Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / The Ultimate Guide to your Thyroid for World Thyroid Day [May 25 Bonus]

Transcript

The Ultimate Guide to your Thyroid for World Thyroid Day [May 25 Bonus] · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Health with Hashimoto's podcast. My name is Esther Yunkin and I am your host.
• 0:04
  This podcast has been going for I think almost three years and two years ago
• 0:10
  on May 25th to celebrate World Thyroid
• 0:13
  Day, I did an episode which was the ultimate guide to your thyroid.
• 0:19
  Today as a bonus episode, I am re-releasing that because that was two years
• 0:23
  ago and I don't know who has gone back and binged all of the episodes.
• 0:27
  I know some people do when they start listening They send me a message and they're
• 0:31
  like, I'm going all the way back to the beginning.
• 0:32
  I am listening to every single episode, but that's a lot of episodes.
• 0:35
  So here is a re-release and this is what you're going to learn in this episode.
• 0:39
  You're going to learn all about the thyroid, what it is, how it functions,
• 0:43
  why thyroid health matters.
• 0:45
  I'm going to talk to you about the limitations of standard lab tests and then
• 0:50
  some common thyroid problems.
• 0:52
  Before we jump into the replay for World Thyroid Day, I want to remind you that
• 0:56
  if you are ready to stop guessing and start making real progress with your Hashimoto's,
• 1:01
  my holistic Hashimoto's course is here for you.
• 1:04
  Inside, you're going to learn simple and sustainable strategies to support your thyroid.
• 1:08
  You're going to uncover your root causes, and you're going to make an impact in your energy.
• 1:13
  You're going to start feeling like yourself again without the overwhelm.
• 1:17
  You do not have to figure out your Hashimoto's alone.
• 1:21
  So head to healthwithhashimoto's.com or click the link in the show notes to get started today.
• 1:26
  All right, enjoy the replay.
• 1:29
  Well, today, May 25th, is World Thyroid Day.
• 1:33
  And in honor of that, we are going to go back to the very basics of what is a thyroid?
• 1:38
  What is it? What does it do? Why does it matter?
• 1:41
  What can I do about it? What problems can arise from it?
• 1:45
  I'm going to answer all of those basic questions, the questions which sometimes
• 1:50
  we don't even ask because we're like, well, that's like too basic.
• 1:55
  Nothing is too basic. When you have a good understanding of something,
• 1:59
  then you can take action.
• 2:01
  And I always, always, always want you to be able to take action because you
• 2:06
  are in charge of your own health.
• 2:08
  You are the CEO of your own wellness care or your own health care.
• 2:13
  And I want you to be able to make informed decisions about what to do next.
• 2:18
  What is going to be able to help you improve your energy and your overall wellness.
• 2:24
  Energy is the currency of health.
• 2:27
  Without energy, you don't have health. And a lot of people with Hashimoto's,
• 2:32
  that is their number one complaint is I don't have any energy.
• 2:35
  So question number one is what is a thyroid?
• 2:38
  Well, a thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland at the lower part of your neck in the front.
• 2:44
  You probably have seen butterflies on a lot of things that they're talking about,
• 2:48
  Hashimoto's or thyroid or Graves disease, and you might wonder why is it a butterfly?
• 2:54
  Why is it always a butterfly?
• 2:56
  It's a butterfly because that's the shape of your gland. It has like two sides of it.
• 3:01
  Now, typically you cannot see your thyroid gland.
• 3:04
  If you can see it, that means it is enlarged. It means something is going on
• 3:08
  and needs to be addressed.
• 3:10
  As thyroid problems become more and more prevalent, you're going to be able to see.
• 3:15
  I don't know about you, but I start to look at people's necks because when you
• 3:19
  notice the outer third of somebody's eyebrows thinning and a little swelling
• 3:25
  at the base of their neck, you can be assured that they have thyroid problems.
• 3:30
  They might not know it. Don't go up and talk to them about it.
• 3:33
  But when they're talking about energy or fatigue or metabolism slowing down,
• 3:39
  all of these typical complaints, you might want to ask like,
• 3:42
  hey, have you had your thyroid checked.
• 3:45
  And then they might say, well, yeah, my doctor did TSH and he said it was fine.
• 3:49
  So I guess it's not my thyroid.
• 3:51
  And then you maybe you want to refer them to a couple of my podcast episodes
• 3:55
  where I talk about why TSH isn't the only lab that matters.
• 3:59
  On Instagram, I commented on somebody's post and he said that.
• 4:04
  He said he's only concerned about his TSH.
• 4:06
  He had his antibodies checked once and they were elevated.
• 4:10
  So he's like, well, once elevated, always elevated so I'm not going to recheck those.
• 4:14
  He had never heard of reverse T3 and didn't know to monitor that.
• 4:19
  There's so much that I teach you on this podcast so that you can take action
• 4:24
  and that you can take control of your own health because relying just on TSH
• 4:29
  is not a full picture of what's going on and it doesn't put you in control.
• 4:34
  It actually puts you behind and you do not want to be behind in your health
• 4:40
  because it's a lot harder to catch up.
• 4:42
  It's a lot harder to heal than to work on prevention or catching things right away.
• 4:47
  So I guess I just went a little deeper than answering the question, what is a thyroid?
• 4:52
  But their thyroid is that butterfly-shaped gland. You shouldn't be able to see
• 4:56
  it. What does it do? Great question.
• 4:59
  It controls your endocrine system. Endocrine is a fancy name for hormones.
• 5:04
  Your thyroid is like the master hormone controller.
• 5:08
  When somebody checks your TSH, they are checking what your pituitary gland is
• 5:14
  putting out. Your TSH is not actually thyroid at all.
• 5:18
  Your TSH is from your pituitary gland. So you can think of the pituitary gland,
• 5:23
  the TSH, and your thyroid as a thermostat and heater.
• 5:28
  So what does a thyroid do? It's like the heater.
• 5:31
  Your pituitary gland is saying, hey, I need it hotter. I need the lights on. I need more energy.
• 5:38
  And your thyroid is like, oh, cool. Okay, let me do that.
• 5:41
  And then your thyroid pushes out more thyroid hormones, which go to the cells
• 5:46
  in your body and turn them on.
• 5:49
  They activate the mitochondria.
• 5:51
  The mitochondria are in charge of the energy production of your cell.
• 5:55
  And of course, your cell can't work if it doesn't have something providing energy.
• 6:00
  So your thyroid is like the heater of your body.
• 6:03
  Your TSH or your pituitary gland is like the thermostat, turning the heat up,
• 6:08
  turning the heat down, telling the thermostat or telling the heater,
• 6:12
  hey, it's time to turn on. It's time to kick out more heat.
• 6:16
  That is what your thyroid is. It is the controller.
• 6:20
  Well, I guess in that analogy, the pituitary gland is like the controller,
• 6:24
  but sorry to confuse you.
• 6:27
  I don't want to confuse you here on this podcast.
• 6:30
  But I can't talk about your thyroid pushing out thyroid hormone without talking
• 6:34
  about the pituitary gland.
• 6:36
  You know, everything in your body is connected. And there's never one thing
• 6:41
  that controls everything. Never.
• 6:44
  Everything is so interconnected. And I love that because there's always things
• 6:49
  that you can do to take forward steps in your own health.
• 6:54
  There are always things that you can address.
• 6:56
  And when you get overwhelmed, when you're like, oh my goodness,
• 7:00
  there's like a thousand things I could be doing.
• 7:02
  Well, then you take it back and you're like, what's one thing I can do today?
• 7:05
  And I'll tell you one thing that you can do today. In honor of my birthday,
• 7:09
  which is in June, I am giving you a free gift.
• 7:13
  Anybody who schedules and has a Hashimoto's health session between now and the
• 7:18
  end of June, I am giving you a free second session.
• 7:23
  I want you to do what we talk about in that first session.
• 7:28
  We're going to sit and you're going to tell me what's going on.
• 7:31
  We're going to look at all the different things that you can do and you're going
• 7:34
  to choose one thing that will move the needle forward, that will help you take
• 7:38
  your next step on that path to health.
• 7:40
  Well, the second session, we're going to do the same thing, but we're going
• 7:43
  to check in on how did you do from session one until now?
• 7:48
  Did you take that step? Or did you just like, well, I was supposed to do that and I didn't.
• 7:54
  And then we can talk about why not. Do we need to make it simpler?
• 7:57
  Do we need to talk about an obstacle?
• 7:59
  How can we troubleshoot this so that you can have more energy,
• 8:04
  so that you can feel better?
• 8:07
  We all want to feel better. We all want more energy.
• 8:11
  So between now and the end of June, anybody who schedules and has that first
• 8:15
  session will get an automatic second session two weeks after that.
• 8:20
  So that's the what is a thyroid and where is a thyroid. But does everybody have a thyroid? No.
• 8:25
  Some people have had their thyroids removed, and that's usually due to cancer.
• 8:29
  And if the thyroid is removed, then that person is on medication for life.
• 8:35
  You cannot function, you cannot live without the thyroid hormones.
• 8:40
  They are necessary for life because, like I said, they are the ones that turn on the mitochondria.
• 8:46
  The mitochondria are the things that power your cells, that energize your cells.
• 8:51
  And if your cells are not working, then you are not working, aka dead.
• 8:57
  So I mentioned thyroid cancer. That is one of the things that can affect your thyroid.
• 9:03
  There are a couple different things that can cause problems for your thyroid. Cancer is one of them.
• 9:09
  Another thing is your immune system attacking your thyroid.
• 9:13
  And that autoimmune attack can be two different things.
• 9:16
  It can be Graves' disease, where your thyroid puts out way too much thyroid
• 9:22
  hormone, turns the heat way up in your body.
• 9:25
  You're going to have super fast metabolism, which I know you're like, oh, that would be good.
• 9:30
  No, it's actually not good. It leads to a lot of problems.
• 9:33
  Your heart rate is going to go high. There's a lot of things that are going to go too fast.
• 9:38
  And your body is always at a perfect balance. Too much or too little is not good.
• 9:44
  So Graves disease is your thyroid putting out too much hormone.
• 9:49
  Hashimoto's or Hashimoto's thyroiditis, that is the other autoimmune condition
• 9:53
  that affects the thyroid.
• 9:55
  Now Hashimoto's can result in hyperthyroid, which is similar to Graves where
• 10:00
  it's putting out too much, or it can be hypothyroid where it's too low and then
• 10:06
  your body is running slow.
• 10:08
  The thing about Hashimoto's is you could have a mix. You can have hyperthyroid
• 10:12
  symptoms and hypothyroid symptoms because of the destruction of your thyroid gland.
• 10:19
  So those are a couple different things that can affect your thyroid.
• 10:23
  And who does it affect? I'm trying to go through the who, what,
• 10:27
  when, where, why, how on this podcast episode. So let's talk about who.
• 10:31
  Well, I mean, 100% of people have a thyroid, and if they don't,
• 10:35
  it was removed on purpose, and they're on medications. So everybody has a thyroid.
• 10:39
  But what about who has problems?
• 10:41
  It's typically women. A lot of men do too.
• 10:45
  But when you're looking at the ratios, the bigger percentage of people who have
• 10:49
  thyroid problems is women.
• 10:51
  And thyroid problems in women can develop at any time. But it typically happens
• 10:56
  at three different stages of life. And these are called the three Ps.
• 11:00
  Puberty, pregnancy, or perimenopause. And when you're talking to people and
• 11:04
  you find out that they have a thyroid problem, they often tell you that it started in their teens.
• 11:10
  Or in their 30s, or in their 50s and 60s. And what happens at those different times?
• 11:17
  Puberty, pregnancy, and perimenopause. Of course, all of those things,
• 11:21
  puberty, pregnancy, and perimenopause, there's a wide range of when that happens
• 11:25
  for different women, but that's typically when your thyroid problems start.
• 11:30
  And why is that? Well, it's because estrogen starts to change,
• 11:36
  starts to change in amount.
• 11:38
  And estrogen is linked to thyroid problems.
• 11:42
  That's why more women have thyroid problems than men.
• 11:45
  And you don't want to take away your estrogen, then you cause a whole host of other problems.
• 11:50
  You can't take away anything in the body without affecting something else.
• 11:54
  The other population of people who deal with thyroid problems are people who
• 11:59
  live in areas where there's not enough iodine or where there's iodine deficiency.
• 12:04
  That's the fancy way that we describe it.
• 12:06
  But back, I don't know, many decades, they started adding iodine to salt,
• 12:11
  and now that iodine deficiency has gone away for the most part, but not completely.
• 12:19
  So why is iodine deficiency associated with thyroid problems?
• 12:23
  Well, it is because your thyroid hormone, the T4, that's the thing that is produced
• 12:29
  by the thyroid, it is four molecules of iodine.
• 12:33
  That's where you get the four in the T4.
• 12:35
  It is four molecules of iodine. So obviously, if you do not have the main component
• 12:43
  of the hormone, then your body is not going to be able to make that hormone
• 12:47
  because it doesn't have the ingredients.
• 12:49
  So in areas of the world where there was not enough iodine, then they had more thyroid problems.
• 12:55
  Now, this also can be seen with selenium
• 12:59
  deficiency because selenium is used for a
• 13:02
  healthy thyroid vitamin d is also crucial
• 13:05
  for a healthy thyroid now your your thyroid
• 13:08
  gland itself does not use a vitamin d to produce
• 13:11
  thyroid but vitamin d is crucial for a healthy thyroid so when you're looking
• 13:17
  at populations people who have low vitamin d levels or are deficient in minerals
• 13:23
  minerals such as selenium they are going to have more more thyroid problems,
• 13:30
  And that kind of leads into the last question I have, which is how to care for my thyroid.
• 13:36
  Most of us don't ever think about your thyroid. It's just not part of it.
• 13:41
  I mean, we can't see, hear, smell, taste, touch it.
• 13:44
  It's just there, but hidden. If you can see it, I already said,
• 13:48
  then that indicates a problem.
• 13:50
  So the thyroid usually just functions as it's supposed to.
• 13:54
  You never pay mind to it until you have a problem. But let's say you're listening
• 13:58
  to this podcast episode and you're like, well, I don't have a problem,
• 14:01
  but I want to make sure I can care for it.
• 14:03
  Or you have kids and you want to make sure that they have this head start and
• 14:09
  they can take care of their thyroid.
• 14:11
  The number one thing is to know your genetics.
• 14:14
  Thyroid problems are genetic. I have a couple episodes about genetics because
• 14:20
  your genetics do not determine your destiny.
• 14:23
  Genetics are only a part of the picture.
• 14:27
  With epigenetics or nutrigenomics, you can turn on and off genes.
• 14:33
  You can learn how to take care of your genes so that they function properly.
• 14:38
  So take a look at the episodes. I will put links down or titles down in the
• 14:43
  show notes so that you can see which ones.
• 14:45
  But pretty sure I have one that has genetics right in the title.
• 14:49
  So that's number one. Know your genetics. When I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's,
• 14:54
  I found out at that time that thyroid problems run on both sides of my family.
• 15:00
  Both my mom and dad's side of the family have thyroid problems.
• 15:04
  I didn't know that until I was diagnosed.
• 15:07
  And then people come out of the woodwork, they're like, oh, I have that too. In fact, it is so common.
• 15:13
  So very common. And some people don't even associate this medication that they
• 15:17
  take every single day with thyroid problems.
• 15:20
  They've just been taking this levothyroxine or Synthroid for so long.
• 15:24
  It's just part of what they do.
• 15:26
  And they don't think about the fact that they have thyroid problems.
• 15:30
  And I don't quite understand how that can be, but taking care of thousands of
• 15:35
  people in the emergency department and asking them, you know,
• 15:38
  do you have any medical problems? And then you go through their medication list
• 15:41
  and they list off Synthroid or Libothyroxine.
• 15:44
  Like, well, you have thyroid problems.
• 15:46
  I'm like, oh, well, I guess.
• 15:49
  Like, you've been taking this medication for your thyroid. You have thyroid problems.
• 15:54
  So there's a little bit of a disconnect. And I blame that on the medical system
• 15:59
  because they don't tell you that you can do anything about your thyroid.
• 16:03
  They don't tell you that it's something that you can take action on.
• 16:07
  They're just like, oh, here's your medication. come back so
• 16:10
  that we can check your labs and adjust your medication they never
• 16:12
  tell you that you can actually heal because you can
• 16:15
  it's just not talked about and that
• 16:18
  drives me crazy in fact that's one reason I created
• 16:21
  my Hashimoto's 101 guide is so that you know what to do you know what is Hashimoto's
• 16:27
  what can I do about it what should I do on day one I'm feeling overwhelmed I
• 16:31
  don't know where to start well I created that guide so that you have a blueprint
• 16:35
  of you know this is what Hashimoto's is and here's where to start.
• 16:40
  I give you some resources in there and then of course you can always schedule
• 16:44
  a Hashimoto's health session with me and we can walk through your particulars
• 16:49
  so that you can take your next step on getting more energy.
• 16:53
  So the first step in taking care of your thyroid is to know your genetics and
• 16:57
  then you're not a slave, you're not determined by your genetics,
• 17:01
  you can take action. So how would you take action?
• 17:04
  Well reduce inflammation nation.
• 17:07
  Hashimoto's thyroiditis is the full name of Hashimoto's.
• 17:11
  Typically, we just say Hashimoto's. Some people say Hashimoto's.
• 17:14
  But if you look at the very ending of that, Hashimoto's thyroiditis,
• 17:18
  anything ending in itis is inflammation.
• 17:21
  And you can control the inflammation in your body.
• 17:26
  Inflammation will happen to different people differently.
• 17:29
  Some of that is genetics. Like, where are
• 17:32
  you most susceptible genetically and if
• 17:36
  you are susceptible in your thyroid to that inflammation well
• 17:39
  you can take the same steps as somebody else who has you know arthritis again
• 17:44
  with that itis anything ending with itis you need to control your inflammation
• 17:49
  one easy not easy maybe simple way to do that is through your diet cut out processed
• 17:56
  foods and increase your greens increase your veggies.
• 18:00
  All of those colorful foods, your vegetables in particular, are going to lower
• 18:05
  the inflammation in your body.
• 18:08
  And anytime you have inflammation, anywhere it is, as long as you have an itis,
• 18:13
  you want to lower inflammation.
• 18:15
  Another way to lower inflammation, specifically if you have thyroid problems, is cutting out gluten.
• 18:20
  It's inflammatory even if you don't think you have gluten problems.
• 18:24
  It's inflammatory. If you have thyroid problems, especially
• 18:27
  if you have autoimmune thyroid problems then gluten is very bad because at the
• 18:34
  molecular level gluten can be confused with thyroid and then your body can start
• 18:38
  attacking it that can start it can trigger an autoimmune problem or it can worsen it.
• 18:44
  I already talked about vitamin D and selenium so something else that you can
• 18:48
  do to take care of your thyroid is just making sure that you are getting enough
• 18:52
  of those micronutrients that your body needs in order to do what it's supposed to do.
• 18:57
  You want to give your body the ingredients that it needs.
• 19:00
  I do this every single day by taking a multi-nutrient.
• 19:04
  It's not necessarily a multivitamin because it has vitamins,
• 19:07
  minerals, and phytonutrients in it.
• 19:09
  Also, it is time delivered or separated. I take a specific one in the morning
• 19:15
  and a specific one in the evening.
• 19:16
  So I take this rise and reset system so that my body gets the ingredients that it needs.
• 19:24
  I also take a vitamin D and the dual synergizer, which I talked a lot about
• 19:29
  in the mitochondria episode.
• 19:30
  That dual synergizer activates my mitochondria. It helps my mitochondria be healthier.
• 19:37
  And then it also lowers oxidative stress, which is at the root of inflammation.
• 19:42
  That is what I personally do for my health. Now you might choose to support
• 19:46
  your body and your body's needs differently. You can find the links to anything
• 19:50
  I talk about down in the show notes or on the blog.
• 19:54
  There's one last thing you can do to help your thyroid, and that is to reduce endocrine disruptors.
• 20:00
  And I went into those on episode 32, talking about how to clean without screwing up your thyroid.
• 20:07
  Endocrine disruptors, so hormone disruptors, would include things like nonstick
• 20:11
  cookware, carpets, basically anything that has a coating to make your life easier
• 20:16
  actually makes your health more difficult.
• 20:20
  There's also endocrine disruptors in personal
• 20:23
  care products and actually lots and lots and
• 20:26
  lots of different things so head over and listen to episode 32
• 20:29
  if you want more information on that so that's
• 20:32
  the who what when where why how of your thyroid
• 20:36
  i hope this was helpful and i hope that you feel
• 20:39
  empowered to take that next step on your own health journey i hope that you
• 20:43
  have seen through this episode and other episodes that i've given you that you
• 20:48
  do not have to just like accept a diagnosis of Hashimoto's and then move on
• 20:54
  with your life, taking medications forever.
• 20:57
  You can take action to help your body do what it was supposed to do.
• 21:02
  Your body is always working to heal and restore. We just have to give it the tools.
• 21:07
  And sometimes we're not going to be able to heal and restore,
• 21:11
  but we can always be doing something to improve, to be giving our body what
• 21:15
  it needs to taking care of ourselves. You do have control.
• 21:19
  You can take another step on the path to health. You're not a victim to your
• 21:24
  genetics, but you can do something.
• 21:27
  I will see you next week. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
• 21:32
  Please be sure to discuss any concerns and plans with your trusted healthcare professional.