In this episode, I share how trauma may affect thyroid health and why addressing it could open new doors for healing when efforts seem to no avail. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here [1].
Dr. Eric Osansky:
Did you know that stress from years ago can still affect your body today? Could these unresolved experiences from the past be part of why your thyroid antibodies refuse to decrease?
Whenever someone joins my 1:1 program, I ask someone to rate their stress levels and their stress handling, which I realize isn’t always easy to do. But the truth is, even if someone currently rates their stress levels as being low, and they feel they do a great job of managing their stress, past stressors and traumas from many years ago can sometimes hold them back from healing.
This just isn’t related to the impact of stress on adrenals. Yes, without question, this can be a factor. I have spoken about this many times, including my personal experience. Stress and past traumas can also have numerous other consequences, which of course, I’ll discuss in this episode.
It’s one of the hardest realities of thyroid autoimmunity. Sometimes, the roadblock to healing isn’t what you’re eating or related to high toxic burden or a gut infection, but the body’s memory of traumatic events. Don’t get me wrong, these other factors are important. Many times, it is related to what someone is eating or a high toxic burden or a gut infection. To be honest, you often have multiple triggers, not just one thing.
The point is, old patterns of stress and trauma can keep the nervous system on high alert. When this happens, the immune system can stay overactive. The challenge is that thyroid antibodies won’t decrease, and most doctors don’t ask about trauma. I have been guilty of this in the past. This can leave you feeling like your story is being reduced to a lab number, just looking at your thyroid panel and the antibodies. As we both know, most medical doctors, including endocrinologists, won’t look at antibodies to begin with. If they do test for antibodies, they are not looking to do things to decrease antibodies.
In this episode, I want to talk about the connection between unresolved stress and trauma and the potential impact they have on thyroid antibodies.
I also want to add that one of the reasons I am focusing on this topic now is because I have been going through a series of nervous system retraining modules recently, specifically for practitioners, which along with having Dr. Evan Hirsch on the podcast not too long ago, this really has opened up my eyes to the power of nervous system retraining.
This doesn’t mean that everyone needs nervous system retraining. If someone hits a roadblock in their recovery, it’s something to consider. We will talk more about this.
This is also a time to consider additional functional medicine testing. Sometimes, it’s challenging to know which direction to go in. Should you do more functional medicine testing? Should you do nervous system retraining?
Let’s start by discussing the stress-immune connection. Chronic fight or flight changes, cortisol patterns can cause inflammation. That can affect immune activity. This is one reason why antibody levels can remain elevated even when diet and, I don’t want to say “basic”, lifestyle changes are in place. Chronic stress can definitely have a big impact.
If they are eating well, and they are blocking out time for stress management, and seem to be doing a good job there, they are getting sufficient sleep, it could be something else, like gut infections or increased toxic burden. Again, it could also be related to chronic stress and trauma specifically.
Both chronic stress and trauma can negatively affect the adrenals. Chronic stress and trauma can also negatively affect the gut microbiome. If you have listened to me before, you realize the importance of the gut microbiome in all chronic health conditions, especially if someone has thyroid autoimmunity, any autoimmunity really. You need a healthy gut for a healthy immune system. One of the big reasons is because most of the immune system cells are located in the gut microbiome. Approximately 70-80%.
Also, chronic stress and trauma can dysregulate the nervous system. The nervous system controls everything in the body. The nervous system controls the thyroid gland, innervates the gastrointestinal tract, the immune system. You really want to have a healthy immune system.
Many listening to this probably have heard of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is extremely important. Definitely gets affected in chronic stress. The vagus nerve is also important for gut health. I have spoken many times about chronic stress. I think that many listening to this already are familiar with chronic stress. It’s the difference between chronic stress and trauma.
Let’s talk about this now. Can trauma truly be the reason why someone with Graves’ or Hashimoto’s isn’t healing? That’s the question behind this episode. I have had numerous people on the podcast. I mentioned Dr. Evan Hirsch, who wasn’t focusing on trauma, but on more complex conditions, like toxic mold and Lyme and bartonella.
I also had Dr. Aimie Apigian on the podcast a couple years ago. She has a lot of experience when it comes to dealing with stored trauma. When I had her on, and I looked this up, because my memory is not that amazing, and I am quoting her here, “When it comes to these chronic diseases, especially autoimmune, all autoimmune conditions fall under the category of being trauma-related, not stress-related.” That brings up the question: What is the difference between trauma and stress?
She says that we need to redefine trauma because we may look back, and I may look back and say, ‘Well, I haven’t really had trauma. I relate to being stressed, not traumatized.’ That’s me. I don’t think I was traumatized. There have been some traumas, but I wouldn’t say chronically. If someone dies unexpectedly, that’s traumatic. That could dysregulate your immune system. There are other more long-standing traumas that happen over a period of months and years, abusive situations for example. I don’t think that was my situation in the past. You don’t have to have that type of situation.
Dr. Aimie Apigian went on to say that many people are being diagnosed with stress and even chronic stress when they should be diagnosed with dealing with trauma. They are in the trauma response. Your body is chronically in a trauma response, not a stress response.
What is the difference? She goes on to explain. You could go back and listen to the episode. She says the stress response is when you don’t want to go to bed because you’re actively having a problem and want to solve it. You’re taking action to solve it. That’s the example she gave.
For example, we have all had a situation where we go to bed, and we had a stressful event. Maybe it’s not a single event, but something stressful lately. Maybe financially, things have been tough, or your job has been tough. You are having difficulty falling asleep because it’s on your mind, and you’re stressed out.
The trauma response, according to Dr. Aimie, is when things feel like they have been too much, and all you want to do is go to bed, and you don’t want to get out of bed.
Like a fight or flight response, where the person is going to fight the stressor, whereas the trauma response is, “I’m done fighting. I don’t have the energy to fight anymore.”
She goes on to explain that the person may still go through the motions because the person still has responsibilities. They have a job, kids, a partner. They still have things to do. Pretty much they are just going through the motions rather than experiencing aliveness, energy, joy, and feeling like you actually are present and engaged.
I am not going to keep on quoting Dr. Aimie because you can go back and listen to the episode. The point is that many people know that they have past traumas. You might be listening to this and thinking, “You don’t have to tell me the difference between stress and trauma. I have dealt with past traumas.” Maybe that’s a reason why you’re not responding the way you should.
Then there are some people who, just like me, I look back. We have all had stressors. We have had quick traumas, acute traumas, like someone dying unexpectedly. There is more than that as far as how a traumatic experience affects us. Not everybody is going to feel like, “I can’t get out of bed because of this trauma.” We have to function. Some people certainly feel like that.
That brings us back to the question: How do you know when to choose between doing additional functional medicine testing and maybe looking into something such as nervous system retraining for those stubborn antibodies that just won’t decrease? Or maybe they decrease, but they’re decreasing very gradually, and it seems like at this rate, they are taking forever to decrease.
The truth is autoimmunity is challenging. Even non-autoimmune conditions, like toxic multinodular goiter, this information can also relate to you as well. Past trauma can also affect your healing, even if you have a non-autoimmune thyroid condition.
When it comes to functional medicine testing, I have always been one who incorporates functional medicine testing since dealing with Graves’ back in 2008. This doesn’t mean I go overboard with testing.
As many of you know who have listened to me for a while, when I dealt with Graves’, I didn’t go crazy with testing. I did adrenal saliva tests. I do hair mineral analysis testing. I know that’s controversial, but I find it to have value. Of course, I recommend comprehensive blood testing. That’s what I did. I can’t say I did a lot of testing.
Let’s say if someone else goes through that, and if they hit a roadblock in their recovery, then we might want to retest. If their adrenals were in the tank, like mine were, I did do a retest of my adrenal saliva test because my cortisol was low, my DHEA was low, my secretory IgA was low. Thankfully, when I retested, almost everything looked good. My secretory IgA was still low, and I had to work to improve that.
Let’s say if someone retests, and everything looks good. Maybe for whatever reason, retesting isn’t the best option, and we want to do something different. With the person whose antibodies aren’t decreasing, do we recommend additional functional medicine tests, like a comprehensive stool test or organic acids testing or something else, or do we consider nervous system retraining?
Again, it really does depend on the person. This is why we also want to do a health history, which just about every practitioner does. I wouldn’t say it’s wrong to do either one. Sometimes, you just don’t know because many times over the years, if someone hasn’t been progressing, and I recommend additional testing, and then we find some answers, and then we find something we’re missing, and then the person from that point progresses, and their antibodies decrease and eventually normalize. There are times where that doesn’t happen.
We do some additional testing, and maybe we don’t find anything significant. Maybe we’ll find something that seems significant, recommend a protocol, and the antibodies don’t improve. That can be very frustrating to the patient and the practitioner. As a practitioner, we want to see people get better. We don’t want to keep doing testing and not seeing the antibodies improve.
If someone is in a position where maybe they don’t have a lot of money to spend on functional medicine testing, maybe look into nervous system retraining, even if they don’t think it’s a past trauma. Sometimes, we don’t know. Sometimes, we might dismiss past trauma.
Nervous system retraining, a lot of things can affect the vagus nerve. It is tied into our parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest and digest system. We want to be in a more parasympathetic state.
To be fair, we could just start out by incorporating some vagus nerve exercises such as vigorous gargling, hot and cold showers, singing loudly. I am pretty sure I have spoken about this previously. If not, if you visit NaturalEndocrineSolutions.com and type in “vagus nerve exercises,” I did write an article related to this. You can do that.
I am recommending for everyone to block out time for stress management. Incorporating vagus nerve exercises also isn’t a bad idea, and it won’t hurt. It won’t hurt to do nervous system retraining. Sometimes, you will have something holding you back that is not a dysregulated nervous system. It might be something in the gut. It might be something else where you need functional medicine testing, not nervous system retraining.
I know I am not giving a clear answer, but that is because there isn’t a clear answer. That’s why it’s a good idea to work with someone. Even working with someone, if someone reaches that point where their thyroid antibodies aren’t decreasing, maybe the right answer for one person is to do additional functional medicine tests and find additional answers. For another person, it might be to try some nervous system retraining.
You could of course start off with some simple practices, not just vagus nerve exercises, but some simple deep breathing, journaling, emphasizing small, safe steps initially. I mentioned nervous system retraining. You could work with someone like Dr. Aimie Apigian if you want to focus on that. There are other programs I will talk more about.
This episode was about bringing awareness about other factors that can affect thyroid antibodies. If you haven’t noticed, I have been focusing a lot of episodes on thyroid antibodies. Late 2024 into early 2025, I had a six-part podcast series on thyroid antibodies. It was really well received. It’s a big problem with a lot of people. Just about everybody with Graves’ and Hashimoto’s has elevated antibodies. Some people have false negative antibodies. Most people will have elevated thyroid antibodies, and it can be a challenge to decrease them.
I figured let’s revisit some of the topics that we didn’t talk about as much. I had an episode where I spoke about mercury amalgams and root canals, talking about oral health. I did have an episode in the six-part series that spoke about stress. I didn’t differentiate much between stress and trauma.
Since then, a few things have happened. I mentioned having Dr. Evan Hirsch on the podcast. I also have been going through nervous system retraining myself with the practitioner program. I will talk about that resource soon.
Antibodies that stay elevated. They’re not always a judgment on what you’ve done so far. They’re pretty much an invitation to look into places we don’t always think about, like how past experiences still may be shaping your immune system. It may mean the nervous system is carrying old stress and traumas that haven’t been given a chance to be released.
It might be frustrating to some people, but I also hope that it’s giving you hope. Once those patterns shift, the immune system could start healing again. The nervous system affects everything.
This isn’t just based on my recent training. Remember, my background is as a doctor of chiropractic. A lot of people think of chiropractors as neck and back pain doctors. We really focus on the nervous system, focusing on spiral vertebral subluxations, which relate to the nervous system. Not going to get into this here.
In any case, most people in this situation who get stuck, especially if it’s been a while. Maybe you have done additional functional medicine testing. You probably don’t need more protocols to follow. What you probably need is a way to step back, connect the dots, see if deeper factors like trauma are still in play.
Using that understanding when weighing a decision about such things as radioactive iodine, thyroid surgery. When someone’s antibodies aren’t decreasing, especially if they’re still taking antithyroid medication, and it’s been a while, and they are working with an endocrinologist, an endocrinologist often will bring those up and pressure them to receive those types of treatments.
If you want to learn more about brain and nervous system retraining, visit SaveMyThyroid.com/Trauma. That will bring you to the program that I have been doing. It’s a little bit different. The program I have been doing is more for practitioners. It’s taught by the same people, but it’s specifically for practitioners.
It’s smart of them to do this. They are teaching us because they want to help people. It’s a business, too, so of course they want people’s business. There are a lot of people out there who aren’t healing, where this could benefit them. They are trying to get the word out to practitioners like me.
Before wrapping this up, for those with hyperthyroidism who are considering radioactive iodine or thyroid surgery, I want to let you know that recently I put together a live masterclass that was very well received. I did record it. It’s also now available to those who weren’t able to attend live.
In this masterclass, I guide you through three areas that could bring more clarity. The scenario where permanent thyroid treatment truly makes sense and where it may not be the only option. Second, overlooked triggers, including stress and trauma, that could potentially keep thyroid antibodies high. Third, a practical checklist to take with you to your next endocrinologist appointment, where you walk in prepared rather than pressured.
I don’t want anyone dealing with hyperthyroidism to feel boxed in or rushed into something permanent. What I want is for you to feel grounded, with a clearer view of your options. Whatever you choose feels like it truly fits you. Hopefully, it’s not radioactive iodine or surgery. If you do end up choosing one of these, then I want you to be comfortable with your decision and have no regrets.
The recording to this masterclass is available now. You can watch it any time. See if it gives you the perspective you’ve been looking for. I think it will. You can also learn more about the masterclass by visiting SaveMyThyroid.com/MasterClass.
As per usual, thanks for tuning into this episode. Hope you found the information to be valuable. Of course, I look forward to catching you in the next episode.