Episode 82: The Truth About Thyroid Health with McCall McPherson

All of our ancestors were not eating all the time. We weren't necessarily prioritizing three meals a day. I think it's something that can be therapeutic.

I started intermittent fasting pretty seriously in 2018. I guess that's seven years ago now. And it is the most powerful way for me to influence my inflammation. People don't understand and recognize that a lot of people are walking around feeling horrible because of inflammation.

And so do you have what, an eight hour eating window?

My approach to intermittent fasting, I eat in an eight hour window but I listen to my body. I'm definitely encourage people to listen to their body. But at about 16 hours our body stops working on dealing with food all the time and it allows it to do its deep clean and trigger autophagy to clean out all the pre cancer cells, all that inflammatory load that's backed up over time and it can be extremely beneficial in our long term health.

Cole McPherson, welcome to Rooted in Wellness.

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

I'm so excited to have you. Like I said prior to hopping onto this recording and this live. Hey everyone who hops on to join us live, I was so thrilled I found you through a dear friend, Dr. Will Cole, who I've been sending a lot of my clients to for years. And it was just so pleasant. I'm so excited to see you because over the past 15 years working as a nutritionist, there's too many people who are coming my way with thyroid issues out of the blue and they really don't have resources or answers. So we're going to dive into all of that today. But to first put some things into context, Rooted in Wellness is ultimately a podcast that's designed to be all about ancient wisdom in our modern world and how we can become more rooted in our health and ourself. But this inner wisdom that we all have to heal, I think we all have this inner wisdom within us. So we always start off by asking, what are three things that help you feel rooted in your health, who you are and your happiness?

Yeah, you know, I would say my family is one. Like my kids, my daughter, my husband, both of my daughters. Like, they keep me kind of grounded and motivated to continue on my health journey because I want to be here to spend time with them and feel good and thrive as long as possible. I think a couple other things that I incorporate on a daily basis. One is intermittent fasting. I know there's so much back and forth and controversy about that. It has absolutely changed My life, I don't think I would be the person that I am today. And then I think another thing that keeps me kind of grounded and moving forward in my own journey is the ability to feel, well, thrive, feel vibrant, and then take that energy and pour it into the health of other people. Like, you know, I think I have such a sacred relationship with my patients and just walk along them on their journey and it impacts my life in such a positive way as well.

Talk about motivation to really live the lifestyle. Right. That we, that we speak to others is so powerful to keep us committed. I love asking these questions just for people who might be new to rooted in wellness. Every single practitioner who sits on the other end, the answers that they give are always free. There's no hardcore protocol. There's no expensive supplement or meditation medication or somewhere that they have to go. They're all free modalities. And we're going to get into how fasting changed your life as well. So I know that you've got a bit of a healing journey yourself. So do you, do you notice on the opposite side, I'm sure you work with a lot of people who, you know, we try to achieve all these accolades of wellness rituals every single day to the point that they might actually be what's causing us to feel uprooted. So do you notice when you start to drift, when you get off the path, when you start feeling uprooted in your life, what's happening when that happens?

Yeah, you know, I think I, I definitely have the potential to like, push and push myself until my body's like, no, no more, McCall. You have to relax. Like, I love my work, I love what I do. I'm so passionate about it that I think sometimes I'll run myself ragged. And so I'm always on a journey to reel that in and make sure that I. And building a life and a work life balance that is sustainable and realistic because that's definitely something that's harder for me.

Yeah, it's like I often say, when pain turns into purpose and it's aligned with work, it's so hard to recognize the overwhelm or I guess the hyper vigilance that can come with that as well. So, yeah, it's a great share. All right, so let's start the conversation. Because thyroid health, it's really one of those topics that touches so many lives, especially as women. I think we all know somebody that's directly related to us who is suffering. And yet it's something that still remains completely misunderstood and often misdiagnosed Also with my clients, millions of people are walking around feeling exhausted, foggy, anxious. They're told that their labs look normal. Air quotes. But they know something's off. And what you bring to the table and through the amazing content that you put out into the world is not just the clinical expertise that you have, but you're really committed to uncovering, like, what is going on beneath the surface. And this conversation is really the intention on how, whether it's you or someone else having a path forward when you may have felt unseen or maybe just, you know, not knowing what to do when you get these lab problems right. So let's start with that first with the women who are told that their labs look normal, but they still feel exhausted and foggy and unwell. Why is this such a common failure in thyroid care today?

Gosh, you know, that is an excellent question, and it's something that I try to share over and over. It's like, I think from my deathbed, I'm going to be yelling, listen, if don't ever believe someone when they tell you that your thyroid labs are normal, like it's not in your head. And sadly, that's what women are left believing, that they're crazy, that this is all fabricated in their mind. When truly, if you get the right information and the right data, it's. It's very black and white. So, you know, I think medicine is not sadly invested in the journey of people's thyroid experience. We have grossly, kind of negligently oversimplified it as checking One lab, maybe two. That doesn't give us 99% of the picture. We don't have standardized ranges. I got asked this morning in another. Another chat, well, why aren't there standardized ranges for thyroid like there are for lipid panels or CRP inflammatory markers? And, you know, I don't know, but the reason, I think is we've just sort of laissez faire, you know, been okay with this approach that we have that really needs to evolve, when in fact, we're kind of devolving in real time, putting less emphasis on this, simply telling women, hey, we checked this one lab. It didn't come back in bold on your labs. It's not your thyroid, when in fact it is. It is. 100% of the people that come to modern thyroid clinic have been told often repeatedly, that their symptoms are not due to their thyroid, when in fact they are. If you get the right data, you can find those answers. And it's so important to be empowered and informed on that journey, which is so valuable for you, for people putting out this content so that women can find their answers. Because we can't passively rely on medicine at this point, sadly, to do that.

So let's dive into that right away. So for people listening, we know that doctors aren't necessarily doing full thyroid panels. And I'm going to put a twist on this also. So from an eastern medicine standpoint, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, we're often told that the thyroid isn't the issue. The thyroid becomes an issue when we're ignoring something else or another symptom or imbalance within the body. So I guess that's part number one and part number two. Can you tell us exactly the key labs that you want people to go out and get to check in on their thyroid?

Yeah, you know, I think there's a couple dimensions to the first question. You know, 80 to 90% of people with thyroid issues have Hashimoto's. So Hashimoto's is an autoimmune condition, right, where your body attacks your thyroid gland and it erodes away that hormone secreting tissue and replaces it with kind of scarry inflammatory tissue that doesn't work as well, which leads to hypothyroidism. Right. So inherently it becomes a thyroid problem, but in the beginning it's actually a autoimmune and inflammatory issue. So we want to intervene at that level as well. Medicine hasn't caught up to that, that we can intervene at that level. We think still, oh, there's nothing you can do about Hashimoto's. You just need to treat this hypothyroidism when in fact I'm, I'm in remission. I had severe Hashimoto's, I had a giant goiter. It's very possible to influence those antibodies and even go into remission. So that is, you know, one manifestation of that. The other thing is your, your thyroid can be reactive to like severe stress, severe inflammation, even post viral issues can shift thyroid function, adrenal dysfunction, liver issues, all of those things can disrupt thyroid. So lifestyle is important. Right. The flip side of that coin that I always like to bring into the conversation is your thyroid can also be the root cause of so many other chronic health conditions. So fixing that and making sure that it is not even normal, but truly tightly controlled protects you later from heart disease, cancer, diabetes. Like it influences so much of our lifespan and health span that it's worth the investment in fixing because the impacts are so far reaching.

People are definitely not getting that perspective. Right. I think that, you know, when I'm meeting with people, it's often like, well, I started a thyroid medication, and it kind of ends there instead of looking at the global picture of prevention. So I love that you brought that up. So to go to the ranges, then, you know, are you noticing something at modern thyroid clinic with ranges where you like to see people? What are the types of labs that you're looking for then?

Yeah. So, you know, it's so interesting, but medicine hasn't really thought about this. And again, in a lot of ways, we have standardized ranges for so many conditions that we're screening for in medicine. Thyroid is not one of those. So there is no universally accepted, quote, normal range. Sadly, what's happening is people go to a lab, they get their labs drawn. The doctor kind of gets the results. They screen it, scan it, and see if anything's in bold or off to the side. If not, they're like, oh, your labs are normal. Send you on your way. No issues.

Right.

There's a few flaws with that. Number one is what lab they're looking at is unique. Like, the ranges that that lab says is normal is different. LabCorp is different than Quest, is different than your local hospital. LabCorp, by my office, is different than LabCorp by my house. So, again, these. These ranges vary so widely that a person can go into their doctor's office with a TSH, let's say, of 5.2, and their doctor can scan their form and say, oh, yeah, everything looks great. You don't have a thyroid problem. The next patient can go into that same doctor's office with the exact same result of 5.2, and from that lab, be, quote, abnormal, and the doctor will treat that. So this is an inherent, huge, hugely flawed solution. Right. But it goes deeper than that. When people are going to labs, if we're formulating normal ranges based on data sets that the lab selects from within their own data people, results at LabCorp, et cetera. Who's going to those labs? Like, not people who are like, I feel so great today. I wonder what my thyroid looks like. Let's go check it. Right? No, like, these people are sick. They're not feeling well. They're looking for answers. So now we're creating normal ranges and based on sick people that aren't well. And that's not okay. So, you know, like so many functional medicine practices, we started so many years ago, over a decade ago, and we just narrowed those margins a little bit. We narrowed the top, the bottom, and had a Smaller, smaller subset of. Of optimal. Since then, every 12 to 18 months, we've actually reanalyzed our data and looked at where do people feel well, where are they thriving, where do they still have thyroid symptoms? And we've narrowed those margins every year to year and a half for 10 years. And now we're left with ranges that are so microscopically narrow, but we find if we can get people into them, they actually get their life back. They thrive. Like, their symptoms go away. So, so important to consider optimal, not just normal. And then we get a full thyroid panel. Like, TSH and T4 are meaningless without additional information, Right? Like, especially if someone is on levothyroxine that the, the inherent effect of that medication completely invalidates data from both TSH and T4. So you do need those TSH, free T4. Those are important. We also need free T3. We also need reverse T3. We need to know what is our active hormone, what is our inhibitory hormone? And sadly, we also need to be screening all of these people for Hashimoto's, looking at TPO and thyroglobulin antibodies. You'd be shocked. The people that come into modern thyroid clinic 30 years into their thyroid problem, they've never even been screened for Hashimoto's.

I remember having to ask a practitioner that I was working with to check because I just knew that something was off. And what's funny, I'm sure you work with, with clients, clients all over the world also. But for me, when I'm looking at these labs, just going to different countries. I'm Canadian too. So, like, the lab ranges for thyroid markers are completely different than they are here. It's like, well, how, how. Why is one level acceptable here and then not the other? And to your point about, you know, I really want listeners to walk away empowered. If they see something that's within range and yet they still feel that something's off, you've got to go and get a second opinion. Because, you know, my mind goes to doing a heavy metal test, for example, right. So there's a test called a total toxic burden lab that I love, and there's ranges of safe levels of mercury and lead. It's like, I didn't think that should be in our body, right? But yet there's a range in which what is acceptable? So, you know, you really have to become empowered with conversations like these to, to go out and ask the questions, because I think something that we're moving away from is that white lab coat syndrome. People are becoming more empowered with education and going in with. You gotta stand your ground. If something feels off, make sure that you're asking for. For another opinion. So go ahead. Sorry.

No, no, no, I completely agree. I mean, honestly, that's why I share. I share our optimal ranges. I share like, I pull back the curtain and honestly try to give women, men too, but women, as many tools as they can to navigate this on their own, almost independently, so they can come to their own conclusions and then go find someone that's equipped to help them because that's what it takes still in the world of thyroid.

Absolutely. So let's hover on that for a second. Let's really own in. Why are women particularly vulnerable? And how does thyroid dysfunction often go unnoticed?

Yeah, you know, so much of hypothyroidism comes from Hashimoto's research will show like 80 to 90% women inherently, sadly, are prone to autoimmune diseases at a much, much higher rate than men. So there's that combination. Right. Like, the other piece is hormones. Like, as our estrogen declines as we go through these big hormonal shifts, particularly in adolescence, but even more so postpartum and then late perimenopause into menopause, these hormone shifts increase our actual risk for developing both Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism. And so one, we're already prone to more inflammation, we're already prone to an increased risk of autoimmunity. And then that combined with these transitional phases of our lives where our hormones shift in big, big ways, prime us really for an increased risk. And I'll tell you, I mean, I would say 99% of our patients at modern thyroid clinic are women. Like, we do have men, we treat men. We get asked that all the time. But that is kind of the comparative rates. It's crazy, right?

Shocking. It's just shocking. And you know, the fact that more women suffer from autoimmune disease to begin with and why, you know, we're not just ringing the bell to really own in and figure out the why behind this and giving us more attention to understanding where this comes from. There's. It's such a multifactorial approach. And I understand like the, there's so many challeng if we were to do studies and stuff like that to understand where it comes from. But still, I think that this should be insight for most medical practitioners then to understand the diversity that has to come with help optimization. And are you saying then full thyroid panel for listeners, how often should they be checking annually, twice A year, if.

They'Re not symptomatic, annually is fine, but they should be checking annually. Um, and then if they are symptomatic, they should be checking, you know, every three to six months until they really get answers. And the key there is just finding someone that knows how to effectively interpret that data. And kind of putting a pin on what you, what you had mentioned, the, the secondary complexity of women experiencing this at such a more increased, you know, incidence than men is we're not really believed in medicine. You know, like we are kind of written off, blown off, told that it's not your thyroid. Oh, these are non specific symptoms. Even in cancer. Studies show women are diagnosed with cancer five years later than men on average because they go, they show up to the doctor's office and they're kind of dismissed. And this is such a pervasively common problem. And so many women are experiencing being written off and just accepting that, oh, this isn't my thyroid. Oh, I must be depressed. Oh, you know, it must be something different. And that's why I think conversations like these are so important so that women can know that there are answers. And it's not. Again, it's not in their head.

You are so comical. How do you not get so worked up talking about this every time? I just feel like, all right, ladies, never again, no more. We're not going to let this happen anymore. But to your point is why these conversations are so important. If you have a girlfriend who suffered from a symptom for too long, then it's really empowerment and courage that has to come to stand up for ourselves. And I think that when we think about the lens of thyroid, thinking about my clients specifically, the symptoms really range. You know, I can think of one client specifically who suffered from, you know, really bad anxiety and brittle nails and her hair was falling out. And the doctor didn't necessarily go to, to thyroid mood swings was another one goes to thyroid. But can you tell us about some of these overlooked symptoms that might suggest that the thyroid is struggling even if the labs look fine? Yeah.

So, you know, there's the classic like fatigue, brain fog, hair loss kind of hair breaking. Random one is the outer portion of your eyebrows will sometimes fall out. Cold intolerance, cracking on the bottom of your feet, low libido. Right. These are kind of what medicine would classify as non specific symptoms. That could be a lot of different things. You know, then there's the more nuanced ones, like elevations in your blood sugar and your cholesterol. When I was 27 and in my own thyroid crisis, they wanted to put me on a cholesterol medication instead of appropriately fixing my thyroid. It was crazy, you know, so if you're going to your doctor and you're gaining weight, but you haven't changed anything, or your blood sugar is creeping up, but you haven't changed anything, it very well could be your thyroid. Fatty liver, osteoporosis, osteopenia, hormone dysfunction, infertility. Infertility should be a giant red flag. These women need to be worked up thoroughly for a thyroid issue, and they're not. They're simply being referred to ivf. And so when you have nonspecific or not, when you have a cluster of those symptoms, you have four, you have five, you have six of them. It's likely, like, it's likely a thyroid problem. If it looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. I mean, in all my years practicing, I've had one person come and I actually had to turn him away and be like, you know what? This isn't actually a thyroid problem. All the rest were terrified that it wasn't that because they had been told that over and over and over again, but all the rest of them, it, in fact, was a thyroid issue that had been just overlooked or dismissed.

Wow. I think that thyroid medication is one of those areas where, you know, I think often in my world and in holistic care and holistic medicine, we kind of demonize going on medications when it's not the right time. But I think that for my clients who've been on thyroid meds who actually needed it, it's been life saving. They had a new lease on life. They noticed immediately changes to their bodies, their energy, their mood, their outlook on life, even completely switched. So for the people who list or listening, who might be considering a medication, who are on a medication, and for people who just want the education, let's now talk about the difference between hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. And is there a type of woman who's prone to one or the other? Is there a genetic component that you tend to look at at your clinic?

Great question. So kind of what we've been talking about is more of the hypo, the fatigue, the brain fog, the weight gain. It can be from just a slow decrease in hormones over time as we age, or it can be from Hashimoto's. Hyperthyroidism is quite the opposite. And most commonly, it comes from the autoimmune disease called Graves disease and that autoimmune attack, instead of making you have a low thyroid hormone production, you actually have excess thyroid hormones. And it leads to symptoms like anxiety, palpitations, hair shedding, sometimes weight loss, increased heart rate. Like, one of the first things these people most often notice are, like, they go to the gym, and as soon as they start exercising, their heart rate's like 180. Or all of a sudden they're resting. Heart rates 90 to 100. They can almost feel like they're quivering in, you know, when they're just sitting there. So it can be extremely uncomfortable. It's definitely the more rare manifestation of thyroid issues, but it's very, very misunderstood. Sadly, these people are really given one real option. Temporarily. They're often put on thyroid hormone blockers, and then they're sent for a thyroidectomy. And that doesn't have to be the case. One, you can actually reverse Graves disease. You can lower the antibodies and lower the severity of their hyperthyroidism. Those two things mimic one another. They go hand in. And then you can also preserve your thyroid. I've had to send one person for a thyroidectomy of all my Graves patients. The rest we manage by reduction of their severity of their autoimmune disease and something called block and replace therapy. That's unique and not offered in a lot of places, but it's absolutely allows these people to not live a life of hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, but they can thrive in. In between. And to answer the question about genetics, I find Graves to be particularly genetic. Like, especially if you have a father with a history of Graves disease. Every person in that family needs to be screened for Graves and hypo and Hashi and all of it. And then lastly, the one nuance I do want to layer in that, because this is such a valuable conversation, is people can actually have Graves and Hashimoto's at the same time. In fact, about 30% of people that have Graves also have Hashimoto's.

Yeah. Wow.

So it's important to check all the information, antibodies for Graves or TSI&T Rab, and then also be checking Hashimoto's TPO and thyroglobulin.

I love that you pointed out the reversibility of graves. We definitely don't hear enough about that with autoimmune. I think people, the second they get diagnosed, they wear it as a label, they become it, they believe it, it just becomes who they are. So what's happening on the flip side then, you know, with Hashimoto's Is this when that, when we're losing thyroid tissue? Because I'm, I think I, you know, from my studying of, of you and everything you're putting out there, you talk about when we get into that state of autoimmune, our bodies eat the thyroid tissue which cannot then grow back. Is this correct?

Yeah, I mean largely it, it, it can. So when we attack that thyroid tissue over time, depending on how high and low your antibodies are, dictates the rate of how much thyroid tissue you're losing. Which again makes it really important for, to try to lower those antibodies even if you don't get them in remission. If we can simply lower them, we get to preserve more of your thyroid gland. Right. So yeah, the rate at which we lose it is dictated by that. And then over time, years, decades, whatever it is, that hormone secreting tissue is replaced with like scarry inflammatory tissue. A lot of times you'll even see it swollen on people that scar inflammatory tissue, it doesn't work as well like it doesn't efficiently secrete as many hormones. So over time we lose access to that hormone production. And let's say, you know, you're five years into this and I wave a magic wand and I put you into remission. That's amazing. You're going to need less medication increases over time. That means your risk for developing another autoimmune disease has now been reduced by 30% because we know if you have one, you're at an increased risk of over 30% of developing another. But you're not going to magically regrow that lost tissue. Now we are in the process of beginning some studies at modern thyroid clinic looking at stem cells. And if people can regrow them with stem cells, I think that's a unique possibility. And I also think potentially like a series of long term hyperbaric treatments, I don't have data to back that up. I wish I could run the study, maybe that'll be in the future to come. But I think that potentially could facilitate it. But most people are not going to be able to regrow that lost tissue. Got it.

Gosh. This is where modern medicine just gets so exciting, right? Reversing the pain and the struggles that come from diseases like this is just life changing. As you're speaking, I'm thinking about the common struggles I guess that we hear with thyroid challenges. I would say the most common that I hear are weight gain, having a stubborn metabolism. I think now too because of media we're so fear based. Women automatically assume that when they go through these changes. It's gotta be their thyroid. So what's actually happening when our metabolism shifts because of the thyroid. Thyroid. And how do you approach that?

Yeah, that's a great question. So metabolism is one of the trickiest things to address with thyroid issues. Because even if I get someone's thyroid hormones. Perfect. And, you know, they come into us after a 15 year journey with hypothyroidism. For those 15 years, what's been happening is their body can't transport and remove excess blood sugar, excess cholesterol, and so they become insulin resistant, and they need more and more insulin to manage their blood sugar. They become leptin resistant, meaning they inappropriately store fat and they don't feel satisfied after they eat. Right. So there starts to be this metabolic storm of dysfunction. And that is your insulin, your blood sugar, metabolism, your leptin are so paramount in your ability to appropriately have a metabolism that you lose all of that sensitivity. And even if I replace your thyroid hormone hormones perfectly right now in one day, it's all magic. It's done. Guess what? You have years of that metabolic dysfunction that have built in your physiology over time. And what, how this manifests for these, these women is they cannot lose weight with effort like they will do. I, I vividly remember a patient coming in and being like, I can't lose five pounds to save my life. I've been on hole 30 for the last four years. I'm like, you've been what? She's like, I track my food. I've seen four nutritionists, I exercise four or five days a week. Like, these women do all the things, and calories in does not equal calories out for these people. And so they're just metabolically disadvantaged. And so resensitizing, rehabilitating their metabolic function is a lot of work. It's actually very, very difficult. It takes a long period of time. And, you know, women, like, we want to be able to influence our weight with effort. Like, we don't need it magically to fall off, but we want to be able to have control over that. And when we lose control, it's really just disruptive to our life. And so, you know, there are strategies, intermittent fasting, ordering your food, like putting your foods throughout the day in a specific order to keep blood sugar as low as possible, as long as possible. But ultimately, the big unlock for us happened, you know, almost three and a half years ago with GLPs in this specific population of patients, because not only were they allowed to lose weight with effort, they actually began to repair their metabolism and unravel that damage in a very much, much more attainable time frame. And then, honestly, most of them come off of these meds and their metabolism is now functioning so that they can, you know, appropriately manage their weight. They're not having to overly restrict over exercise to maintain weight or lose weight. And so that's been a pretty unique journey that's on the newer side for us at Modern Thyroid Clinic, and I.

Think it's a fascinating one that's going to stick around for a really long time. I have two clients who've gone down the GLP journey and both women who weight has been an issue their entire lives and they're so sick of the struggle. They've tried everything. Their body isn't responding, issues with their thyroid. And one who was in another country was on a mega dose of glp. One lost a tremendous amount of weight and sure enough, what happened? She was hardly eating. She actually became malnutrition, bone density loss. Her DEXA scan was an absolute nightmare. Then I look at another client of mine who was microdosing GLP1. Oh, my gosh. Her body completely changed. Her energy went. Went up. She was eating in a really healthy manner and just two case scenarios. So I think it's something that we're learning from and I think that, yeah, I'm excited to see the studies that you bring out as a result, which is exciting.

Yeah, yeah. No, and definitely it's all about how it's done.

Right.

Because it can be done very poorly or it can be done brilliantly.

And.

And those details in this case sure matter.

Yeah. We get so excited about the red pill. There's still no red pill. It's not a red pill. It's not going to make everything better. I think there's a time and a place. All right, so you keep going back to metabolic dysfunction, regulating your glucose, intermittent fasting. So maybe let's put two lights on this. One, your own journey and how that was a life changer for you. And then two, the results that you're seeing in clinic. Yeah.

So, you know, I'm an inflamed person. I, like, struggle with inflammation. It's why I kind of talk about it a lot on social media. It's why I talk about it a lot with my patients. My genetics are hardwired for inflammation. It doesn't matter what I eat, how clean I eat, whatever it is, I have to be pretty, pretty hypervigilant to maintain even moderately adequate levels of inflammation. And that dictates as you know, it dictates a lot about how we feel all day, every day. Right. Like people don't understand and recognize that a lot of people are walking around feeling horrible because of inflammation. And so I started intermittent fasting pretty seriously in 2018. So I guess that's seven years ago now. And it is the most powerful way for me to influence my inflammation. I do it in a very conservative, balanced way. I think it gets a bad rap because I think people take it to extremes and excess and it's anything like that is not a good thing. But for me personally, if I didn't intermittent fast four or five days a week, I would not be where I am today in my life, in my career. I couldn't perform my job as effectively and function as well in my family. And so I definitely am a believer.

And so do you have what, an eight hour eating window? How are you using that therapeutically?

Yeah, so I kind of do it myself the same way that I recommend my patients. And especially in the thyroid community, when you talk about intermittent fasting, people get very triggered kind of, they're like, well, you shouldn't intermittent fast because it stresses your adrenals. And thyroid people already have adrenal stress. And I, I totally get and respect all that. And it's true, right? Like to an extent it's true. But there's a balance. There's like an in between. We don't have to live in these rigid, rigid, dogmatic kind of schemas in our mind. And my approach to intermittent fasting with me and my patients is I do it no more than four or five days a I eat in an eight hour window, but I listen to my body. If I wake up and I'm really hungry, I'm gonna eat breakfast early and if I have dinner plans that night, I won't fast that night, you know, or that day. I'll just simply pass on it. If I've been working out more, I'm not gonna stick to my four or five days a week fasting. I'm definitely encourage people to listen to their body, but at about 16 hours, our body stops working on dealing with food all the time and it allows it to do its deep clean right. It's like I have six kids at home. When they're all here all the time, I'm lucky if I can make my house not look like a frat house. Like I am barely getting by. But if they go away for a few days or I recruit some help, we can do a deep clean. But Sometimes our body needs that same break. Like we need to be able to come up for air, go and trigger autophagy to clean out all the pre cancer cells, all that inflammatory load that's backed up over time. And it can be extremely beneficial in our long term health, health. But it also can help us how we feel. And it's a potent and powerful way to specifically influence our insulin sensitivity, our leptin sensitivity, the things that are over and over compromised in the population of people that struggle with thyroid conditions.

Such good insight and ancient wisdom, right? Like all of our ancestors were not eating all the time. We weren't necessarily prioritizing three meals a day. And I think it's something that can be therapeutic, but there's a lot of unlearning and I think that it's really ultimately because of news and media, the stigma that women have around this is fear based. Like it's really fear based. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I have for clients of mine who are just in acute phases of inflammation, a concept that we learned at the ashram that I grew up at, the differences between something like a water fast, doing a water fast for let's call it 24 hours versus the impact of doing it dry fast. So a guided dry fast and the impact of dry fasting being so much more therapeutic for the body and faster because your metabolism doesn't have to work to process anything. All systems literally go to cleaning up to autophagy, to mitophagy. Do you recommend dry fasting for the right person?

It's interesting. So I, it's something that I always dabble in things myself before I recommend them to my patients. Like it's like a commitment that I always do is I will never ask, ask someone to do something I haven't done and wouldn't willingly do again myself. And I have not experimented with dry fasting and I want to. I've done very prolonged, not very prolonged. I back that up. No, McCall, not very prolonged. But I've done prolonged water fast. I've made it five and a half, six days in my own journey. When I'm in a health crisis. I feel like there is not much that I can do more powerful than a water fast. So the concept of doing that in a shorter period of time with a dry fast would be very appealing. And now you've re sparked my interest in it. I haven't thought about it for the last year or two, so maybe I need to dabble in it and try it. But I've definitely Read about the effects.

Well, maybe this is something you and I do together. We'll do it. We'll do it. We'll, we'll pow out together online to see if it's a struggle or not. But I think to your point, and what I want everyone to take away from this is the way that you feel after incorporating that fasting cycle is the evidence that you need because your body recovery responds in a certain way. That's it. And McCall's fasting protocol could be different from yours. But I think starting off even like a few days a week. And if fasting is too much, I'm a big proponent of like just going for 12 to 14 hours a night to start with as a baseline and then working that up. But I love that that's something that you're such a proponent of. When we think about, let's say, you know, hormones through this lens, hormones are all the talk now. My frustration is there's so many practitioners and even clinics like these pop up clinics that are prescribing hormone replacement therapy, like a ban putting women on high level testosterone, thinking it's going to solve everything. And it might feel like it does until it doesn't. But can you talk to us about the impact of healing your thyroid first and then what happens to the cascade of hormones after?

Yeah, gosh, I could not agree with you more. There's like all these telemedicine practices that do this via text message. I'm just like, what? And then, you know, I definitely think so. What's so crazy about the testosterone thing is it is becoming almost accepted in medicine, a standard of care to overdose women on testosterone. And it blows my mind because the side effects of that are like permanent in a lot of cases, they're not reversible and they don't take long to develop those permanent side effects. And testosterone replacement's amazing. It's wonderful. I'm on it, but I'm not. My level isn't 1200, it's not 500, you know, and I've seen women come to me over two thousand and a thousand's a really great level for a man. So we don't need to be walking around at 2000. But hormones are a huge piece of our picture as women and hormone dysfunction. Hormone dysregulation is extremely common in women with thyroid issues. First kind of goes progesterone and we become anxious and agitated and irritable and heavier periods, crampy periods, then usually low testosterone manifest tests as like low libido, poor physical Stamina, loss of muscle mass, inability to build that muscle mass again even with effort. And then we also, we often end up in an estrogen dominant state. And all of those things are really uncomfortable for us. Like, hormones are incredibly powerful things. And so optimizing them, whether that's creating a rebalance with supplements or lifestyle or healing your adrenals to better support your hormones, that's all amazing. But it needs to be accounted for. On a thyroid journey, hormones always need to be accounted for. Or if it involves hormone replacement, like in tailored dosing and in doses that should mimic our natural physiology, like what should be happening normally is what we want it to look like. Right. And we're losing that in medicine. And it's a weird thing.

If a client of mine listens to this, she knows who she is. The. She's been on testosterone for quite a few years now, and we recently started working together. But this practitioner is telling her that a level of 1100 is normal for her. And that's amazing. It's part of her preventative care. And so I literally had to draft a letter and do coaching with her to go in on what to say and how to approach. Again, white lab coat syndrome. She was very run from that person. Yep.

They are not qualified to be treating people with any hormones whatsoever. That is absolutely terrifying. And if the medical board ever heard that, they would lose their medical license, I can almost guarantee.

Exactly. Trust me, I'm trying to, to do a deeper dive on this, but this is what's happening out in the world and I don't mean to, to laugh at this. I also did testosterone pellet therapy and my levels got up really, really high and it felt amazing until it didn't. And then insert the cat cascade of symptoms that came after that. And it's been like a journey to really bring my body back into balance. So sharing all the insight because if this is, you know, one of our listeners or somebody that you know, I think it's a very irresponsible practice. And your hormones, I'm sure you agree with this. It's such a bio personal concept. Like we cannot all be on the same HRT prescription. It's just, it's ridiculous. So thank you so much for, for tuning into that personalization because it's. And right now the, the pendulum is swung into, you know, benefiting women. And HRT is so amazing. But there needs to be another conversation that comes with it.

Absolutely, absolutely. And yeah, there's just no, no place for that. And the closing thing on that is, look Just because it feels good doesn't mean it's healthy. Like it feels great. If you drink a bottle of wine every night, is it healthy? No. Like, no, you can't do that. Like that's not, it's going to have impacts that are far reaching in your other hormones, your thyroid. That is not an isolated shift in your physiolo. It changes so many other things. So yeah, absolutely.

Good tip. All right, let's talk about adrenal health. I don't know about you, but this year especially is just, it's been a year. There's a lot of intensity, there's global events, there's life acceleration, there's lots of changes. And adrenal health, for some doctors, they're well versed, they know how to test for adrenal health. Others think it's a bunch of, of quackery. So can you talk to us about one, this cortisol concept and numbers that you look for and whether adrenal health is a co factor for thyroid health that you're looking at. What's the answer?

Really good question. Yeah, it's so interesting. I've been saying this, you know, educating my patients in this way for years and I actually heard an endocrinologist say it like a year ago online, overtly out loud. And you know, it was basically, look like we have adrenals, they sit on top of our kidneys. That's widely accepted medical knowledge. They secrete cortisol, stress hormones, norepinephrine, epinephrine. Okay. Medicine believes our adrenals work perfectly. There are two of them or one day, one hour, one moment, one minute, they stop working and we're in adrenal failure or what's called Addison's disease. Medicine does not account for the in between. And I literally heard the endocrinologist, she said that exact thing. They either work perfectly or they don't work at all. And I'm like, like that's really not how things work. Like that's not how our body works. That's not how life works. There is a process of a slow breakdown over time. And collectively, the integrative medical community, the functional medical community is, we've termed that adrenal fatigue. So we can call it something, right? Adrenal dysfunction, adrenal fatigue. So we can label it and talk about it. Medicine does not believe in adrenal fatigue. I can tell you. I certainly do. I see it all day, every day in my practice and it leads to symptoms and that very much actually mimic thyroid. It's Fatigue, it's brain fog, it's depletion after you're stressed. In the early stages it can be tired but wired feeling. Then it can go more into like you exercise and you feel exhausted, you have headaches, you crave salt. These are some of the symptoms of adrenal dysfunction. And you know your adrenals are best tested via what's called a four point salivary cortisol test. Because is our cortisol secreted in a pattern? It should increase in the morning and that's what wakes us up. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, quickly plummet around 11 to noon and then slowly taper off throughout the rest of the day. So we need to know that pattern. If we just check it in our blood at a random time, we don't understand what physiologically is happening on a day to day basis with cortisol. So I think it's a great test. I don't test all of our patients anymore. I can kind of clinically gauge what's happening now. I've done this for so long. But I would venture sure to say 90 plus percent of our patients with thyroid issues have adrenal issues and if they aren't addressed, they will not feel the improvement and the benefit of us addressing their thyroid. Those two things are so tightly interconnected. If you fix someone's thyroid and you don't fix their adrenals, they won't thrive. If you fix their adrenals and you don't fix their thyroid, they'll be in the same place. So it is so incredibly valuable to address both.

Oh, such good insight because I'm sure a lot of people who are listening, especially the women, we almost own our hypervigilance or doing everything or doing it all as a superpower. But I can tell you running on fumes is no superpower. And I love that you brought up the salt cravings because I think that that's such a subtle symptom to tell you when you're on overdrive that come pretty much out of the out of the blue. And are you connected? If somebody wanted to order an adrenal or cortisol test, are you connected with any brands or is there a lab that you.

I'm not. I do think Everly well has one. But you have one that you can recommend to people.

I'm trying to think of one. So Everly well I'm aware of. I think there's a company called Routine that's a cortisol test specifically because when you're getting that blood lab done and your doctor is saying that it's normal, it's a glimpse into the time that your blood was taken. They say, well, no, that's just a glimpse. So. And you know, ancient wisdom, again, they would have checked your pulse points throughout the day. They would be constantly reading your constitution to see when you're imbalanced or when you, when you weren't. So when we think about this, stress obviously is such a big component, but so many are asking, you know, our modern world, our lifestyle is really to blame. So in addition to that stress, in your view at the clinic, what role do environmental toxins or heavy metals, as we mentioned, or endocrine disruptors, factors play in thyroid dysfunction? And how much of this is preventable? This is like near and dear to my heart because I used to work in the, the cosmetic industry and I stopped getting my cycle at that time. During that kind of like seven year period, I had issues with my thyroid.

Yeah, I believe it. No, it's, it's, honestly, it's very well documented in literature that not only can they increase your risk for Hashimoto's, they can just disrupt your thyroid hormones in the same way that they disrupt your estrogen. A lot of those carrying multiple mole molecules too, that we share with testosterone, with estrogen, also are utilized by our thyroid. And so any disruption in hormones at all, there's a compounding effect that hits everything, which is why, again, you don't want to overdose on testosterone. So, no, it is extremely well documented. I think it's part of the rise in incidence of hypothyroidism. I think it's part of the rise in the incidence of Hashimoto's. And I also think that's why we as women, even in the absence of Hashimoto's, are losing thyroid function as we age in. And I don't have the data personally to compare to, you know, my grandmother's generation because I wasn't around practicing medicine then. But, you know, I think this is happening at a much faster rate now. And so being vigilant with what we put on our body, what we put in our body, and especially the air that we breathe, which is so underlooked and overlooked, is incredibly important in the sustainability of your thyroid function over time.

And so is that part of like the initial stages when you're working with your, with the patients that come in, are you doing an overhaul, going through their personal care products, what they're cooking with, the plastics in their home? Yeah.

So our kind of the way that we do things by the time people come to us, we're like their last ditch place. Like, we are not the place that people go to first for thyroid issues. It's like they've exhausted everything and they're like, okay, okay, I think I better go to modern thyroid clinic. So when they come to us, the very first thing that we do is we restore their hormones. Like, we ask them to literally change nothing in their life until we give them the energy and the capacity and the motivation, the physicality to make those changes. So we start and onboard them with that because it doesn't take us long to make them feel better. And then we begin the unraveling. Yeah, we begin the unraveling of food, exercise, nutrition, exposure to toxins. All the things.

So good. Yeah. And I think often it can feel so overwhelming, but it's such a simple step that might take you some time, but it's a protocol, just cleaning up the toxins that you're exposed to in your home, your personal care products in your fridge, in your kitchen, that the rewards are tenfold in all aspects of your health, especially for your, for your children too. And as they're at their growth, growing. Absolutely, yeah. So another kind of aspect to this that I love seeing your education on is gut health. So obviously gut health is a massive conversation online. It's probably one of the biggest pillars that I work with with my clients. But when we think about bloating and leaky gut and we think about.

The.

Connection to our thyroid as well. How does the gut impact thyroid health? Health?

Yeah, huge. I mean, so the gut is the center of so much of our inflammatory response and it can cascade from there and, and impact every aspect of our body. And so two really common ways, especially for people with Hashimoto's, that we look at influencing their Hashimoto's, trying to get them into remission, reducing antibodies is by looking at their gut number one inflammatory food test. So, hey, what foods are driving an inflammatory response for you with, in a big way or with patterned, you know, manifestations, and we influence that. And then the other one is looking at, hey, gut function. Do you have invasive pathogens? Do you have enough beneficial bacteria? Are you walking around with a lot of candida or parasites, a lot of gut inflammation, leaky gut, et cetera, because that is just the central core of being able to reverse autoimmune diseases, prevent them, prevent so much of, you know, the, the breakdown of our physiology as we age.

Oh, I think it's such a great tip. Are you a fan of doing stool tests? Do you think they're necessary?

Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, we do. That's kind of our gut testing that gives us so much information.

Yeah. And we're mentioning a few tests, but I think, for me, anyways, like, I think that understanding your constitution and your physiology is probably one of the greatest investments that you'll ever have. It takes all of the guesswork on what you think you should be doing. You'll stop yourself when you get, you know, in front of a really fancy dangling Instagram ad or YouTube ad or whatever on something that you think they should be taking. You can actually tune into personalized care and personalized nutrition for prevention. So, yeah, I think that knowledge is simply power when it comes to that, especially during times of transition. So we talked about hormones a little bit for women that you're working with. Are you noticing, I guess we're always in a phase, aren't we, if we're postpartum or perimenopause or menopause. A lot of the. The common feedback that I get during those times is my thyroid broke. What's happening, doing during those times? Why do we see the shifts in thyroid dysfunction worsen during those times? Times? And do you see them naturally move back and forth when you're looking at numbers?

You know, in adolescence, there's an increase as our hormones change. There's an increase, not as profound as later in life, but there's an increased incidence of thyroid issues. But most prominently, postpartum. Postpartum is the number one time to end up with autoimmune thyroiditis, especially transiently, and there's a few theories as to why that I certainly agree with. Number one is when we're pregnant, our immune system is suppressed. That's why women who are pregnant are called immunocompromised. Right. Our body lowers our immune response so that we don't accidentally attack the baby and lose. Lose our pregnancy. So postpartum, our immune system is shifting back into gear, it's coming back online. And with that comes the rebound effect of overactive immune system, which can trigger your autoimmune thyroiditis or Hashimoto's or Graves, even postpartum. Also, estrogen plays an enormous role in protecting us from inflammation, which is directly linked to our risk for autoimmunity. Right. Inflammation rises, our risk for autoimmunity rises. And estrogen acts almost like an antioxidant for us. And so that impacts us postpartum, especially when we're breastfeeding, because we don't have estrogen. It's Almost zero. And in fact, you know, a lot of these very significant flares postpartum are women who breastfeed for such a long time. And it's amazing for the baby, but for these women in particular, it's like we have to have those hard conversations of cost benefit analysis. And then obviously, as we move through menopause, like our estrogen goes away and it gets depleted. And at that point, again, we are at risk for autoimmune issues and, and hypothyroidism on due to hormonal changes. And we need to be screening women consistently across those timelines.

That is the best tip. Yeah. It's funny hearing you speak and it's not uncommon to feel like the aging process is full of doom and gloom. I don't know about you, but I literally thought that I would be, I don't know, immune to dealing with a lot of hormone issues. But it's part of life. And I think that maybe an overall message is the body's so resilient in terms of being able to come back to balance when it's given the right tools and the right care team essentially to guide you there. I think that's something that's really special about your clinic, is that you have. You actually have a team of supporters guiding people back into balance. It's not about just fluctuating one way and then identifying so much with that dysfunction. It's really understanding the transitions, honoring the cycles, understanding that they're just seasons that we go through that is not necessarily permanent.

Absolutely. And it's shocking how short of time it takes for women to feel those effects in such a positive way once they land in the. In the hands of the right partners with them on their health journey. I mean, there's so much hope. Like it. It feels like, you know, a little grim, but. No, there's so much hope. There really is.

Yeah. So in terms of thyroid issues too, part of that hope comes with our daily practices. Right. The rituals that we make non negotiables in our. And I think that movement and exercise is a big one, but it's also a massive area of confusion for people these days over exercising, lifting too heavy, not running anymore, too much cardio, do hiit, don't do hiit. Is there a type of movement or factors that you think really support thyroid function?

That's a great question. And it is. It's a source of stress for so many people. So with thyroid comes adrenal dysfunction. And with adrenal dysfunction, especially early on in people's thyroid journey comes, you know, a sensitivity to over exercise. And, you know, it's hard for women because a lot of the women that come to see us are very, they're like type A, they're motivated, they're invested in their health, they want to do the work, they want to do all the things. But there's a give and take and a push and pull to this that's a little delicate. And the biggest piece like, of global advice that I tell our patients and even people in social media is, look, when you exercise, only exercise to the point that you feel better or just as good later that day. If you feel depleted, if you feel foggy, if you feel sick, if you need a nap after you exercise, you've overdone it. And some of the classic ways to elicit that kind of a response are things like hit early on in a, in a thyroid adrenal journey. CrossFit is another one that really I've seen cost people some their health, you know, and the type A people, they think, well, I'm so tired, I feel horrible. I just need to keep doing this and work harder and then I'll get stronger. And they're not getting stronger, they're getting weaker. They're, you know, they're breaking down their physiology.

Yeah, this is where that cryotherapy conversation comes in too. Right. We think of it as being so therapeutic. And I think that for some women, if done in the right way and if it makes you feel like a million dollars, then, hey, go for it. But if you're somebody who you notice and this is where like your body is speaking to you every day, all the time, tune into the symptoms to see what's right during that time. I know for me, I used to be a runner and I love running so much, but the second I do a long run and I know that I need to take a nap, I know that I've overdone it. So it's tuning in. Right. Understanding if that fatigue does come in, then that's indication of what to do and what not to do, do.

Absolutely. And I think we live in a society of push through, work harder, do more, don't be weak, don't quit. And the reality is, is like, listen. As women, it is so valuable to tune in and listen to what our body is telling us. And you know, some of my favorite exercise to give people, like, some ideas of constructively, hey, what do I do then? McCall is I love walking. I think walking's an underrated form of exercise. I love yoga. I think that's incredibly powerful and restorative. I also love weight TR training. I tell people, look, the key with weight training is do it but allow your heart rate to come down in between sets, in between circuits. We don't need to be doing circuit training. We don't need to go from one thing to the other. Just allow your body to recover enough where again, we are building your resilience. Just because you can't do hiit now doesn't mean you can never do it. But there's a process of healing and restoration and building resilience and we want to honor that process.

Process. I love that you just made me think of this. So something that I preach for food all the time in terms of what to eat, the best thing you can do is a variety of foods and a diversity, Right? Variety and diversity. I think the same is true for movement. Variety of diversity. Moving your bodies in different ways so that you're not just accustomed to the same types of movement, so your body recognizes that you're taking the time to move into flow and then the periods of intensity as well. Well, right. I guess maybe that's balance. Totally agree.

And age, like weight training alone doesn't keep us mobile. It doesn't work on a lot of our fascia. Like, you know, we, we do need that variance, especially as we age, to stay at our peak health.

I love that you brought that up. You know, I am so pro heavy lifting. I understand it. I understand, you know, wanting to focus on skeletal muscle mass as we age. And I'm also somebody, you know, when we hear people online saying, stop wasting your time on cardio, it's a waste of effort. I get, I think, my greatest hits of endorphins, motivation, creativity. When I'm doing types of cardio, listening to amazing music. So don't let what you're hearing and seeing on media define what you do. Again, I think the message of today is going back to what feels right for you. I think that that's so important. And maybe this ties into another trend we're seeing too. And this is where I'm exc on one hand, that this is getting attention, which is, you know, increasing your protein at breakfast, but also maybe not fasting in the morning and, you know, waking up and having food if you feel hungry instead of forcing yourself to fast. When I think about this through my nutrition lens, it just makes sense. Like if food is information and energy for our system to consume those calories earlier on in the day and then maybe start fasting at night, skipping Dinner, it would crush your social life. I totally get that. But if we're doing this as a therapy, as a therapeutic protocol, do you recommend that for, for some clients, do you think that protein is essential first thing in the morning to support them?

I think if I could pick a fasting regimen for people, I think it would be to end, you know, your fast early. Even for like brain health, the research is very, very clear. If you have hours before you go to bed since you've eaten your last meal, the restoration, the cleanup process in our brain to prevent neurodegenerative issues is significantly improved. And I think, here's the thing, the way I view fasting is like let it be flexible. If you wake up and you're hungry, eat. If you're going to work out, eat. Finish your fast early. Another day if you know you want to go out for dinner late and you wake up and you're fine and you're not hungry and you don't have a lot going on, fast, like let it be fluid and let it serve you in the way that's most conducive and sustainable for your life. But no, it's hard for me to fast in the evenings. It is. Naturally I'm hardwired to fast a little more in the mornings, but I think that varies per person. And in a perfect world, I wish I could fast in the evenings as opposed to the mornings. I think it would be much better for me for so many reasons.

I love it. Yeah. Again, who you are, but I'm curious, are you, are you on a food schedule like me? Do you eat like a seafood, your early dinners?

I eat such early dinners. Yeah, I, I do. I'm like the Lou and Platter at Luby's, lady, like 3 to 4:30, you know, is like, it's ridiculous. My poor husband. Now I've transitioned him though, so it's fine. Like he's accepted.

Amazing. Okay, well, we'll be great dinner buddies then, right?

Exactly.

Yeah. Dinner at 4:30 is magic for me. So let's flip this and just wrapping things up on, on food. All right. And I think that food specifically for thyroid health help really ties into all the trends. Right. Like the debate never ends on gluten free anti inflammatory, you've got to be Paleo. You know, people want to know, do the diets really move the needle for thyroid health and what dietary approach are you and your team really kind of showing the strongest evidence towards in terms of just lowering those antibodies or improving overall symptoms?

Yeah. Yeah. So there's two kind of factors. One is just the activation of your thyroid hormones, the conversion of them, facilitating that is like a low inflammatory, nutrient dense diet that incorporates enough protein. So that's kind of easy and simple. The Hashimoto's piece, I think part of what I value as a clinician and as like someone that serves these people is I want this to be realistic and attainable. I don't want these women to be revolving their whole life around their health. I want them to live their life, enjoy it and have a sustainable plan. And so in line with that, what we really emphasize is testing. Like we want to know what creates inflammation for you if you have Hashimoto's so that we don't unnecessarily restrict your diet. So we like to do inflammatory food testing. We find it to be incredibly valuable. But obviously over the last 12 years I've seen patterns and there definitely are undeniable patterns in people with Hashimoto's and they're sort of this descending order of most commonly inflammatory things foods. Number one is dairy. I know we all thought it was gluten. I see dairy like two to three times more often than I see gluten. It's, I didn't expect it, but it is what it is. The data prevails. Number two is gluten, number three is legumes, number four is grains, number five is eggs and number six is nuts and seeds. And by the time you get down to nuts and seeds, it's only like 5% of the population. So everyone's like, well, what can I eat? Like, you don't need to get rid of all of those food groups. Like that's too much, it's unnecessary in the vast majority of people. And you're missing nutrients. Right. So what I generally tell people is look like, let's test, test your antibodies on day zero. If you can't do a food inflammatory test, pick one of the top two most common offenders, gluten or dairy. Go dairy free for three months, retest your antibodies and see what they look like. If they've dropped substantially, actually, let's continue. If not, let's move on and look at something else because I think we give women too many rules that aren't necessary all the time. And I think finding what works for you is so key, beneficial and long term sustainable, which is what we want.

I love that you brought that up because this is where health and wellness becomes so complicated and overwhelming. But to your point, that's such a complicated, great tip is focusing on the Top one, two, or even three things. Right. If that feels doable. I think that for listeners like you can expect miracles when you lower your inflammatory load or even your toxic load, which we mentioned earlier, expect miracles in your body. Your body is that resilient. And by going through that initial struggle and you and I, my gosh, I'm sure there's so many alternatives to these things today that we're so lucky to have. That doesn't have to be about deprivation. I think a lot of it is food addiction that we have to lose. Right. Just coming into a new way of being, which is so, so powerful. So I love that you, you share that. I guess in wrapping up, I would love to know, you know, for people out there who, you know, they're. They're going to meet with their doctors, they're concerned about their thyroid, or they're on the other spectrum of having issues with their thyroid health. Is there kind of one takeaway that you would give that you see as a common pattern over and over to take control of their thyroid health?

Yeah, I mean, I think the. The overwhelming message for me is always, you know, there's no reason to still have thyroid symptoms. So if you're on your journey and, you know, the picture's being painted, well, this is just what life looks like with a thyroid condition. You're just going to feel like this forever. What I really want women to know is that is not the truth. Like, you can have a thyroid issue if you saw the before and afters of me, of me and my. The thick of my thyroid crisis. And now I'm unrecognizable, Like, there's so much life to live and thrive and enjoy. I just don't want women to settle for less than what they deserve.

You're such a great role model for that, and I'm so grateful that you share so much on that. Not only from your journey, but I think your overall approach to aging as a woman and your vulnerability around that, I think is something that's so powerful because you're breaking up from this symptomatic, prescriptive approach to thyroid care, which is so much more personal. It's personable, and I think that's something that can inspire people to age really well. So I keep referring to your Instagram page because I love it there. But can you tell us, McCall, where do you love connecting with your audience?

Yeah, So I love Instagram. McCall McPherson, Penn. Modern thyroid. Same on TikTok. It's McCall McPherson. I love TikTok. I think it's like a special little community over there so you can find me there. And then I have a podcast of my own called Modern Thyroid and Wellness Wellness, where we talk about all things wellness for women specifically, mainly. And yeah, I just love to connect with people. We are a nationwide practice at this point. All of our clinicians have thyroid problems themselves. This is their life's work along with my life's work. So we've created a safe place for women to come where they can actually get hope and healing. And it's. I'm grateful that I, I landed on my life's work and that I was able to find it and the universe brought it to, to me.

Beautiful. And I'm so grateful that I found you and made a new friend. Please reach out when you're, when you come to LA. All right, we'll go for that 4:30 dinner. Yeah, absolutely. Are you up for two or three rapid fire questions to close us off?

Absolutely. Let's do it.

Right? Let's do it. What is the most common mistake or misconception that you're seeing people make with their health?

You know, I think, think for me, I see this through the lens of thyroid. It is that they think that their thyroid problem's being treated when they're on a levothyroxine based med like levothyroxine Synthroid Tiroscent Unithroid, and they just think that that's the solution when in the vast majority of cases it never will be.

Okay, we didn't even dive into that. What are your thoughts on the thyroid meds being taken away?

Yeah, I'm determined to not let that happen. So I've created an alliance with essentially every leader in this industry. It's called the ThyroidHealthAlliance.org we encourage everyone to go there, register, sign the petition. I really, truly believe that we can stop this from happening if we unite our forces and make our message clear. There are multiple desiccated thyroid medications in the process of already starting the FDA approval process. So all we need is the FDA to wait to pull them from the market until those companies have a chance to finish that process.

I didn't even know that there was a petition. Okay, so thyroid health alliance.org I'm so happy that you brought that up. Thank you. All right, what is your favorite ancient healing remedy?

O. I don't know if it's ancient, but green juice. I love me some green juice. I think it's such an incredible way to get so many nutrients and not smoothies, but juice and just flood your body with what it needs.

I can't stand that social media is demonizing green juice. I think it feels so therapeutic. Me, too. It feels so good for me.

It's going to come and go quick. It's going to leave soon. Don't worry.

Okay, good. All right, if you could share, what's one thing about modern medicine that really excites you?

GLPs, I think GLPs, GLP1 medications, not really for weight loss at all, but I think they will change the infrastructure and the paradigm of medicine that we are living in permanently. And the future is a very exciting place at this point because with them.

H so good. Thank you so much for sharing that. All right, everyone. Mickferson, please go check her out. There's modern thyroid. You guys have a page there as well. We're going to link out everything below. I'm so grateful to have found you and to have met you today. Thank you for this, like, insanely much needed insightful conversation. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. This is a pleasure. And thank you for all your work in educating and creating informed and empowered consumers of their health. So it's an important and important job.

Thank you.