In this episode, Dr. Eric Osansky welcomes back Dr. Amie Hornaman to discuss her new book, The Thyroid Fix. Together, they dive into the most common misconceptions surrounding hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s, including why so many people continue to experience symptoms despite being told their thyroid labs are “normal.” Dr. Amie shares her personal motivation for writing the book and explains how she hopes to empower people to better understand their thyroid health and advocate for themselves.
Dr. Amie breaks down what a complete thyroid panel should include, why testing only TSH is often insufficient, and the important roles of free T3 and reverse T3 in thyroid hormone conversion and metabolism. The conversation also explores autoimmune triggers, hormone fluctuations during pregnancy and menopause, the connection between stress and thyroid dysfunction, and why testosterone may play a protective role against autoimmunity. They also discuss T2 supplementation, common nutrient deficiencies, iodine, ashwagandha, and the growing conversation around GLP-1 medications.
The episode closes with an encouraging discussion about hope, healing, and the importance of individualized thyroid care. Dr. Amie emphasizes that taking thyroid hormone replacement is not a failure and explains when Hashimoto’s may potentially be reversed or put into remission. If you want a clearer, more balanced understanding of Hashimoto’s, thyroid hormones, and what optimal thyroid health really looks like, you’ll get a lot out of this episode.
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Dr. Eric Osansky:
I am super excited for this return guest although it’s been a while since she has been on the podcast. Now we are going to be chatting about her new book The Thyroid Fix. We have Dr. Amie Hornaman, also known as the Thyroid Fixer. She is the CEO and founder of The Advanced Thyroid and Hormone Clinic, which is an international telehealth practice serving patients across the U.S. and Canada.
She also hosts the top ranked thyroid podcast The Thyroid Fixer, where she empowers listeners with the truth about thyroid health, hormones, and functional medicine. She is also the author of her brand new book The Thyroid Fix: A No Nonsense Guide to Fix Fatigue, Fogginess, and Fat That Won’t Budge. Welcome back, Dr. Amie.
Dr. AmieHornaman:
Dr. Eric, thank you so much for having me on.
Dr. Eric:
Really excited about your book. I know it’s going to be life-changing. I got my advanced copy here.
Dr. Amie:
Woohoo.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you so much. Let’s start out. I’m sure you’re getting alot of these questions on these interviews you are doing. What motivated you to come out with this book?
Dr. Amie:
Well, just like you, we have years of knowledge in our head. You really want to put it down on paper because your audience, my audience, we’re getting all these questions all the time. We’re realizing that new people are being diagnosed every day. We could talk for years about the same stuff. Somebody new will come into our world and ask, “Wait a minute, what does this free T3 mean?”
You realize we need a guide for these people that are being newly diagnosed every day, or for the people who have the symptoms, but they’re being misdiagnosed, like I was, like so many other people are. They’re told it’s depression or all in their head or to eat less and exercise more.I really wanted to put those years of head knowledge on paper.
The other motivation for this book was you and I are in the functional medicine space. We realize that not everyone can invest in functional medicine. It is an investment not covered by insurance. Everybody needs and deserves the best life ever. We all deserve, as I always say, to be the badass humans we’re meant to be. We deserve to live with energy and vitality and not gain weight looking sideways at a brownie.
I wanted to give a guide, literally A to Z. I call this the Thyroid Bible. I wanted to give something to the masses that would actually move the needle, that would give them a choose your own adventure story, if you remember those books from when we were kids. A person would be reading through and see themselves in the pages, be able to learn how to read their own labs, figure out exactly what thyroid hormone replacement they need, what dose they need, and have that conversation with their doctor.
By the way, I teach you how to choose a doctor, whether you are going the conventional route or the functional route.
I wanted to give to the people who maybe can’t come into the clinic and see us. They can get help out there with the right knowledge and information.
Dr. Eric:
Love it. One thing you mentioned was a lot of people are misdiagnosed. I see that also with Graves’. It’s definitely more common with Hashimoto’s. Why is that? Why are some people misdiagnosed, undiagnosed?
Dr. Amie:
I think it starts with testing. As you know, testing is just so poor. Most doctors will only test TSH. That’s the only number they’re looking at. Maybe if you’re lucky, they will test free T4. You have to ask, beg, and plead for free T3 or reverse T3, for any kind of antibody test. It starts there with proper testing.
We know that if you only test the brain hormone, i.e. TSH, you won’t get that full picture. It’s so easy to be misdiagnosed if your TSH falls within normal limits, within that standard lab value range.
Dr. Eric:
One question I was going to ask is why do so many people experience thyroid-related symptoms even if they are taking thyroid hormone replacement? It’s really the same answer. They just look at TSH. Maybe they do T4. Many times, just TSH. If it’s not within that range, they just give levothyroxine usually. They haven’t looked at the free thyroid hormones or reverse T3. I know I don’t have to ask because you also mentioned it in your book, but before that, I knew you did all these tests.
Why don’t we talk about what’s included in a complete thyroid panel? You’ve had your podcast for a long time, and I’ve had mine for over four years. Like you said, there’s new listeners all the time. I’m sure people listening don’t know what’s in a thyroid panel. I’ll let you take over.
Dr. Amie:
Exactly. I love what you said before. I will expand really quickly before going into testing. The standard of care, and I know your listeners will resonate, even if they have hyperthyroidism, is you go into your doctor’s office, boatload of symptoms. You just want to know why you have these symptoms.
They test TSH. If TSH is outside of those limits, whether it’s low or high, we give medication. In the hypothyroid world, we give Synthroid. In the hyperthyroid world, we give methimazole and send them out the door, pat them on the back, wish them good luck, tell Susie we will check in again in six months. Meanwhile, Susie turns around and is like, “Doc, I have all these symptoms. You won’t look at me for six months? You won’t change the dose, retest me?” No. That truly is the standard of care.
To break out of that standard of care model, we have to test further. We need to look at free T4. T4 is the inactive thyroid hormone. It’s worth looking at. It doesn’t tell the whole picture. It’s worth tossing in.
Then we move onto free T3. That is the active thyroid hormone. I want to know how much active thyroid hormone you have in your body. That is key. Without free T3, that thyroid panel is worthless.
Without reverse T3, which is the next one. It’s our antithyroid hormone. It blocks thyroid hormone from getting to the cell. It puts your body into a survival or hibernation mode. That is imperative. We cannot tell anything about thyroid function without reverse T3.
Finally, we look in the Hashimoto’s world at TPO and TG antibodies. If we expect hyperthyroidism, we look at TSI for those antibodies.
I don’t get many hyper. I get more hypo. I send all my hyper people to you.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you.
Dr. Amie:
That is basically what we look at.
Dr. Eric:
I don’t know if you know this, but even in hyperthyroidism, it’s quite common to have those TPO antibodies as well. Literature says 60-80% of people with Graves’. I didn’t have TPO antibodies when I dealt with Graves’. Some people have all three.
Dr. Amie:
You see a lot of people swing, too, from Graves’ to Hashi?
Dr. Eric:
I see both ways. I would agree it’s more common for someone to start out as hyper, and then if they have those other antibodies, eventually, not always, move over.
How about frequency of testing? You also mentioned they might put someone on thyroid hormone or methimazole and then say six months later, let’s do another test. I agree that’s way too long to retest, especially when someone is on meds for the first time. I do think you need to monitor more frequently at that point.
Dr. Amie:
Yeah, definitely. In the beginning, whenever we first start treatment, because ultimately, we want to address those hormones that are no longer being properly made. We want to address them with the right medication. Like Dr. Eric said, most of the time, you will get Synthroid. That’s it. Levothyroxine, T4 only, the inactive thyroid hormone.
When we are treating properly with thyroid hormone replacement, when we fit that thyroid hormone replacement to you and your body, we actually start to move you into optimization. I call it optimization land. As we are doing that, we need to retest more often, so we can see that we’re on the right trajectory.
How you feel matters as well. As we’re moving you through that optimization process, we are always asking how you feel. Are you noticing symptoms alleviating? Even little signs. A little bit more energy, a little bit more brain function. Maybe clothes fit a little bit better. That tells us we are moving in the right direction. When we check, we can see, “Okay, the numbers are looking better than they were before.”
I like to check in the beginning. We do a 60-90-day recheck. Make sure we are on the right trajectory. Then we will do another test, probably around the 5-6-month mark. Then we can start spacing it out.
If someone is struggling, you have certain people where it’s a challenge to get to that right dose. We will test them more often. Once we’re in the groove, we’re optimized, life is good again, then we can start spacing out the testing.
Dr. Eric:
Makes sense. You mentioned proper thyroid hormone medication replacement. What is proper? There is a time and place for levothyroxine. I’m sure some listening to this are like, “I have been taking Synthroid for a while, and I have been feeling good.” Numbers, at least the numbers they have been getting measured, look good,which might not include the T3 we spoke about. What do you commonly recommend?
Dr. Amie:
When I’m getting asked the question about what I commonly use, what is my favorite thyroid hormone medication, I say the one that works for you, the combination that works for you, and the dose that works for you.
As you know, the thyroid is a nuanced art to optimize it, to get that unique individual with their unique biochemistry, we need to get them optimized on exactly what their body needs. There is a general stat that we can go by in that 2% of the population with hypothyroidism “does well” on T4 only. I’m using air quotes because that was actually a quote from American Academy for Antiaging Medicine. I heard a speaker one time, and I held onto this quote. 2% “do well” on T4 only. 98% need T4 and T3, or sometimes T3 only.
I have a story in the book, and this is a true story. I was sitting next to a woman on the plane. You start talking. “What do you do?” I told her, and she says, “Oh, yeah, I have a thyroid problem. I’m on Synthroid. I’m good. My numbers are normal. I’m fine.” I’m thinking to myself, normal is a setting on the dryer, so we never use that to describe our labs. This woman thinks that she is fine because her doctor said she is fine, she is normal.
Meanwhile, I don’t think she realizes that she can be better. In looking at her, I was seeing neck swelling, probably 50-100 pounds overweight, hair very thin and straw-like, loss of the outer corners of her eyebrows, pale skin, dry skin. This is her norm. She doesn’t even realize that these symptoms are caused by her thyroid, and things could be better if she wasn’t on T4 only.
But her doctor told her she was fine, so in her mind, she is fine, her thyroid is fine. The meds she is on are fine. It must be something else. Maybe it’s aging. Maybe I just need to deal with it.
It’s unfortunate because that message gets passed along by the medical practitioner themselves to the patient, and the patient gets gaslit and brainwashed, believing this is as good as it’s going to get, and that’s not true. We can actually find the right beautiful combination of replacement to truly get you optimized.
Dr. Eric:
Awesome. We both know the answer to this next question, but a lot of people won’t. T3 is the active form of thyroid hormone. Based on that, it might make sense that people need T3, and not just T4. Since T4 converts into T3, why would someone need T3, if the conversion takes place?
Dr. Amie:
In a perfect world, everyone would just very easily convert that inactive thyroid hormone over to the active thyroid hormone, and it would be good. Unfortunately, that conversion process, I always say is like running 10 TuffNutterz in a row for your body. It’s really hard for your body to do. There are so many things that can get in the way.
If you are insulin resistant, estrogen dominant, under stress, have high cortisol, nutrient deficiencies, genetic SNPs, all of that prevents that beautiful streamlined conversion from happening.
If it runs into brick walls, what happens? If in that path of conversion from T4 to T3, it starts hitting all these hurdles, it diverts and instead converts to reverse T3. Like we said earlier, reverse T3 is one of the things that will literally put your body in hibernation mode. Your body will think that you are lying in an ICU or ER bed fighting for your life.
Now our bodies are really smart. We actually know, and our bodies know that in that true state, if you are in a car accident, and you land in the hospital, and you really are fighting for your life in the ICU, your body knows that at this point in time, you don’t have to burn fat, you don’t have to make decisions or have energy or grow your hair or poop every day. You just need to lie there and survive. All energy of the body needs to be shuttled to healing the wound, the injury.
What will happen is reverse T3 will go up, thank god. Thank god that’s built into us. It will go up in order to protect us.
Here’s the problem. If we’re not converting our T4 to T3 properly, and we’re just walking around trying to live life. We are running abusiness. We have a family. Our bodies think we’re dying, so that’s not a great life right there. You’re gaining weight, dragging yourself through the day, losing your hair, constipated because your body thinks you’re dying. It thinks it needs to shut down all those processes to heal you. That is reverse T3.
That is the problem with just assuming that T4 will easily convert to T3. It’s a huge fallacy, and it’s hard for your body to do.
Dr. Eric:
What’s important to understand is that if they’re just looking at TSH, and maybe also T4, maybe even free T4, those might look good according to the labs. You’re taking T4. You could have low T3, and TSH might still be within that normal lab range, probably not the optimal range. The doctor is looking at a TSH of 4. Free T4 might look good. Maybe reverse T3, which they don’t test for, is probably on the higher side. Free T3, which they also don’t test for, is on the lower side.
Dr. Amie:
Exactly.
Dr. Eric:
We spent a lot of time talking about the thyroid. Hashimoto’s is also an autoimmune condition. In your book, you talk about other things, including triggers. What are some of the reasons people develop Hashimoto’s in the first place?
Dr. Amie:
There is something called thyropause, which I talk about in the book. My definition of this is when your thyroid gland craps the bed after the age of 40 due to fluctuating hormones.
What do we mean by that? When we look at autoimmunity, we can use the analogy of the three-legged stool. On one leg, you have a genetic predisposition. Somewhere in your family, someone had an autoimmune condition. Doesn’t have to be Hashimoto’s. Maybe you have another autoimmune condition. Psoriasis, Celiac, RA. That is that genetic predisposition.
Another leg is the leaky gut. I would argue 99.9% of us have it because of the toxic soup environment we live in right now.
That final leg is a stressor, a trigger. It’s what basically turns an autoimmune switch that is lying in the off position on. What do we know about that? Any kind of stressor will be a trigger. When we think of stressors, we think of job stress, relationship stress, work stress. Occupational stress. We have to expand that and look at environmental toxic stress and our toxic burden. We have to look at hormonal stressors, meaning our hormones decide to go wild and crazy and jump on a rollercoaster.
Let’s look at pregnancy. Beautiful time in a woman’s life. Very natural. Huge stressor on the body. Those hormones are on a wild ride up and down. Any woman who has been pregnant will agree with me. That’s a very common time for a woman to say, “It was after my first or second child that my body went to hell in a handbasket and never got it back. I was told I had postpartum thyroiditis,” i.e. Hashimoto’s.
Then we move into perimenopause and menopause. This is where thyropause comes in. In perimenopause, progesterone falls off first. That can go as early as a woman’s 20s, 30s, definitely by 40s. Followed by testosterone. That declines. After your estrogen goes on a rollercoaster, that falls off a cliff. That is a stressful time in a woman’s life.
Quite often, when she is focused on the horrors of perimenopause and menopause, she is not looking at her thyroid, where thyropause is taking over, meaning that Hashimoto’s switch was turned on.
Yes, these symptoms of perimenopause and menopause can overlap with thyropause. Now you have a double whammy. You are getting hit on both sides with weight gain and fatigue and hair loss and brain fog and low libido and insomnia. It just exacerbates it.
We are not paying enough attention over here on the thyroid. Even in the media today, we are getting much more focused on women’s health, perimenopause, menopause. There are 10,000 menopause books out right now. Don’t need another one.
We are not looking at the thyroid, the master gland, which is dictating how horrible your perimenopause and menopause will be or not. We have to look at those triggers and hormonal shifts. Every woman over the age of 40 needs to be checking her thyroid, especially if she has symptoms.
Dr. Eric:
Agreed. You mentioned before when talking about the three-legged stool that most people have a leaky gut. You mentioned the environment. People don’t realize that all these things, the glyphosate, microplastics, all these toxins disrupt the gut microbiome, the intestinal barrier. When people ask how they have a leaky gut, that’s not the only way. I would agree that a leaky gut is very common. Great explanation.
I was laughing when you said there are 10,000 menopause books, and we don’t need another one.
Dr. Amie:
There are. And there’s 5,000 perimenopause books.
Dr. Eric:
There are a lot. When it comes to the sex hormones, we don’t have time to cover all of them. I want to focus on what you said is your second favorite hormone, testosterone.
Dr. Amie:
This is the “get stuff done” hormone. I’d be curious as to your take on this when it comes to Graves’. What I find is that testosterone almost forms this armor barrier against autoimmunity. That’s why women get hit much more than men. Women have fluctuating hormones more than men do. That’s one factor.
The other factor, in general, a man with low testosterone will have more testosterone than a female. That alone provides this suit of armor against autoimmune conditions. When a woman’s testosterone level drops, not only does the hormonal fluctuation that we described in perimenopause/menopause trigger Hashimoto’s, but she also loses that protective barrier, which wasn’t that bad to begin with because we as women don’t have as much T.
But it is protection. It’s anti-inflammatory. It helps our immune system. Testosterone protects our heart, our body composition. It holds onto the organ of longevity, our muscles. When we lose testosterone, our thyroid gets worse. Once again, it’s compounding variables. It’s compounding symptoms, which can really kick a person in the butt.
Dr. Eric:
You bring up a great point because I talk a lot about, with my Graves’ journey, the impact of stress. We know the impact that stress has on the sex hormones. When I talk about my journey, I don’t talk about testosterone a lot. I had compromised adrenals, which affected my testosterone.
You’re right. The importance of testosterone with reducing inflammation and immune system health, I agree. Estrogen gets a bad rap, but estrogen is also important for a healthy immune system. Adrenals are important, and I talk about them a lot. The impact that adrenals have on the sex hormone plays a role, too.
Dr. Amie:
Definitely.
Dr. Eric:
I appreciate you bringing that up. We spoke about T4, T3. I also want to talk a little bit about T2. You were on the Thyroid Summit I did, and you spoke about that. Not everybody listened to that. When we had you on the podcast years ago, I’m not sure how much you spoke about T2 at the time. If you did, let’s bring it up again anyway.
Let’s give an update on T2 and how helpful that is. That’s one of the supplements you recommend frequently, correct?
Dr. Amie:
I do. I have been studying T2 for 20 years. It has over 30 years of research on it. T2 is a thyroid hormone. We can take it exogenously, like we take T3 and T4. It’s in supplemental form, not a pharmaceutical, which is a bonus for all of us because we don’t have to beg our doctors for it. We can order it as a supplement and take it.
T2 increases your basal metabolic rate, the amount of fat you are burning at rest, just sitting there, increases your fat metabolism, increase your metabolic rate. It decreases inflammation, reduces oxidative stress, improves lipid panels. It browns white out of post tissue, which means that white fat around your organs that you grab, that you don’t want anymore, it will brown that, which meansit makes it more metabolically active and easier for thermogenesis, that burning of stored body fat, to take place.
The other thing T2 does is it turns on the gene that prevents fat from accumulating on your body, which is super cool. That doesn’t mean you can go out and binge, but it does prevent that easy fat. When you are looking sideways at a brownie and gain 10 pounds, T2 will prevent that from happening.
T2 is beautiful because it doesn’t have that negative feedback loop to the hypothalamus and pituitary like thyroid medication does, where it’s going to shut down our own thyroid function.
Basically, whenever you take a hormone, estrogen, progesterone, T4, T3, it will send a signal back to the brain that tells the body there is hormone here in the body, so you don’t have to make your own. T2 doesnot do that. It only acts in the mitochondria. It will produce more ATP, help with really nice steadyenergy throughout the day, for people who are fatigued or low in energy. The biggest impact is in weight.
I brought T2 to market in the form of my Thyroid Fixer, and it’s in Metabolism Fixer. We took a group of women, about 14 of them. I sat with each one of them before they went into this transformation, and I read their labs. I went into their medical history. They weren’t patients. We didn’t treat them.
I met with them to look over things because I wanted to know where they were starting. Many of them were hypothyroid. A few of them had Hashimoto’s. None of them wereon T3. They were all on T4 only, if they were being treated for thyroid.
We took them through a 16-week transformation, using T2, those two formulas in my line. We didn’t change a thing. No medical intervention whatsoever. They all lost weight, which was incredible to me.
I had known this. I was using T2 in my practice long before we could prescribe to all 50 states. We were using this with patients who were stuck on T4 only by their doctor, and it was moving the needle. This was the first time we really looked at it on a mass scale and tracked these women’s weight throughout those 16 weeks.
It was fascinating. Anywhere between six pounds all the way up to 45 pounds. The 45 pounds was a cancer survivor who was on prednisone. If you know anything about prednisone, it will make you gain weight and poofy. It will make you hold water. Her whole body broke through that, that inflammation, that horrible drug, and she lost weight. Pretty cool.
Dr. Eric:
Really cool. Any concerns of taking T2 since you can’t measure it? Have you seen any side effects? If someone has hyperthyroidism, you probably don’t want to take it. If someone has hypothyroidism, any contraindications?
Dr. Amie:
If someone has Graves’, I would start very slow, like half a scoop of Metabolism Fixer, one capsule of Thyroid Fixer. If you have Graves’ and are doing that pendulum swing, where you have Graves’ but are gaining weight, not losing weight, or you have excess body fat, and you have all the other symptoms. I am hyper, but I’m still not losing over here. What gives?
If you’re truly hyper and at a low body weight, you can’t gain the weight, I would avoid it because it would speed up your metabolism.
Dr. Eric:
When I dealt with Graves’, I wouldn’t have wanted to take it if it was available at the time because I lost 42 pounds. If someone has Graves’ or hyperthyroidism but are struggling to lose weight, they might benefit from taking it.
I don’t know if you have the answer to this question. I don’t. Do you think they will have the ability to test T2 at a lab?
Dr. Amie:
They tested it in the studies. The assay is there; it’s just not publicly available, so maybe that will come out. But, Eric, if it does, the pharmaceutical companies will put it into a drug, so I don’t know if we want that.
Dr. Eric:
Maybe not. T3 is available, and they hardly give it. We had that conversation about just giving levothyroxine. There will be another thyroid marker they don’t do anything about.
Dr. Amie:
Exactly.
Dr. Eric:
We’re running out of time, so I want to hit more important points. We won’t hit everything, which is why you need to read the book. What is another supplement or two you commonly recommend?
Dr. Amie:
We love the support of supplements. Vitamin D, magnesium, selenium, a good B vitamin.
I like iodine, not for Graves’. If we are using it for Graves’, and this is where I would pick your brain, maybe a tiny drop to get some in for the detox effect and protection against bromine and chlorine. I wouldn’t use too much of it because you can push to hyper a little bit.
Those core base nutrients, the mag, D, and selenium, those are vital. L-tyrosine is another great amino acid. That helps the thyroid gland produce more T4 and T3. Ashwagandha for calming stress response, and it helps convert T4 to T3. T2 helps convert T4 to T3.
If you want to narrow down your supplements and not take too many, my pick would be Vitamin D with K. Magnesium. A multimag that has more than one magnesium. A good B complex. Selenium in the form of selenomethionine. A nice adrenal support, stress support, ashwagandha, rhodiola. And a little touch of iodine. And L-tyrosine. That will be your baseline protocol.
Dr. Eric:
I did want to ask you your thoughts on GLP-1s.
Dr. Amie:
I’m split. When I wrote the book, I put in there that GLP-1s can be a biohack for your thyroid. When used appropriately in a microdose form, it does decrease inflammation. We are seeing some individuals decrease antibodies. We are seeing certain people reduce their thyroid medication, not come off it.
Then you have the flip side. We are seeing more and more now influencers pushing GLPs on a multilevel marketing platform or TikTok. I was getting my hair done, and this girl says to me, “I bought this GLP-1 because a TikTok influencer said this is where she gets it. She had an affiliate code.” It’s a research website. An affiliate code for a drug? Is this where we’re at right now?
You have these celebrities looking like Skeletor. It’s not a healthy look, or a healthy look to show our kids, thinking they have to look like this. Is this Heroin Chic from the 1960s? We cannot fall back into the skinny culture because skinny is not healthy.
Dr. Eric:
One more thing. This is a two-part question. Is it possible to reverse Hashimoto’s? Is it considered to be a failure when you’re on thyroid hormone replacement permanently?
Dr. Amie:
Ugh. I’ll answer the second part first. No, it’s not a failure at all to be on thyroid hormone permanently. I always like using kids as an example because it really impacts parents.
Your child gets diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The doctor comes in the room and says, “I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Your child has type 1 diabetes. They will have to be on an insulin pump or shots for the rest of their life.” Insulin is a hormone. Their pancreas isn’t producing enough of it.
At that point in time, you wouldn’t say that’s a failure of my child if they go on this drug. “We don’t want to do that. We want to do things naturally, Doc.” The doctor will say, “Your kid will die because you will die without insulin, without this hormone.” You won’t say no to a lifesaving medication.
Guess what? Thyroid hormone is lifesaving. You won’t die immediately without it. If you desperately need it and are not being treated properly, and your thyroid gland is not producing the amount of thyroid hormone it once didbecause you had Hashimoto’s for 20 years and it’s darn near destroyed, then nope, you won’t die fast, but you will die slowly.
You will be at much greater risk of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, dementia, osteoporosis. Your life won’t be fun. You will carry around extra weight. You will drag your butt through the day. You will be half bald and constipated.
That to me is not a life worth living. Give me that thyroid medication all day long. You will find me in the grave clutched next to mine because that will be the last time I take my thyroid medication, the moment before I die. It gives you life. It’s not a failure.
Can you reverse it naturally? If you catch it in the early stages. If you catch it very early, then yes, we can use things like black cumin seed oil or low dose naltrexone or be gluten-free. We can support the immune system. We can use certain peptides like thymosin alpha. We can possibly halt the progression, the destruction of your thyroid gland, or we can possibly reverse it and put it into remission. It all depends on where you are catching that person in their thyroid journey.
Dr. Eric:
Makes sense. This was awesome. Before we wrap it up, anything I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? Any last words?
Dr. Amie:
No, you were great. Thanks so much.
The last thing I would say is you have to have hope. I know you preach this as well. When you are going through a health crisis, when you are struggling, frustrated, being dismissed by the medical system, you have to have hope and have to keep going. That is why I wrote this book, so people can see there is an answer and direction they can go in to truly feel better, to get their lives back.
I know that is a cliché term that gets thrown around a lot in our world. Get your life back. You literally do get your life back when you get your thyroid back. It’s the master gland, as you always talk about. I want everyone to have hope and keep pushing.
Dr. Eric:
Wonderful. Where can people buy the book? Where can people find out more about you?
Dr. Amie:
On the day this is released, you can go to any bookseller. You can go to ThyroidFixBook.com. From there, you will get access to all of our bonuses that will be running the week of May 12. You will get 20% off Fixer Formulas. You get entered into a chance to win Thyroid Fixer for a full year.
We are having a live launch partyon May 16. Anyone who purchases the book gets a Zoom link to access it. We will interact. I will answer your questions. We are doing live lab reads, giveaways, the whole deal.
In general, just to find me, link to podcast, Instagram, YouTube, go to DrAmie.com.
Dr. Eric:
This is awesome. There is a lot we didn’t cover. That’s why she has the book. Very comprehensive. Eventually, I’m sure we’ll have you back on. Thank you so much. Good luck with the release of the book. I know it will help lots of people. I’m sure this interview will as well.
Dr. Amie:
Thanks so much, Dr. Eric. Thanks for all you do.
***
Dr. Eric:
That was a wonderful conversation with Dr. Amie Hornaman. She just released her book The Thyroid Fix. As of recording this, at the end of March, she hasn’t released it yet. As you saw during the interview, I had my advanced copy, but this book isn’t coming out until May 12. This episode isn’t scheduled to be released until May 12. When you’re hearing this, the book should be released. I recommend getting a copy of it.
The master gland. Some people, including Dr. Amie, refer to the thyroid gland as the master gland. Really, the pituitary gland is considered to be the master gland. The pituitary gland controls the thyroid gland, the adrenals, the sex hormones. The thyroid gland is extremely important. When other practitioners call it the master gland, I don’t mind, just because I’m a little bit biased, and I really like the thyroid gland. Dr. Amie does, too.
I think she mentioned that I call the thyroid gland the master gland. I don’t think I have referred to the thyroid gland as the master gland. Back in my chiropractic days, even though we didn’t focus a lot on the endocrine system, we had classes and training. I learned back then that the pituitary gland is the master gland.
Again, the thyroid gland is very important. Like I said, when someone else says that the thyroid gland is the master gland, it’s very important. To me, it’s okay if they want to call it the master gland.
Just wanted to clear that up in case you have heard that the pituitary gland is considered the master gland. If you do a search online, you might see some sources that refer to the thyroid gland as the master gland. Most sources will refer to the pituitary gland as being the master gland.
Testosterone and adrenals. We discussed how testosterone is Dr. Amie’s second favorite hormone. Healthy adrenals are important for healthy testosterone levels. There is a time and place for testosterone replacement in both men and women.
If you do things to optimize your adrenals, you might not need to take testosterone. There are other ways to increase testosterone. Resistance exercise, lifting on the heavier side can help increase testosterone.
If you lift heavy, and you stress out all the time, you still will probably have low testosterone. If you have optimal adrenals and are doing heavy lifting, getting sufficient sleep, managing stress, and your testosterone is still on the lower side, maybe you do need testosterone replacement. Before taking testosterone replacement, you want to do everything you can to improve the health of your adrenals as well as some heavy lifting.
Supplements. We spoke about iodine and ashwagandha specifically. Dr. Amie had a hard stop, so we couldn’t go too long. When she brought up iodine and how I might have my opinion, which I do (I have spoken about it in the past and on other podcasts), I am not shy about giving my perspective. I figured it could have gone long, and we were approaching her hard out. I wanted to respect her time.
I’ll get to iodine in a minute, but ashwagandha. She deals mostly with Hashimoto’s. If someone is following AIP, ashwagandha is part of the nightshade family, so you might want to avoid it.
It’s more of a concern with hyperthyroidism because in some cases, ashwagandha can stimulate the hypothalamic pituitary thyroid (HPT) axis and can cause mild hyperthyroidism, which is not good if you already have hyperthyroidism. Seems to be more of an issue when taking it separately, but it could also be an issue with combo formulas.
I like ashwagandha. Dr. Amie obviously does, too. Wanted to make that clear. If you have Hashimoto’s and are not following AIP, it is probably not an issue to take ashwagandha.
I don’t want to spend too much time on iodine because I have other episodes where I focus on iodine. I am not against iodine, and I am not for iodine. I’ll say this. I have had a good experience with iodine supplements personally in the past.
When I dealt with Graves’, high dose iodine was commonly recommended. I tried this and did okay with it. Irealize everybody is different. Iodine in some cases can exacerbate hyperthyroidism and potentially be an autoimmune trigger.
You do want to be careful. I can’t say I put patients on high dose iodine. Dr. Amie didn’t mention high dose iodine; she just mentioned iodine. I do agree with her that you don’t need to completely eliminate iodine.
We chatted for a minute or two right after the interview while waiting for the episode to upload. I mentioned how I didn’t expand on iodine because if I did, we would have gone over the top of the hour. I figured I would expand here.
I am not against iodine. I am cautious about taking separate iodine supplements with hyperthyroidism more than hypothyroidism. Even hypothyroidism, The Thyroid Reset Diet by Dr. Alan Christianson recommends 200mcg of iodine or less. Dr. David Brownstein recommends mg doses of iodine. Like I said, I have already spent more time than intended here, so you can definitely refer back to other episodes of the podcast.
Thyropause. In her book, she mentions how it’s a missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to Hashimoto’s. As women, there are hormone fluctuations. She gave a comparison with post-partum thyroiditis. When someone is in perimenopause orpostmenopause, those hormone fluctuations can play a role.
I don’t like to think of hormone fluctuations as triggers because it’s normal to have hormone fluctuations. Perimenopause is normal. Postmenopause is normal. There are other factors, not just the fluctuations.
Just like post-partum thyroiditis, I look at it more like the straw that broke the camel’s back than the trigger. With post-partum thyroiditis, the woman has the antibodies during pregnancy, but it’s after giving birth when that straw breaks the camel’s back. Same thing in some cases with perimenopause and postmenopause.
T2. We spoke a little bit about T2. She was on my podcast 4.5 years ago. I’m pretty sure she did not have a T2 supplement, which she does now. I don’t think we spoke about T2. I did a Save My Thyroid Summit, so she spoke about T2 then.
She said here that it can be taken in some cases of hyperthyroidism, which I did not know. If someone is overweight, and has hyperthyroidism and problems losing weight, they may take T2.
I am not recommending T2 at this point to my hyperthyroid patients, as I need to investigate it more. My guess is there is no research on T2 and hyperthyroidism. That’s up to you. If you wanted to experiment with it on your own and get back to me, that’s fine. Like I said, at this point, I don’t know anybody who has hyperthyroidism who has taken T2. I really don’t know what the impact will be, how effective it is for weight loss, if there are potential side effects.
According to Dr. Amie, it’s fairly safe, and she is more of an expert on T2 than I am. I don’t have my own T2 supplement. I don’t recommend T2. I don’t recommend it because I mostly deal with hyper patients. I deal with some Hashimoto’s but mostly hyper. Up until this point, I didn’t realize it could be given to those with hyperthyroidism. Something else I learned today. I still feel like I need to investigate this more.
That is it. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Dr. Amie. Definitely check out her book. Of course, look forward to catching you in a future episode.
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