Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / 182 // Hashimoto's Healing Timeline: What to Expect and Why Progress Feels Slow [Interview with Dr. Jen Mann]

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182 // Hashimoto's Healing Timeline: What to Expect and Why Progress Feels Slow [Interview with Dr. Jen Mann] · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

• 0:00
  Have you ever felt like things are going so slowly?
• 0:02
  You're doing all of the right things, and yet you feel like you're not making any progress
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  in your Hashimoto's.
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  You feel like your autoimmune symptoms are just not resolving like you want them to.
• 0:14
  Today's guest is Dr. Jen Banch, a naturopathic doctor, and she's going to share with you
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  some of the timeline things, what to expect with Hashimoto's, what to expect as you figure
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  out your root causes, and as you address the things that you need to so that your body
• 0:30
  can heal.
• 0:31
  Welcome to the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.
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  This is where you will find clarity and simple, sustainable strategies to feel better.
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  I want to help you figure out your root causes.
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  My name is Esther Junkin.
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  I am a registered nurse.
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  I spent about 17 years in the emergency department, and then I got sick and tired of putting Band-Aids
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  on chronic things.
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  I went back to school, and now I have been in holistic health education for about 10
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  years.
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  I know how exhausting it is to live with fatigue, brain fog, and the ups and downs
• 1:00
  of Hashimoto's, and that is why I'm here.
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  I'm here to cut through the confusion and to give you practical steps that support your
• 1:07
  body and calm your immune system so that you can regain your energy and feel like yourself
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  again.
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  Today, I have a guest for you.
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  She has spent over 15 years working in both conventional and integrative medicine.
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  She has helped thousands of people uncover the root causes of their symptoms so they
• 1:24
  can truly heal.
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  Her passion for this work comes from her own story, years of exhaustion, anxiety, and brain
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  fog that eventually led to a diagnosis of Hashimoto's and endometriosis, and when
• 1:35
  she was told both were incurable, she refused to accept that as her fate.
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  Instead, she discovered holistic medicine, and now she helps others do the same.
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  Welcome, Dr. Zhen.
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  Tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 1:47
  Oh, thanks so much for having me.
• 1:50
  Yeah, so I'm a naturopathic doctor of noble wellness in San Francisco, and yes, exactly
• 1:56
  what you said.
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  I got into this work because of my own experience with not feeling well for so many years, and
• 2:04
  as you've described in your other podcasts, too, this whole journey of wanting to feel
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  good, knowing that I could feel good deep down.
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  There's something in me that always knew I wasn't fated to feel terrible and just push
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  through, that there's something more for me, and following that has really informed
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  me in my work, in how I work with clients, my purpose in being here, and the message
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  that I want people to have of the possibility of living into a higher level of existence
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  for themselves and for the people around them.
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  Were you already a doctor when you got your diagnoses?
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  Before I did naturopathic work, I was an environmental scientist at EPA, and I wanted
• 2:53
  to work more directly with people, and I just felt a calling to be a naturopathic doctor.
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  I fell in love with the philosophy of the medicine, something to it spoke so deeply
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  in me, and at the time, I was just pushing through in my life.
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  I just was kind of figured this is just how it is for me.
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  I'm a very willful person.
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  I just kept pushing through, and then my first year of naturopathic medical school, we had
• 3:19
  to go see a naturopathic doctor as part of our training.
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  So I went in and saw someone and told them how I'd been struggling with depression and
• 3:26
  suicidal thoughts and brain fog and fatigue for many years.
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  They tested my thyroid, and then I came back with a TSH around three, which is a very middle
• 3:35
  of the range TSH, and they're like, I think there's more to this, asked me to get my antibodies
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  done.
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  I did, and I came back positive, and I kind of couldn't believe it.
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  I couldn't believe it.
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  In a way, I tricked myself into thinking I was fine on some level, and then here was
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  like validation, like, oh, there was more to it than just me pushing through or just
• 3:58
  me working on my mindset or going to therapy or taking antidepressant.
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  There was something really physical happening, and I was like, oh, this explains a lot.
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  So how soon after figuring out that you had Hashimoto's, how soon were you able to turn
• 4:15
  things around?
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  I mean, that really awakened a whole thing in me because I had, on my mom's side of the
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  family, there's a ton of autoimmune disease.
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  So rheumatoid arthritis or you got aortic arthritis, and I saw what happens to people
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  with these illnesses and the discomfort and the disability that happens over time.
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  And then here I was with seeing these antibodies, and I was like, oh, wow, okay, I see where
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  that path goes.
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  That's not the path I want for myself.
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  And even within the naturopathic community, I was told, like, this is something you just
• 4:51
  have to live with.
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  Even in holistic medicine, you can get messages.
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  I think there's importance of always tuning to yourself and knowing what's possible for
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  you.
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  And then I started down the road.
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  But it took quite a while to sort through, honestly.
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  I implemented certain things, but I didn't notice much of a difference from an elimination
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  diet in the beginning, from implementing very basic lifestyle changes that I was doing.
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  I really, it was a longer road for me.
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  And I had to keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper, even into my clinical care in
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  discovering what was working for people as I started treating people in my own practice
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  and starting to do those things on me.
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  So it was quite a long road for me of putting all the different root cause and pieces together.
• 5:43
  Right.
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  I completely understand that.
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  I think a lot of women with Hashimoto's and men are in that same place.
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  They just feel like they keep digging deeper, and there's more layers and more pieces of
• 5:53
  the puzzle to put together.
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  And that can lead to a lot of overwhelm.
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  And then it also leads to feeling like you need to do every single thing perfect.
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  Like if I don't get all of those puzzle pieces correctly identified and correctly addressed,
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  then things aren't going to work.
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  How did you address that for yourself?
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  And how do you address that for your patients?
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  That feeling of overwhelm and perfection?
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  I think one of the biggest tools in this journey is having an attitude of curiosity.
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  So what can I discover about myself?
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  Oh, if I do this, what do I notice in my body or in my being?
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  Oh, for me, at first, it was like just getting off antidepressants was a huge deal.
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  And things that people told me I could not, I'd have to be on that medication forever.
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  So celebrating little victories that are actually really big victories as you go along.
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  And being curious and trying to bring some enjoyment to the process, I think is incredibly
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  helpful.
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  Yes.
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  Yeah.
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  Celebrating the small wins and not looking at all of the things, but just the next thing
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  in front of you.
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  Next piece that wants to open.
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  What's the next thing that I'm curious about and drawn to?
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  And not everyone, I tell people too, that not everyone gets to go on this journey.
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  This is a very specific learning in life that not everyone will have.
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  And to me, it's this deeper journey of how can I heal?
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  What is it to have a human body?
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  What is it?
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  You know, this flesh and all these biochemicals and all these processes that are going on.
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  Not everyone's going to get to learn about health, about their body as deeply as you
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  are if you're on this journey.
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  And there's something really powerful about that.
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  Something really exciting, curious, that is its own way of moving through life and
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  a learning that other people won't have.
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  So instead of having this angst about having the diagnosis, you're saying, let's flip it
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  around and be grateful because now we get to learn, explore and be curious.
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  I love that perspective.
• 8:13
  Yeah.
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  And I always tell people, too, it's like this illness was leading me to a better life.
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  The more I've gotten my health online and my stress under control, and it's shifted
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  my outlook and my understanding of life and diet and movement and the guts and hormones.
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  And there's so much that it's taught me and created in me, too.
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  So I didn't come to this right away.
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  This is not a meeting, you know, it's not to ignore the suffering or the difficulty
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  or the challenge, but there can be an attitude that's a little bit bigger or more holistic
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  in holding yourself on this journey.
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  Places there can be gratitude.
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  There's learning, there's openings and leaning into those is really useful.
• 9:05
  So when somebody comes to see you and they have a new diagnosis of Hashimoto's, where
• 9:10
  do you start with all of those different things?
• 9:12
  Mm hmm.
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  And I know you speak to this in your course and you're, of course, in your podcast, too,
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  is looking at root causes.
• 9:20
  So we know that thyroid issues show up as certain symptoms like the sluggishness or
• 9:28
  anxiety or depression or constipation or low metabolism.
• 9:33
  But with Hashimoto's in particular, we know that this is actually an immune issue.
• 9:39
  This is an autoimmune issue.
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  And so we want to treat it on the level of the immune system, not just chasing symptoms
• 9:46
  with the medication, which can help, but to really get to those root causes of what's
• 9:51
  creating that immune and autoimmunity issue and really going through the process with
• 9:58
  each person of what's the root cause for you.
• 10:04
  And with everyone, pretty much everyone, we start with food.
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  If you're eating foods that are activating your immune system day to day, hour to hour,
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  we're all eating all the time.
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  It's really hard to get ahead.
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  So getting the food piece first, figuring out your food intolerances to me is critical
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  to start stabilizing everything.
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  When you're working on food, do you start with an elimination diet or do you start with
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  the microbiome?
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  How do you make it easy?
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  Also, when we're working with people in root cause, we're looking at one thing at a time.
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  So it can be a habit like I want to work on the gut and the hormones and my thyroid medication
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  and the nutrients and food all at the same time, and that is overwhelming.
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  And I also find it's not how the body actually heals.
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  I think the body likes bite-sized chunks too.
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  When you do it more slowly too, you can start to notice the impact more deeply in your own
• 11:06
  body.
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  So if you're changing up five things at a time, which is not only overwhelming, but
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  I think it actually works better to go one piece at a time.
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  So you feel your connection with what you're doing.
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  You can notice the impact and then you get to carry that forward in terms of like, oh,
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  these are the things that really work for me or don't work for me.
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  So when we're doing an elimination diet, we're generally, that's the only thing we're focused
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  on in the moment.
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  Sometimes we're gathering labs or other things at the same time, but the elimination diet
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  is its own thing.
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  I say it's like a rite of passage.
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  We want to do it kind of once and do it well.
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  So you have that information moving forward.
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  And we'll generally have people take out the major food intolerances for a couple of weeks
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  and then add one thing back in at a time, one thing every few days.
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  So you can tell the impact.
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  So it takes people about four to six weeks to do.
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  And if that feels too hard, we have people just take one thing out at a time and then
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  test it.
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  Take another thing out for a couple of weeks and then test it.
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  So there's always ways that you can play with it and make it more doable.
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  That is good to know.
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  When you take one thing out, if they're going to do that, or, you know, even the full elimination
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  diet, do you take it out for four weeks and then retest?
• 12:31
  Or what is your protocol?
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  So let's say you're like, hey, I want to explore a gluten intolerance.
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  You take the gluten out fully for two weeks and then test.
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  Have a few sippings in a day and then monitor over the next three days.
• 12:47
  It's a very hard step.
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  I know when I was first told elimination diet, I was very resistant.
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  I did not want to change my diet.
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  And now I'm scared.
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  I don't know what I'm going to eat because you're restricting all of these things.
• 13:02
  But it's very, very helpful.
• 13:04
  I agree.
• 13:05
  Yeah.
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  And I think doing it in community, like we have group classes and different ways of people
• 13:13
  connecting as they're going through it so that there's other support.
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  When I went through all this, I was in school and I had this amazing group of friends and
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  we're all exploring our health together.
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  So we would share recipes and cook and we all did an elimination diet at the same time.
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  So it actually became more fun.
• 13:32
  That's awesome.
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  Fun is another key to this.
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  Like, oh, what foods are there that I can eat?
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  What recipes have I never tried before that I can try?
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  What is it like to go to the farmer's market and just buy a bunch of food from there and
• 13:47
  learn how to cook different vegetables?
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  So again, that like element of playfulness and curiosity and enjoyment helps a lot.
• 13:57
  How would you say stress and chronic burnout affect the hormones and the thyroid function?
• 14:03
  There's kind of a, maybe even a personality profile of people with Hashimoto's, myself
• 14:08
  included, can be very driven, perfectionistic, often really caring, carry a sense of responsibility
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  and I love this population.
• 14:22
  I love us.
• 14:23
  I love people like us, but the shadow side of that is that it can be perfectionistic.
• 14:33
  It can go to burnout, sometimes not attuned to what we really need and keep ourselves
• 14:38
  at the center, self-love.
• 14:41
  And so there is this, how do we work these things to our advantage?
• 14:50
  How do we go through the process of our healing in a way that doesn't keep us in the perfectionistic
• 14:56
  or the overwhelm or the overdrive that led us to this place to begin with?
• 15:03
  Any big tips for that?
• 15:05
  I completely agree.
• 15:06
  That is the profile that I fit into and that I have seen a lot with my clients too.
• 15:12
  A big one is get support, whether that's a coach, whether that's a support group, whether
• 15:19
  that's working with a naturopathic doctor or functional medicine doctor, partnering
• 15:24
  with someone and learning to receive support is incredibly helpful.
• 15:31
  And I love the fact that you did that elimination diet in the community too.
• 15:35
  So getting the professional support and also building a community of support, both ways
• 15:40
  to do that.
• 15:42
  And people around you that are wanting to create something different.
• 15:47
  This idea that these illnesses are incurable or untreatable is just totally wrong.
• 15:54
  So make sure you're also around people with that mindset and that desire too, that things
• 16:00
  can change, that you can be different, that your body can be different.
• 16:05
  Can you talk more about that?
• 16:06
  Because that is the message that we get from so many different fronts, that Hashimoto's,
• 16:11
  if you have it, you are a lifelong pharmaceutical patient, you're just going to have to get
• 16:15
  lab work every once in a while and adjust your dose of medication.
• 16:18
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  So in conventional medicine, really what they're offering you in terms of treatments, in terms
• 16:24
  of testing is what fits into that medical model.
• 16:29
  And that would be a specific diagnosis equates with a specific medication.
• 16:35
  And so all the diagnostics, all the treatments are in that paradigm that there has to be
• 16:41
  a medication to treat the illness.
• 16:47
  And there's very little look at education and lifestyle changes.
• 16:50
  It's pretty much medication, disease management model.
• 16:55
  And what's different in the holistic realm, naturopathic functional medicine is this idea
• 17:01
  that you as an individual are unique, that these illnesses are reversible, that there
• 17:09
  are techniques to do that through not just medication management, but through making
• 17:16
  lifestyle changes, changes to your diet, and looking at where did this come from to
• 17:21
  begin with, you probably weren't born with this, this isn't a congenital thing.
• 17:26
  This is something that came on.
• 17:28
  And we know in our society that this is becoming more and more common.
• 17:33
  And that says something to that there is some element of our environment that is activating
• 17:38
  this in us.
• 17:40
  So just as it can be activated, it can be deactivated.
• 17:45
  And that's what the healing process is.
• 17:48
  That's what all these looking at root cause like you talk about is so important.
• 17:53
  If you can address things at these root cause, you can not only make your thyroid feel better,
• 17:59
  but straighten out the immune system that causes to begin with, and then you're reversing
• 18:03
  the illness.
• 18:04
  So when I started, my antibodies were in the 300s.
• 18:08
  Now they're non detectable.
• 18:10
  I have another client, she started with me.
• 18:12
  Her antibodies were well over 1000, you know, very active antibodies.
• 18:18
  And three years later, non detect.
• 18:21
  So this is what's, this is normal in my world, and my practice that you see antibodies go
• 18:27
  down over time, that the disease becomes reversed, and that you just feel better and better and
• 18:34
  better.
• 18:35
  I love that.
• 18:36
  Thank you for sharing those stories.
• 18:37
  There is hope.
• 18:38
  There is hope.
• 18:39
  Mm hmm.
• 18:40
  Absolutely.
• 18:41
  And just as much as your body can go out of balance, it can come back into balance.
• 18:45
  What is the timeline that somebody could be looking at for healing?
• 18:51
  We know that you didn't get to this spot overnight.
• 18:55
  But I think we live in a microwave society, we want to see the results instantly.
• 19:00
  What's a realistic timeline for healing?
• 19:03
  So in my practice, we'll start with like an elimination diet, we'll start to look at nutrients,
• 19:08
  we'll order up blood work, get some gut tests going.
• 19:12
  So I'd expect at the three month mark for people to start noticing something.
• 19:18
  Maybe their energy is starting to get better, the brain fog is starting to clear, maybe
• 19:22
  their gut is starting to feel a bit better.
• 19:24
  Like there's something shifting in them at the three month mark.
• 19:28
  And then I see people really start to take off at the six month, nine month, one year
• 19:32
  mark.
• 19:34
  Antibodies, I find, trail this.
• 19:37
  So you might start feeling better, but the antibodies are still there.
• 19:41
  And I really notice a change in the immune system when you can get to like the two year,
• 19:46
  the three year mark of really taking care of your body and addressing root cause.
• 19:51
  So there's a bit of like a just being totally honest and realistic here.
• 19:56
  So people know they can feel very slow.
• 19:59
  But in the reality of what you're doing, of actually changing your immune system and
• 20:04
  your health in this deep way, it's actually very fast.
• 20:07
  It doesn't feel fast at the moment, but it is happening.
• 20:11
  That is really good to know because now people who are listening, they're hearing the message
• 20:16
  that if they don't feel better next month, and if their antibodies aren't down on the
• 20:21
  very next lab draw, it's not that they're failing, they're on the journey.
• 20:26
  And this is to be expected.
• 20:28
  They have some time to work with.
• 20:31
  Yes.
• 20:32
  And all that time that you're working on improving things, you're also not getting worse.
• 20:37
  So there's like a double improvement, right?
• 20:41
  We think like, oh, if I wasn't doing this, I would just stay the same.
• 20:44
  That's generally not true.
• 20:45
  If you're not doing this, you would probably be getting worse.
• 20:48
  So you're getting kind of a double improvement with that.
• 20:54
  And to know that as you heal, there is a natural up and down to it.
• 20:59
  So healing is not linear.
• 21:02
  It's not a straight line.
• 21:03
  I go from here to here.
• 21:05
  As you're going, you're probably going to be going up and down in how you feel.
• 21:10
  But the amount of time that you feel bad will generally be less.
• 21:14
  The amount of time that you flare can shorten or be less frequent.
• 21:19
  And so to also mindset wise, to not look at this as like I'm better or I'm not, but
• 21:25
  allow yourself to assess the gradients that you're better.
• 21:28
  Again, look for those victories like, oh, I flared, but I didn't flare for as long.
• 21:33
  Oh, you know, I was tired today, but I actually had a few hours this morning.
• 21:37
  I felt clear and good.
• 21:39
  Those are all things that you want to let into your system is like, yeah, I am improving.
• 21:44
  The more you can let that in, the more the body and the nervous system get used to that
• 21:49
  as a normal.
• 21:50
  And we'll do that more and more frequently.
• 21:53
  Tell us a little bit about how people can connect with you.
• 21:56
  You are a naturopath and you work in California, right?
• 21:59
  Yeah, we're in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• 22:01
  So we work with clients in California.
• 22:04
  So if you are wanting to connect one on one, if you're looking for a provider to work with
• 22:08
  in that more tailored care, we do that and we offer a free discovery call.
• 22:14
  You'll have the link I know in your show notes, great.
• 22:16
  And you can just click there and we can have a conversation and see if working together
• 22:20
  would be a good fit.
• 22:22
  Awesome.
• 22:23
  Do you do in-person visits in California or you telehealth or a mix?
• 22:28
  Yeah, we have a hybrid practice.
• 22:29
  So if you are in San Francisco or nearby, we can meet in person.
• 22:33
  But if you're anywhere in California, we can meet with you virtually.
• 22:37
  And the last question, if there's one thing you want somebody to take away from our conversation
• 22:42
  What is that one message that you want them to remember?
• 22:45
  Stay with it.
• 22:46
  Like really, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
• 22:50
  And stay with it and get support so that you can stay on that path and keep moving forward.
• 22:54
  This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
• 22:58
  Please discuss any changes with your trusted healthcare provider.
• 23:01
  To take your next step, join our school community and explore the courses available there.
• 23:05
  You do not have to figure your health out alone.
• 23:09
  That is school, S-K-O-O-L.com and it is the Health with Hashimoto's community.
• 23:14
  I'll see you next time on the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.