McCall McPherson, a physician assistant at Modern Thyroid Clinic in Austin, was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in graduate school. Levothyroxine didn't work, and her primary care doctor refused further testing. An integrative physician changed her medication and schedule; she improved in six weeks. That doctor became her mentor and business partner.
Questions this video answers
Levothyroxine (brand name Synthroid).
27 years old.
Three months (wait list).
About six weeks.
Dr. Ron Manzanaro.
Chapters
Hi, I'm McCall McPherson from Modern Thyroid Clinic, a functional medicine practice that specializes in hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's in the lovely Austin, Texas. I wanted to just introduce myself and tell you a little bit about my story and what really led me here. So I'm formally trained as a PA and obviously that training involves conventional medicine, normal run of the mill thyroid treatment. And it was in the middle of my graduate school many years ago, I won't tell you how many, that I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and I did okay for a little while. I was put on levothyroxine or the brand name is Synthroid. And men, after I graduated I started having really, really significant recurrence of my symptoms. And I went to my primary care doctor who was the person who managed my thyroid and I was like, look, I'm exhausted. I'm 27 years old and I get home from work and I go to bed at 3:30 in the afternoon. I'm depressed, I'm 10 pounds overweight. I had high cholesterol that he wanted to put me on cholesterol meds for. I have brain fog. I can't think of pretty much anytime I wasn't at work, I was in my pajamas and laying in bed. Weekends were spent really not leaving my house. And he tested my TSH and told me that I was fine and that in fact instead of needing more medication like I had requested, I needed less medication because my TSH was too low, if you know what I'm talking about. You are my people. So I asked. Somehow I knew at that time that I wanted a full thyroid panel. And I asked him to do that and gave him a piece of paper requesting the labs that I wanted. And he's like oh okay, well I'll research this and I'll get back to you. And he said no. He came back eventually and said no, I'm not going to check these other things. That's not how you treat and manage thyroid disease. So I said okay, well I'm going to find someone else to help me. And I got on the wait list with the only integrative medicine doc in Austin at the time and I waited three months to see him. I went into his office and I had labs already with my a full, really a full thyroid panel. And he looked at them and was like, oh well, you don't need less medication, you need more medication, you need different medication. This medication isn't working for you. And so he wrote me up a schedule on what to do and how to do it. And really, within six weeks, my entire life was changed. That doctor, now, many years later, he has been a longtime mentor to me, but now he's my partner. We co own Modern Thyroid Clinic together. His name is Dr. Ron Manzanaro, and he has really been a leader in thyroid treatment since the 90s. So even though people view what I do as progressive, when I think about the fact that he's been doing it for so, so, so long, it's mind blowing. So, yeah, that's my story. And really, it gives me a unique ability to have insight into really how patients are suffering with hypothyroidism and the magnitude that it can affect people's lives. And obviously, that'll put a fire under you to, to really intervene and make a difference in other people's lives. So that is what I love to do now. Nice to meet you.
