Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / 095 // How Esther Avoided a Hashimoto's Flare Up

Transcript

095 // How Esther Avoided a Hashimoto's Flare Up · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

• 0:00
  Welcome to episode 95 of the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.
• 0:04
  On this podcast, for the last 95 plus episodes, because I've done some bonus episodes,
• 0:09
  every single time I give you simple and sustainable things that you can do to
• 0:13
  identify and address the root causes of your Hashimoto's, because nobody wants
• 0:18
  to be sick, nobody has time to be sick.
• 0:20
  We need our thyroids working well, we need our immune systems working well,
• 0:24
  because we have lives to live, right? So that's what I give you on this podcast.
• 0:30
  And if you have not left a rating and review, would you do that before we hit 100 episodes?
• 0:35
  Ratings and reviews really do help the podcast platforms push this episode or
• 0:42
  push this podcast out to more people.
• 0:44
  And it is my goal to reach so many more people who have thyroid problems and
• 0:49
  Hashimoto's because they need hope.
• 0:51
  They need hope. they need to know that there is something that they can do.
• 0:56
  And there are simple things.
• 0:57
  You know, you go online and everything is so overwhelming. It's so confusing.
• 1:01
  Everything contradicts everything else. You just don't know where to turn.
• 1:04
  And through this podcast and through the app, the Health with Hashimoto's app,
• 1:10
  and through my course, I want people to know that it can be simple.
• 1:14
  You can have simple and sustainable things to do for your health.
• 1:18
  So if you haven't left a rating and review yet, please do that.
• 1:22
  And I would also love to hear your stories of how things have changed for you
• 1:28
  over the first 100 episodes.
• 1:30
  Obviously, this is episode 95, so you don't know what the next five are,
• 1:34
  but I would love to hear your stories so that maybe I can share them or just so that I can know them.
• 1:40
  Love that. So today I'm going to share about how I prevented my own Hashimoto's flare.
• 1:47
  And I know the, is it FDA or FTC or FCC or whatever, you know,
• 1:52
  those initialed government agencies, they say that you can't talk about preventing,
• 1:57
  curing, or what's the other one? Diagnosing maybe?
• 2:02
  You can't do those. And so I can't tell you that I prevented it.
• 2:07
  But what I can say is that for the last, I don't know, three or four winters,
• 2:12
  I have had a flare every single year.
• 2:15
  And that is actually what drove me to find out like what is going on, I needed help.
• 2:20
  And that's how I found out that I had Hashimoto's. And I made some progress,
• 2:24
  but I still had that flare.
• 2:26
  And then the next winter, I did some more stuff. And this winter,
• 2:30
  I had like teeny tiny hints that one was trying to start.
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  And then I increased what I was doing.
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  So I can tell you definitively, I did not have a flare up this winter,
• 2:40
  whereas the last multiple I have.
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  So you take that for what it is. I believe in my own mind that I prevented it.
• 2:49
  But legally, I cannot say that.
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  And I can also not tell you that there was one specific thing.
• 2:56
  Because if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time,
• 2:59
  or if you've gone through the free Hashimoto's Decoded course,
• 3:02
  course which helps you figure out the main causes for Hashimoto's and why you
• 3:08
  might have it and what to do.
• 3:10
  If you've gone through that, you know that there's a lot of different things
• 3:13
  that all contribute to somebody's Hashimoto's journey and to their healing.
• 3:19
  So there's not one thing, but I can tell you that I did a whole lot of things
• 3:24
  and I did not have a flare this year.
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  So if you want to hear my earlier stories, it is episodes 27 and 28 when I talk
• 3:32
  about what is a Hashimoto's flare and what do you do if you're in one?
• 3:38
  And so today in episode 95 is the follow-up. It's what I did and what worked,
• 3:44
  and I am thrilled to pieces that it worked.
• 3:46
  So first, a quick recap of those two episodes. Number one, what is a flare?
• 3:50
  It is when your your Hashimoto's symptoms flare up when they get worse.
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  And this could be like they get worse and then they stay worse,
• 3:58
  or it could be like a match flares up and then it goes down.
• 4:01
  It could be either one of those, but a flare is a worsening of your symptoms.
• 4:06
  And my own symptoms, my own flare, it was primarily in my skin.
• 4:13
  It started in my legs the first year, and then it spread and it was on all extremities.
• 4:18
  It was on my trunk a little bit.
• 4:21
  Thankfully, it was not on my face. It was red, angry, looked kind of like psoriasis,
• 4:27
  if you're familiar with that, kind of scaly.
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  And it was painful, burning, itchy. it was horrible.
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  I would have like sweat going down the back, down my back because it was so
• 4:43
  uncomfortable at times.
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  I was completely distracted at other times.
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  And even when I wasn't completely distracted by pain, it was always present,
• 4:52
  that pain, burning and itching. It was horrible.
• 4:56
  My husband would get frustrated, not at me, but on my behalf,
• 5:00
  like because I was clearly severely so uncomfortable and interfered with everything.
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  It interfered with my, like, being
• 5:09
  a wife, being a mom, being a homeschool teacher, being a business owner.
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  It interfered with every single aspect of life.
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  And if you have Hashimoto's, you know what that's like.
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  Having something, having symptoms, whatever your symptoms are,
• 5:24
  having them interfere with your life is horrible. And I don't wish it on anybody.
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  Now, I did have other symptoms as well, but the skin was the first thing that I noticed.
• 5:34
  The other ones were like more gradual, like, you know, being really tired,
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  a little bit of depression.
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  Now was the depression because I was insanely itchy and painful or was it the
• 5:45
  Hashimoto's or was it both?
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  I don't know, probably both, but I was miserable.
• 5:50
  I was miserable. So that was my experience. And like I said.
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  I first went to find help to figure out what was going on.
• 6:00
  And that's how I found out that I had Hashimoto's. And then I did everything I could on my own.
• 6:05
  So step one of me preventing my own flare this year was I looked for patterns.
• 6:12
  I noticed, obviously, that it was every winter, like probably October,
• 6:17
  November, I would start to have symptoms.
• 6:19
  And then in April-ish, they would gradually go away.
• 6:24
  So I knew it was something winter related. Now, I did not know,
• 6:28
  was it my vitamin D level because it's winter? Was it the cold?
• 6:32
  Was it the dry air in the house? I didn't know. I tried to address every single one of those.
• 6:39
  We got whole house humidifiers. I got a humidifier for next to my bed,
• 6:43
  the dry air. So that was, you know, check.
• 6:46
  We did that. As far as the cold outside, I live in Minnesota. It's going to be cold.
• 6:51
  I also live in a house full of males.
• 6:54
  And physiologically, males run warmer than females.
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  And then when you throw Hashimoto's into the mix too, well, you know,
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  I'm not going to heat the house so that the other five members of my household
• 7:05
  are uncomfortable and dying of heat.
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  So I bought a whole bunch of long johns. I bought a whole bunch of sweatshirts.
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  I had, you know, fleece pants, although I was also trying to to do natural fibers.
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  So doing all of this stuff for warmth while also trying to be skin friendly, I was doing all of that.
• 7:23
  So cold weather, check, addressed that.
• 7:26
  And then the vitamin D, I got my labs checked and I increased my vitamin D supplementation
• 7:32
  because I was not up to the level that I wanted.
• 7:34
  My goal was around 80 and I was not there yet.
• 7:38
  I think when I initially checked it, I was maybe in the 20s or maybe...
• 7:43
  High teens. I can't remember, and I don't know. My lab is pulled up right now.
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  So those were the first things I did. The first things was looking for patterns
• 7:51
  and addressing what was obvious to me. Well, none of those worked.
• 7:55
  And that's really around the time when I first was seeking help.
• 8:01
  I was doing all of those things. So then when I found out that I had Hashimoto's
• 8:05
  and that I had thyroid problems, then I also started addressing the root causes causes of Hashimoto's.
• 8:12
  Specifically, I was addressing my inflammation, my overall inflammation.
• 8:17
  My detox pathways, because I wanted to make sure that I was getting out all
• 8:21
  the chemicals or anything that was in me that wasn't supposed to be.
• 8:25
  I was helping my liver because your thyroid is hormone related.
• 8:30
  Of course, it's putting out hormones and your liver processes all of the hormones
• 8:34
  in your body or the majority of them.
• 8:36
  So I really wanted to support my liver. I also started to address my collagen
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  because as somebody with an autoimmune problem,
• 8:45
  I automatically know that I have a gut component to what's going on.
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  Now, what does that have to do with collagen?
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  Well, one of my friends who is a chiropractor, she describes it this way.
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  She says 90% of your body is made up of tissues and 90% of those tissues are made up of collagen.
• 9:04
  So you have a lot of of collagen. It's not just hair, skin, and nails that rely
• 9:10
  on good amounts of collagen.
• 9:12
  It's, you know, of the 90% of your body that's made of tissue,
• 9:16
  it's 90% of that. So it's a lot.
• 9:18
  It's also really important for your gut. And your gut is very important when
• 9:25
  you have an autoimmune condition.
• 9:26
  If you have an autoimmune condition, you have something with your gut.
• 9:30
  Even if you you don't feel like it, there is a gut component.
• 9:33
  So I started addressing my collagen.
• 9:37
  There are a billion kajillion collagen products on the market. You know that, right?
• 9:42
  Well, I started taking the first, and as far as I know, the only one on the
• 9:47
  market that activates your own body to produce collagen.
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  It also replenishes. It has 10 different types of collagen, which is the most
• 9:57
  I've found on any supplement collagen.
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  And it also stops your body from breaking down the collagen.
• 10:04
  I have not seen any other collagens on the market that do all of those three things.
• 10:09
  In fact, I've only heard of one other one that might activate your own body to produce collagen.
• 10:16
  And when I went digging into it, I could not find the science and the studies to back up their claim.
• 10:21
  So I started taking a collagen that, like I said, it activates my own body to
• 10:26
  produce more, it replenishes and it maintains.
• 10:30
  I started doing that to support my tissues because obviously my skin was my
• 10:35
  number one symptom. So I wanted to address the skin itself.
• 10:38
  And I also wanted to address the gut component.
• 10:41
  So I did all of that and I still wasn't a hundred percent. I was still so frustrated.
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  So number one, I looked for patterns, tried to address them.
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  Number two, I addressed my own root causes once I identified them.
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  And then it was time for number three, because I still wasn't making progress
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  or I was making progress.
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  I just wasn't, you know, I was still in pain. I was still itchy. It was still a problem.
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  And it was late last winter. So almost spring when I made an appointment with
• 11:12
  a new nurse practitioner, she was new to me. She's been a nurse practitioner for many years.
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  And so what I was doing here is I was expanding my team. I have told you on
• 11:22
  this podcast before that you are the CEO of your own health.
• 11:26
  That means you are in charge. You are the ultimate decision maker.
• 11:30
  It's also your job as the CEO to build your like,
• 11:35
  board of directors. You want people who are experts in their field helping you
• 11:41
  make the best decisions.
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  And I knew it was time to expand my board of directors for my health.
• 11:46
  So I looked and I found a nurse practitioner who seemed that she had values very aligned with mine.
• 11:54
  I knew that she would help me look for a root cause, even though she is not
• 11:57
  technically technically functional medicine.
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  She had that vibe in her bio. And I was like, yes, she's somebody who I can
• 12:06
  at least go see for the first visit.
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  We clicked. It was amazing. She really was helping me.
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  So when I expanded my board of directors and I brought her on to help me, that was step three.
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  And she looked at everything with fresh eyes.
• 12:22
  And I really needed that fresh perspective. It was so nice to not be relying
• 12:27
  on just my own thoughts and my own research, but to have an expert coming alongside me.
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  So she looked and she heard my whole story.
• 12:35
  She looked at my labs. She had me do some additional labs and she recommended a couple of things.
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  She wanted me to do more anti-inflammatory stuff with my diet.
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  She also wanted me to drastically increase my vitamin for a short amount of
• 12:52
  time because she wanted it up between 80 and 100.
• 12:56
  My goal was around 80 and she wanted it a little higher.
• 12:59
  So she said, you know, since there's
• 13:01
  a winter pattern, let's check your vitamin D and try to get that up.
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  So we tried both of those things. And then she also prescribed a medication
• 13:10
  that I don't think I have talked about before on any of the 95 episodes.
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  And it is L-D-N.
• 13:17
  Oh, this reminds me. Did you hear last episode when I paused my recording so
• 13:23
  that I could look up how to pronounce T3 and then I must have got distracted
• 13:29
  and I forgot to tell you how to pronounce T3?
• 13:32
  So T3 is the three molecules of iodine on the thyroid hormone.
• 13:38
  And so it starts with tri, T-R-I, because of course that means three.
• 13:41
  And it's a really long word. And it just cracked me up and made me a little
• 13:46
  embarrassed when I was listening to the podcast.
• 13:48
  And I was like, oops, I forgot to come back and tell you how to say that.
• 13:50
  It is triiod, oh goodness.
• 13:54
  And this is why I had to pause because I couldn't, I couldn't say it just like, it doesn't flow.
• 14:01
  Triiodothyronine Isn't that a tongue twister?
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  Triiodothyronine. That's T3. Now you know. Okay, I distracted myself from LDN.
• 14:12
  I was going to tell you about LDN.
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  Now, LDN stands for low-dose naltrexone.
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  Naltrexone is something that the medical
• 14:21
  community will give to alcoholics and
• 14:24
  opioid addicts to get them off of that stuff because it takes away the high
• 14:29
  it it makes it so that you don't get what you're looking for from the from the
• 14:35
  drugs or the alcohol but what they found when they were giving people these
• 14:39
  high doses or regular doses of naltrexone that as they weaned them off.
• 14:45
  They were having autoimmune and pain improvements at the very low doses.
• 14:51
  So now there is an off-label use for LDN. The L and D stand for low dose.
• 14:57
  So LDN or naltrexone at a very low dose is given for autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto's.
• 15:06
  And because this drug is approved for other uses like, you know,
• 15:11
  alcoholism and opioid addiction, giving it in a very low dose is considered
• 15:17
  off label, and there is not a lot of published literature.
• 15:21
  But if you go to Paloma Health, which is a thyroid-specific medical community,
• 15:28
  they say that LDN works as an immune modulator.
• 15:33
  It changes the function of your immune system a little bit, and it helps reduce
• 15:39
  inflammation, and it can also help increase endorphins.
• 15:44
  They say that it might positively affect your mood and your quality of life.
• 15:49
  It also seems to be associated with reduced thyroid antibodies,
• 15:56
  improved energy levels, better sleep quality, reduced depression,
• 16:01
  and like I already said, reduced inflammation.
• 16:04
  So that is why LDN has been used for Hashimoto's.
• 16:09
  So my nurse practitioner said, let's try LDN.
• 16:12
  And then we both kind of got a laugh out of it because I was talking to her.
• 16:18
  Like I said, in the very late winter.
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  And she said, we're not going to know if what I'm telling you works.
• 16:24
  We're not going to know if what I'm prescribing and the lifestyle changes that
• 16:29
  I am telling you to do, we're not going to know if they work because you always
• 16:33
  get better in the spring.
• 16:34
  We're not going to know until a year from now.
• 16:37
  So I started on that journey. I was so thankful to have her on my side as my
• 16:43
  advisor and to help me work through this.
• 16:45
  And now a year later, I can tell you that it is working. It worked.
• 16:51
  So doing the different things that I was doing, addressing the patterns,
• 16:55
  trying to stay warm, humidifying the house, things like that,
• 16:57
  addressing my own root causes, absolutely was beneficial.
• 17:02
  And then partnering with somebody who had expertise that was beyond me and who
• 17:08
  could prescribe, that was also helpful.
• 17:10
  So a combination of all of those things. And I went into the winter still a little nervous.
• 17:16
  And then my legs started to have a little bit of that skin stuff that I noticed.
• 17:22
  And so I contacted my nurse practitioner. We talked again and she increased
• 17:26
  my LDN dose just a smidge.
• 17:29
  It's still a very low dose, you know, to stay with the L and D low dose,
• 17:35
  but it was a little bit more and it worked.
• 17:39
  I had no symptoms. I did notice that if I tried to stop taking my LDN,
• 17:46
  then my skin would start to flare up.
• 17:49
  So I knew that that was key for me.
• 17:52
  I also knew that the other things I was doing, I had to continue doing them
• 17:56
  because they made a difference back before I started the LDN.
• 18:00
  So like I said, there's not one thing that I was doing.
• 18:03
  There's not one thing that you're going to do that's going to make the difference.
• 18:07
  It's a collaboration collaboration of so many different things,
• 18:11
  because you are a whole person, body, mind, spirit, diet, environment,
• 18:15
  and they all come together to create your health, and they all interact with each other.
• 18:21
  So you really have to address everything, even though you can do it simply.
• 18:25
  You can do simple and sustainable things.
• 18:28
  So that is my story. That is how I believe that I prevented my own Hashimoto's
• 18:35
  flair this year, and I am so grateful.
• 18:38
  Oh my goodness. I had my life back. I could concentrate.
• 18:42
  I could go through my day without constant pain and burning and itching.
• 18:47
  I was going without fatigue. I had so much more energy this year because, well, of everything.
• 18:54
  My energy honestly has been improving since I got my diagnosis and started making changes.
• 19:00
  So several years I have seen an increase in my energy.
• 19:03
  Absolutely that was not just related
• 19:07
  to the flare but like I said a flare is
• 19:10
  just an acting up of the symptoms and so everything went down
• 19:13
  and I am so grateful and I want that for you I want you to also have your life
• 19:19
  back because it's so nice so wonderful to have a good winter versus what I have
• 19:27
  experienced over the last couple so if you have not taken the Hashimoto's Decoded
• 19:31
  course yet But remember,
• 19:32
  step two in my process was figuring out my own root causes.
• 19:36
  If you have not figured out your root causes and figured out simple ways to
• 19:41
  address them, sign up for the free app.
• 19:44
  It's the Health with Hashimoto's app. There'll be a link down in the show notes.
• 19:47
  But if you're on Apple, you can search for Health with Hashimoto's in the app
• 19:51
  store, and it's right there. Android, you have to click the link down below.
• 19:54
  And in the app, there is the free Hashimoto's Decoded course. Take that course.
• 19:59
  It'll only take you an hour if you binge it so that you can figure out your
• 20:04
  own root causes and you can figure out what to do.
• 20:07
  And then if you want help to do the do's, that's what the holistic Hashimoto's course is for.
• 20:13
  And that is also within the app. All right, so that's a couple different things
• 20:17
  for you to do. Number one, I asked if you would leave me a rating and review.
• 20:21
  Two, I asked if you would share your experience of how this podcast has helped
• 20:26
  you over the last, over the first 100 episodes.
• 20:28
  And then three, I told you to get the app and go through Hashimoto's Decoded.
• 20:34
  That's three different things.
• 20:35
  And they say when you're doing a podcast, you're only supposed to tell people to do one thing.
• 20:39
  So I guess if you can only pick one of those things, do the one that's going
• 20:42
  to impact your health. Go through Hashimoto's Decoded.
• 20:46
  And I will see you back here for more episodes of Health with Hashimoto's.
• 20:51
  This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only,
• 20:54
  please discuss any concerns and plans with your trusted healthcare professional.
• 20:58
  If you found this episode helpful, will you please share it with a friend?
• 21:02
  I'll see you next week on the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.
• 21:04
  Music.