Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / 191 // How Amino Acids Support Your Brain, Gut, and Hashimoto's Progress ⎸ Interview with Laurie Hammer

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191 // How Amino Acids Support Your Brain, Gut, and Hashimoto's Progress ⎸ Interview with Laurie Hammer · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

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  If you have Hashimoto's and you feel like you're doing all the right things,
• 0:02
  but you still don't feel like yourself, there may be a missing piece.
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  And in this conversation with Lori Hammer, we're going to talk about the thyroid,
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  the brain, the gut, and even more importantly,
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  neurotransmitters, and how your body can stay stuck in stress mode,
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  which makes it harder to heal, no matter how clean you eat or how many supplements you try.
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  If you've been spinning your wheels, this conversation with Lori Hammer is going
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  to help you understand why and what to do next.
• 0:31
  Welcome to the Health with Hashimoto's podcast. This is where you will find
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  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 Yunkin. I am a registered nurse. I know how exhausting it
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  is to live with fatigue, brain fog, and the ups and downs 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.
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  Support your body, calm your immune system so that you can regain your energy
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  and feel like yourself again. I have Lori Hammer here today.
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  She is a functional nutritional therapist. She's the creator of the Calm Mom Method.
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  It is a science-based approach that helps women break free from chronic stress,
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  anxiety, and exhaustion, all things that we can definitely relate to as people
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  with Hashimoto's. Welcome, Lori.
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  Tell us a little bit about yourself. Hey, Esther, thank you so much for having
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  me. I love your podcast and I love what you're doing. You have an amazing mission.
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  I am, like you said, a functional nutritional therapist. I am also a wife, a mom, a grandma.
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  And I've been doing this for a very long time with amino acid therapy.
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  And I, I don't know, I love life. We have horses, dogs, cats,
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  rabbits. We have the whole gamut. Nice.
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  That is awesome. So tell us, you said amino acid therapy. Will you tell us what
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  is that and what got you started?
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  So amino acid therapy is using therapeutic doses of specific amino acids to
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  target very specific neurotransmitters in your body so that we can boost your mood.
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  So you can overcome anxiety, depression, OCD, all sorts of those things.
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  I discovered this back in 1996, so a long time ago. I'm 52, so it's been a while.
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  I had anxiety, depression.
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  I was in a 12-year battle with an eating disorder, so I was bulimic.
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  And I was introduced to amino acid therapy at that time as there was an outpatient
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  clinic that I ended up going to because I couldn't get into any inpatient clinics
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  because I didn't fit all their parameters.
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  So a friend of mine sent me an article on this place in Mill Valley,
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  California, and they did outpatient. And that was my first intro to functional
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  nutrition and most importantly, the amino acid therapy, because honest to goodness,
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  Esther, it really saved my life.
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  So once I could, the anxiety, the depression lifted with the amino acids and
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  the craving cycle stopped.
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  And then I wasn't on that hamster wheel of, you know, the bulimia anymore. And I got my life back.
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  That is amazing. So amino acids, they are part of our food, right?
• 3:04
  So when you say you tried amino acids, did they give you like whole foods or what happened?
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  No, these are supplements. So these were, we'll use tryptophan as an example.
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  Tryptophan is an amino acid. It targets your serotonin in your body.
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  And so a therapeutic dose of tryptophan would be like 500 milligrams to a thousand
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  milligrams, maybe higher. But you actually, when they trialed them on me,
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  they opened up the capsules, put them under my tongue, and we stared at each
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  other for a couple minutes and like, do you notice anything? Do you feel different?
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  And most of the time people do. And I still do that today. So we don't do urine
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  testing. We don't do blood testing.
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  I do the sublingual trialing with the amino acids. So we get an immediate effect.
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  So when you're done with that appointment with me, you know if they're going to work or not.
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  That's awesome. How many amino acids are there? There are 22 amino acids. Okay.
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  So you trial all 22? two? No, I send you a kit of nine.
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  Okay. Yeah. So we don't need to do all of them. We do the ones that are very specific to mood.
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  And, you know, rebalancing those. There's more that we could use,
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  but I find often we just don't need to.
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  Okay. So tell us more about autoimmunity and thyroid and how that,
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  what your work does related to that.
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  Yeah. So the goal of amino acid therapy is to, like I said, to nourish those
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  neurotransmitters, which calms the neurology in our body.
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  And so our nervous system communicates from head to toe, right?
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  So it helps our pituitary talk to our thyroid and to talk to our adrenal glands
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  and whatever it might be. So you have that whole signaling cascade.
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  When the neurology is calmer, that signaling cascade works better,
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  right? You have less hiccups.
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  So if we can calm the brain so that your body is calmer, that gives you more opportunity to heal.
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  So all of the herbals that you're doing, the dietary changes,
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  the gut healing, you can't really heal your gut if you're still anxious and
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  depressed and you're still having OCD thoughts, your ADHD.
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  If we can calm that down, do you know how much faster your gut heals?
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  Which then helps to heal your thyroid faster, right?
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  So, I mean, there's just so many different components to this,
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  but I feel like amino acids are just foundational.
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  It's pieces of protein, and you need it head to toe.
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  You need it to make your thyroid hormones. You need it for your enzymes,
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  your sex hormones, your hair, skin, and nails.
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  Your body needs amino acids from head to toe. Right.
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  So what I'm hearing is you need the amino acids.
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  When you find out what you're deficient in for amino acids or what's working
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  for you, everything else is going to work better physically,
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  but also because of your new mental state, then that's also going to cause more physical healing.
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  Yeah, absolutely. And if you're in counseling or anything, because a lot of
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  people are because we feel so crappy and sick and, you know,
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  counseling is easier. And then you might not have as much to work through as you thought you did.
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  That was my case. I realized I didn't have as much drama and trauma in my life.
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  Not that it discounted anything that I ever went through, but it was like, oh.
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  I can move through that. You know, like if your brain is balanced and you feel
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  good mentally, emotionally, you know, life can throw a lot of stuff at you.
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  There's never going to not be stress.
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  It's always going to be chemical, physical or emotional. It's just there.
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  It's just how does our body respond to it? So if we can fix the response,
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  I firmly believe we have less autoimmune conditions.
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  I firmly believe we have less mental health conditions. And that's what I see
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  all the time in my practice.
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  Right. What are some common mistakes that you see with women coming to you?
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  Um, well, let's just do foundational, right?
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  Not eating enough, not eating enough protein, like thinking like fasting is
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  huge right now. And I teach fasting. I love fasting.
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  I run fasting retreats and we fast too much, right?
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  Yeah. So we have, especially around our female cycles. So we need to learn how
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  to nourish ourselves according to our female cycles.
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  Another foundational mistake is we just don't get enough sleep.
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  So you have to nourish your body and part of that nourishment is with proper sleep.
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  So I teach my clients to set an alarm to go to bed so that you actually go to
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  bed at the same time every night so that you can get pretty much the same amount of sleep.
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  And it takes a while for those rhythms to shift. I know people will try it for
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  like a week and then they're like, oh, that doesn't work for me.
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  Okay, you got to give it at least 90 days because it's not going to happen in
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  a week because you've been doing this for so long.
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  So if we're going to go foundational, Esther, I would say those are the two
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  biggest things. We've got to get your sleep regulated and we have to get you nourished.
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  Right. When you're talking nourishment, is there like a ballpark that women
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  should aim for as far as grams of protein?
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  Yeah. I mean, minimum 80 to 100 grams. Some people need more than that,
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  depending on what's going on with you. But don't eat less than that.
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  Okay. And then I have heard, you know, conflicting things about fasting because it is big.
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  Everybody wants to push it. I read Dr.
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  Mindy Pels' book, Fast Like a Girl. Yes. And I love that book because I'm like,
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  oh, she's amazing. I love her to pieces. Yes.
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  You know, it's nice to hear that you're not broken. Like you tried fasting and
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  it didn't work. Well, this is why, because it was from a male perspective.
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  So how about women with Hashimoto's? What do they need to know about fasting?
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  Yeah. Again, pay attention to your rhythms. If you start slow, right?
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  Because you can still fast with Hashimoto's. You just really need to pay attention to your body.
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  And as fasting will heal your body like nothing else can. I can't give you all
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  the supplements that will do what fasting can do.
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  Like it's, it's just, we're created that way. God created our body.
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  The Bible talks about fasting.
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  He kind of, he expected us to fast. I mean, it just talks about that.
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  So, but it's fasting correctly.
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  So even with an autoimmune condition like Hashimoto's, like you could still fast.
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  Just pay attention to your energy levels, pay attention to your glucose levels.
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  Like you need to prep your body before you start fasting and just do it low and slow.
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  Like I have a whole course that teaches people, you know, over a course of six
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  weeks before you do a three day fast.
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  So we just prep the body so that, you know, it's not a shock and a stressor
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  to the symptoms, which then can make, you know, any autoimmune condition worse.
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  Tell us how stress hormones in the microbiome all interact for mood and energy and the immune system.
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  Yeah. So your microbiome produces a lot of, you know, neurotransmitters.
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  It produces a lot of your serotonin, like 80% of that is in your gut.
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  And so we could go down all of the, you know, what your gut does for your mood
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  and how that communication along the vagal nerve and, you know,
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  so many different pieces there, but it's all interconnected.
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  So we have to heal the gut. We have to heal the microbiome in order for everything
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  else to heal as well. So your thyroid or whatever it might be.
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  But I have found when you calm the neurology first, then that healing in the
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  gut gets easier. And then it's like, you know, it's just this beautiful dance
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  that your body gets to do if we do things in the right order.
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  Right. How do people access amino acids if they want to try it and they want
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  to heal their, you know, their brain?
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  Yeah, there's a lot of amino acid supplements out there. So I do supplementation.
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  I do therapeutic doses. So it's not just taking like a total aminos or something
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  like that. credits are perfect aminos.
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  I really want to target what symptoms that you're having so that we can get you some fast relief.
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  And that's where I use the individual amino acids. So like serotonin anywhere
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  from 500 to 2000 milligrams, one to four times a day.
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  Okay. Yeah. When you mentioned that, I have heard other people talk about Perfect
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  Aminos and those supplements.
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  So what's the difference between these at a therapeutic dose and those?
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  What's the difference? Yeah.
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  So like perfect aminos is it's the eight essential amino acids.
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  I think they're all essential.
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  So I hate that they do that. But nonetheless, that's science.
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  So there's just eight amino acids in there. And you just take like just it's
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  a proprietary dose, you know, so it's just, you know, foundational stuff.
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  The therapeutic dosing, like I said, is just targeted individual amino acids,
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  where I use, even if you wanted to do on your own, it's called Total Amino Solutions by Janessa.
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  And you can find that at infinityhealth.net.
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  And you could do some high doses of that. And that's all of the amino acids.
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  It's all 22 of them, which most people need anyway. So you might as well just
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  do start doing some foundational stuff. I'm thinking of somebody in my family,
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  a teenager, who does not have Hashimoto's, but does have some mood stuff that could use some calming.
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  Yeah. But he's a teenager, so he's not going to want to sit down and try each one.
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  Is trying each one the ideal or the only?
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  No, that's the ideal. So then we know what you're going to respond to.
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  Because we don't want to give you something you're not going to respond to.
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  If we're going to do it as therapy. But you could start him on the Total Amino
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  Solutions and just say, hey, take four of these a day and just kind of watch what happens.
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  It's just amino acids. Right? Do you take all four together or space them out throughout the day?
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  I mean, whatever they want to take. I mean, they're kind of big,
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  so maybe you want to space them out.
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  Okay. Yeah. When it comes to teenagers, it's just getting it whenever you can.
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  You know, you just get them in when you can. Yeah, exactly.
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  Helpful for humans, not just women with Hashimoto's. Yes. Yeah,
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  it's just humans in general.
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  Humans, it can use them on your pets, too. Let's just be honest.
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  They need the amino acids, too. So I use those on my pets.
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  Interesting. Is there anything specifically that you want women with Hashimoto's
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  to know about anything, but specifically the amino acids and calming things down?
• 12:39
  Yeah, just we need to learn to pay attention to nourishment in our body.
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  So no matter what condition you have, whether it's Hashimoto's,
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  celiac disease, you know, MS, whatever it might be, we have to go back to the
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  foundational principles.
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  So we can go down so many rabbit trails and a lot of them are good and valid
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  and, you know, it's fine.
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  However, most of the time we forget those foundations. And amino acids are the
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  foundation. Fatty acids are the foundation.
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  Hydration is the foundation. Sleep is the foundation. So let's go back to the
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  foundation and make sure we've got those things covered before we,
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  you know, we're diving deeper into all these things that don't work if the foundations aren't covered.
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  So you're not broken. You're probably just nutrient deficient, right?
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  And so let's fix those nutrient deficiencies and that is
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  the goal of amino acid therapy is to fix them and then teach
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  you how to maintain them so then then
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  we see what's left over because a lot of times there's not as
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  much left over that we still need to deal with because you just
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  nourished your body and then you started sleeping and it's amazing what happens
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  when you start sleeping a lot of times our sleep is disrupted because we're
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  nutrient deficient so unless you start working on you know some of those foundational
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  things it gets harder and then you're frustrated and you're like i've been working
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  on this thing for like two years, three years, 10 years,
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  whatever it might be. And I still don't feel amazing.
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  Let's go back to foundations. Let's assess them.
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  And then let's see what's still left
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  over. And if we've covered all those foundations, then we can dive deeper.
• 14:11
  Yeah. It's not talking about here's your dose of melatonin and here's your CBD.
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  It's fix the foundation because now you can sleep. And then when you're sleeping,
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  the other things are going to fall into place.
• 14:21
  Yes. And there's always going to be outliers, you know, where they're like,
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  I have really literally have tried everything and I'm still not sleeping well.
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  And, you know, there's still something that we haven't uncovered yet.
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  I don't know what those things are, but, you know, that's less than 10% of the people.
• 14:34
  Because your body is created to heal and to restore and to repair.
• 14:38
  God made our bodies so amazing. So amazing. We remove those interferences, then it can heal.
• 14:44
  Yeah, absolutely. Lori, how can people connect with you?
• 14:49
  Oh, yeah. So on every single social channel, you can find me at Take Back My
• 14:53
  Brain, whether it's my podcast, YouTube, Instagram, whatever.
• 14:56
  You can message me. I love receiving messages on Instagram if you have a question.
• 15:00
  So go there, follow me and message me.
• 15:02
  You can go to my website, LoriHammer.com. There's lots of resources and stuff
• 15:07
  on there as well. And you can schedule a free consult with me there, too.
• 15:10
  All right. I'll definitely have those links down in the show notes.
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  Do you work with people all across the world? I do. Yes. I have people in other countries too.
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  Fantastic. If there's one thing somebody can remember from our conversation
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  today, what is the biggest message you want them to remember?
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  God created your bodies in His image. And when we remove those interferences, then our body can heal.
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  And then we're able to better express who he created us to be.
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  And nobody's meant to live in sickness.
• 15:42
  That's not his plan for you. Don't stop seeking that healing.
• 15:47
  This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
• 15:51
  Please discuss any changes with your trusted healthcare provider.
• 15:54
  To take your next step, join our school community and explore the courses available there.
• 15:58
  You do not have to figure your health out alone. So that is school,
• 16:03
  S-K-O-O-L.com, and it is the Health with Hashimoto's community.
• 16:07
  I'll see you next time on the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.