Catch Thyroid Disease Early, with Dr. Eric Osansky @NaturalThyroidDoctor

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Five Journeys podcast, Live like youe Matter. I'm Dr. Wendy Trubo, and Dr. Levitan couldn't be here today, so it's just me with our guest, Dr. Eric Osansky. He is a chiropractor, clinical nutritionist, and certified functional medicine practitioner who is who helps people recover from thyroid and autoimmune thyroid concerns. He's author of the books Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves Disease and Hashimoto's triggers. Dr. Osansky was personally diagnosed in 2008 with Graves disease and after using a natural treatment approach, has been in remission since 2009. Eric, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Wendy. I'm excited to be here. Me too.

I always ask if there's, like, a personal reason for people to have gotten into something, and your bio already sort of said it. So can you share a little about what happened that had you even get, you know, what was going on? How sick were you? How long did it take for diagnosis? And then what made you get passionate? Okay, it was like 10 questions in one. So tell me your story.

Sure. So it happened in 2008. 2008. I was dieting, I was detoxifying, and I was losing weight. And at the time, I was happy with the weight loss. But then.

Were you overweight?

Not really. I was. Was maybe like 182. And I always like to be between, like, 1, 165, 170. And so. So I wasn't. So I guess you could say a little bit overweight, but I wasn't, you know, obese, but.

Well, how tall are you?

You know, like, like, like five, ten and a half. So.

Okay, because if you're six, five, that's very different than if you're five, four.

Yeah, exactly. But I was losing weight, which is the plan when you diet and detox. And everything seemed to be going smoothly. And I was losing a good amount of weight, but I was hungry, had an increased appetite. Didn't know at the time that was due at least in part to the hyperthyroidism. But one day I was walking around in a Sam's Club, and they have those automated blood pressure machines where you sit down, take your blood pressure, which I decided to do. And my blood pressure was fine, but I had an elevated heart rate, and it wasn't too bad. At the time it was around 90, but still, for me, that was high. And for most people, that still is high. And so I ended up taking My resting heart rate the next few days, and it fluctuated anywhere between 90 and, let's say, 105, 110. And so I knew something was up. I wasn't, wasn't too familiar with hyperthyroidism at the time other than what I learned up until that point. But I didn't work with hyperthyroid patients, but it did. So just like anybody else, I did some research and I was thinking, yeah, maybe that is hyperthyroidism. The weight loss, increased appetite, the elevated heart rate. And sure enough, I decided to see a medical doctor, ran some blood tests, and I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. Eventually went to an endocrinologist, got the antibodies tested for Graves disease, and it confirmed Graves disease. And again, this was new to me. But prior to that, whenever I took my continuing education credits, even though my background's a chiropractor, I would always go for nutrition courses. And there were a few functional endocrinology courses. And so during those conferences, I learned about natural methods for thyroid health. I never knew if, I never thought that I might need them myself, but I knew I was going to take a natural approach based on attending those seminars. And so I didn't know what to expect. It was a scary experience. And, but long story short, I was able to get into remission, regain my health. And just like many other practitioners when they reverse any type of health condition, I was passionate and still am and decided I'm going to start helping others with not only hyperthyroidism and grays, but, you know, Hashimoto's also an autoimmune thyroid condition. So I also just over the years was just for now, what, like 12 years now, I've been working with patients with hyperthyroidism. Hashimoto's a little bit more on the hyper side just because that's my background, that's my personal story.

Yeah. So before we get into the differences between them, how high were your antibodies when you originally got diagnosed, do you remember?

So well, I got the thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins and the thyroid peroxidase antibodies, so mites. So with Graves, the TSI are more characteristic. And my TSI was about 230. It wasn't crazy, crazy high. Like I would consider 300 or above to be really high. And when it gets, the higher it is, a lot of times the more likely someone is to have thyroid eye disease. And we could always talk about that. But my thyroid peroxidase antibodies, those were negative, which I do see a lot of people with Graves having the TPO antibodies positive. But with me it was just those tsi, the thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins.

So it sounds like you caught it pretty early. Like it doesn't sound like it went on for years where you were, like, what's going on with me? You had the weight loss, had the elevated heart rate, got diagnosed. Is that true? A first off, is that true?

I would say, yeah. I would say that, yeah. I don't think it's something that I was dealing with for years. I would say probably a few months before I realized. And who knows, if I didn't go to the Sam's Club and take my blood pressure at the time, I'm sure eventually I would have found out, figured out eventually. But yeah, probably a few months before.

I found out is that most people's experience that it's sort of clearly progresses from, oh, something's wrong, oh, I have a diagnosis within what I consider to be, well, I have celiac. So it takes most celiacs 10 years to get diagnosed. And we've gone to 10 doctors and we've been sick for 15 years. So it's a very different disease process, I think in terms of diagnosis. So how quickly do people normally recognize it?

It's quicker compared to other autoimmune conditions, similar like with Hashimoto's. Hashimoto's like celiac disease. Someone could have the antibodies for Hashimoto's for 5, 10, even 15 years and not know it. And they might experience symptoms, but a lot of times they just don't put the pieces of the puzzle together. They're having fatigue, they're having weight gain, and they attribute it things. But when someone starts having again, like weight loss, elevated heart rate, you know, just everything speeding up, it's hard to ignore. So I would say on average when I work with someone, I'd say most people within either a few months. Sometimes it goes maybe like a year, year and a half. I mean there's always exceptions, but it's. In most cases it's not something that goes undiagnosed for like five, ten years.

Got it. Can you tell the audience start to distinguish the differences between hyper and hypothyroidism? For the audience, for the listeners, sure.

So what hyperthyroidism. So what hyperthyroid. Most hyperthyroid cases are graves, which is autoimmune. And most hypothyroid conditions are Hashimoto's. And so what hyperthyroidism? You get an elevation of the thyroid hormones, free T3, free T4, the main thyroid hormones. And with Hashimoto's hypothyroidism, you get lower thyroid hormones. Sometimes it's subclinical. As you know, you could have Hashimoto's and it could be on the lower side of the reference range. Other times it could be overtly low. And then you have a hormone, tsh, which is actually a pituitary hormone, thyroid stimulating hormone. And that's kind of like a signal. So you know, when someone has hyperthyroidism and they're having too much thyroid hormone, you don't want the pituitary gland to. You want the opposite. You want the pituitary gland to stop. Stop the thyroid gland from making thyroid hormone. So you usually see that TSH low and many times undetectable, like less than 0.001, for example. And then what Hypothyroidism, it's the opposite. When the thyroid hormone levels gets too low, pituitary gland says, hey, we need more thyroid hormone. So it tells the thyroid hormone to produce more, I mean, tells the thyroid glands to produce more thyroid hormone. And as a result, with hypothyroidism, a lot of times you'll see that TSH elevate. And so those, as far as a blood test, those are the main differences. As far as symptoms, again, when I dealt with hyperthyroidism, I had weight loss, I had increased appetite, I had palpitations, I had tremors, I had some loose stools. Some people have also thyroid eye disease, which is associated with graves, where the immune system attacks the tissues of the eyes and you might get bulging and eye pressure and other symptoms. So I didn't have that. About 50% of people with grave disease experience that. With hypothyroidism, it's the opposite. You get, again, lowered metabolism. So you're getting weight gain, you get brain fog, you get coldness, coldness in the hands and the feet, you get constipation. And I mean, there could be other, like hair loss. I see with both, I see a lot with hyperthyroidism. Insomnia. Actually, I didn't mention that. Anxiety insomnia, also common with, you know, more so with hyperthyroidism. So again, just think with hyperthyroidism, everything's revved up. And again, with hypothyroidism, it's slowed down. With that being said, there could be sometimes overlap in symptoms. Sometimes people with hypothyroidism could get transient hyperthyroidism due to damage of the thyroid gland and the immune, the thyroid hormone being released in the bloodstream but in a nutshell, those are some of the main differences between hyper and hypo.

Do you see anxiety with both or either?

I see, yeah. I mean, definitely with hyperthyroidism I see a good amount of anxiety with the increased thyroid hormone levels. And yeah, I do see it with hypothyroidism as well. There could be, as, you know, other causes of anxiety. Just we've learned a lot with the gut microbiome, you know, also playing a role. So I would say more common in my hyperthyroid patients. But I certainly see some people with hypothyroidism that have anxiety.

Can you talk a little about what causes the thyroid to go off the cliff in the first place? Like what messes? I mean, there's so many things that mess with the thyroid. But what do you see in terms of triggers that throw the thyroid off?

Sure. So when we talk about triggers where, I mean there's autoimmune conditions and non autoimmune conditions. So again, most hyperthyroidism and most hypothyroidism is autoimmune, you know, grave disease. Hashimoto's, we do have, you know, some non autoimmune thyroid conditions as well. But as far as triggers, I like to talk about four main categories of triggers. So there's one is food. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with the havoc that gluten can cause and in many people. And of course you mentioned your experience with celiac disease. So you're well aware of the havoc.

I'm experienced with gluten.

Yeah, so. And you know, and the research does show speak of celiac. Not to get off too much track, but you know, a person with one autoimmune condition is more likely to have other autoimmune conditions. So they're in the research. It shows that someone with Graves or Hashimoto's is more likely to who have celiac disease.

Let's talk about that. It's the same gene actually. So the gene for celiac, there's two the DQ2 and the DQ8. And on DQ8 is a gene that messes with your thyroid. So you are more likely to have Hashimoto's, which is low thyroid autoimmune condition, but it is genetic and it all. I mean, that's partly why it goes together because it's on the same loci of a gene. It's kind of crazy.

Yeah, it is. And that's why probably a good idea. The challenge is a lot of people work with me They've already gone gluten free. But if you haven't gone gluten free, probably not a bad idea to test for celiac disease just to make sure, because once you eliminate gluten, as you know, especially if it's like for a few months, then you're not going to form the antibodies and those tests are going to be worthless. But so there's gluten. And even if someone doesn't have celiac disease, as you know, there's non celiac gluten sensitivity. I mean, people still should really avoid gluten. I can't say it's a trigger with everybody, even though there is research that shows it can cause an increase in intestinal permeability with everybody, which is a medical term for leaky gut. But there's gluten, there's dairy, corn in the research has shown to cause a leaky gut. And even salt, too much salts. You know, I do recommend sea salts in my patients, but there's evidence that Salt can increase TH17 cells, which are a factor in driving autoimmunity. Second stress, the second main trigger. And I think it's safe to say that especially over these last few years, stress has been extremely high for a lot of us, if not all of us. And even before everything that's been going on, it's always been a factor.

Well, is it acute? I mean, how many people do you see where it's an acute event, they had something really noticeable happen versus what I'll call the water torture of it, where it's just constant and unremitting. Is there any way that you suss that out and see it's more about the constant unremitting versus the single event? Or is it both?

Well, I think more times than not, it's more of the chronic stress. I mean, without question, there's people that I work with and they had a trauma and that, you know, right around the time that they were diagnosed. And that could definitely have been a factor or at least a contributing factor, if not a main trigger. But what I see most of the time, it's more of the chronic stress, just the day in, day out stress, whether it's their job or, you know, just the relationship they're in or. I mean, in my case, I definitely think chronic, more of a chronic stress was a factor. And. And when we think of stress, it's not only emotional stressors. So one thing I didn't mention is while I was losing weight, detoxifying, dieting, I was also exercising. But I'm pretty sure I was over training. And that is a stressor on the body as well. And I'm pretty sure that was at least a contributing factor in development of my gravesee's condition.

Let's talk about stress for a minute. Because I only see women and they all say to me, oh, it's not that bad. And I'm like, what your brain thinks and what your body experiences are completely different. So in your mind, you've sort of minimized the stress, like, oh, I can deal with it. It's not as bad as. And then you fill in the blank of that terrible experience you had. But the experience in our bodies, I always say to my patients, is when you're stressed, your adrenals are super primitive. So if they get turned on, they're not grading like, oh, this stress isn't as bad. All they know is a lion's gonna eat ya. And you need to shut down detox, shut down digestion and absorption, get sugar to put it to the big muscles so you can run, and most of the time, disrupt your hormonal patterns, because that's not a priority right now. So I always say to patients, if you have a thyroid issue, you have an adrenal issue by definition, because the adrenals are gonna be much more powerful at turning on or turning off the thyroid if they're out of whack because of all those things that happen. So I think. I mean, you just really hit on a brilliant thing about what do you need to do is. Even though. Even if you don't think it's a lot of stress, you need to quiet it down, get enough rest, exercise, meditate, resolve your toxic relationships, stop eating, all of that. Right? It's just huge. All right, so we've covered food and stress. What's next?

And one thing I'll also say is that I definitely overestimated my stress handling skills when I dealt with Graves too.

I think we all do, right?

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. So again, definitely, I think everybody should block out time on a daily basis for stress management. So I'll leave it at that before going into this third trigger. So the third trigger relates to your amazing book, Ditch the Toxins, Reduce our toxic Load. We have so many different chemicals out there. And again, people, I'm sure most of the listeners have read your amazing book and just xenoestrogens, the heavy metals. I mean, just again, the flame retardants. The flame retardants. Yeah.

Your bed. Your bed. Your evil bed.

Yeah. No, that's a Conversation. I probably should have it with every single person. It's usually. But where. You know, because again, I do. I think we spoke in the past where I have like an avocado mattress. And I know you have a natural mattress as well. Yeah, exactly. And. And again, I should like make it or at least put it in my follow up that, you know. But. But the truth is, I guess even if I'm not encouraging everybody to change their mattress, but just to be more aware of. And then, I mean, honestly, when you buy a mattress next time, you probably should get a more natural mattress. But it's accumulation of everything. It's not, you know, not just focusing on the, you know, the flame retardants, but again, just trying not to drink out of plastic bottles on a regular basis, even if they're BPA free and trying to. Again, even the. Another conversation we had is fish. You know, just, you know, trying to maybe not eat fish every day or not, you know, not eating larger fish.

And high mercury fish.

Correct.

Don't eat that more than like once every three months if you're a bad detoxer like me.

Exactly. Yeah.

So, I mean, I was on your podcast where we talked all about toxins, and that really scratched the surface. I feel like, you know, we really work hard to clean up our life and I'll just put the plug in for go systematically and go slowly and you won't do it in a day. This is like a lifelong process. I mean, I'm sure you're still cleaning. I know I'm still cleaning it up and making mistakes. Sometimes I'm like, oh, that wasn't a clean product. How did I get greenwashed? Right.

Yeah, yeah. It's always a work in progress. And yeah, so I'll leave it at that. Because again, they could just refer to your book, which if anybody listening hasn't read it, definitely check out Dr. Wendy's book. So it's relevant. I'm not just saying that to plug your book, but it's relevant to the conversation. Conversation. It is a trigger. And. And, you know, when we think about over the years, you know, what has changed? I mean, the next trigger that I'm going to talk about is infections. But we've had, you know, Epstein Barr and these other infections around for a long time. You know, there's always been stressors, you know, with food, we could argue, you know, like the chemicals in the food, too. So there's overlap between that first trigger and the. But. But that's the main factor. The chemicals over the. The Few last few days. So. So arguably, even though I started with food, and I could say food is the most important because that's what we put in our body every day, we could say that. Number three on my list of triggers could be pushed to the top.

Yeah, I'm all about. I mean, I always think it's toxins, but I do agree with you. You eat three times a day or more, and so you're going to want something that you're constantly doing to be optimized. But the food and toxins go together. Right? Because don't eat artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners. Don't drink coffee that's moldy. Don't eat a lot of sugar, and then make sure your food's organic. If you do that, you're pretty darn good. Right? That's a great start. Okay, tell me about the infections and then infections.

So, yeah, so infections also could be a potential trigger. Again, there's viruses, such as Epstein Barr, and again, this is in the literature, too. There are some that just throw out different infections. And not everything's in the research. I'm sure there are infections that we're not aware of that could trigger Graves and Hashimoto's, but in the research, there's, again, Epstein Barr. There's H. Pylori, which is in the gut, and Yersinia enterocolitica, which is another one in the gut. Borrelia burgdorferi, which is the pathogen associated with Lyme disease. Parasite's a little bit tricky. Yeah. So I was gonna say there's not a lot of research with parasites and autoimmunity. I certainly have seen it in my practice, but there's only some case studies, and those relate to Hashimoto's. I don't know what you've seen as far as, like, your experience, but I.

Was just laughing when you mentioned the Lyme, because it feels like Lyme is. I mean. Are you in New York now?

No, I'm from New York, but I'm in North Carolina.

Okay. I mean, a good friend of mine lives in Virginia, and he got Lyme. And it's just amazing to me how pervasive it is and how many sort of. It's like an octopus disease because it's got its tentacles in every other system. So it's not just like strep, where you have a sore throat and a fever, and then you take antibiotics for a couple days, you're better. It's really impacting every system. So.

All right, I agree. I dealt with Lyme Lyme wasn't a trigger in my case, but 10 years after I was diagnosed with graves, I dealt with chronic Lyme. So it's definitely not fun to deal with. But one more thing on the Lyme topic is, you know, and this is really the case probably with. Not just with Lyme, but other infections. But, you know, you could have an infection and not know it. When people think of infection, they think, you know, I'm going to have a fever. I'm going to just, you know, feel really fatigued. And, you know, with Lyme, those are classic symptoms, especially like the debilitating fatigue and migrating muscle and joint pain. My symptoms are more neurological, and I'm sure I had chronic Lyme for at least a few months, maybe a few years before I developed symptoms. So I'm not trying to, you know, like, scare everybody listening to say, yeah, you probably have Lyme, but just, you know, there. Some people are easily dismissive, Oh, I don't have this. I don't have that because I don't have this set of symptoms. Same thing with gut. You could have H. Pylori but not have heartburn or not have reflux. So, again, you can't always go by the symptoms.

We have so many patients in our practice who we treat for Lyme. And I just finished reading the book what Lurks in the woods, and it was about a woman whose husband got neurological Lyme and was completely debilitated. They were told that they had early Alzheimer's or early dementia. And so the plug that I'll put in is if you have anything weird, you know, I always say to people, if you're doing everything right and you're not a million bucks, then that's the plug for something's really wrong. And it's often toxins, but it could be Lyme, which is an infectious toxin. So get a functional medicine evaluation. That's my plug for functional medicine. All right, so to recap that, we have food, stress, toxins, infection, Correct?

Yep. No. You got it.

Let's talk a little bit more about the different types of hyperthyroidism. How can you tell the difference between them?

Sure. So again, most types of hyperthyroidism are graves, which is autoimmune. And so how did I know that I had graves? So I went to a regular medical doctor first, and I got my thyroid hormone levels tested, but that didn't confirm I had chronic graves. That just confirmed I had hyperthyroidism, and that was due to the elevated thyroid hormone levels of depressed tsh. And so I went to an endocrinologist. And so they did the antibodies test on me. So there's other ways, which I'll talk about in a minute, but the elevation in thyroid antibodies. Specifically for graves, it's the thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins, which is a type of TSH receptor antibody. I mentioned TPO or thyroid peroxidase antibodies, but we see those with both GRAVES and Hashimoto's. So in my case, I have the elevated thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins. And so that itself is diagnostic with GRAVES disease. Another way, if someone again has the symptoms of thyroid eye disease, that also is usually indicative of graves. And then they also do something called the radioactive iodine uptake test, where they administer a small amount of radioactive iodine. And the thyroid, pretty much it goes to the thyroid. And if it's elevated, that could also be a diagnosis of graves. I'm not a huge fan of that test, especially put a toxin in you.

To diagnose the disease.

Exactly. But surprisingly, a lot of endocrinologists recommend that. And I mean, if a patient already has gotten that test, which actually happens a lot, a person will see me, they already got the test, and, you know, I won't make a big deal of it. They got it. And the thing is, if you have the elevated antibodies for graves, then, you know, you have graves, you don't really need the uptake test. And arguably you don't need it even if you don't have the antibodies for graves. But so if Graves, let's say the antibodies are negative, well, a thyroid ultrasound may be performed. Or even if you have graves. I had graves, and honestly, my endocrinologist didn't want to perform a thyroid ultrasound. She just palpated my thyroid and she said, yeah, I think everything feels okay. But I talked her into having an ultrasound just because I wanted to see whether any nodules. And it was clean. So her palpation skills were pretty good, apparently. But if someone. There's also what's called toxic multinodule goiter.

Wait one second. Let's back up for a sec. For the listeners, what would be the relevance of having a nodule or some kind of growth? Because if you simply have alterations, what difference would it make? It sounds like there's something driving that that would say, okay, you want to make sure that there's not X because of Y. What is that correct?

So if someone. Well, if you ask an endocrinologist, for example, many times they'll be dismissive of thyroid nodules because they are very Common and most of the time they are small. And we could make the argument they're not causing problems. But the answer I always want to ask, or the question I always want to ask is why? Why does someone have the thyroid nodule? And the research shows problems with estrogen metabolism, insulin resistance. Those are two of the more common causes. So those are obviously areas that I would look into. And so, yeah, so regardless of whether, obviously if the thyroid nodule is larger, it's more increased risk of thyroid cancer and causing other problems. But even if it's small, again, not that I make a huge deal out of it, but I still want to try to address the cause of the problem.

Okay, so you really want to make sure there's no other issue going on that might be life threatening, should we say?

Correct? Yeah, exactly. And with the ultrasound, it will show it's not going to determine if someone, it won't confirm if someone has thyroid cancer, but it'll give certain characteristics. And if someone has those characteristics, then they might need to get a biopsy and then that could sometimes confirm that's not perfect either. But another type of hyperthyroidism, speaking of nodules, is toxic multinodule goiter. And so a lot of people have just what's called multinodule goiter without the toxic component. So multinodule goiter, as the name suggests, is when you have multiple thyroid nodules in the presence of a goiter. And a goiter is an enlargement of the thyroid gland. And so a toxic multinodule goiter is when you have hyperthyroidism in the presence of that multinodule goiter. And sometimes it could be because the nodule itself is causing the hyperthyroidism, other times it's just coincidental. But either way, you want to try to address the cause of the problem, which most endocrinologists, of course they don't do, they just either recommend the anti thyroid medication or many times we'll recommend surgery or radioactive iodine as a solution. But if the problem is estrogen, you know, issues with estrogen metabolism, insulin resistance, again, we want to address those factors and a lot of times by addressing those factors, we'll see the problem resolve.

It's really interesting because just thinking about when you look at issues with estrogen metabolism and issues with. Insulin and estrogen, both of those track back to toxins. Also, it all comes full circle, right? Because what are the things that throw off insulin? It's toxins. What are things that throw off estrogen? Either toxins like xenoestrogens or a gut dysfunction, because if your gut's out of whack, your hormones are going to be out of whack, because that's how you get rid of your toxins that you're trying to excrete after you've got process them. All right, it all comes full circle. So have you had patients where you really needed to drill into specific testing in order to distinguish between what they had? Like, do you use stool to do any diagnosis, to look at both. Sorry, I'm losing my mind. My words. Do you use stool to look at any parasites or any inappropriate bacteria to distinguish what's going on for them and say, hey, your risk is higher because of this?

Yeah, I do recommend testing to determine, as we spoke, about the triggers, underlying imbalances. So I can't say I do stool testing with everybody. I know some functional medicine practitioners do, and maybe I should. I do adrenal testing with most of my patients, either saliva testing or dried urine testing. And then with the stool testing, I have a story to tell. With the stool testing, as far as you know, again, you can't always go by symptoms. So with stool testing, yeah, I do like stool testing to look at things like H. Pylori to look at parasites. Again, I can't say I recommend it to everybody, but I learned years ago that you can't always go by symptoms because I did have a patient who just wasn't progressing as expected. And at the time, I, you know, I didn't do a stool panel. I was thinking about it, but, you know, his. He had no digestive symptoms. He had regular bowel movements. I just didn't suspect anything going on from a digestive standpoint. And so I told him, you know, I think if we did a stool panel, probably would come back negative. You'd just be wasting your money. And long story short, he saw another practitioner, and sure enough, the other practitioner did a stool panel. And the only reason I knew, I followed up with him a few months later and he told me the story through email and he said that. So another practitioner did the stool panel, found a parasite, which really surprised me because I always associated, at least at the time, like loose stools, diarrhea, gastrointestinal symptoms, but found a parasite and he got into remission by getting rid of the parasite. And it was a learning lesson for me, just because you can't always go by symptoms. So even though I don't, I can't say I recommend stool testing for everyone. It's something at Least I. Many times I'll give as an option. And I. And if someone's not progressing with initial recommendations, it's something I'll look into. And of course, if someone is having overt gastrointestinal symptoms, if I am suspecting something, I'll recommend a stool panel. But it's a lesson. Yeah, you can't always rely on symptoms when it comes to testing.

I'm just laughing as you're talking because, I mean, I use a ton of stool testing kits in my practice, and I have some rules about stool testing that I'll share with the listeners and you. One rule. Always label your tubes. Right, because they'll throw everything out if it's not labeled. Two, close those tubes tightly because they will throw it out. Or if it leaks in transit, you'll have to redo it. And three, when you go to FedEx to mail it, get a receipt. Because my FedEx lady said, oh, you can leave that, honey. And it was Christmas season, and so I left my FedEx package of poop with someone and never got a receipt. So it wasn't tracked. It was never logged in. And then it was taken. And I was outraged. I was outraged, Eric. I was like, somebody stole my poop. And then I realized that they really did get their lump of coal. Right. Like, you know, you're like all psyched to open up this FedEx package and then you realize it's poop. So if you don't get a receipt at FedEx, it's not tracked. And you might have to repeat your stool tests like I did. So those are my three rules of stool testing. But we do a lot of stool testing.

Thanks for sharing. Yeah, that's an interesting story. Yeah. It must have been very stressful when it happened though, having to, you know, well, not, not the ends of the world had to collect more poop.

But still, it was a pain in the butt. No, I can't even do. I can't go. It was not my favorite thing to redo, but it was a learning experience, shall we say? All right, let's go back to hyperthyroidism and the thyroid. What are some non immune reasons other than the parasites? I feel like we might have covered this, but I'd like to sort of put it all in a basket for people. What are some of the non immune things that can cause hyperthyroidism?

Well, again, there's the stress, which, I mean everything kind of. I guess stress also affects the immune system. So again, I don't even know if we could say stress I mean, I mentioned with the case of toxic multinodule goiter, there's the problems with estrogen metabolism. There's again, insulin resistance. And not that we can't tie those into the immune system somehow, but those. As far as non autoimmune thyroid conditions, there's also subacute thyroiditis, which. Subacute thyroiditis is another example of a non autoimmune thyroid condition now commonly caused by a virus and virus. Of course there is that relationship between immune system and viruses because I always look at viruses, more of an immune system problem. So it's not autoimmune like Graves disease or Hashimoto's, but if someone has, you know, any type of virus, I think it's important to optimize the health of your immune system. Just, I mean, you could take antiviral supplements and things or herbs and things like that. But I think number one priority is optimizing immune system health. And so, I mean, those.

You gotta take a whole. It's really a holistic view of the health. Right. What's happening in there? Because I didn't mean to interrupt you because you were about to say something, but you're sort of highlighting the whole system is involved in what happens.

Exactly.

The whole body.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, this. We need to look at the, the entire body. I mean, just the, you know, the gut, the adrenals, the liver. Yeah, I mean, it all goes together. So with all these conditions, even if someone comes in with toxic multinodular goiter, and assuming they also don't have an autoimmune component, because again, people could also have both. They could have toxic multinodulin, they could have autoimmunity. But you know, we're still going to do things like estrogen metabolism. The importance not. You mentioned environmental toxins. But the gut, you need to have healthy gut in order to have healthy estrogen. So really it does all relate together. One other thing I didn't mention is subclinical hyperthyroidism. So that's another type that's not autoimmune. And you could have subclinical Graves, which is autoimmune, but you could have a non autoimmune component where you have low tsh, but then thyroid hormone levels are looking good. And that gets a little bit tricky because again, I can't say there's like definitive cause when it comes to all cases of subclinical hyperthyroidism. So I tend to focus on the basics. Again, diet, lifestyle, adrenals, Healthy gut. And a lot of times that'll resolve it. I can't say all the time, but those are the, I would say the different types of hyperthyroidism.

You mentioned diet just now. Is there a particular way of eating outside of gluten that you recommend for people with hyperthyroidism adopt? So some sort of secret sauce, sugar free?

I wouldn't say a secret sauce. There's, you know, again, something I'm sure you know is that there's no single diet that fits everyone perfectly. So, you know, I would say for my Graves patients and Hashimoto's patients, I might. I do like autoimmune paleo. Admittedly it is restrictive and some people, maybe standard paleo is a better option. So I never force AIP autoimmune paleo on people. I think the most important thing is eating whole healthy foods, trying to eat. I do encourage plenty of plant based foods, vegetables, you know, you mentioned organic earlier and I mean there are some foods besides the obvious. Again, gluten free, I would say dairy free, no unhealthy oils. Usually I recommend grain free, which is also part of just regular paleo, not just autoimmune paleo. And legumes gets a little bit tricky. Some like if you're following AIP or Paleo, that'll say no legumes. But then there are some other diets where they say if you properly prepare the legumes and if someone's vegan, vegetarian, it might be difficult to follow just a strict AIP or a strict paleo diet. So honestly, with any diet, I look at it as a starting point. So whether it's autoimmune paleo or regular paleo or modified Paleo, it's a starting point. We see how the person progresses and then we could always make variations in the future depending on again, how they're progressing.

Got it, Eric, thank you. I mean, you've given a ton of awesome data. I know people are probably wondering how they can get in touch with you. How can people find out more about you, get in touch with you, buy your books, tell the audience.

All right, sure. So my main website is naturalenzocrine solutions.com and then also they could check out my podcast, which is Save My Thyroid. And you could of course find that on Apple and Spotify and anywhere podcasts are found. And then on my books, natural treatment solutions for hyperthyroidism and Graves disease and Hashimoto's triggers you can find on Amazon. And those are the main ways. I also have a checklist the thyroid. If they visit thyroidchecklist.com, they could also access a checklist where I discuss the different triggers of Graves and Hashimoto's. And so that I think will be helpful for anyone dealing with an autoimmune thyroid condition.

Awesome. We'll put everything in the show notes. Okay. And so they can find everything on how to get to. So we'll complete this episode. This has been fantastic. I'm super grateful you came on our show, and I know my partner's going to be really bummed he missed this conversation. So thanks for joining us for another episode of the Five Journeys podcast. Live like youe Matter. Our guest today was Dr. Eric Osansky.