ashley, did you realize at the time that the symptoms that you were having wasn't just part of life? It wasn't you know, oh, I'm just getting older. Because I think women actually medically gaslight themselves sometimes and just say, oh, you know, it's just part of getting— and you were young, obviously. I mean, look at the, the 40 and 50-year-olds that we all see, that they're like, oh, you know, it's just perimenopause, it's nothing, I just have to learn to deal with it because, you know, my neighbor is dealing with the same thing. And they don't even realize how good they can feel.

Yeah, no, that— and that's something that Tabatha Barber said when I sat across from her. She was literally like, your job is killing you. And I at the time was like, well, I don't even know what you're talking about. This is what I dreamed of. Like, this is the job I've always wanted. And so you don't realize it because you just keep raising the standard of like being okay with where you are.

Misery standard.

Yeah, the misery standard.

Being okay with where you are.

That's good.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's what you do. You're just like, okay, this is how I'm supposed to feel. Like, this is what I've been praying for. So here I am and I'm just gonna keep being more miserable. And that's not really what we're supposed to do.

So.

And yeah, to me, I always feel like it is such a blessing that I was able to go through this so young. And so that's why, for me, I'm so passionate about trying to get younger women to get healthier and to know these things, because I don't want them to be 50 and struggling. I would rather them be 30, struggling a little bit, and figure it out a lot quicker.

Exactly.

Oh my goodness. Okay, well, you mentioned T2, which we don't talk a lot about. Why is that?

Why?

Why is T2 not available to everyone and why aren't the doctors talking about it?

Well, I think you can answer this one. It's not a pharmaceutical, right? It's not controlled by Big Pharma. So I do believe that eventually once we get past this GLP-1 craze, then, you know, Big Pharma will turn their sights on bringing T2 into the pharmaceutical list. But for now, It's still available in supplement form, which actually is, is a good thing because it's available for everyone. So T2 is a thyroid hormone. I have a whole chapter in the book on it, and I've been personally studying it for 15, 20 years now. Tons of research, 30 years of research on it showing that it literally does increase your basal metabolic rate. It lowers inflammation. It helps convert T4 to T3. It helps produce more ATP, which is the energy of your cells. So it's going to help with steady energy through the day, helps with insulin resistance. I mean, it helps with so many different things, all the while not having an effect on your thyroid. It doesn't have a thyroid mimetic effect, meaning if you take T4, T3, any kind of thyroid medication— in fact, if you take any hormone, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone— there's a feedback loop that occurs basically shutting down your own natural production. Of that specific hormone. Now, at the end of the day, we really don't care if you're not producing enough on your own. We have to supplement with it. If you're not making enough testosterone, it doesn't matter that we shut down your own production because you're only spitting out an itty-bitty amount anyways. We're going to replace that with testosterone replacement therapy. Same thing with the thyroid, but we have to understand that if we take T4 and T3, it's going to shut down our own natural production. So when we're replacing thyroid hormone, we wanna be sure that we do so adequately because that person is gonna lose a little bit of their own production. With T2, we don't have to worry about that. So it's not going to cause your doctor to look at your thyroid labs and go, "Oh my goodness, Ashley, you are now hyperthyroid and we're gonna take away all your thyroid medication now." So it's not gonna do that. It is gonna work at the cell level. To increase your metabolism. So as I was studying this, I always joke it was only available in this BroScience formula. Literally, I kid you not, there was a gorilla on the front of the bottle with claw marks down. I mean, and I was giving it to these women and just going, here, trust me, just like trust me and take it. But over time I realized, you know, even the husbands were like, honey, what the heck are you taking here? This looks like something like that should be in our son's gym bag, right? So I came out with my own formula, and that's where Fixer Formulas was, was basically born because I wanted to bring T2 to the market. So now I have it in my Thyroid Fixer and Metabolism Fixer, and I talk a lot about it in the book because if someone is on T4 only, and let's say they can't get their insurance-based doctor to, to budge and give them T3 and they just can't do one of our programs, at least they can add in T2 to make a difference in their symptoms, to help them convert that T4 to T3, to give them a little bit of a, of a chance at a metabolism and some energy again. So that's where I really call it the forgotten thyroid hormone because we're not paying enough attention to it. But at the same time, I don't know, maybe that's good because we don't want Big Pharma to grab it yet.

I love that. Okay, in addition to adding in some T2, getting those vitamin and mineral replacements that you talked about, what are two other things, especially with Hashimoto's, you think women really need to be doing to feel better?

You know, some of the basics that they can even just do right now where they're not stressed out about even, you know, getting new labs and and convincing their doctor and going through all of that. I mean, that they definitely have to do. They gotta put it on their to-do list. But immediately, right now, number one, gluten-free. Oh my goodness, I know. That's why I say in the book, it's not a fad, it's not a fad. I know people are sick of hearing about gluten-free, but when it comes to autoimmune, specifically Hashimoto's, specifically with your thyroid, Now we can absolutely overlay the gluten-free rule over all autoimmune conditions, but when we look at the thyroid and we look at Hashimoto's, first of all, just to give an analogy for the people that understand better, when you have Hashimoto's, you basically have these little soldiers that are programmed incorrectly. They think that your thyroid gland is actually a bad guy and they like to go out and beat it up. They, they go out and invade it. So when we're looking at your TPO and your TG antibodies, that's the amount of soldiers that you have that are readily going out and beating up your thyroid. So when we look at gluten under a microscope, we're specifically looking at the, the little protein molecule of gluten called gliadin. And when we look at that, we go, wow, that looks a lot like the thyroid gland. It's very similar in molecular structure. To the thyroid gland. We call it molecular mimicry. And so when we consume gluten, we're basically alerting the troops, alerting your soldiers that, hey, there's another bad guy coming in. So your soldiers see that gluten that you consume and they're like, hey buddy, you know what, thyroid bad, right? So I think we should start a war. And they go out and they basically attack your thyroid even more. And yes, you can build your troops too. So if you consume gluten on a regular basis with Hashimoto's, you are launching an autoimmune attack on the daily and you are building your soldiers. So we will see an increase in your antibodies over time as well. So this is why we say gluten-free. We're not just jumping on a bandwagon here. There's actually scientific reasoning behind us telling you to go gluten-free if you have Hashimoto's. So that's number one. Number two, I would say, and, and I know you talk about this all the time, you got to pay attention to your gut because there— I would say the majority— so we have, we have a couple different sites for T4 to T3 conversion. The majority happens in your gut and your liver. And percentage-wise, nobody really lands on a percentage, but I would say the majority, gut and liver. Some peripheral tissues, thyroid gland, but the majority of that conversion happens in the gut and liver. We know that your gut actually produces those enzymes. They're called deiodinase enzymes that come out and they grab that T4, they rip off an iodine molecule off of it, and then becomes T3. We need those enzymes in proper amounts for that conversion to happen. Your gut produces those enzymes. So if you're ignoring your gut If you're a disastrous mess, if you're consuming toxic food with ingredients that you can't pronounce and you're not cleaning things up and you're not listening to Dr. Tabatha Barber because she's telling you how to heal your gut on the regular, then you're not going to convert properly. You know, I mean, you could throw in all the thyroid hormone you want, but you're still going to struggle and you probably won't hit that optimized state that we want you to hit. Because you're not paying attention to the health of your gut.

Oh my gosh, I mean, I can't underscore this enough. Getting gluten out of my life saved my life. It saved every aspect of my life, not just my health, because I wasn't even able to function or do my job or show up as a parent because of my health issues. And same with you, so, Ashley. So I just I know it seems like insurmountable, like this mountain you possibly can't even climb, but it is way easier than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

And so easy.

Oh my goodness, once you feel better, like, you never want to go back. When I look at cake and pizza, I just see pain and misery and depression and eczema, you know, like, you You just gotta decide it's not for you anymore.

Exactly. And it's like, you don't have to give it up. I mean, eat a gluten-free pizza. They're actually really, really good.

Yes.

And like you said, it's so easy these days. Now granted, and I know you feel the same way, we don't want people living on gluten-free versions of everything. I don't want to walk into your kitchen and see gluten-free cookies and gluten-free bread and gluten-free pancakes and gluten-free, gluten-free, gluten-free.

But—

But there are options, so we just can't use the excuse that it's too hard because it's really not too hard. And if you have to use those gluten-free versions as a crutch, as that first stepping stone, and then maybe you start branching out and you go, okay, you know what, I'm gonna make my own gluten-free cookies with this killer recipe that I found on Instagram, then, then you start just doing your own thing and starting to slowly eliminate the boxed gluten-free free versions.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, oh, I know there's so much more to this conversation, and that's why you had to write this book. So like, where can women find it? I need to know all the details.

Yes, yes. So if you're listening to this before May 16th, I'm going to encourage you to go to thyroidfixbook.com and order it from there. Now you can jump on, you can go to Amazon, Barnes Noble, Target, all the places the books are sold. But if you go to that link, we are actually having a live launch event on the 16th. It's gonna be 5 hours of fun. And you get a VIP ticket if you purchase this before the 16th, you get a VIP ticket to the Zoom room where you get to interact with me. So you're gonna be able to ask your questions live. You might even get a chance to do a live lab read where we will be on screen reading through your labs and I'll be giving you feedback based on what I see and based on the information that you give me. So it's gonna be so much fun. You do not wanna miss the live launch event. But really go to anywhere books are sold, grab The Thyroid Fix. It is, I'm touting it as the last thyroid book you will ever need because I did exactly that. I looked at everything that was out there available to us as thyroid patients. And there's no book to date that goes into the depth of the detail and the guidance that I go into in The Thyroid Fix, where, like I said earlier, literally taking the reader by the hand and, and guiding her through this process so she can know exactly what she needs. You don't— yes, you're going to need a, a willing participant practitioner to execute the prescriptions. But make no mistake that you know your body and that you can absolutely learn what your labs mean and what you need as a patient, and you can learn how to ask for that. And that's what I teach you in The Thyroid Fix.

Okay, Dr. Amy, this was such a validating conversation. Thank you so much, and thank you for fighting for every woman out there.

Well, thank you, ladies, and thank you for spreading the message like you do.

Yay! So good. Okay, so we always end our episodes with a scripture to meditate on for the week because, ladies, we're not called to do this alone. We do need to invite Jesus on the journey with us, even in our thyroid health. So, um, let me read Isaiah 40:29. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. So I'm telling you that Dr. Amy's Pain to Purpose story is probably for you today. If you have been struggling, our stories are not meant to just stay to ourselves. They are meant to be shared and help. We're just supposed to learn from each other. And so I know that you got something out of this even if you personally don't have thyroid disease. There's 1 in 8 women struggling with this. So someone you know is struggling, your mom, your sister, the men have it too, just not as much as the women. So I would ask God, like, what was I supposed to get out of this episode? What— and you'll feel it, you'll hear it. That's that little whisper. He's gonna nudge you to do something like get the book, Go to the Zoom call, get your questions answered, or even book a call with Dr. Amy's team. Like, if you need a provider, there's literally no excuse in this day and age for you not to get help. There is a way, and God will make that way for you. So lean in, ask him to give you the strength, tell him to increase whatever it is that you need— the, the power, the motivation, the finances, the time, all of it, ladies. So we are here for you. I love you so much. Go be Christ's hands to serve, and we'll see you next week.

Bye, ladies.

If you like that episode, I have one favor to ask, maybe two. Can you hit subscribe and give me a heart? I want Apple to know that this is important information to you, because when we tell them that you will get more of it. So use your voice, hit subscribe, hit the like button, share with a friend. And the other thing, I want you to download the 5-day challenge and get started on it. Take imperfect action. I will see you in the Fast Faith Sisterhood. Till next time.