01: My Journey from Hashimoto's to Thyroid Health

Hi there and welcome to Modern Thyroid and wellness. I'm McCall McPherson, your host and today is a special day. We are getting to know each other. We are doing our introductory episode and I am so incredibly happy you're here. I wanted to give you a little context about who I am, how I ended up here, and what we're going to do together. So. So if you don't already know me, I am a physician assistant and I am a thyroid expert by way of being a patient. I have dealt with nothing but thyroid conditions for almost a decade now. And it has really allowed me to hone in and evolve my practice of medicine and our practice of medicine at Modern Thyroid Clinic to be able to give people back their lives and deal with even the most complex thyroid disorders. I'm the founder of Modern Thyroid Clinic, which started as a brick and mortar practice in Austin, Texas, and now is expanding nationwide to allow access and care to you guys who so desperately need it in a field that is incredibly still misunderstood and utilizes often very, very antiquated treatment methods that do not allow people to get their lives back. I wanted to let you know a little bit, a quick intro on how I ended up here. So I went into medicine always somewhat interested in more of an integrative viewpoint and how the body works and obviously curing disease, but also promoting health. And those are kind of two different things in medicine. Medicine really addresses illness and disease with medications and tries to fix them, but lacks the knowledge and the emphasis on keeping people healthy and how best to do that. So I went into medicine very, very interested in that holistic kind of what's called biopsychosocial approach to medicine, looking at the whole human and who we are and how we've become who we are, but still got formally trained in the traditional approach. Have always sort of had to work hard for my health and wellness harder than I think a lot of other people do, and ended up with a pretty significant thyroid condition myself. And really for years tried to navigate getting my health back from hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's. I was 27 when my thyroid problem basically robs me of my life. I was going to bed at 3:30 in the afternoon every day. My whole entire existence revolved around resting enough after work to recover and preparing enough in terms of rest to be able to go to work the next day or the Monday after the weekend. So essentially any time I wasn't at work, I was physically in bed. I had already been diagnosed with a thyroid condition. I was being treated for it, I was on Synthroid. I had already gone through, oh, you're on Levo. Let's move you to Synthroid. That'll help. Help. Went to my doctor, complained of all the classic symptoms of hypothyroidism, of fatigue, brain fog. I could hardly think. I was probably 15 pounds heavier than what was normal for me. My hair was breaking, it was shedding. My skin was so incredibly dry, it was cracking in areas. I had zero libido. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was negative, like 300. I had high cholesterol on my labs for which my doctor tried to put me on Lipitor as a 27 year old. Like I was going to do that for I gu rest of my life. Went to my doctor, my primary care initially. Then an endocrinologist asked to see if it was my thyroid because I already was practicing medicine. I was already licensed to practice medicine. I knew obviously the symptoms of hypothyroidism. I knew that I had a thyroid problem. And they ran my TSH and I was told, hey, no, your labs look fine. This is not a thyroid problem. Go eat better and exercise more. And that's your solution. Obviously it's very challenging to exercise when you can't really get out of bed, you know, when every ounce of your existence is just trying to get through your workday and survive. So went back a few months later, said, listen, I've done some research. Like the amount of difficulty it is to do research to navigate the the landscape of a thyroid condition when your brain fog is so severe you can hardly remember your birthday is pretty challeng challenging. But I mustered up the ability from bed to do some research and found out, oh gosh, you know, there's actually more labs that you can do to get a better look at your thyroid condition. So I asked my physician to run those labs or run a full thyroid panel. I gave him a post it note. He said, okay, well let me do some research and I'll, I'll think about it. He came back and said, no. He said, no, there's no justification for running these labs. I'm only going to check your tsh. I still to this day can't understand what the problem is with running a full thyroid panel. Why is there so much resistance around it? Are we really worried about saving insurance companies $60 at the cost of people's long term health outcomes? Who are we working for here? Who are clinicians working for our patients or insurance companies? Because we are tripping over dollars to save pennies Literally and metaphorically. So refused. And in fact, he came back and said, you know what? Actually, it looks like you are over medicated. Your TSH is too low. I need to reduce your medication. And I literally broke office. And I was like, you cannot take anything else away from me. I will. I will lose my job. Like, I will not be able to function in society if I get any worse than I am right now. At that point, I found an integrative medicine physician who dealt with thyroid conditions. Back then, honestly, he was one of the only people. This was before there was access, and there's still not access today, but he was literally the only person I got on his wait list. Three months, you know, I was counting down the days. I know that because I've seen my patients do the same. Waited three months to see him, saw him, ran a full panel, understood that my medication was not working for my unique physiology, changed my medication, and I had my life back within three months. At least I was on my way. Maybe I wasn't completely where I was now or am now, but definitely was on my way. He immediately became a mentor to me and taught me, got me started on my path to my journey. As a clinician that deals with complex thyroid disorders. I have built and built and built on that foundational knowledge over and over and over by analyzing hundreds of thousands of pieces of data of my patients of where do these people have symptoms of hypothyroidism versus where do they not? And slowly, over the last almost decade, I've narrowed down those margins of what is optimal, because optimal is not normal. Okay? You can be debilitated and be within normal ranges. I was that person. My patients that see me now are those people. They are all people who have been told that their thyroid labs are normal, that their thyroid is not their problem. And those are the same people like me that go on to get their lives back. So now we've created a place for these people. Modern thyroid clinic is their safe place. My goals in this podcast, for us to be together during the times that we're able to, are I want to educate you and empower you to drive your healthcare from a thyroid standpoint, but from so many other standpoints. I need you to be an informed consumer of your health, especially in the world of thyroid. You cannot sit back and allow your clinician or physician to drive your care, because in all likelihood, they will drive your health straight into the ground. You cannot depend on the standard approach to thyroid and expect to feel good, have a life, have vitality, enjoy Your family, enjoy your kids, have a sex life, have energy to do anything and enjoy it. You have to be the driver of that care. And I want this to be a place that you can come for information and steps and access on how to navigate that, because it is very complex, especially when you're foggy and tired. I want to build a community for you guys. I want you to connect with each other, to encourage each other, to empower each other, to share this message, to share this hope. There is so much hope. Even though I know the profound levels that you are struggling, there is so much hope, you guys. There are answers. There are ways that you can feel good again. And then ultimately, my goal in my lifetime, professionally is to take the amount of time it takes between someone getting symptoms and getting their lives back and collapse that time frame. Right now, it is often never or decades before people arrive at answers. I want you all to know that there's an answer and to have access to that answer and get resolution to it in record time. I do not want millions of women or people, but largely women, walking around suffering needlessly and missing out on some of the most sacred moments of their lives because they don't know that there's a better way. So I hope that you'll join me on this journey. I am excited to share it with you this space, this time. And I want to create something that is useful and empowering for you. So I'll see you back here next time.