Heal Your Thyroid and Reverse Hashimotos

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What are you waiting for? Good night. Can you reverse Hashimoto's thyroiditis? Or, hmm, you may be asking, what exactly is that again? What if your thyroid issues weren't just thyroid issues but an autoimmune disease and you didn't know it? Could the fatigue and the hair loss that we experience be fixed with lifestyle changes? Unfortunately, it's still not all that clear that your food nutrition, toxic exposure, or your ability to detox have a significant impact on your thyroid. My guest today shares her own story, and we deep dive into tips for reducing heavy metal consumption and testing to ask for, and why you'd ask for it. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50, where I address your top struggles and concerns, but most of all, we want to inspire you. I want you to expect that we'll age in a very different way than we've ever seen before, and that you can demand products and services that are actually made for you in the moment you're in right now. I share what to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy and vitality that you want, need, and deserve in this second and better half. My guest today is Dr. Jen Flagar. She's a double board certified physician in integrative medicine and emergency medicine. She attended medical school at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, and she then went on to residency at St. Vincent— St. Vincent, sorry, Mercy Medical Center for emergency medicine. Dr. Jin spent 1 year flying with Life Flight as a flight physician. She now works at local emergency rooms in the community and at her office in Perrysburg, Ohio, practicing integrative medicine. She's a graduate from the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine's 2-year fellowship program. Dr. Jen loves speaking and lectures to physicians at conferences including the American Osteopathic Association. She hosts the podcast The Integrative Health Podcast with Dr. Jen. Her own health story of Hashimoto's, which is now in remission, sparked her interest in integrative medicine. She's very passionate about helping patients with chronic disease and teaching them how to let the body heal itself. She's a published author of the book Eat Sleep Move Breathe: A Beginner's Guide to Healthy Lifestyle. She's a board-certified member for the IDA That's Invisible Disabilities Association. Her hobbies include spending time with her husband and 4 children, being in nature, paddleboarding on the Maumee River, and reading all things. Let's dive into this episode. Dr. Jan Thlegar, thank you so much for joining me here.

I'm so excited to be here, Debra. Thank you for having me.

So I alluded to this in the intro. Many of my listeners know that this is still, for some of our women in midlife, even if they've been dealing with a thyroid issue that they've known about for years, still unpacking the nuances of it and sorting out who does or who doesn't have Hashimoto's and how would you know that's still an issue. So we're definitely going to get to this, but before we do that, we kind of want some dirt on you. It's just how girls are. But what, What about you? Is there personal history here, your own personal story with Hashimoto's, or what intrigued you to dive deep into this particular topic?

Yes, it's definitely a passion of mine because I did have Hashimoto's and it is in remission. So my thyroid history goes back to when I was in high school and I had some cycle problems, and my mom was reading a magazine and they said Oh, your, your cycle, if it's off, it might be related to your thyroid. So she went in, and you know how mama bears are, they get what they want. And she wanted a thyroid panel and a thyroid ultrasound, and they found a nodule, and they had to watch that, and I had to be put on thyroid meds. And, you know, this whole adventure when I was, when I was in high school. So then fast forward, when I was in medical school, I was still being treated for thyroid. They— no one ever checked my antibodies, and I felt my thyroid and it felt enlarged, the nodule. And I'm like, oh, that just got a lot bigger. So they rushed me to a biopsy. It was inconclusive, which that's very common with thyroid biopsies for that to be inconclusive. So they had to move to surgery to rule out cancer. Now, thank God it was not cancer, but the surgeon came up to me after and he's like, you know, good news, it's not cancer. He's like, but it looks like you have Hashimoto's. Because that's what the thyroid tissue looked like. And he said it was very diseased, so I took half of it out. And I was like, Hashimoto's? No one's ever checked for that or anything. And he's like, well, because there's nothing you can do about it. It's an autoimmune disease. So I was in medical school at the time and believed everything that conventional medicine had to tell me, right? I mean, aren't we all like that?

It's the Bible.

Right, right. And the doctor's the authority. You know, and you just say, yes, okay. And it's not like anyone in my medical school or any of my professors, when I told them what happened, was like, hey, do you know you can actually change this and reverse this and whatever? So I started, I did some actual research on my own, um, started looking up, you know, PubMed, different, you know, how to medicate for thyroid disease, because I felt like junk on just T4. So that's Synthroid, levothyroxine. If any of the women out there listening that are on that medication, I mean, they probably know what I— know what I mean, because you don't always feel good. T4 is the inactive thyroid hormone, so your body actually has to convert T4 to T3, the active thyroid hormone. Well, I remember I went in, I was in medical school, I had a stack of PubMed articles, and I'm like, I want to be on T3 also, because I don't think I convert well from T4 to T3, which is very common. And, you know, they looked at me and they're like, well, we don't do that. And I was crying. I was, you know, I think it was a third-year medical student at that point. I'm like, I'm so tired. I'm like, I never used to feel like this before my surgery. And I'm like, please. And there— and then they finally, they're like, okay. And that was a game changer, honestly, with, um my mental focus, with just kind of getting more energy back. Because once you have thyroid surgery or your thyroid is not working as well because of Hashimoto's or hypothyroidism for other reasons, you just— you— some people really do not thrive with just on T4. And there's actually a lot of research showing that T3 can be a helpful adjunct for that. So then fast forward another couple years, studied more, reading more on autoimmune disease, and I decided to change my diet and fix my gut health. And that is finally when my Hashimoto's went into remission. And what that means— when your Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune disease, one of the most common autoimmune diseases in women in the United States, when you get those antibodies down, that means your thyroid is no longer attacking itself. And it's It's wild to think that, you know, your body is attacking itself and causing inflammation and damage in organs. And autoimmune disease is unfortunately on the rise. So these things we're going to talk about today, they'll, they'll help most people with any autoimmune disease because the principles are the same.

That is wild. And I think let's, let's talk about that for a moment. I mean, the whole thing is wild that here you are in medical school and you have to like defend and beg, like, to get the testing that you want to, first of all. But thank goodness that you did and you pushed through and realized there are a lot of women out there who don't know to advocate for themselves, who don't know, you know, about the secret, you know, in T3 and conversions and what that means to them or to their numbers. And I think that's where the black hole is, because Isn't it true it's all too easy to say, I want my doctor to test my thyroid, and then they do, and then it says, oh no, you're in norms? Yeah, I mean, you're in the norm levels, but a woman still doesn't feel good, so she comes away with no answers. How common is that?

Oh, every week I get patients in my office, and I was so upset. Like Wednesday, I saw a new patient, and she has been suffering for 2 years and I— she's sitting across at me and I even tell her, I'm like, "I would bet money, you know, if I was a betting kind of person," which I'm not, "but I would bet money that she has Hashimoto's." Her thyroid just looked inflamed, her whole body looked inflamed, you know, post— she gave the perfect Hashimoto's story. Postpartum, she just started not feeling right. She started gaining weight. She couldn't get the weight off like the first child. Her hair started thinning and, you know, she's going to her doctor and asking for thyroid labs but they usually just run a TSH, which is a thyroid stimulating hormone. And unfortunately, it's just— it's not enough. It's not good enough. It doesn't give the whole picture of what's going on. You're not looking at your T4, which is the inactive thyroid, that the thyroid— 80% of the thyroid hormone put out is T4. And then the T3 is the important thyroid hormone. It's the active thyroid hormone. So it's turning on those switches for your metabolism. You know, it's, it's activating the gut health so you're, you're having normal bowel movements. You know, because if you're, if you're hypothyroidism, you're usually constipated, sluggish, you're cold, you have brittle hair, brittle nails, dry skin. You know, all the things that you don't want. But unfortunately, this is pretty common. And another big sign of having a low-functioning thyroid is fatigue. And, you know, how many women go to their doctors and they say they're fatigued, and they might say they're a little low mood, you know, maybe a little depressed, which is another sign of thyroid problems, and they're put on a, you know, an antidepressant. And, and I, you know, just last week, I, you know, that's what she said, you know, that's all my doctor had to offer. And she's like, I wasn't depressed, and that's all there was to offer. So having a complete thyroid lab, which would include a thyroid stimulating hormone, which is a TSH, a free T4, a free T3, and a reverse T3. At minimum, you want those plus the antibodies. So that's TPO antibody, which is the one that's most commonly elevated in Hashimoto's, and then thyroglobulin antibody. And then there's other tests, like you could look at your zinc levels because zinc is very important to make thyroid hormone. You know, selenium is important. Vitamin D3 needs to be optimal, which We're all— unless you're living in beautiful Florida, sunny Florida or California, most people have low vitamin D levels because we're all inside working. But all of these things are important. So we, we do need to advocate when we are at our doctor's office, you know, and, and if you're— if you have a family, a relative, you know, your children, you need to advocate with them and maybe go to their appointments with them. I think that's another thing that we miss, is that just going in and just having— making sure the doctor provider that you're going to knows that this is a team approach, that it's not just one-sided. And if you know your body, so you know if something's wrong, and you shouldn't stop until you figure out what it is. You know, we're not meant to feel miserable, right, Debra? Right.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that. And I think also I would say this goes both ways because right now for these women listening, we have women on both ends of the spectrum. So it might be, you know, advocate for yourself, yes, and advocate for your children, like if you have young adults going through this. But also it may be that you need to advocate for your parents. Who may be doing this. I remember my mom getting her thyroid checked when I was a young adult, and I didn't know what I know now, but had I, I know that the doctor in her small town most likely was not taking care of all of these things.

So yeah, and the thyroid's really interesting because as an endocrine organ, it is really susceptible to things like heavy metals, environmental toxins, So as we age, that's why it's such a commonly prescribed medication, levothyroxine, just T4, is because, yeah, the thyroid kind of— it gets damaged. And if you're not actively treating your thyroid well or giving it the nutrients it needs to produce thyroid hormones, it can get a little bit sluggish. So that would be like, you know, your parents and looking at that, like, what's— what else is going on? Do they have mercury fillings in their mouth that's just pouring mercury into their body, and then that's affecting the thyroid. Or, you know, more of the, like, the middle age. And now I'm seeing even younger women with, with Hashimoto's, you know, even like high school, college. So the autoimmune tends to be really big right there because you, if you catch it early, then you can reverse it, bring those antibodies down, you know, fix what the root cause is, which usually it's something wrong with the gut health, and then they don't have to be on thyroid medication the rest of their lives. So for me, because of what happened to me in my story, where I always wonder if they would have checked antibodies in high school for me, or if someone would have told me after surgery that I had, you know, an autoimmune disease that could be helped with diet, I wouldn't be on thyroid medication every day of my life. So it's really— I get really, really passionate about this because it doesn't have to be this way, right? Um, and, and when you go to an endocrinologist, they are still going to tell you, unfortunately, that there's nothing you can do for Hashimoto's, and it's just not true. And there's actually a lot of research out that diet does help with autoimmune diseases, including Hashimoto's. So definitely, um, you know, hearing this information and learning is going to empower you next time you're at your doctor's, or if you have a friend or a family member that was diagnosed with Hashimoto's.

Yeah, and I, I— this is empowerment that is so good. So knowledge is power, and then you know more what to do with it, you know, what questions to ask, you know, to continue to push the buttons because no, you're not crazy. But I'd love for you to elaborate just a little bit about why your mother's so susceptible. You kind of commented that, you know, postpartum, you know, this was obvious. What's the trigger there that starts that cascade?

Yeah, so definitely hormones. So big changes in hormones can, can cause these kind of autoimmune eruptions. You know, women are just more susceptible to autoimmune diseases, and we think it's just our fluctuation of hormones. And then you get that really big fluctuation from going to really high estrogen to really low estrogen postpartum. Another thought is your gut health is kind of trashed postpartum because you're not sleeping well. You just went through kind of not trauma, but labor is just very intense, you know, and your body just went through this big thing, and that's, you know, a big cortisol rush. And, and really, the not sleeping, I think, is the big thing. Your circadian rhythm is disrupted. That's affecting your gut health also. There, there's an interesting study that shows for postpartum women, 200 micrograms of selenium, which is very protective to the thyroid, is helpful to take 4 weeks postpartum. So I tell my postpartum mothers to do that. Usually you get about 100 in your prenatal, so continue that and maybe adding a little bit more on. You could also take some Brazil nuts, but depending on where the Brazil nuts were farmed, depending on the content of the soil of selenium, that is kind of more variable. So it's— which is kind of interesting, but Brazil nuts are high in selenium also. So So yeah, women just postpartum, it's something that I think should be included on those postpartum lab work. What's the thyroid doing? Are there antibodies? Or just proactively, let's control the stress, let's get you eating healthy postpartum. Because a lot of women in their pregnancy were kind of told just, oh, eat whatever you want, whatever the baby craves, right? I mean, that was bad.

I ate way too many cinnamon graham crackers. I'm serious.

Oh, that's what you like? Well, I did a big switch, so it's actually embarrassing. So my 10-year-old— so that was when my health kind of like, I was like, oh, I'm eating for someone else now. And it didn't happen until like halfway through my pregnancy because I was pretty sick my first trimester and I hadn't told anyone at work yet in the ER. So I was like craving slushies which had dye in them, which repulses me that I even had them, you know. And But, but this is why everything is a journey. You grow and you change. But my third pregnancy, I was so good, like so healthy, you know, ate so well. And it was my favorite, favorite labor. And I think my favorite postpartum transition. I just, I didn't skip a beat. So I think when we look at just women, and it's amazing that we go through childbirth and the postpartum and the fourth trimester and just maybe preparing a little bit better for that so there's not such a big influx of stress, right? I also think we need to detox that estrogen out postpartum pretty quickly, and that would be eating a lot of cruciferous vegetables and broccoli and get that— get that estrogen detoxed in a safe way because, because it's very— just our bodies go through a lot. So unfortunately, our thyroid has been the one to kind of take the, the brunt of all of this. And it's not— I, I don't think that it's just that. I think it's the compound effect of glyphosate everywhere, and there's chemicals in the air, and there's chemicals in everything. Imagine, you know, giving birth at the hospital now, and post-pandemic they're spraying all these chemicals to clean everything, and that wasn't there 5 years ago. So this this major, major influx of more Hashimoto's cases, unfortunately, I think is going to be the norm. But it wasn't like this, you know, decades ago. It wasn't as bad. So it's definitely just everything compounded. We live in a kind of a toxic soup right now, so we have to do what we can to, to play, right, to play the game of how can we live the least toxic we can for our thyroid health.

I love that. And I also— I mean, based on you were talking about what happens to women postpartum, but then the other time in our lives that then we're going through something that is a roller coaster with estrogen up and down, you know, but regularly until it really plummets is menopause. So do you see another spike in the occurrence of thyroid, specifically Hashimoto's, as women go into menopause transition?

Not so much Hashimoto's. Usually it, it would be like an older diagnosis from what I've seen, but a lot of new cases of hypothyroidism when women are going through menopause. You know, we have to check for that too because the symptoms can be about the same, right? So yeah, body temperature dysregulation, fatigue, mood swings, you know, all of that weight gain. So we also have to make sure that we are paying attention to the thyroid while we're going through that menopause change, and One another thing that goes hand in hand are our adrenal health and glands and our thyroid. So if we are having really high cortisol, dysregulated cortisol, it affects our thyroid in a negative way. And sometimes I have patients where, you know, I tell them like, your thyroid is not going to be regulated until we get to your cortisol, your stress, balance the parasympathetic and sympathetic system. And this could even be a traumatic event in their childhood, and it could still be affecting them. So we, we have to look at that. And then when you talk about cortisol, we have to talk about blood sugar, right? And that ties into menopause too. So having blood sugar dysregulation, where your blood sugar is on a roller coaster all day, that can also affect the adrenals and the thyroid. And, and that could be— those swings of cortisol and blood sugar are also common during menopause. Um, I tell my patients I feel bad that, you know, women just don't do well eating a bunch of refined carbohydrates. We just— we can't get away with it, you know, once we hit, um, you know, our 40s. It's just they, they don't do well.

Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned that. And I think, um, one of the things that I want to go back and unpack is just For any listener who still wonders a little bit more about heavy metals, you know, I think you, you hit like if you still have mercury fillings. I'm sad to say I still have a few. I know, I know, right? That is not a fun thing. Number one, it's not a fun way to spend time, not a fun way to spend money. It's like, oh, I hate doing that, but needs to happen. But what are other ways that we might be impacted by heavy metals? Because I think sometimes this is still a little bit of a mystery, or it's a question of how do I avoid them? Because isn't there a trace of heavy metals in lots of different foods that we might eat?

Yes. So the thing with mercury, it's very neurotoxic, it's very hard on the thyroid. So eating a bunch of fish that have mercury in it, it's just not going to be good. You know, everything has to be in moderation. So I think that's kind of where you talk about heavy metals, because yes, some is okay. You know, if you're getting salt from the ground, if you're eating rice that's from the ground, it's going to pick up some arsenic. So it's, it's all in, in moderation, right? It's funny because one of my friends and I, we, we joke about like, oh, you know, you go gluten-free but then you're eating all this rice bread. So then you're getting overloaded in arsenic, right? It's like, oh, what do you do? So it can be kind of overwhelming. Um, I like to kind of keep it simple. Yes, if, you know, you have amalgams, try to get those out. Because think about those old mercury thermometers. So every time, you know, if it warms, the mercury expands. If you drink, you know, if it's cold, it contracts. So think about every time you're eating and drinking something They're expanding and contracting. And what I worry about with those mercury fillings is it, it makes your tooth more susceptible to cracking, which can't really be repaired. You know, when they expand and contract, and then maybe you're grinding and it's putting little faults in there, and then that can lead to root canals. And then root canals are not good because you could get cavitations and anaerobic bacteria in there, and that could cause an an immune response. So, so I think that's number one. Number two, don't just eat sushi every day, right? Be careful. Um, or like sea bass. I used to love sea bass and now I just avoid it. So I think that, you know, you just, you have to have some balance there. So other sources of heavy metals, um, such as aluminum. So this is one thing that I notice a lot when I maybe look for recipes on Instagram or something. I'll see someone you know, cooking, roasting a whole beautiful plate of vegetables, but they're putting tin foil, you know, aluminum foil— it's not tin, it's aluminum foil— down. Yeah. And I'm like, you're just— yeah. And I was like, oh, I'm like, just get a glass Pyrex plate, you know, um, glass casserole dish, and that works really well. So look at what you're cooking your food in. So sometimes that can be a source of heavy metals that we really need to just avoid. And it's, it's kind of easy to avoid. Another big source of heavy metal concern would be lead. Okay, so lead would be something you'd worry about if you had like old paint, is, is kind of a big source for it. If you're getting it taken off and it then it's dust and you inhale it. So, so that lead and that one's, you know, mercury is like the hardest to chelate, but lead is, is up there. Another source for lead would be certain dishware. So once again, like what you're cooking in and what you're eating. So certain ceramic glaze can have lead in it. So you have to be just, just mindful of that too. So really, I think if someone's just like wants to start out and start swapping things out in the kitchen would be really good to get rid of plastic things because plastic is gonna negatively affect hormones and the thyroid, and use glass instead. So that's kind of what we do in our household. We, we just have a lot of glass. We have some cast iron pans, we have stainless steel pans. And do we break a lot of glass plates? Yes, like all the time. We, we really do. We're like— but we, we— what we do is we— I have a 3-year-old, so even when he was a baby, we're like, okay, Someone grab Emery, take him out of the room, and then we have like cleanup duty and we vacuum and sweep it up. And then my, my 15-year-old's really good at finding glass pieces on the ground, so she'll go in at the end and do a final like sweep of the area. But, but it's, it's for your health. And then that way, if your home is a clean home and you do the best you can at home, when you're on vacation, when you're out with friends, you know, you're not gonna be as stressed about it because you do so well at home and your body is resilient and can compensate for a lot. And I think that's one thing that we kind of forget about— our bodies are really resilient and can handle a lot. But with this rushing women syndrome and how toxic our world is right now, we kind of push it over the edge. And when we, when we push it over the edge, that's when we see the symptoms. So the goal would be just to prevent all of these things, you know, is my ultimate goal for, for doing anything I do is I want to help prevent disease. But you can also reverse a lot of things once you remove that root cause, and then the body heals. It's quite miraculous.

It's beautiful, and thank you so much for going in-depth on that because really you gave everybody some takeaways for, oh my goodness, probably I'm doing that, and I think probably I have a roll of tin foil foil in the cupboard, and I'm wondering, what have I done with that lately? So, right, love that. And, and I also know, so we were talking about, you know, the question comes always at the end of a podcast, and where can listeners get more of you? And you pointed me to the fact that you're giving a summit, and that is upcoming. And I am willing to bet this is diving deep into Hashimoto's and thyroiditis. Do you mind, would you tease just a little bit about like who's going to be on, what kind of topic What topics are you covering and what have been biggest surprises for you, even, even neck deep in what it is you do and what's been like really aha moments in interviews?

Yes. Thank you so much, Debra, for mentioning that. And I believe that you have a link that you can share with your listeners on how to register, and it's a free event.

Yes, absolutely. So, and if you're driving or working out, we've got you. It'll be in the show notes, but the link to join will be at flipping50.com. Healthythyroid. But who's in it? Tease some of the good stuff.

Yes, so we have Dr. Christiane Northrup, which I just think she's amazing. So we're going to talk about how like vampire, you know, energy vampires and like kind of toxic people in our life can affect the thyroid, right? And I think that's, that's kind of surprising for me because, you know, we think that that it's just our own bubble is our health, right? It's not. It's other people. So sometimes we might have to cut those people out or, or avoid them. So that's great. Um, Dr. Alan Christianson is on to talk about iodine. Kent Holtorf, um, with Integrative Therapeutics— or Integrative Peptides, sorry— he is going to be talking about peptides, which that is— it's, it's really fun if you've never heard of peptides before. They're they're more of like an alternative medicine and they do amazing things. I use a lot of them in my practice, so that's like a really good introduction. Um, we, we have so many awesome guests. We have Dr. Jess, she's really big on Instagram. She's going to talk about mold with the thyroid, which I see a lot of even in Northwest Ohio. Dr. J. Bon Moore is going to be on to talk about parasites in the thyroid. So So many awesome big names and so, so much information that it's, it's so fun. And I think every interview you'll take something away to apply to your life, even if you don't have thyroid problems, it's still helpful. But the sad reality is, is that it's so common for people to have something related to their thyroid in their lifetime. So it's, it's very important information, especially for all the women listening out there. So good.

Yeah, and I, I— it's a chronic, you know, topic in our membership because, you know, a lot of women are coming for the fitness and the, the exercise to feel better, but not realizing, you know, sometimes we need to get you feeling better so you can do the exercise, and then that it will be helpful and good for you. So this is a great starting point, and if you're still struggling to totally get the grasp on it. Certainly not your fault, but a great place to go for information. And for every woman, I would say, who influences so many other women, younger and older, in her life. So we are going to put the link to that again, and I'll mention it here without giving you too many, too many links, but theflipping50.com/healththyroid— there's no spaces between that, just runs all together— that's where you can learn more about this, the upcoming summit, and jump in. Whether you have thyroid issues, you have Hashimoto's, or some— someone, and you may simply suspect, it's a great place to go for the show notes today, everybody, or to tell me, hey, you should have asked her this, why didn't you ask for this? You can go there and let me know. Just let me have it at flipping50.com/reversehashimoto's. And what are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 today.