What is the T3 T4 Connection?

Welcome to the Balanced Body Podcast, where Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness in Omaha, talks to us about health, wellness, and balancing hormones.

So excited today to have Sherri Griggs live here in the Zoom room, also on the podcast. Again, Balanced Body Health and Wellness is the name of the company, from Omaha, Nebraska. She joins us live. Hi, how are you?

Great. How are you doing? It's great to see you, Jill.

I know. I like putting the face to the voice. It's always a good thing. So for those new-time listeners, and of course our first video together, tell us what you do.

All right. Well, I help people balance their hormones and help them balance their bodies. So it's really— it's important that you balance all your hormones, not just the sex hormones. And so So many people have metabolic issues. They, you know, they're healthy, but they're like, why is my cholesterol high? Why am I borderline diabetic? I help people through that and help to prevent future illnesses if possible.

Ah, perfect. I just got off the phone with my doctor before, so I got my workup. He says supposedly my thyroid is okay, the TSH. I got some other problem. I forgot what he said. I wrote it all down, but he's an autoimmune doctor, so I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with, you know, all these things. And I got the osteopenia. He says don't be But then my calcium is high in my urine. We're gonna repeat some tests and, ah, there's a few things. But I know it could be very confusing, very difficult to sort out, but most regular doctors don't test you for— explain what certain things that you dive deeper into, the hormones, the—

Absolutely. So, you know, just listening to what you're saying, you know, they checked your TSH, but did they check your T3 and your T4 and your reverse T3? Because your TSH Can be perfect, right? I mean, it can be right in within the, the average of where they say it should be, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's optimal. And, and that's one of the things that I thought maybe to talk about today, but optimal, what's optimal, right? It's where you feel your best you. And that's the important word. What are you— what are your symptoms and how do you feel?

Yeah.

So I had a patient that came in, TSH great. But we checked her and she was on the low side. So she wasn't— she was on the low side of the T3. She felt sluggish in the afternoons. She was not optimal. We gave her a small dose of thyroid medication and she feels great now.

See?

So we'll keep her on that. We'll check her in 8 weeks to make sure she's still in that range that's optimal and she's safe. And if she is, it was just a simple little fix.

Right.

Now, I, I like to use this analogy. Think of a car. The thyroid is your motor. Okay? Cortisol is your transmission, and your hormones are your tires and wheels.

Okay.

So you have 4 hormones. You have estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and DHEA. Not all providers pay attention to DHEA, but it is an androgen hormone. It's important. So if your thyroid is not running properly, not optimal, your car's not going anywhere no matter if you replace the wheels or not. If your cortisol is not balanced, your car's still not going anywhere because cortisol will take over your hormone receptors if it's not balanced.

Okay.

So what makes me different is I don't just replace the hormones and they're all hormones. Everything I've talked about, thyroid, cortisol, even insulin are all hormones. But people think of the androgen or the sex hormones when they talk about hormone replacement and that's the 4 wheels. So I want to make sure that I'm not just wasting money putting new tires on a car that's not going to run.

Interesting.

So that, that's something that makes me different than a lot of providers and something that I really, really focus on and make sure that I am paying attention to before I even start somebody on hormone replacement.

Got it. Well, let me just ask you, what is the difference between parathyroid? Because they tested my parathyroid and then they did the TSH with reflex to FT4. Yeah, what is parathyroid? Parathyroid.

So you have your parathyroids and okay, now you're gonna test me my anatomy.

No, oh, sorry, I just didn't know because you mentioned that most doctors don't test the, the 3.

Yep. So your T3, your T4, all of that is part of your thyroid. So your TSH is based on— it's a thyroid stimulating hormone. If your TSH is elevated, that means your body is Producing— your hypothalamus is producing this, trying to say, we need more thyroid hormone, and so it goes high.

Got it. Okay.

So it's low if you have too much thyroid hormone, and the working thyroid hormone is the T3. So your body converts T4 to T3. Most thyroid replacement is, um, like Synthroid or levothyroxine, which is a T4. Personally, I like to do, if I can, a compounded T4/T3 mix. Now, it depends on the patient. If somebody is truly a— they have hypothyroidism, most often that's going to be a Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune disease, right?

Okay.

So we want to replace the T4 and help the T3 as well and pay attention to that. So that's why I say it's important because you can have a normal TSH. But the actual working hormone that your body uses is low because you just haven't produced or gotten sick enough for that TSH to be elevated enough for it to show abnormal in the standard lab results.

Got it. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, sorry to ask a personal question, but go ahead. It's part of what we're talking about. So, okay.

It is. And so it's great. And I love it that you do, Jill, because, you know, when you, when you said your calcium was high, I know we talked in the past and they told you with your osteopenia, just take calcium.

Yeah. And then the doctor just told me, take less. He's like, we'll do another urine test in 6 months. He just said, he's like, yeah, it was a little high. I said, well, because I'm taking more calcium because the doctor said, he's like, well, your body's getting rid of it. You probably don't need it. So start taking the one 600 milligram pill instead of the 2 and see how it goes.

Yeah. So what are we going to wait until you have osteoporosis to do anything?

Yeah. He said technically it's in range. He's like, because according to my age, you look at the full picture of the osteopenia, you had the 2 breaks, not, you know, unexplained breaks. And yes, I see that it's, you know, you have osteopenia, but according to the scan of the, uh, the bone density scan, it was in a certain area in the bone that it's not overall picture. You got to compare it to the overall and your age and it's still okay.

It's still okay.

But I still have a— yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's exactly just the conversation just happened.

Right. And, and, you know, that's where that frustration comes in because we, you know, I've heard a lot of people refer to our society as we, we're sick medicine. Okay. We wait until you're sick to treat you. So that's why my question is, so are we just going to wait until you have osteoporosis so that we can give you a pharmaceutical drug?

Yeah.

Which is hard on your gastric system. You can't take it very much. You're gonna wait till you have more problems. Now, You're at a higher risk because you're thin. We thinner ladies are at a higher risk for osteoporosis. I didn't know that.

Okay.

Yep. It's just part of— it's just part of life.

Okay.

But the question then is, what helps? Why do we as we— why do we ladies as we get older start to lose our bones? Why do we have osteoporosis? Because we start to lose the hormones that have protected us. Okay. Our bone-building hormones, our estrogen and our testosterone helps with bone building. Okay, so if you were to test and you were to find that your hormones were low, now you're getting to be of that age where you may start to go through menopause. Hormones are stored in fat.

Got it.

Right? So if you don't have a lot of fat to store your hormones, you're burning through them. And so, so if you are low on those hormones, Right, after we make sure your thyroid and your cortisol is good, then you can reverse that osteopenia. You can prevent osteoporosis by replacing those hormones to optimal levels.

Wow. See, that's what the doctors don't tell you. They're great, trust me, but I'm saying, time and time again we have this conversation. Now I get to see you face to face. Interesting.

Interesting. Yeah. And, and I don't blame them. I think I've mentioned in my one preceptorship, I said to one of my providers, why don't you help these ladies? Why are you just letting them go through this? She said, I don't have time to learn another specialty.

Yeah. He told me that. Right.

So just like you said, Jill, these providers, why don't they say this? They're great, but why don't they say this? Because there's so much going on. If they're a primary care provider, they are so busy working sick medicine. Taking care of all the sick people. They don't have the time to learn the preventative stuff.

Got it. Got it. Great.

And the specialty, right? Those specialties that we're talking about, which is, which is all I'm doing. I don't do primary. I can't see you for a sore throat. I'm going to send you back to your doctor, but I'm going to know all the newest studies. And I still practice evidence-based medicine. Just like any other medical provider. I am not saying, oh wow, an article came out, somebody thinks this is great, or so-and-so used this, you should try it. These are actual— everything I do has medically evidence-based studies backing it.

Beautiful. And by the way, we should mention the, the website. I don't know if we did already, did we? BalancedBodyMedical.com, right?

Correct. BalancedBodyMedical.com. Yes, that's where you can find more information. information out about me and what I do. You can also schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation on there, as well as if you want to come in for a 1-hour consultation where I actually do a lot of education, lead you with a— leave you with a lot of nuggets, and we do a body scan to look at your muscle-to-fat ratio.

I gotta get to Omaha, but yes, you can fly in, right?

We talked about that. Absolutely. In fact, I just had a patient here last week from Morristown, New Jersey.

Oh wow, okay.

Just across the river from you.

Yes, nice. Not so far.

Yeah, yeah. So if you want to email me, you can email me at info@balancedbody.com or my phone number, 402-807-5333.

Perfect. Thank you so much. I got to see how long it is of a drive.

Yeah. Oh, that'd be a couple days.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk about flight. Yeah, good idea.

Yeah.

So what else did you have on tap for us today? Sorry. Sorry.

Okay. That's okay. I don't— didn't know if we had to do a commercial today.

No, we don't. That's why I just asked your website. We're good.

Okay, awesome. So, you know, I've mentioned optimal levels and people may be saying, but what's optimal levels? You know what? I get my lab results. It says that my, my level of this or that is between— let's say it says my level of— perfect example, men and testosterone. It says their normal optimal level— not optimal, excuse me, lab level— is below 300. That's fine. I mean, if you're between 100 to 300 on your lab results, the doctor's going to say you're fine, don't worry about it. But the honest-to-God truth is most men feel much better between 500 and 600. In fact, let me double-check what I'm saying. Oh, greater than 600.

Okay, okay.

This optimal is 800 to 1,000.

Wow.

Yeah. So if you are less than— so many men less than 800 are symptomatic, but really do need to be treated if you're less than 400. So that's where I said the normal 100 to 300. And because when they're younger, their levels are higher. So men start to lose their testosterone at 45 and lose 1 to 2% every year after that. So they may go to their primary care who pulls out and says, well, the lab says you're normal here, right? It's not flagged. You're fine.

Yeah.

Symptoms must be something else. Now it can be, right? Especially our younger men, because I just said cortisol, if it's not balanced, can block hormone receptors. So if you have a lot of stress in your life, you're not taking care of yourself, you're not getting sleep, work is stressful. It may not be that your hormone— they check your hormone levels. Oh, you're fine. There's nothing wrong with them. Levels are great, but your body can't use them.

Yeah.

Because the cortisol is blocking your receptors.

Interesting.

So another example, right? Think about— let's see, another good one is the TSH. We talked about that. So our actual optimal value Is 1 to 2.5 and less than 2. But you will find if you look at your lab results, it will say your TSH is okay up to, I believe it's 4. Some of the labs will say 4.

Okay.

Right? So Jill, if you look at your lab results, you know, and the doctor said your TSH was fine, was it between 1 and 2?

Or was it— it's funny, I had it up before and you know what? Yeah.

One second. Yeah.

So I'm gonna look down on my phone because no, no, I had it. It, it, it's probably still on my phone. Okay. I, it, it's from Quest, you know, Quest Diagnostics. Do you have Quest?

Do you?

It's on there. No, it logged me back out cuz it, it literally, the doctor, I had a virtual appointment today at 11 something. I had no work at that time, but then he missed the call. So yeah. Okay. So then he just called, uh, right before this I had a break.

Hold on.

I can pull it back up if you don't mind. Okay. Taking a peek.

Yep. Go ahead and pull that up.

Trying. I could see it with my hands.

When you have it, let me know.

Okay, and this is just the regular TSH, right?

Just the regular TSH. Okay, here we go.

Jill's reports available. The regular TSH and— okay, protein, uric acid, creatinine, sodium, protein, globulin, blah blah blah blah, MU globulin, white blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Right.

We want to look at those. We want to make sure your kidneys and liver are working.

One problem I had was the anti-nuclear antibodies titer and pattern that may be an autoimmune disease. He doesn't know. We gotta do more tests.

Is it elevated?

It's extremely high. Yeah, the ANA titer is 1 point— it's 1 out of 260, and then the ANA pattern is off, dense, fine, speckled. So he says that is a sign you might have an autoimmune disease, but everything we've tested so far hasn't, hasn't been. It's not Oh, he said— I wrote them all down. I wish I had the sheet.

Yeah, that's okay. You have inflammation, so the ANA titers— if you have inflammation in your body, I would give you some low-dose naltrexone. Okay, low-dose naltrexone is very, very good for people with autoimmune. In fact, there are practitioners out there that believe everybody should be on it.

Can I write it down? What is that called? What?

LDN, low-dose naltrexone.

Okay.

So you're seeing a specialist, they've probably heard of it. If they haven't, you let me know, I will send you a whole plethora of medical studies that you can share with your doctor.

Alright.

And they can see it truly is evidence-based medicine.

Alright, I found the parathyroid hormone intact, that's at 20, the reference for ages 16 to 77, that's parathyroid hormone intact. But then there was another one that just said thyroid, I think I brought that up before. It's one says— oh, there's thyro— oh, wait. Thyroid globulin antibodies, thyroid peroxidase antibodies, TSH. Are they high? Okay, those are normal. Those are all normal.

The antibodies?

It says yes, less than 1 is good. I'm less than 1 and then I'm 1. I have a TSH with reflex to FT4 that says it's 1.22. Okay.

I don't know what that means. So that's the only TSH is 1.22?

Yeah, but it says it's a reference rate. Last pregnancy, first trimester, I'm not pregnant, so 0.4 to 4.5 should be the reference range. Am I reading this right?

Yeah, I don't see one. Could be, yes, on the TSH. Okay, so you actually are in an optimal level on your TSH. You said 1.1?

1.22 TSH with reflex to FT4, yes.

Yes. So, so here's what I heard. You do not have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. You do not have the antibodies, the TPO antibodies. Your TSH is within the reference range.

Yeah.

So we would guess most likely that if he checked your T3 and checked your T4, they're probably in optimal ranges too. So that's probably not your problem, but that doesn't mean you can't have inflammation someplace else. I mean, things like psoriasis, if there's a family history of autoimmunity. Do you have a family history of autoimmunity?

No, I don't, so I don't know.

Okay. Well, that's, you know, like my grandmother, for instance. I just did a, you know, some education with somebody on autoimmunity, and I will run into that, and I know I will be working in that area quite a bit because there's so much. So many people don't know. We know you have inflammation somewhere. It would be great if you had some low-dose naltrexone to help work with that because the other thing with your inflammation, it could be your gut, right? Your gut could be unhealthy.

Mm-hmm.

And because our gut has so much to do with our mood, our immunity.

Mm-hmm.

If there's inflammation in the body.

Yep.

You know, if they're ruling out autoimmunity, but you still know you have inflammation, Yeah. Your ASD says you do, right? So we look at what's your, um, C-reactive protein that— I'm gonna guess you probably did a CRP or a C-reactive protein. That also looks for inflammation. Um, so autoimmunity, my grandmother having rheumatoid arthritis, is— think of it like a chain. It's a weak link in a chain.

Okay.

So weak link.

Rheumatoid arthritis.

Okay. Now, that means I'm at risk for an autoimmune disease. Does not mean it will be rheumatoid arthritis. Does not mean it will be an autoimmune disease that maybe my mother had. It means somewhere I have a weak link. And to break that link, to cause a disease, I need a stressor and a toxin. All right. Toxins are everywhere in our environment. I have a whole list of things that I share with my clients that are immune modulators, that are endocrine modulators, things that will mess up your endocrine system. And your endocrine system, again, is your hormones, right?

Mm-hmm. Okay.

So my weak links started with psoriasis. When that started, I was so young, I don't even think we knew psoriasis was autoimmune. Right. Not, not bad.

Yeah.

But some. And, and then I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, another weak link. I can actually tell you for each one of my immune, my autoimmune diseases, and I jokingly say what or who caused it.

Yeah.

Right. What stressor or who the stressor was that caused that particular disease. So the goal is to turn the fire off. If we don't exactly know what's causing that fire in your body, Jill, what's causing that inflammation, There are things you can do to help put that fire out.

Interesting. Thank you.

Okay. Low-dose naltrexone, avoiding gluten. Anybody and everybody with an autoimmune disease needs to avoid gluten. If your doctor thinks you have some sort of autoimmune disease, even though he hasn't pinpointed what it is, yeah, get off gluten.

Okay.

Okay. Other inflammatories: dairy, And corn. So gluten, dairy, and corn, we know, are 3 inflammatories.

Okay.

No ifs, ands, or buts. My gal from Morristown, she's— she loves her— she loves milk and she loves cheese, so she's getting goat. She says goat milk— she's done the research— doesn't do it. Now, I myself say if you're not doing dairy, you're not doing dairy. Okay? Just keep it easy and don't do the dairy.

Yeah.

But There's different types of proteins, and it's the protein that's in that dairy. And gluten is a protein. And corn, again, is just pure sugar. So what else is inflammatory? Sugar. Sugar is inflammatory, causes inflammation in your body. So those are some things that you or anybody out there can do. Anybody thinking about, you know what, I just want to be healthier.

Yeah.

There you go. Take those things out of your diet. If you know you've got inflammation, consider low-dose naltrexone.

Okay.

And keep working out, drinking clean water. My— one of my toxins is chlorine. And everyone says, how did they test for that? They didn't. I knew as a child I hated to get into the pool. Never learned to swim. As I got older, really didn't care for hot tubs. Loved the hot tub itself, but it would make me itch. Didn't like the smell of chlorine. And it became a, oh my goodness gracious, chlorine's a toxin. My body's been trying to tell me for years.

Wow.

Stay away from this poison. So I originally had a filter on my showerhead. I now have a whole house filter. I only drink filtered water. If I go to a restaurant, like we have a lot of chlorine in our water, a lot of places do. If I go to a restaurant, I just order a club soda for my water or a bottled water.

Yeah.

So I know I'm not getting that chlorine. I'm proud to say it's been 5 years since I've developed another autoimmune disease, but I have been gluten-free, chlorine-free as much as possible, inflammatory foods. Trying to stay away and low-dose naltrexone.

Wow. I wrote that down. LDN. Yeah. I'll look into that. Okay.

Yeah. So, you know, it's—

Now, is that something that you need a prescription for though, through a doctor, through a— okay.

And it comes from a compounding pharmacy.

Okay.

So, you know, that's another thing. A lot of our primary care doctors and even when I was with that one doctor, her partner next to her was asking me questions. Well, why didn't I learn this in medical school? Why didn't they tell me this? I said, well, outside of the fact that the pharmaceutical companies help fund the medical schools, right? You don't learn it, but it is out there. And I brought him a whole book this thick with studies of evidence-based studies about every hormone that a doctor who's a third-generation functional medicine doctor Wrote this book. And he said, oh, I don't have time to look at all that. But that answered the question. So low-dose naltrexone is a compounded medication. The pharmaceutical companies aren't doing it yet. So if your physician is 100% traditional, he might not know about it. Now, again, a specialist, like you're saying, an autoimmune specialist probably has heard of it, but whether he believes in it or he's had the time to find the studies that shows him it is in fact evidence-based.

Yeah.

They generally are just going to go with pharmaceuticals because they don't have to do any work, right? They already know if the FDA's approved it, the medical studies are there. I don't have to research anything and I can just prescribe this. So one of the things that makes me cringe are all the commercials for the pharmaceuticals for people that Have rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis. And of course, the risks are this affects your immune system. You could get really sick. You could get this because what that does is shut your immune system down.

Mm-hmm.

Autoimmunity is your body. So in fact, you are not immunocompromised. People say, I'm immunocompromised, I can't go out, I'll get sick. No, if you're autoimmune, your immune system is too strong.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so they give you medications to shut it off. And then you run into other problems. And that frustrates me because I know there are ways to deal with it without doing that to people. But it's not a pharmaceutical.

Got it. All right. Well, we are just about out of time, Sherri. My goodness, I'm so sorry. But I mean, a great show, but thank you. How can we reach out to you now? Thank you.

I bet there are other people out there. You know, this is real life, right, Jill? And I do love it when you ask me things and when you bring up what you're going through. Because this is real life. This isn't just me. You know, my stories are great, but it isn't just me saying, hey, you know, if you have this or this could be your problem, you're a real person that they can see now and hear that's going through this right now.

Got it.

Yeah.

Well, thank you. And it's exciting to have you. I'm glad anyone has any questions for you, reach out to Sherri as well.

This has been the Balanced Body Medical Podcast with Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness. If you're looking to find Sherri, go ahead and look for the website balancedbodymedical.com. If you're looking for the business and you want to find Sherri at her office, you can find her at 10815 Elm Street in Rockbrook Plaza. Thank you.