Recently, I interviewed Sandy Kruse,  who endured a total thyroidectomy and survived the exhausting struggle of hyperthyroidism. In this episode we discussed about her difficult recovery, and the moment she realized that truly listening to her body was the key to healing. From experimenting with medications to refining her nutrition, Sandy’s experience offers powerful lessons on navigating thyroid health and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am looking forward to chatting with Sandy Kruse. We are going to be talking about thyroid cancer, which is something I have not spoken about on this podcast. This is going to be an amazing conversation. Let me give Sandy’s short but sweet bio here: 

Sandy Kruse is a registered holistic nutritionist, a certified metabolic balance coach, and the podcast host of Sandy K: Nutrition and Lifestyle Queen, now just under 1.4 million downloads. Sandy educates on how we can all age better through living a life of balance, body, mind, spirit, and soul. Welcome, Sandy K. 

Sandy Kruse: 

Thank you so much, Dr. Eric. I’m so happy to be here. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m happy you’re here as well. This is going to be an exciting conversation. Can’t wait to get into your backstory, which we’re going to do now. I really want you to jump into your background a little bit more. Of course, lead into your thyroid cancer journey. 

Sandy: 

I think it’s important to talk about it from where it began. I do believe that genetics or epigenetics always has a part in everything as it relates to our health. What can trigger these genes to actually express? 

With me, it started when I had my second child at age 35. The first baby was the easy one, and the second one wasn’t. I had a trauma birth. It was really stressful because I wasn’t well, and here I was taking care of a newborn and a toddler. I had a spouse that traveled almost weekly and a baby that had colic and all of the things that a lot of new moms deal with. 

You go to see your general physician, and usually, they check on the baby. What was missing: “Hey, how’s the mom? Is the mom okay?” I really wasn’t okay. I had lost so much weight so quickly. 

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when thyroid issues began for me. I kind of had an idea that I had postpartum thyroiditis which was never diagnosed. I had all of the symptoms. I was very different from my first delivery and first pregnancy. I didn’t have enough breast milk. I wasn’t sleeping. I was extremely stressed. I could tell there was something wrong, but I didn’t know what was going on. 

Then fast forward quite a few years later. My baby was five. She was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma. It is a malignant tumor. I can’t even explain what it’s like to have a sick child, but it wasn’t a good time for our family. 

Almost exactly one year after that, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. My daughter and I actually had, it was her second surgery and my first surgery to remove my entire thyroid gland and two lymph nodes, one year apart. It was October 2010 and October 2011. 

Then the story begins with what happened afterwards. It wasn’t the simple Here, take one pill, and you will just be great. You will be fine. You don’t need the gland. It definitely wasn’t that. 

Dr. Eric: 

I assume it was a papillary thyroid cancer? 

Sandy: 

Yes. 

Dr. Eric: 

You got the ultrasound. That didn’t confirm the cancer. You got the biopsy after getting the ultrasound. That is when you found out you had thyroid cancer. 

Sandy: 

It was an incidental finding. What happened was I had a migraine with aura. It was the first time in my life. You’re a doctor. Most people who have migraine, usually it starts at around puberty. It’s something that a lot of people deal with their entire life. I had never had one. 

I had a migraine with aura before I was diagnosed, before they did any kind of testing, and I thought I was having a stroke. I was 41 years old. It was visual aura. 

I also had this weird thing. When you research symptoms, a lot of times, a doctor will say, “No, no, there’s no correlation.” I always had this coughing or choking or gagging. I remember even stopping the car once. I had both my kids in the car. You know when it feels like you have saliva that goes down the wrong way, and then you can’t stop coughing? I had so many of those incidents. 

I had a family doctor that wasn’t really big on testing, but he was actually on vacation, and it was a substitute doctor. She was a female doctor. She said, “You know what? It’s weird that you’re having your first migraine ever at 41. Let’s do some testing.” They did do the carotid artery ultrasound to make sure there were no blockages or anything in the brain. They did the MRI. The carotid artery ultrasound, they said it was all clear, but they found five nodules in the thyroid. They were bilateral, so that means on both sides, and only one of the nodules was actually cancerous. 

The way they found that out, which was also rare, as people who have had fine needle biopsies know that they often come back inconclusive. When they did the fine needle biopsy on me, they immediately said “suspicious for papillary carcinoma.” In a way, that was lucky. I know many people who have many of these biopsies that come back inconclusive. You probably know that. 

It was actually pretty quick. It was all within two months that I had my thyroid removed. They suggested to remove the entire gland because in western medicine, they don’t believe you can do things to shrink nodules. Maybe I would have done something different now with what I know now. Having known that only one of them was malignant. They suggested I remove the entire gland because the nodules were bilateral. I had a lumpy thyroid. 

Dr. Eric: 

Very rarely these days do they recommend a partial thyroidectomy. Now there is radiofrequency ablation. Not sure if you’re familiar with that. They can target specific thyroid nodules. When that first came out, I wasn’t really for malignant nodules. Now apparently, some cases of thyroid cancer, at least one of the conversations I had with Dr. Angela Mazza on the podcast, pretty sure she said it could actually help with some cases of papillary thyroid cancer. Back when you got it, I don’t think that was an option. Now potentially in some cases. 

They removed the entire thyroid gland. How was the recovery time? How did you feel after the surgery? A few days later? A few weeks later? 

Sandy: 

I should note that I was with one of the top endocrinologists. I had a neck surgeon at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. I was there for three days. Now, I think it’s like boom, bam. You’re in, you’re out. I was there from Wednesday-Friday.

The recovery, it’s crazy. The way that they want to give you all of these pain meds. I got home. I was taking extra strength Tylenol, to be truthful. I didn’t think it was such a big deal. Then they gave T3 to me to begin. I actually felt pretty good after I had my thyroid removed. Then they made me go off everything to do the Thyrogen injections. There was a nurse that came to my home to give me two injections from what I recall. I don’t know what the process is now. It’s to test to ensure that none of the gland, none of the tissue is left, that they removed everything. 

That was when the struggles began. They put me on T4 only. They put me on Synthroid. The only reason they put me on T3, which we all know is the active thyroid hormone, right after the surgery was because it has such a short half-life. It exits the body very quickly. Once I was ready to do the Thyrogen injections, I would have none of this hormone left in my body. T4, it can be 4-6 weeks.

Dr. Eric: 

A couple things. Backtracking. You said you saw one of the top endocrinologists, which is important to mention because if someone needs any type of surgery, not just thyroid surgery, again, you probably want to go to someone who has done a lot of the surgeries. I know everybody has to begin somewhere, but still. If I was having thyroid surgery, I would do my research and try to find an experienced surgeon. 

I’m glad you mentioned that. You randomly didn’t choose anybody, or your primary or someone else. Maybe your primary gave you some guidance. Sometimes, they let the endocrinologist just make the decision for them.

I also wanted to ask you, as far as making sure that there was no thyroid tissue left, did you receive any radioactive iodine in addition? You did not? Sometimes I’ll give radioactive iodine after the thyroid surgery. 

Sandy: 

I didn’t need it because I only had the one nodule, and it was small enough that they said you don’t need to have it, thank god. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m glad you didn’t have to get that. You started with T3. You felt okay. Switched to Synthroid. From there was downhill. 

Sandy: 

It was really downhill. Really bad. I had all the symptoms of hypothyroidism. You name it: hair loss, no energy, weight gain. I had edema, swelling. I could go on. The biggest thing that I’m going to say to anybody who experiences hypothyroidism is this extreme loss of vitality. It’s like the essence of who you are as a person is gone. Everything in your body slows down. I started to experience a lot of that. 

I was hypothyroid for a while, but I kept getting the, “Well, you’re within the healthy range.” We all know that range can be pretty vast. Everybody is so individual. When they made me go off of everything, the last time I had bloodwork, I was at a 32 TSH. I had little kids. That was when I was like, I have to start researching what’s going on in my body. 

This is well before I went back to college for holistic nutrition to understand how all this is interconnected. I was told that I just need one pill. Then I learned about T4, T3. I learned about T1, T2, T3, T4, calcitonin. The thyroid produces so many more hormones than just T3 and T4. It all began with me getting the book Stop the Thyroid Madness. Have you heard of this? Everybody has. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah. 

Sandy:

It’s a patient advocacy book. That’s where I began. My stress might be affecting my ability to convert that T4 to the active T3 that I need. Then it was this light bulb moment. I went back to this endocrinologist who is like this well known worldwide- You need to give me T3. He was kind of shocked because nobody was talking about this, and nobody knew about this. Probably 95% of his patients were on T4 only. Then things started to change when I was on a combination of both. 

Dr. Eric: 

Did they even test for T3? You mentioned that your levels were within the healthy range, which the healthy range isn’t the optimal range, as we both know. Many times, they will just do TSH. Sometimes, they will do a T4. Did they all along monitor the T3? 

Sandy: 

They did. I actually checked on this today, on what bloodwork I have access to. I can only go back as far as 2016. They did at Mount Sinai a full panel. They would regularly check thyroid globulin (TG), which I know is important for people who have had thyroid cancer. You want to have almost undetectable TG. If you have TG, that means it could be back. 

Yeah, they did check. In Canada, I know this can be a problem in the US as well. TSH is like all they will check if you go see a general practitioner. If you go to an endocrinologist, with a thyroid problem, if they’re good endocrinologists, they will check TSH, free T3, free T4, TG, other antibodies, depending on what your thyroid issue is. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s good. When you said that reluctantly he gave you T3, I assumed at that point, they would have done a T3 test. I didn’t know if prior, but it sounds like they did all along. Many times, T3 will be on the lower side but within that lab range. They will still ignore it even though it seems obvious that there is a problem converting T4 to T3. You were on T4, and then both. When you were on both, you felt a lot better. 

Sandy: 

I did. Except I was looking at some of my levels from 2016. For about five years, they suppressed my TSH. I would be at undetectable levels of TSH, so 0. It would be 0. But then there were times that I had pretty severe symptoms of hyperthyroid because of that suppression. There were times that my free T3 levels were above 7. 

Now I’m telling you this. I don’t know if the US labs are the same. It was very high. For a good five years, I had some anxiety and other stuff going on. 

I always find this so funny when they say people lose weight if they’re hyperthyroid. I gained weight. I gained weight because I had so much of that nervous energy that I would constantly be eating. It didn’t matter. I have had some struggles with weight since then, regardless of whether I’m hypo or hyper. 

Dr. Eric: 

You think you were in a hyper state for about five years? 

Sandy: 

About that. My endocrinologist said it was really important during that time, and I don’t know if they do that anymore. As you know, women who are in perimenopause, who are in a hyperthyroid state for too long, can have pretty severe bone loss. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s what I was going to bring up, if you ever got a bone density scan. Being on that dose for quite a while. 

Sandy: 

Yes. I started to work out. They took me off the higher doses of thyroid meds. They just said that if I’m in a more suppressed TSH state, there is less likelihood that the cancer would come back. That is why they did it. I think they read somewhere that they changed that since for people who have had thyroid cancer because of the bone issue. Yes, I do get bone density tests pretty regularly. I’m still okay. It didn’t do any damage. 

Dr. Eric: 

Glad you get your bone density tested regularly. That’s good. 

I’ve listened to some of your other interviews in preparation for this podcast. Obviously, your background is as a nutritionist, so I want to talk about some of the recommendations as far as protein, for example, intermittent fasting. You also have experience with proton pump inhibitors (PPI), being on the acid blockers. 

Sandy: 

Yeah. It’s a very sore spot for me because I feel, and I have written about this, like I was harmed by being put on those. I started to have infections that wouldn’t heal. I don’t even know if I want to talk about it here. They sent me to a gastroenterologist. This was shortly after I was on T4 only. 

Remember how I was saying everything in the body slows down when you’re in a hypothyroid state for a long time. Healing slows down. You can have a lot of weird things go on in the body because your body is not able to heal. Everything is just downgraded. 

I was sent to an endocrinologist. I never had GERD or any kind of heartburn or anything. They put me on a PPI and said I had too much acid in my stomach without any kind of tests. I became addicted to this PPI. There is something called a rebound effect. I have been on it probably for about 10 years. I went through states where I was borderline anemic. I had ferritin levels as low as 6. For those of your listeners who know what ferritin is, it’s your iron stores. 

I had such a severe rebound effect that I thought I was having a heart attack. That was when I started to have severe GERD. It was only after I was trying to get off of the PPI. I did everything I could. I went off of it for a year. When I did, and they did the scope, they said I had Barrett’s esophagus. Then they told me, “You better get on that PPI again. Otherwise, now, having had thyroid cancer, you’re at risk for esophageal cancer.” I went back on the PPI.

By the way, I had done everything as it related to diet, lifestyle, all of those things to get rid of the heartburn when I went off of the PPI. None of it worked for me. Nothing. I tried weaning. I tried everything that was recommended. Nothing worked. There are some genetics in there that I think might play a part in this. I have family members who have similar issues. 

When I went back to college, which I was 46, it was with the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition. I then started to wean off but so slowly. Still today, I am on an over-the-counter dose of 20mg of Nexium. But I was on very high prescription doses. I consider that a win. 

The way that I prevented becoming anemic all those years was by, I call it faking my own digestion. I started taking digestive enzymes with butane HCl. Then I started to take additional butane HCl. 

Of course, we know there are contraindications. This isn’t advice for anybody. If you have an ulcer, you can really exacerbate your issues. I didn’t. I had very low stomach acid. Still to this day, I take high doses of HCl, and I take a digestive enzyme with every protein meal. That’s how I’m keeping my mineral balance. We all know, without stomach acid, things can go downhill over the course of- I have been on PPIs for about 10 years or more. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s a long time. You said at one point your ferritin was a 6? 

Sandy:

Yes. 

Dr. Eric: 

I assume you monitor your iron levels. More recently, they are a lot better? 

Sandy: 

When I was doing the butane and still menstruating- This is important for your female listeners. If you are still menstruating, that has a big effect on ferritin. I had other issues with estrogen dominance. I had so many things that were going on in my 40s, and I had no one who could really help me. That is one of the reasons I went back to college. 

While I was still menstruating regularly, I would probably sit at about 15-16. If I got up to 20, that was a real win for me. Now, I actually just did bloodwork. I’m sitting at a 39. I’m now in menopause. One year of no periods, technically textbook, now I’m in menopause finally, at 55. 

Dr. Eric: 

You have never been vegan, vegetarian. Even when your levels were low, you were always eating meat? 

Sandy: 

Well, yes. I was always eating meat. This is all relating to the weight side of it. What the heck? I didn’t even know my body anymore. I’m a small person. I’m only 5’2”. What’s happening? I can’t eat this way. 

I think for me, it was almost like this double whammy of perimenopause and no thyroid gland. It was a double whammy for me. There was a time that I thought, oh, maybe raw food is the answer. Maybe becoming more vegetarian. I was never vegetarian. Never. But I avoided more animal protein at one time. These are all little stints. 

I have done many diets. I have done low carb, keto, intermittent fasting. I have done a lot of these things in the end. It’s all about the balance. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. Definitely want to chat with you about intermittent fasting because that’s a hot topic these days and over the last few years. I don’t have anything against intermittent fasting. Sometimes, it can get extreme. Even sometimes 16-8 fasts are too much for some people, let alone 18-6. I’m talking about regular people who are doing it on a daily basis. “I am going to go 20 hours and have a four-hour eating window or six-hour eating window.” I’d like to hear your thoughts on intermittent fasting. 

Sandy: 

The biggest thing I’m gonna say is I became insulin-resistant while I was intermittent fasting. How is that possible? I was 52. This was the first year that I went from regular cycles to I only had four periods that year. That was the year that estrogen dropped, that I started to experience hot flashes. I was still intermittent fasting, listening to the Maniverse. Sorry, no offense, Eric. I call it the Maniverse. 

Dr. Eric: 

No offense taken. 

Sandy: 

You know, I’m like, I was treating my body almost in a robotic way as opposed to listening to my body. If you go back to my history, I have some issues with cortisol. Maybe my resiliency to the stress it was causing me is not as strong as your resiliency. We’re also bioindividual, and we just need to listen to what makes sense for us. 

I think intermittent fasting is fine for some and not fine for others. Now, the only thing I will do is 12 hours overnight. I don’t eat late at night. I don’t snack. 

As you know, I became a certified metabolic balance coach. The reason I did that was they said, “You do the program. You’re recording with us. You gotta learn.” Okay. I did, and I learned so much about what was going on with my insulin sensitivity right in the latter stages of perimenopause. Then I learned this isn’t suiting my body. 

Of course, I started to research my own genetics and predispositions for type 2 diabetes. I have quite a few. I don’t have a thyroid gland to boot. I really have to look at all the variables. 

I hope people don’t get confused by this. When you really tap into what makes sense for your body, you can thrive. No matter what, without a thyroid, with a thyroid that is maybe not working so great, but you can. 

Dr. Eric: 

I definitely agree. I love what you say about listening to your body. I’m sure there are people who are doing intermittent fasting and are thriving. There are also those who don’t feel good. Maybe they should eat at 7am and do a 12-hour fast. Stop eating at 6pm/7pm. We are not saying to eat at 10pm. 2-3 hours before going to bed, I would recommend not eating. If you’re hungry first thing in the morning or an hour after eating, I agree with you. 

No snacking. Even that, it’s different. I’m more with you. A lot of people snack for the sake of snacking. If someone is dealing with hypoglycemia, or if someone is hungry, that’s a sign that they are not getting enough protein. If you really feel like you need a snack, that’s not a different conversation because it is tied into this, but there could be a reason why some people feel like they need a snack in between meals. I think we’re on the same page.

Sandy: 

This was when I was 47 or 48. I’m getting close to menopause. Better start working out. I started working out. I would lift pretty heavy at times. Then I was very much into taking in a lot of protein. 

That’s the other thing. You hear a lot of these doctors saying, “You must have this much protein in every single meal,” or “this much per day,” or whatever. How can you say that? How can you say that when you have no idea what Sandy Kruse is doing? How can you say I need this much protein? That’s why I’m always about the balance. Yes, we need protein, but we need protein to suit our body and our needs and our lifestyle. I do think too much protein is not great for longevity. 

Dr. Eric: 

Like you said, it depends on the person. Hopefully everybody who is listening to this is on the more active side, exercising. Those who can do resistance training. Some might be healing and not ready for that yet. There is a time and place for more protein. But I agree. 

There are people who are not getting enough protein. On the other side, there are people who are overloading and struggling to get enough protein. There are different units of measurement, but experts talk about 1g of protein per lb of body weight. If someone weights 120lbs, which isn’t really heavy, they would need to eat 120g of protein. If someone is 180lbs, they would need to get 180g of protein, which is a lot of protein and not easy to do. 

Sandy: 

There are ways you can do that. I remember when I was working out more heavily, I would do amino acids. Not protein powder because we know a lot of protein powder has a lot of garbage. It is hard to find a really clean protein source.

You know what I am starting? Collagen. I am starting to take that every day. A big thing that happens to a lot of women when your estrogen starts to decline is you start to get a lot of these aches and pains and joint problems. You know this. Menopause can really trigger a lot of these not so great things that go on with the joints in your body. I am doing a collagen powder, but a very full spectrum collagen. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. Like a whole-body collagen? 

Sandy: 

You know the one I’m doing is Dr. Josh Axe’s Ancient Nutrition. I like it. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m not familiar with the ingredients, but I know he has his bone broth powder. 

Sandy: 

Yeah, it’s clean, and he uses a marine collagen. He uses a bovine, very clean. He doesn’t use erythritol. I am not a fan of erythritol as a non-caloric sugar replacement. No thanks. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you like any sugar substitutes, like stevia or monk fruit? 

Sandy: 

I think I have been damaged honestly. I used to be so robotic in everything I did, to be truthful. It never served me. When I was keto, I would only take in Swerve. Do you have that in the US? 

Dr. Eric: 

Doesn’t ring a bell.  

Sandy: 

It’s a mix of erythritol with other non-caloric sweeteners. Then I would take in erythritol. I don’t mind stevia. I don’t like monk fruit. I feel like a lot of these non-caloric sweeteners are more processed than just having- I prefer to use a raw organic coconut sugar. It’s better for your glycemic index. Less processing than erythritol. I know a lot of people like monk fruit, but my gut can’t take it. I think that’s the key. Sugar alcohol can kill you as it relates to the gut. It depends.

I remember I was baking. I can’t eat sugar, so I’d be baking almost every day. What am I going to bake today with erythritol? It wasn’t good for me. Now, I will use date sugar. I have used coconut sugar. I will use raw unpasteurized honey, or I will use pure organic maple syrup. Those are the things I will stick to.

Then if you need a granulated sugar, a raw turbinado sugar, something like that. That’s it. I’m not going to use all of the non-caloric stuff. It doesn’t make me feel good. Not that I eat a lot of sugar anyway.  

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. I agree with especially the honey and maple syrup in moderation. Not everybody, but for many people, good option. When I have green tea, herbal tea, I was guilty years ago of adding stevia to it. Now, I just have them plain. I don’t add anything. I don’t even add honey or maple syrup. I just have it like it is. 

Sandy: 

Me, too. If I have some sort of flu or something going on, then I will have a teaspoon of honey. Who cares? Sure. It will raise my blood sugar, but I won’t worry about it because my body needs it. 

Dr. Eric: 

There you go. Hopefully you don’t have to do that too often. 

Sandy: 

No. 

Dr. Eric: 

Before we wrap it up, I did want to ask you about spore-based probiotics, Akkermansia. I heard a conversation you had. I am more of a Lactobacillus/Bifidobacteria person as well. I am still skeptical a little bit with spore-based probiotics. 

As far as the research, there is more research with the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. When someone is exclusively taking a spore-based probiotic, to me, it’s because they heard another practitioner but also the company hype them up, which I understand. If they sell them, I get it. It’s a business. 

I’d like to get your thoughts on spore-based probiotics as well as Akkermansia. There are now supplements available. I think it’s just one company that offers it. 

Sandy: 

Pendulum. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yep. 

Sandy: 

Here is the interesting thing about spore-based. I am born in Canada, but my parents are Croatian. They lived on the farms. My dad is going to be 88. We are talking old-school. My mom will be 79. I love to listen to their stories. How they grew up on the farm. What they did. How they lived. How they grew their crops. How they reared their animals. All that kind of stuff. I find it fascinating. it’s like looking at the blue zones and coming up with a modern way to live.

If you look at how farmers lived, sure, they would get spore- and soil-based probiotics. Usually, it would be entered through the air when they’re doing their farming. Maybe there would be some residue left on their produce. They’re not ingesting giant amounts of spore and soil-based probiotics normally. 

The way that I look at it, in my little brain, Eric, it doesn’t make logical sense to me. I don’t care about the company that is doing all these big advertisements. I truly don’t care. I look at what is logical to me. Maybe getting a little bit is okay. What do we have in our gut? What is it, a trillion different bacteria in our gut? Give me some of the human strain that I may be lacking because of the environment that I live in and maybe the food quality that I have access to. Give me some of the human.

The other thing is proliferation. From what I have researched on spore-based, they can really proliferate in the gut. 

Dr. Eric: 

Can they? I know the Lactobacillus and Bifido, you have to keep on taking them. 

Sandy: 

Right. But spore-based, I believe the research, and you can check on this because I am not definitively saying, pretty sure they can proliferate. Do I want that? Let’s look that up to confirm. I’m not 100% sure. 

Dr. Eric: 

I will do some research. 

Sandy: 

We all know the Lacto, Bifido, those are transient. I have done some research on L. reuteri though. Apparently there is more to come on L. reuteri. I don’t know if you have ever made your own yogurt. I tried, and it was a fail. I will try again. Some strains can proliferate, but a lot of these human strains that we are taking from the bottle don’t. They are transient. 

As for Akkermansia, I took it for a short period of time. It’s all in this marketing stuff. I have no loyalty to any of these supplement companies that we’re talking about. I took Akkermansia according to- I think it was a two-month protocol that I did. Some of the advertising that is out there saying it acts like a GLP1 and can help with your weight. I saw nothing, zero. Maybe there is other factors in there. We don’t know for sure. I saw nothing. 

The research that I did on Akkermansia is that you don’t want too much of it. It can actually do the opposite for your intestinal barrier that you want. 

Too much of anything, I’m like off of it. I did do a protocol. Have you heard of Vitract? It’s a gut test. 

Dr. Eric: 

I don’t think so.  

Sandy: 

I think they test for Akkermansia. I think the GI Map does, too. 

Dr. Eric: 

It does. 

Sandy: 

I do know that they often will recommend to test your gut for Akkermansia first. Too much isn’t good. What can I do? How about I eat fermented foods? My parents still ferment their own cabbage, like very old school, in a big barrel. They do it every winter. I just tell my mom to make me some cabbage rolls. It’s the best. 

So eat it. Preferably eat it. Eat prebiotics. Eat postbiotics. Eat probiotics. The way you do that is to eat a variety of foods. Then supplement with a human strain. That is very simple, but that is how I do it. 

Dr. Eric: 

There you go. I love it. Very helpful. We covered a lot of different topics here. Is there anything else I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? Anything else you want to say before we wrap it up and tell people how to find out more about you? 

Sandy: 

I don’t know if you have a lot of female listeners, but it’d be useful. 

Dr. Eric: 

I do. 

Sandy: 

You do? We might have to do another episode on menopause when you have thyroid issues. I have done a ton of research. This will be too long for me to get into. We are talking about how estrogen affects the thyroid. I just came off a very hyperthyroid state, which I haven’t been in for so long, just because I took seven keto DHEA. It was recommended to me for cortisol regulation. There is a lot.

I think this was a good place to start. I think that people have to know that there is a way to come back. When you get in touch with your own body and go, “I don’t feel right,” you have to learn how to advocate for yourself. 

I am on four different thyroid meds. Three different thyroid meds, four different doses. I work with my endocrinologist just to make sure that my balance is optimized.

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. I didn’t ask you, or maybe you brought it up. Have you taken desiccated? 

Sandy: 

I am on it. 

Dr. Eric:

You said you have four different doses. T4, T3, and along with that, are you rotating that with desiccated? 

Sandy: 

I am on two different doses of T4, and it changes. Recently, it changed again because of the whole DHEA debacle. We won’t get into that here. Yes, I take two different Synthroid. I take Cytomel. I take a desiccated every day. 

Dr. Eric: 

Sounds like it’s working for you, which is great. You’re feeling better. I’m sure your numbers are looking a lot better. We will definitely have to get you back on the show to talk about menopause and share your story as well. Would love to have another conversation with you, Sandy. Thank you so much for being on.

If you could let others know where they could find you. You have your own podcast and also a Substack. 

Sandy: 

For my podcast, just go to SandyKruse.ca. There, you’ll find all the links to my podcast, where you can find it, where you can listen. My podcast is now over five years. It’s all about wellness as we age. It’s really body, mind, spirit, soul because I am a big believer that we are not robots, and we all need to understand our bodies better in order to age better. The goal is really how can we optimize that and try and not get one of these nasty diseases that a lot of people are getting in their midlife years? That’s my podcast. 

I am a writer as well. I released my essential thyroid guide last year. That was self-published on Amazon. It’s called The Essential Thyroid Guide. It is 100% not a clinical guide. It is a patient advocacy guide. It’s simplified, so you can understand all the factors that can affect your thyroid health.

I also have Substack, where I write a lot of short explorative essays, where you can think about things as they relate to your own health. You don’t make mistakes. I have made a lot of them by listening to all of these health gurus out there. You really need to decipher resonance for yourself. 

Dr. Eric: 

I agree. I told you before we started, I signed up for your Substack and listened to your podcast. I also was interviewed by you. Highly recommend the podcast, the Substack, and definitely check out her essential thyroid guide on Amazon. 

Again, thank you so much, Sandy. This was a great conversation. Really appreciate you sharing your journey with thyroid cancer. 

Sandy: 

Thank you so much, Eric. I really appreciate meeting you and you having me here today. 

Dr. Eric: 

Same here. The feeling definitely is mutual. 

Sandy: 

Thanks. 

Recently, I interviewed Jenny,  our thyroid health audit participant, who shares her journey with Hashimoto’s and secondary infertility, two challenges that often go hand in hand but are rarely talked about together. In this episode we discussed how addressing root causes, not just lab numbers—can open new possibilities for healing and conception, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

Welcome to another Save My Thyroid audit. I am very excited to chat with Jenny here. She will talk a little bit about her health journey. How are you doing today, Jenny? 

Jenny: 

I’m doing well, thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to meet with you. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you as well for doing this. We were chatting a little bit before this, and you filled out the application I have everybody do, so I can get an idea of your health challenges. 

You were recently diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. The biggest challenge is dealing with infertility. Can you give a little bit of that background? When were you diagnosed with Hashimoto’s? As far as the infertility, you received IVF as well, so if you could talk about that. 

Jenny: 

Certainly. My spouse and I are navigating secondary infertility. We were able to have one child naturally. We went to try to have a second child and were not able to. After a while of trying, I had reached out to my OB to get some potential bloodwork done. They look at your ovarian reserve, your TSH, and something else. 

At that point, my TSH was in the normal range, but from my understanding, it was higher than what they wanted to see for somebody who was trying to conceive or pregnant. From what I learned, that range may not be the most accurate range in terms of TSH functioning. 

At that point, I was put on levothyroxine. I took that with hopes that maybe that would be the magic thing to get my TSH down, and then I could get pregnant. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. 

We eventually got referred to a reproductive endocrinologist. At that point, we did a lot of bloodwork. Within that wasn’t a full thyroid panel, but it did include TSH again and TPO antibodies, which were high. That was a little over a year ago. 

No one told me, “You have Hashimoto’s.” No one said there was any concern with my thyroid. They just said something like, “There has been a little damage to your thyroid. That’s all. It’s unlikely that your thyroid is impacting your ability to conceive.” 

We continued to do interventions. We did several IUIs. They were unsuccessful. We went to do IVF as well. That was unsuccessful. That’s another topic, and it was really devastating. We realized we must be missing something. Something was off. 

I had done a lot of research on thyroid through this process. Was it worth introducing supplements, working to get rid of toxins, changing my diet, stress management. As you can imagine, it’s really hard when you’re doing IVF. “Don’t be stressed,” but it’s one of the most stressful things ever.

I met with an endocrinologist this summer. Pretty off the bat, she was like, “You have Hashimoto’s, mild hypothyroidism.” I also have a family history of this. My dad has Hashimoto’s. My paternal grandmother. I don’t know if she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, but there were issues with her thyroid. She had a goiter, so I’m pretty sure she had Hashimoto’s. 

Then I went into a deeper dive. I have to figure this out. What can I do to support my thyroid? Consulting with some of your work, some other folks and their work as well. 

Dr. Eric: 

When you did your research, is that how you came across me? Did you come across my website or book? 

Jenny: 

I came across your book and website around the time I did that initial bloodwork with my OB. They were talking about thyroid. I was like, “Okay.” My mission is to have a baby. I have to do everything I can. My dad pointed me in your direction. He has an extensive library of thyroid books and resources. 

Dr. Eric: 

Glad he found me and referred you to me. 

When they first tested TSH, sounded like it was within the lab range but higher than optimal. They didn’t look at thyroid hormones. They just put you on levothyroxine based on the TSH alone. Eventually, they retested the TSH. It sounds like they still didn’t do a full thyroid panel, just TSH and TPO antibodies. Then they saw the TPO antibodies were high. Do you know if they tested the TG antibodies, which are also associated with Hashimoto’s? 

Jenny: 

No, I don’t have any bloodwork for that. I haven’t had a full panel done. I had asked my endocrinologist about that and was met with just looking at the TSH and TPO antibodies. They didn’t feel like we needed to test T3 or T4. 

From some of my more recent research, and maybe this is a question with you, I am hoping to do a bit more advocacy for myself to try to get a full panel done. I feel like that would be helpful, even if they are not considering it on their side of things, just for me to have an understanding of where I’m at and with a strong desire to reduce my antibodies. 

Dr. Eric: 

When it comes to testing TG antibodies, I could understand why they’re not doing it. It won’t change their approach. They will give thyroid hormone replacement regardless, the levothyroxine. 

I think it is crazy for them not to look at thyroid hormones just because maybe you’re taking the levothyroxine, which is T4, but T4 has to convert into T3. It’s not always reflected with the TSH. The T4 influences the TSH more. For all we know, the T3 might be on the lower side, even if the TSH is looking better with levothyroxine. T3, being the active form of thyroid hormone, if that is on the lower side, that definitely can affect conception. 

If you can’t get it through your doctors, I would pay out of pocket. I realize you have already spent who knows how much money on the IVF. Depending on where you go, if you go to some walk-in labs, they might charge you over $100. If you shop around, you can get it for like $30-40, TSH, free T3, free T4. Not a full thyroid panel with antibodies, but at least a look at the thyroid hormones. 

Make sure that T3 is optimal. I do see a lot of people with Hashimoto’s where that T3 is on the lower side. Definitely want to look into that. 

Like I said, the TG antibodies, for the sake of what they do, I could understand not testing. Actually, on the podcast, I interviewed a few healthcare practitioners who talked about fertility. Based on my own research, too, when you have low thyroid, that could affect conception. The antibodies could also increase the likelihood of having a miscarriage. It doesn’t mean that you will have a miscarriage, so it’s nice to get those antibodies tested to see. 

Maybe you just have TPO antibodies, and TG antibodies look fine. If that’s the case, you won’t need to retest those again necessarily. If they’re both high, and the goal is to eventually normalize them, which is my goal when working with someone, then I would say it’s a good idea to retest. But test it first, since you haven’t tested it at all yet. 

The priority would be T3 and T4. Then same thing. If you had to, you could pay out of pocket for the TG antibodies as well. It’s unfortunate that most doctors, including endocrinologists, will just look at TSH. Some will do a TSH and T4. As I just mentioned, you do want to make sure you are converting T4 to T3. 

You might have heard of reverse T3, which sometimes can be helpful, too. Like I said, I realize you have already spent a lot of money. Reverse T3, some people really think highly of it. Everybody with Hashimoto’s should get reverse T3, they say. I do try to include it. 

To me, it wouldn’t be the priority. When we prioritize the blood test, TSH and thyroid hormones are the priority. Antibodies are important. Reverse T3, kind of on the back end. If you can get that done, great. If you can’t get that done, usually we could look at the other numbers and get a good idea of what’s going on. 

Jenny:

If my T3 is lower, the recommendation would be to shift what medication I am on? 

Dr. Eric: 

Yes. If you are having a problem converting T4 to T3, ultimately, you want to try to address the cause of the problem. While doing that, you might choose to take T3. 

There are a few different options. They probably would recommend synthetic T3, something like Cytomel. There is also desiccated thyroid. A lot of doctors aren’t big fans of that, especially during pregnancy. Things like Armour or NP Thyroid, which have T3, T4 as well as T1 and T2, which are less well known. They would probably recommend synthetic T3. 

Another option is compounded thyroid hormone. You go to a compound pharmacy and get T4 and T3. 

You would want to address the cause of the problem, too. Approximately 60% of the conversion from T4 to T3 takes place in the liver. Another 20% takes place in the gut. 

Sounds like you have already done some good things for your health, like working on diet. Stress also could affect that conversion. Having higher cortisol could impact the conversion of T4 to T3. If you have to take the T3 to help with the conception, that is fine. You want to ideally identify the cause of the conversion problem and then address it. 

Jenny: 

Certainly. That’s where I feel like I’m so close yet so far away at the same time with figuring out the root cause. My TPO antibodies went up by 400 over the last year. I thought I was doing all the stuff I needed to do to help support my thyroid. Granted, I was under a high level of stress. I was taking a lot of medication for infertility reasons. They were working to reduce inflammation, but I still had a lot of inflammation happening because of all of that. 

I was really disheartened when I asked to get my TPO antibodies rechecked recently and saw they had increased by 400. I was so hoping the opposite. 

Dr. Eric: 

It can be challenging to lower and normalize the antibodies. It’s not uncommon for them to rollercoaster back and forth, which can make it challenging. Let’s say you test antibodies again in a few months. If they decrease greatly, again, sometimes can be misleading. Obviously, that’s what we ultimately want to see. 

It sounds like something might be missing. Diet and lifestyle, very important. It’s a piece of the puzzle. If you have my book Hashimoto’s Triggers, there are a lot of triggers. Food is one. Stress is one. There are a lot more, too. It could sometimes take some extensive detective work, depending on the person. That’s the next question: Have you done any functional medicine testing at all? 

Jenny: 

No, I haven’t done any functional medicine testing. I’m interested in that. I was in such an urgency to have a child and wanting children close together and got pushed in a variety of directions into the more medical route. I do feel like that would be beneficial for me, and I’m hoping to do that. 

On my own, I have really worked on foods I’m eating or not eating. One big thing has been balancing my blood sugar. I was always super hangry, and that has gotten a lot better.

I am taking a lot of supplements. Some of that is good; some of it is frustrating. I don’t want to move through my life taking this many supplements. Some of them I don’t even know if they are doing anything or not. Either they were recommended for infertility reasons or suggested in some thyroid resources I found. 

I’ve had gut issues throughout my life. They’re a lot better now. I don’t experience that as frequently. I feel like I’ve had a lot of growth there. 

I have no idea how my liver is doing. I know the liver functioning is important, and there can be a lot of buildup there. I wonder about that. 

I feel like I’m going off from your initial question now about functional medicine. Here I am telling you all the things I am trying to do so far. I’ll stop here. 

Dr. Eric: 

No, that’s okay. Getting back to the liver. When you do a basic blood test, like a comprehensive metabolic panel or hepatic panel, they are looking at liver enzymes, AST, ALT, sometimes GGT. That doesn’t really look at the function of the liver. 

If those levels are low, that is what you want. If they’re higher, that means there is some type of damage. I see that more with my hyper patients when they are taking antithyroid medication for example. The levothyroxine wouldn’t do that. 

That doesn’t tell us how you’re detoxifying, what your toxic burden is. There is really not a great test to look at our toxic burden. You can do testing to look at heavy metals. You can do other tests to look at other types of environmental toxins. 

In that respect, I would say definitely do as much as you can to minimize your exposure to environmental toxins. Even without knowing levels of heavy metals and other environmental toxins, they might do liver detox, and that is hugely harmful. Sometimes, it can cause certain side effects, like die-off effects. 

The supplements, I definitely recommend supplements, but that is one reason I do testing. There are some general supplements, like omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics. Depends on the person. We want to do testing to see what imbalances someone has. My guess is you probably had at least some blood testing, like Vitamin D. I’d be surprised if they didn’t look at Vitamin D levels. 

Jenny: 

I did have Vitamin D. That’s fine. Vitamin D, iron, B12, magnesium. 

Dr. Eric: 

How did your iron look? Another challenge is hair loss, which could be related to the thyroid but also nutrient deficiencies. I don’t know if you remember your iron numbers. Like the thyroid, they might be within the lab range but outside of the optimal range. 

Jenny: 

I don’t have the specific numbers in mind, but I believe it was fine, within the lab range. I also had some resource that I was consulting, more functional medicine. It seemed like it fell in that range, so that wasn’t a concern.

My B12 was really high. 

Dr. Eric: 

I assume you’re not a vegetarian, that you eat meat? 

Jenny: 

Yeah, I do. 

Dr. Eric: 

If you ate a meal higher in B12, whether it was beef or something else the night before. If you are taking a B12 supplement, you probably are taking a prenatal? This has not only folate but B12. 

Jenny: 

Yes.  

Dr. Eric: 

I usually don’t get too concerned when I see B12 high. It is common on a blood test. When that is low, that could be an issue. When it’s high, it’s usually because you are getting exposed to it either through the diet or supplementation. 

There is another marker called methylmalonic acid, which is a better indicator of B12 status. Usually not tested by most doctors. That might be something to look into if you’re concerned about that.

With diet and lifestyle, what you’re doing as far as trying to eat a whole, healthy foods diet. 

The stress is huge. I know you’re doing things to manage your stress. I would continue on an everyday basis. That doesn’t mean that you have to spend an hour per day on stress management. Consistency is important. Just because some people will maybe do yoga 2-3 times a week, and that’s it. You really want to be in the routine of stress handling. 

How is your sleep at night? 

Jenny: 

My sleep is generally okay. That’s one of the areas that I’m more recently focusing on. I have to acknowledge, I didn’t sleep as great last night because I was nervous about this conversation and being recorded. I kept waking up thinking about what I was going to say. Generally, I can fall asleep fine. 

I do think with balancing my blood sugar, at least a piece of it has supported me in waking up not as groggy. I don’t know for sure. I think just energy-wise, I am feeling better. 

I do have a Fitbit that tracks my sleep. I always have a very high level of light sleep and not much deep sleep.  

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. A lot of light sleep and not enough deep sleep. That’s something to work on. You haven’t had your adrenals tested, I assume? 

Jenny: 

No. 

Dr. Eric: 

Also something to look at. There are a few options with that. Saliva testing is really good for looking at adrenals. 

A lot of functional medicine practitioners would recommend DUTCH testing, if you are familiar with that, for someone who is struggling with fertility. That looks at adrenals, sex hormones, and the metabolism of the hormones as well as some other things. That might be something in the future that you want to look into. Have you heard of DUTCH testing? 

Jenny: 

I’ve heard about it. I don’t know too much about it. The name is familiar to me. 

Dr. Eric: 

Especially if someone is focusing on fertility, most practitioners of functional medicine recommend a DUTCH test. Not everyone. Some might just recommend saliva testing for adrenals and testing sex hormones in the blood. The thing is, you can’t look at the metabolism of the hormones in the blood. Still, I can’t say the DUTCH test is absolutely necessary, but the more information you get, the better. I would look into that. 

You have already done some tests through the blood. You mentioned iron and B12 and magnesium. Magnesium in the blood, they often look at serum magnesium. RBC magnesium is better than that. Sometimes, you have to take what you get if you are running it through insurance. I understand that. 

You mentioned the gut. You said the gut used to be a big problem, but not as problematic. Maybe you don’t need to do gut testing, like a comprehensive stool panel. You could always start conservatively. It’s really up to you. Some women understandably, especially if they have gone through IVF and want to do everything they can- 

I tend to be on average more on the conservative side with the testing. Not to say that you need to spend thousands of dollars on functional medicine testing. In this situation, since you did have a history of gut issues, and you can’t always go by symptoms, you might want to dig a little bit deeper. If you do decide to do functional medicine testing, maybe consider the DUTCH and a comprehensive stool test. 

Jenny: 

I would be open to that. I wonder if there is something there still. It was so bad for a large chunk of my life. I am grateful that it’s better. Big impact on my life. That’s what prompted me to go- I have been gluten-free for 14 years. That was what helped me a lot. Still didn’t resolve it all, but it helped a lot. I would be interested in doing a comprehensive stool panel. 

Dr. Eric: 

I think the next steps: Continue with the diet. Gluten-free is great. I usually recommend paleo or autoimmune paleo for Hashimoto’s. If you are concerned about AIP being too restrictive, paleo is still pretty healthy. It eliminates the common allergens, the refined foods and sugars, unhealthy oils.

Stress management, we spoke about. Just continuing to work on sleep. Reducing your toxic burden. Trying to minimize cleaners, cosmetics in your home. Try to eat as organic as possible. 

The functional medicine testing. Just to fill in the gaps. If you feel like you have done everything from a diet and lifestyle standpoint. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe there is still some improvement in that area. Even if you have done 100%, you want to make sure that everything goes according to plan with conceiving. 

I would recommend doing the functional medicine testing. Some type of adrenal testing, maybe digging deeper and doing the DUTCH test, possibly a comprehensive stool panel. 

That would be your homework for things to work on. Hopefully, you give me an update in a few months with some really good news. It’s not easy. I know it’s very stressful, very emotional. Even for those who aren’t having fertility issues, taking a functional medicine approach and trying to lower and normalize antibodies usually is not an easy process. I commend you for doing what you’ve done so far. I definitely would look into the functional medicine testing and give me an update in the future. 

Jenny: 

Thank you. I will definitely look into the functional medicine testing. I hope there is a good update. At the very least, I want to be able to be the healthiest version of myself and reduce some of these other symptoms that I have. If there is a baby, that would be beautiful. I hope there is an update for you. 

Dr. Eric: 

Hopefully you get the best of both worlds. You optimize your health, and you give good news of pregnancy and having a healthy baby. 

The good news is that there are still things you can do. It’s not like you have exhausted everything. If you had said you had done all the functional medicine testing, even diet and lifestyle, there is room for improvement. I think you can continue to work on that. Consider functional medicine testing.

I’d like to be optimistic and confident that in a few months, you will shoot me an email with some good news. Definitely do so. Again, thank you so much for agreeing to do this audit, Jenny. 

Jenny: 

Of course. Thank you for your time and speaking with me. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thanks, everyone for taking the time to listen. I hope you found this conversation to be valuable. I look forward to catching everyone in the next episode. 

Recently, Dr. Lisa Tamati, who is a world-renowned longevity and health optimization expert. In this episode, we talked about her powerful journey from ultra-endurance athlete to passionate health advocate, sharing how she helped her mother recover from brain aneurysm and cancer using cutting-edge therapies. Lisa highlights why reclaiming your health starts with the right mindset, targeted nutrition, and smart supplementation, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am super excited to chat with Lisa Tamati, as we are going to be talking about a lot of different things: brain injuries, hyperbaric oxygen, genetic testing, I’m sure a few other fascinating topics. Let me dive into Lisa’s impressive bio here: 

Lisa Tamati is a globally recognized expert in longevity and health optimization, a trailblazing educator, and a serial entrepreneur. As a former ultra endurance athlete with over 25 years of experience competing in some of the world’s toughest races, Lisa has transformed her passion for peak performance and resilience into a mission to empower others to achieve their full potential in health and longevity. 

A podcaster for over a decade, Lisa hosts the globally top 200 ranked show in the functional medicine, longevity, and biohacking space, where she interviews world-renowned experts and explores cutting-edge advancements in health.

She is also the author of five best-selling books including Relentless, which shares her inspirational journey of overcoming adversity and achieving the seemingly impossible. 

Lisa’s career extends beyond broadcasting and writing. She is the co-founder of the biotech company Aevum Labs, dedicated to developing innovative solutions for aging and immune health. She has also founded several other successful ventures, leveraging her expertise to bridge the gap between scientific research and practical applications in wellness. 

In addition to her entrepreneurial achievements, Lisa is a sought-after speaker, documentary filmmaker, and former television host, known for her engaging storytelling and ability to simplify complex scientific topics for diverse audiences. Her columns and content focus on empowering individuals to take control of their health through evidence-based strategies, mindset shifts, and practical tools. 

Lisa’s work embodies a unique blend of personal grit, scientific expertise, and unwavering passion. Whether she is addressing professionals in the biotech industry, coaching athletes, or inspiring everyday individuals, Lisa brings unparalleled energy and insight into every stage. Learn more about her work at www.LisaTamati.com. Welcome, Lisa. 

Lisa Tamati: 

Thanks, Dr. Eric. I know it sounds good when it’s all written on paper, but in reality, just average. 

Dr. Eric: 

A lot of this, I didn’t know, and I have listened to some of your podcast episodes. Your podcast for over a decade. That’s a long time. And a former television host. I didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool. You definitely have done a lot. Now we are going to learn even more about your background. Why don’t you spend a few minutes telling us: How did you decide to make that transition, helping others in the health and wellness field? 

Lisa: 

As you said in the bio, I had a background as an extreme ultra endurance athlete. I spent 25 years racing all over the planet, doing really long ultra marathons, in the Sahara, the Moroccan, the Arabian, the Libyan, the Niger, the Jordan, Gobi. Did the US a couple times. Ran right through New Zealand. At one point, for charity. Lots of adventures in the Himalayas and the Outback of Australia. 

The funny thing was I wasn’t very talented as a runner. I was just bloody minded, and I didn’t have a lot of speed. I went fast. I was good at getting around obstacles, finding a way to do the things I loved. And I loved adventure.

When you spend so many years pushing the excellent boundaries of physical performance and mental endurance, it really teaches you a lot of lessons for life. You realize that all the limitations the world puts on you, “You can’t possibly run through this valley in the middle of summer. You can’t possibly run across the Sahara. You can’t possibly do this,” were wrong. 

That gave me a mindset of “Just because someone tells me I can’t do something doesn’t mean it’s true.” If I dedicate myself to something, I usually find a way to work it out. I might not be very talented. I might not be the most intelligent. I might not be the fastest. When you have a lot of grit and determination, and you’re willing to grind things out, you can achieve a lot of things. 

Having that ultra marathon background and doing expeditions and succeeding and having a lot of experience really set me up for what I’m doing now, which is in the longevity and health space.

I was thrown into this space because my mom, who is wonderful and always supported me through my crazy adventures, a decade ago, she collapsed on the floor at home and was rushed to the hospital. She had an aneurysm, and she was misdiagnosed from the get-go. They thought she just had a migraine. An aneurysm and a stroke at the same time, she had bleeding in the brain. 

We were left there for six hours in the ED, being told it was a migraine, and she was dying at this point. After six hours of desperation, I rang a friend who was a paramedic because I was getting ignored. I knew something was majorly wrong. 

She came up and took one look at Mom, and she knew her, and she said, “No, this is deadly serious.” She went to the doctor and told them to get a CT scan, which he finally relented and did. It came back that there was blood throughout the brain. We had to be shifted to Wellington because we live in a regional area in New Zealand. 

That put me on high alert. My mom was fighting for her life, and I didn’t know what to do. I was caught out. I made a silent prayer to whoever is out there in the universe. If they gave me a second chance, and if they saved my mother, I would dedicate my life to helping others and getting her back and doing everything I possibly could. When you’re in that moment of desperation, and you promise the world. 

I started to research. In that time, when she was in critical care down in Wellington and in and out of a coma, there wasn’t a lot I could do because she was in that critical situation. I started to observe everything. When you’re with someone 24/7, with a couple hours of sleep here and there, you pick up things that the doctors aren’t picking up necessarily. I started to have the oddest situation where I was missing something. I realized that I could make an impact. That grew over time.

After three weeks, my mother was out of critical danger. She’d survived. But she had massive brain damage. She was a baby with hardly any higher function. No ability to sit or put food in her mouth. Completely and utterly brain damaged at age 74. 

Then they said to me, “She is never going to have any quality of life again. Put her into an institution, and she won’t be with us very long.” I’m a fighter, so I wasn’t accepting that whatsoever. 

My desperate search to find things that would help my mom led me in different directions. The first thing I picked up was I didn’t think she was breathing properly. I thought she had sleep apnea because I have done a lot of racing at altitude, and I knew the signs of altitude sickness. I was seeing those signs in my mother. 

I tried to get the doctors to do a sleep apnea assessment. They wouldn’t do it. I smuggled in a consultant one night, who was a friend of the family. He came into the hospital, and we hooked her up to the machines to do a study. It came back with severe sleep apnea. She was stopping breathing hundreds of times a night. She was Cheyne-Stokes breathing, which is not far from not being on this planet. 74% oxygen stats, which is really deadly.

That was my first win. Then I was like, now we have oxygen, and we have a CPAP machine. I stated to realize I can make a difference, and I can do things. I dove further and further into the research. 

One of the things that I came up with was hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I read about the work of Dr. Hodge in America, who is a famous hyperbaric specialist over there. How much this could help with massive brain injuries. 

Then I went on a search for how I could get my mom hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and it wasn’t available in my town. Except there was a commercial dive company that did hyperbaric oxygen for their divers. I approached this dive company and said, “This is my situation. Can I please use your chamber as soon as my mom is out of hospital?” These amazing people said, “Yes, sign a legal waiver, and then we will let you use the chamber.” That was absolutely amazing of them to do that.

I remember the day we got out of hospital. I had a hell of a fight to get her home by the way, but I won’t get into that story. I took her straight down to this factory. Fragile, in a wheelchair, nobody home Mom. We put her on a forklift and stuck her in this big hyperbaric chamber. That was the only way we could get her in. We did this day after day after day after day. We did 33 sessions back to back with the weekends off.

After those 33 sessions, she started to respond. Now, she didn’t just get up and walk, but she started to have a couple of words. She was paralyzed on the right side. Her arm started to move. She started to have a little bit of flicker of intelligence behind her eyes. I knew that this was working. 

After 33 sessions, we lost access to the chamber because it had to be taken off on a contract. How do I get her a hyperbaric chamber? I moved her to my house and bought one. I stored it in my house, and I worked out how to get her into it because she couldn’t move on her own. All of these obstacles we had to overcome. I got her into the chamber. I found a way. I put her through session after session after session.

In this time, I was also starting the keto diet and how that affects the brain and ketones. Different supplements and functional neurology and vestibular systems. Everything I could possibly study in order to stay one step ahead of her rehab journey. Slowly, a real grind. 

After 2.5 years, to cut a very long story short, and I have written a book about this called Relentless, as you mentioned. We got her back to full health again, full power of attorney, full license, full driver’s license. You don’t get a driver’s license unless you’re fully there. Walking, up to 3ks, 4ks a day, going to the gym, going out and having an independent life again. It was thousands and thousands of hours of retraining her brain and working day in, day out. That taught me an awful lot.

That’s how I got into this space, Dr. Eric, to answer your question.  

Dr. Eric: 

That is some story. Definitely an inspirational story. When we think about traumatic brain injuries, this is obviously really extreme. I think it’s safe to say, in most cases, most people would probably give up. Like you said, you’re relentless. That is one of the books. An amazing story. Your mom is doing really good? 

Lisa: 

That was unfortunately round one. That was a decade ago. We got her back to full health, to doing everything again. Then she got hit with brain cancer. We had another similar experience at the hospital, where they refused to believe me that there was anything wrong. I spent three weeks fighting to get an MRI. 

When they did finally do an MRI, they found that half of her brain was covered in cancer, probably from the effects of what she had been through earlier. Who knows. They said, “She had weeks to live, and there is nothing you can do. She is too old to do major bone marrow transplants. She is unable to take the chemo; she wouldn’t survive.” 

I took my research to cancer. I didn’t accept that she had only weeks to live, and there was nothing I could do. Luckily, through my podcast, I have access to some of the most brilliant minds on the planet. This is one of the reasons why you and I do this, I’m sure. You meet some of the most incredible people.

I started studying this metabolic approach to cancer. Incredible discoveries in this space. I started to implement as much as I possibly could. I chased private oncology because our local oncology wouldn’t help us. I did advance genetic testing in regard to cancer. Worked out exactly what her particular type of cancer would respond to from a supplement, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy point of view. Then I threw everything in the mix. 

I managed to get a mild form of chemo called temozolomide, which showed on her genetic testing that she would respond to. Then I did all the natural approaches. I was just going to get natural, but we had weeks to live, so I had to go hard on both sides of the fence.

I have now released an audiobook called What Your Oncologist Isn’t Telling You, which is an interview series with 21 of those experts who work a lot with cancer patients, teaching them about the side of cancer research that is not well-known and is beyond what- 

The normal oncologist will be an expert in chemo and medication and surgery and things like that, radiation, but they don’t know about this metabolic side of the story. They don’t know that your metabolism- Sugar feeds cancer. At the very basic level, you want to be cutting carbs out. Then it gets more complicated. You can block different pathways with different drugs and do all sorts of things.

Long story short, it took us 12 weeks to get rid of the tumors on the MRI. We have been free of cancer, touch wood, ever since. You never want to say you’re cured because it’s a tricky beast. It can always morph and change its metabolism. I keep on my toes very much. 

We’re now 4.5 years into that journey. She is doing well again. We have had other issues like bone fractures and osteoporosis and placements and things like that. 

I think the moral of the story is to take control of your health. Be preventative in your mindset. Don’t outsource your health to any one person, any one doctor. Understand that we have at our fingertips now all of the knowledge of the universe, and even more so now with AI. We didn’t have AI a few years ago. We have everything at our fingertips, if we are willing to put in the work, if we are willing to do the hard work. 

If you have some way out of the way rare disease, you can very much research that disease and be more of an expert than your doctor will be because they haven’t come across that particular disease. That puts the power in our hands to take control of your health. 

I know with your story, because you are on my podcast, you were a chiropractor. You became a chiropractor because you had back issues. Then you had Graves’, so now you are a Graves’ expert and have written all of these books and are a thyroid expert. You are a living example of what I’m talking about, too. You’re capable of going out and finding this- 

Of course, Dr. Eric already had a medical background. Yes, but I’m sure most people could take control to some degree. Maybe not to the degree that you’ve done where you have written three books on it. Perhaps you can do more for yourself than what you realize. I think that’s the gist of my story. 

Dr. Eric: 

I had my chiropractor background, but I had no experience with Graves’. I did pretty much what you did. I dove into the research. Wasn’t a whole lot of research on the natural approach on Graves’, so I went to seminars. I completely understand and agree. You want to take control of your health regardless of the situation.

Can I ask how long now has it been since the MRI? You said it took 12 weeks before the tumor was gone on the MRI. 

Lisa: 

That was 3.5-4 years ago. Four years of extra life we’ve had so far. She has an extensive protocol, and it changes constantly. I am researching constantly to make sure we stay there. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying that every cancer patient will get the same results. Every cancer is very different. 

But I also am saying to never give up. There is hope. My mom had advanced cancer. This was not at the beginning of the journey. This was way advanced. Now, when I went to a brain surgeon a couple months ago, he was like, “I can’t believe she was on my list today. I didn’t expect her to be alive. I can’t believe she’s walking. I can’t believe she’s talking. I can’t believe that you’re here.” 

Yes, she has some disabilities now. She has hydrocephalus, so she has balance issues. She has to be supervised now when she is walking because of the water on the brain. That is why I was at the brain surgeon, to see whether he could put a shunt in to take off the fluid. We have decided against it. We are trying alternative methods. It’s too risky to put her through another brain surgery. But that’s about the only thing that we haven’t managed to get back. 

I have seen her brain go from completely gone, not much of a vegetative state, to fully there after the aneurysm, and then losing her again fully in the brain cancer journey, and then getting her back, and losing her again when she has had different infections. She is not able to talk or do anything. She is not there. Then bringing her back. Again and again and again. I have seen what the brain can overcome. 

I work a lot with people with dementia and Alzheimer’s and neurodegenerative diseases, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, that type of thing. A lot of people, when they get these diagnoses, they think it’s a death sentence, and it’s the end of the road. There’s only drugs, or it will just delay things. You could not be further from the truth. 

I have done extensive interviews with experts from the likes of Dr. Dale Bredeson to Dr. Elizabeth Yoo. The experts in brain rehabilitation. We can do so much. We can see a lot of things coming like Alzheimer’s and dementia. We can see it coming years ahead. We can do something very early on. It’s a lot easier. If it’s later on, there is still hope.

I often get accused of giving people false hope. I see it the other way around. I don’t like it when people take away people’s hope. For me, life is binary. You’re either alive, or you’re dead. If you’re alive, fight. For me, it’s that black and white. If the person wants to fight. If they have a loved one who is willing to support them, or whatever the case is. If they don’t want to, then that’s a different story. But if they want to fight, never give up. There is a chance. Even if it’s a small chance. 

The other thing is that medical knowledge is doubling every 79 days now apparently, according to some amazing statisticians. That means what used to take 100 years to double is now doubling every 79 days. There might not be a cure for what you have right now, but there may be next month. There may be somebody in the world who has got the answer for you. You just don’t know about it. Your local doctor doesn’t know about it. Your country doesn’t know about it. But you might be able to get it and access it. 

Never underestimate when you are looking  for things. There could be answers out there that are not on your everyday street corner. I feel that’s really powerful. 

Dr. Eric: 

I agree with you that if you address dementia earlier, there is a greater chance of getting good results. You also said, even if someone is advanced, there is still hope. If someone has had dementia, Alzheimer’s for 10-15 years, is it possible to completely reverse that? Is it just trying to maintain it, preventing it from getting worse? Or just reversing some of it? 

Lisa: 

There is a point of no return for sure. Having seen my mom’s brain go from completely black to full function again and again and again and again over 10 years, most people have given up way before they could have done something. Usually, we can get people at least reversed part of the way. We may not get them back to full baseline, but if we can get someone who is nonfunctioning, unable to dress themselves, go to the toilet, do those basic things, and get them to a level where they can do those basic things, they may not be able to work or drive a car or do everything they used to do, but they can function around their own house and talk again and do some interactions with their fellow human beings. That’s a win. That’s a huge win. Not only for the person, but for the caregivers. 

As a caregiver myself, having been in this role for 10 years now with my mom, and now she has these disabilities where she can’t move on her own, so I have to supervise her all day. She can’t get up on her own since a hip break. I know what a sacrifice is. I know how it limits me in my professional capacity to work. I know the monetary implications of it from a business point of view. The stress on the marriage, the rest of the family. It’s huge. 

If you can get someone who is completely incapable back to a level of functioning within the household, that is huge for a family. Yes, we may not be able to get them from completely full dementia to completely normal again, but we can maybe get them four or five steps back on the scale. That to me is gold. 

When we can get people that are earlier on in the pace and just are starting to have brain fog, forgetting where they put car keys, they know they’re not quite there, we can do a heck of a lot and reverse disease. 

There is a doctor called Dr. Dayan Goodenowe. I am doing his training at the moment. He is an expert in something called plasmalogens. They are a particular type of phospholipid that sit in the membrane of the cells. They are absolutely crucial to life. When we get sick, a virus or bacteria or have an insult, our bodies use these plasmalogens to put out the fire, putting it very oversimplified. 

If we don’t have a leg full of plasmalogens to draw back in from, it’s like the firefighter having a hose without any water in it. If we are low in plasmalogens, we are not going to have good synaptic transmission in our brain. Our sheaths will start to unravel. 

We can have problems with our heart because these plasmalogens are not just in the brain but elsewhere as well. These plasmalogens are absolutely crucial to life. They are in breast milk. Breastfeeding infants gives a lot of plasmalogen to infants through their milk. This helps with their organ development. 

As we get older, we get less and less of these plasmalogens because we have used them up to fight fires in the body. We can now replace them. Dr. Dayan Goodenowe has spent decades working out how to get plasmalogens through the digestive tract and into the cells to replenish these reserves. I am probably butchering his science nicely, so listen to my episodes on it. 

These plasmalogens are regrowing brain cells. They are regrowing the neurons. They are rewrapping the myelin sheaths around the nerves and the neurons. They are increasing the transmission between neurons. 

He is having actual reversals of Alzheimer’s, reversals of Parkinson’s, reversals of multiple sclerosis, of ALS. People with dementia. He is absolutely astounding. Highly recommend people check that out.

I have my mother on high levels of these two types of plasmalogens. One is called Glia, and one is called Neuro. They are not cheap unfortunately. It costs me a lot of money to keep her on plasmalogens. That is one of the major factors that has saved her brain. Alongside other things like peptides and hyperbaric, which we can get into in a moment. 

Please check that out. I have no monetary connection to Dr. Dayan or anything like that. I am just passionate about his work because I have seen the results. Not only in my mother but also with some of the clients I work with. It’s astounding. If you look at some of his testimonials. 

Endless cancer. It helps prevent the return of cancer. Once again, I have these on high levels for my mom. That is something I wanted to put on people’s radars today because it is still a relatively unknown thing.

He did a study on a 95-year-old with high plasmalogens. They have the same five-year mortality rate as a 65-year-old with low plasmalogens. In other words, that is 30 years’ extra life span you have just gotten back. Pretty astounding. If you can get your plasmalogen levels up, even for healthy people, I am in my 50s. You can prevent a lot of these things from happening perhaps. I think it’s a really good thing.

Dr. Eric: 

How are they administered? Is there a way to test your plasmalogen levels? 

Lisa: 

Good questions. There is a test called the ProdromeScan. Unfortunately, there is not that many practitioners who are trained in it yet. But you can do a scan, and it will tell you exactly what is the makeup of the fats in your membranes. 

Your membranes are like the brain of your cell. It’s not actually the DNA that we think of as the brain; it’s the membrane that is the most crucial. You could take DNA out of a cell, and a cell will survive. You take away the membrane, and it’s dead instantly. It’s what allows things in and out. 

When this becomes hardened, and when it becomes clogged up with cholesterol or whatever the problem is, or it has low plasmalogens, you’re in trouble. 

Your membrane is what separates your cells within your body. Otherwise, we would just be a big bag of fluid. It’s the membrane that separates the different things within the cell. Really crucial that these membranes are healthy. They are very complex. If you look at a diagram of a cell, you will see how complex the membrane is, as well as the cell.

You take it as an oil. It’s a capsule, or you can have it as a straight oil. There is one called Glia, which helps with the myelin sheath. If you think of it like an insulation tape around an electric copper wire. The tape is unraveling in our brain basically when we get things like MS and any neurodegenerative disease. That helps with that one. We usually put that one in first.

Then there is another one called Neuro. That increases the transmissions. 

One tunes the station, and one makes the station volume louder. We usually start with the Glia and then the Neuro later. That is usually the way it’s done. Pretty easy. A couple capsules a day. High doses. You can go up to- Mom has eight capsules a day of the Glia and six of the Neuro. It is a few hundred dollars a month, but he is working on bringing that down. Hopefully he will be successful because it needs to get out to more people. It is a very complex process to make these things unfortunately. 

They are not available in our food chain per se. They are in things like green lipped mussels and sea squids. They get digested in the digestive system, so they get broken down. He has developed a way to get them through into the body, so they are reassembled back in the cell. Go and listen to him speak about it rather than me. 

That’s plasmalogens, so that is something to put on people’s lists. I put that in every single case of any brain injury if they can. 

Dr. Eric: 

How about hyperbaric oxygen? Do you also recommend that, if someone can do it, for any type of brain injury? 

Lisa: 

Oh yes. That was the cornerstone of my mom’s recovery. I have a hyperbaric oxygen clinic. I sell them. I am a huge fan of them. Hyperbaric is basically you are compressing the oxygen molecules. You are on an oxygen mask in a chamber that has more pressure than we have at sea level. Even with the divers, they use these hyperbaric chambers. When they come up fast, we stick them in a hyperbaric chamber and bring them up slowly. 

What they have found is when you put someone on oxygen and go the opposite direction, putting them under pressure, the oxygen molecules are compressed in size. They dissolve into the plasma of the blood. As opposed to being attached to the red blood cell. 

When they are on the red blood cell, it is quite big itself, and then it has an oxygen molecule attached. That means it’s difficult to cross into areas, like through the blood-brain barrier and through inflamed tissue, where there is inflammation and a lot of damage going on. Think about wounds, cuts, ripped ligaments, anywhere where there is inflammation or systemic inflammation. You are also hypoxic, which means you are not getting enough oxygen to those particular tissues.

One of the main things it was used for was diabetic wounds. People who are going to lose their legs if they don’t get the nutrients delivered to the legs, which are dying from the damage to the blood vessels from having high blood sugars. Or their eyes. 

Hyperbaric has been used for that for a long time, but it also helps with wound healing, tendons. It speeds up the healing process. It lowers inflammation in the body, so it lowers all of the inflammatory cytokines. 

It produces more stem cells out of the bone marrow. Stem cells are cells that can come out of the bone marrow, look for damage in the body, and become the replacement tissue. The body that you have now is not the body you had when you were 20 or as a baby. Obviously, you can see those changes. As we get older, the stem cells start to deplete. We don’t get as much stem cell release.

Hyperbaric oxygen helps release more stem cells out of the bone marrow. That helps with the repair. That is one of the major things. 

It can create new capillaries. I have seen this on a patient who had heart issues. He actually came into the hyperbaric to heal a broken leg. Later on, he had a problem with his heart. When they looked at his heart, his heart had a blockage that had created blood vessels around the blockage. That is hyperbaric. It is creating new roads around the block. It can do that. 

In the brain, it can help set oxygen across the blood-brain barrier, so oxygen can get delivered to the damaged cells. In a case like my mother’s, you have areas of dead tissue in the brain. You can’t do anything to save those. They’re gone. But the brain is very resilient and can pick up the pieces, and other players can come in to replace the A team, if you like. You have a reserve bench. 

Often, around the dead tissue is an area called the ischemic penumbra, which is the damaged areas that are still alive. The neurons are still alive, but they are not firing properly. Those are the ones that we can rescue. 

We can see it on SPECT scans. We don’t have SPECT scans in New Zealand, but over in America, if you look at the work of Dr. Hart or Dr. Daniel Amen, they have hyperbaric SPECT scans. This is a type of scan that shows the improvements after you’ve had hyperbaric and can see the holes in the brain disappearing. They have been reestablishing these neurons, so they are working.

What you want to do if you have brain damage is actually exercise those cells. You need to do brain training and exercise and physical exercise as well. When you put together a program like that, you can do extraordinary things. 

I like to stack as well. I use hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Say someone has an unhealing wound or a broken leg. They come into the hyperbaric after they have done what they need to do at the hospital. They have session after session. 

You do need a lot of sessions. It’s a block of sessions, depending on the ailment, somewhere between 20-60 sessions. It’s not a quick fix. When they are coming in, they are speeding up that healing process. 

Then I like to stack it according to their nutrient profiles, their microbiome assessments, with different supplements that can actually be synergistic with the hyperbaric. I often do red-light therapy as well because I’m a fan of red-light therapy. That works synergistically as well. There are also peptides.

When we start to stack those things, you can have extraordinary results. Unfortunately, all of those cost money. I wish it was democratized. I wish that everybody had access to everything, but unfortunately, we are not living in that world yet. Hopefully, these things will change. As these things become more and more accessible, and they are. It used to be more than it is now to buy a hyperbaric chamber. Things are slowly coming down. All those things do cost. The one limiting factor.

For people who don’t have a lot of money to be able to do this, there are still things you can do. You might not be able to do it all. If you have the funds to do things, then you can go to town. It’s really how much you are wanting to.

The biggest thing I find though is mindset. If I have a person who is determined, come hell or high water, to find an answer to their problem, and they are willing to fight, I know with that person, I will get further than with someone who has been dragged along by their spouse and really doesn’t want to be there and is not interested. They don’t believe it. They will never get better because it takes effort and time. 

Biology is not one of these things that you fix in two seconds. It takes time and a concerted, ongoing effort. If there is anything I learned from ultra marathon running, it’s how to do that. How to grind it out day after day after day. 

Dr. Eric: 

I do have a question with the hyperbaric oxygen chambers. I dealt with chronic Lyme in 2018. That was one of the options that was given to me. I ended up getting IV ozone. I took herbs and homeopathy as well. I didn’t do the hyperbaric oxygen. But it’s intriguing. 

I believe they said that their hyperbaric oxygen chamber is different than the one that would be at antiaging clinics or the ones that you would have at home. Was that one more powerful? Can you still get good results? Apparently, you can get good results with a home chamber because you recommend the home chambers. 

Lisa: 

The only difference is the pressure that it can go to. The home ones now can go up to 2atm. They have worked out the technology. The one that you see behind me is a 1.5atm chamber. The one I have in my clinic is also a 1.5, so exactly the same. They are as powerful, but there are 2 atm, 2.5 atm, 3 atm. 

Usually in the clinic setting, we might go up to 2atm. Only in the hospital setting or in big hyperbaric centers, then they might go to 2.5 or 3atm. For most ailments, a 2atm is all you will ever need. For cancer, it would be better to be in a 2atm than in a 1.5atm. However, 1.5 is much more accessible for people. It’s also a safer level to go at. 

Once you go over 2atm or 1.75, I’d say, you really need to have clearance from a hyperbaric doctor. There are certain contraindications once you go up to those higher levels. Even at 1.5atm, there are certain things we won’t do it for. 

For example, when you are having chemotherapy, and you are actually having the chemo, we don’t do the hyperbaric. The reason is it will make the chemo more powerful, so we don’t want to make it more toxic. We want it to do its job but not that well that it does it more. We don’t touch that. 

If someone has COPD, we’d have to get a special hyperbaric doctor to say it’s safe for you to come in. There are certain things because oxygen can be an irritant to the lungs to a small degree. There is a thing called oxygen toxicity that happens at the much higher atmospheres, 2 and above, where you can get too much oxygen in too short a time, and that can cause seizures. 

That does not happen in the 1.5atm. The home chambers have what’s called an oxygen concentrator. That is only taking out the nitrogen and other bits out of the air and leaving you with about 93% pure oxygen, as opposed to 100% medical-grade oxygen that you will get in a hospital setting. 

100% is more irritating. In the clinic setting, you don’t want to have 100%. The commercial dive company, they had 100% oxygen because they were working with dive accidents. They had to have specialists. 100% oxygen is a bomb. It needs a lot of regulation around it. When you have these oxygen concentrators, there is no risk of any of that. It’s a lot safer.

When you hear often the hospital, 2.5, 2atm clinics, they will poo-hoo the soft-shell chambers because they are protecting their territory. They will charge a lot more per session than the clinics that are offering the soft-shell chambers that might be 1.5, maybe 2atm. There are soft shells that now go to 2atm. They are protecting their territory. Take that with a grain of salt. It’s the same pressure, and it’s going to do a lot of the same things. 

There is a difference between 1.5 and 2 and 2.5atm. You would have a better effect when it comes to wound healing and cancer at 2atm than you will have at 1.5atm. Most people will only be able to access 1.5, and it will still be very beneficial. That is the only thing. Does that make sense? It’s a little bit complex. 

Dr. Eric: 

I think so. You have one at your home. Besides your mom using it, do you use it just for wellness? Like sauna? I go in the sauna three days a week, not because I’m feeling bad, but for prevention, to increase circulation, detox. Do you do the same thing? 

Lisa: 

Absolutely. I use it for longevity, anti-aging, sport performance, detoxification, all of that. I typically do a block three or four times a year. I have it in my clinic, so I can use it. I also have the one at home. I rent them as well. I can get in them at any time. 

I usually do a block of 20 and then have a break and then a block of 20. It’s better to do things in a block. You get more epigenetic changes when you’re doing them close together in a block than when you’re having them spread apart, if that makes sense. 

Dr. Eric: 

When doing a block of 20, is it multiple times per week? 

Lisa: 

I do a block of 20. That might take me a month to do that. Then I might have a month off. then I might do another 20. Or two months off, depending on life. I try to do them in blocks of treatments. Sometimes, I will just do one here or there because I want to get away for an hour and hide. There is a bit of that, too.

You won’t feel much different. When you hop in a chamber, you’ll have pressure change in your ears, so you need to equalize your ears in order not to get baric trauma. That is like you do when you go up in a plane. You chew or move your jaw and try to equalize. Otherwise, you don’t feel any different. You will get out and go, “Is that it?” 

On a cellular level, these changes are happening. You’re turning on and off 8,000 different things. When you do that repeatedly, you are getting epigenetic changes over time. Stem cell release happens after about 20 sessions. If you have something serious, you might want a block of 40 or 60 sessions. If you really are dealing with something like Mom was.

In the first instance with Mom, we were doing a block of 40, a month off, a block of 40, a month off. That protocol, in the time off, is where we would see the big gains. It’s like the body catching up. When you go to the gym, you don’t see the gains the moment you go to the gym. It’s a week later that you start to notice that you were able to lift a bit more, or you were able to go a bit further. After a couple of months, you really start to see the difference of going to the gym or running. 

It’s the same with hyperbaric. It takes a little bit of time to get that momentum going. But changes are happening from day one just like they are at the gym. You don’t see that you’re fixed right away. You have to believe in and trust the process. 

Dr. Eric:

I’m pretty sure you’re the first one to get in depth about hyperbaric oxygen. 

Lisa: 

My mom wouldn’t be alive without it. It’s that crucial. It’s a cornerstone of these things. Time and time again, both with the cancer and the healing of different injuries that she has had, the concussions she had and the aneurysms, all of it. It was an absolute key. That’s why I have the clinic because I needed it for my mom. Why don’t I open a clinic? 

Dr. Eric: 

I’ll admit, when I dealt with chronic Lyme, first of all, I learned a lot about IV ozone, so I was set on it. Also, I’m not completely claustrophobic, but a little bit. When they were talking about going into the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, if I had to get out, I had to alert them. 

Lisa: 

Most of the chambers, you can control it from the inside. Honestly, everybody feels that the first time. Once you get over yourself, the first or second time, when you are in the clinic setting and are in a hard shell chamber, it’s a lot easier. There is a big viewing window. A two-way phone. 

The soft shells, it’s more. You have to release the pressure, and you’re out in a minute or two by the time the pressure comes down. If you intellectually work it through, you can usually overcome the claustrophobia. 

Millions of people use this around the world, and it’s safe. It’s worth that little bit of fear for the huge health benefits that you’re going to get. Some people can’t get over that hump. For me, it’s sad because they are foregoing something that could be super beneficial to them. 

Dr. Eric: 

If I know I can get out on my own, it’s fine. 

Lisa: 

You can. 

Dr. Eric: 

If I have to rely on someone else… 

Lisa: 

There is always a way for you to get out. All the chambers have a way for you to control the things to get out. You shouldn’t be left alone in the room when you’re in a hyperbaric chamber. Ideally, we always have someone in the room with them. Eye contact with them. They are able to take phones in there as well. They also have a two-way phone. There is a lot of safety things you can put into place and comfort things for people. it is a little bit of an issue. 

Getting in and out is a hard thing. If you have someone with a stroke, trying to get my mom, who was paralyzed. We had to get a hoist. With the soft shells that we had back then, it was a mission. We would get her in, and she would pull the mask off. We would have to decompress the room, open it back up, put it back on, and do it again. But we persevered. That’s hyperbaric. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’ll need to give it a try. I won’t do one on my own yet. I’ll go to one of those anti-aging centers. Try it out before I make that investment. Make sure I’m willing to- 

Lisa: 

Listen to a podcast. Then you’ll need to do it. Put it in your clinic. It’s the sort of thing you could do in your clinic as well. It’s hugely beneficial. 

Dr. Eric: 

Maybe something to consider. Thank you for discussing this. 

I know you have longevity supplements. You have an immune one you wanted to talk about because a lot of people listening to this have thyroid autoimmune conditions, which are more immune system conditions than thyroid conditions. If you could talk a little bit about whatever you want to talk about with your line of supplements. 

Lisa: 

Appreciate that. Once again, everything that I do, I’m looking for an answer for my mom. She had an immune system compromised. She is 83. Everybody’s immune system, as we get older, you get something called immunosenescence, which is the aging of the immune system. 

The more I researched this, the more I dug into this, the more I understood that absolutely foundational to all of the diseases of aging is a healthy immune system. It’s the reason we get a lot of these things. 

Cancer survivance goes down; you get a lot more cancers in older age because your immune system is not operating. You get more autoimmune as you get older because you’ve had all these insults, and your immune system is confused, so it starts to attack itself. This is all in the immunosenescence. 

When we have senescent cells, these cells are also known as zombie cells. The cells are alive, but they are not replicating properly or doing their normal cell life cycle. They have been trapped in a state with us, fueling our inflammatory cytokines that are causing systemic inflammation, and are not doing their job. Immunosenescence is the aging of the immune system. 

Stanford University has done this thing called the 1,000 Immunomes Project, led by Dr. David Furman, who I have interviewed on the show. For the past 15 years, he and his colleagues have been studying the immune system. It’s the largest immune system study ever done on the human population. Huge study. 15 years. Millions of dollars gone into this project from Stanford. 

What they discovered is that all of the hallmarks of aging are influenced by your immune system. When I was looking at longevity supplements, and I was putting in 100 different supplements quite literally for all of the 12 hallmarkers of aging, to try to cover all your bases. Studying this work actually, if we went to the immune system and worked on a formulation that helps stop the aging of the immune system, or slow it down, or reverse it even, could we then influence all of those hallmarks of aging? Indeed, that is the case.

Dr. Furman and his team have identified a lot of proteins. They have a test coming to market called the iAge Test. This is a test to see how well your immune system is aging. By correlation, if you like, how you are aging. This is the key thing. They have identified things all these different proteins they can measure in the blood. They definitively know how well you’re doing after 15 years of this research with your aging immune system.

We started to put a formulation together, working with teams around the world that have special ingredients that were aimed at fixing the immune system. When we get older, we have this thing in our chest called the thymus gland. When we’re young, it’s this huge gland in the chest. In the baby, it’s huge. This is where our T cells get their education. They become mature T cells when they go through the thymus. They go out into the bloodstream and can look for the baddies, the pathogens, the bacteria and viruses, and can help mount an immune response.

As we get older, that thymus involutes, which means it becomes useless. It becomes a fatty little nub. It gets fat infiltrated into it. It no longer does this. By the time you’re our age, it is pretty buggered. 

Scientists have been working on how to replace the thymus, and we haven’t worked out how to regrow thymuses yet. There are peptides we can use to give back thymic function, things like thymosin alpha 1, which can be very powerful in a younger immune system. Peptides are a bit inaccessible to get to.

We started working with a combination of products. We put four products into a formulation that has over 15 years of clinical research behind each of these ingredients. One is called Immune Defense Protein. It comes from New Zealand cows. Extract from the whey fraction of milk. 

We use whey a lot for body building and muscle building. It’s great for you. There is a tiny fraction, like 5% of the actual protein fraction, which is 1g in every 10l of milk, that has a suite of 50 bioactive whey proteins. They are there to protect the cow. In this case, it comes from the cow, from inflammation and infection. 

They include things like lactoferrin. If you look this up, it’s quicker to look up what it doesn’t do. It’s an amazing molecule that helps with iron binding, tight junctions, all manner of things. Lactoferrin makes up 40% of this Immune Defense Protein. There is something called lactoperoxidase and a suite of 48 others.

The synergy of these together is much more powerful than the pure lactoferrin. A lot of people know about lactoferrin. There are conferences held every year on the wonders of lactoferrin. IDP is much more powerful. 

We have paired that with something called Immunol, which is an extract of colostrum. It is the first food that a mother mammal produces for her baby. It gives the baby in the immunoglobulins, the transfer factors, the growth factors for that baby to develop really quickly and get an immune system up and going. 

Human babies are born with some immunity that they get through the placenta. In cows, the calves are born with no immunity. If they don’t get colostrum, they don’t survive. 100% their immune system is dependent on it.

We have taken this extract of colostrum, which has a lot of other things, because it’s a whole food. It has fat and other things we don’t necessarily want in our humans. We have taken the extracts out of it, the stuff that actually does the good things for you, and put that into an extract that is going to help with your immune system. It gives you back growth factors, like IGF1; transfer factors; immunoglobulins. It helps with tight junctions, gut and repair. It’s antioxidant, antimicrobial, antibacterial. 

The IDP and this together is just an absolute powerhouse. It’s colostrum times 50. Much more powerful. It helps with gut integrity. We have barriers right throughout our body, through our GI tract. Have you heard of leaky gut? As you know as a thyroid specialist, when you have leaky gut, you are exacerbating your possibility for getting autoimmune diseases because you are letting the bad stuff into the bloodstream, which is causing accelerated aging of the organs, damaging the brain, and can lead to autoimmune and all sorts of problems. We want to fix those barriers and get those tight junctions tight again. That is what this formulation does. It is clinically proven to do so.

We also have two other ingredients. One is called carnosic acid from the rosemary plant. Rosemary has been used for centuries in traditional medicines. It is a very powerful NRF2 upregulator. The NRF pathway helps upregulate your andogenous antioxidant capacity. It is also antibacterial, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and so on. 

It lowers something that the Stanford team identified as being one of the most important proteins in blood. When this is elevated, it means you’re going to have more immune problems, more cardiovascular problems. It is a protein called CXCL9. It is a chemokine. 

Carnosic acid, which is an extract of rosemary, helps lower that particular CXCL9 in the blood, which is a very powerful thing. 

The fourth component, and I could talk for an hour on each of these ingredients, is something called cara cara. Not cava. It’s related to cava, which you may have heard of from the Fijian. Cara cara is a native New Zealand plant that is of Maori descent. The native population here. We have used cara cara for centuries for a tonic, for everything. It’s one of those fix everything type of plants, in particular, for pain relief and gut health. 

It is a COX2 inhibitor, like your nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories. It does that without all the negative side effects. it also upregulates the NRF2, that endogenous antioxidant capacity. It also has all these antimicrobials and antioxidants. It also upregulates something called Interleukin 10, which is an anti-inflammatory cytokine that you produce in the body, which gets lower as we get older.

They all lower Interleukin 6, Interleukin 1 Beta, TNFL and NF Kappa B. These are all inflammatory cytokines that go up as we age. The Stanford University project, they identified systemic chronic inflammation as being at the core of all these aging diseases and the immune system breakdown. 

Our formulation, which has been done with a world-class scientific team behind this, who spent the last two years bringing this product to market. It’s now available. My company is called Aevum Labs. The website is AevumLabs.co.nz. 

You can look at your zonulin levels in the microbiome, which should be going down when you are on the supplement. Things like your lymphocyte counts. We don’t have clinical evidence for this, but anecdotally, we are seeing lymphocyte counts going up. 

We have clinical studies that say it activates natural killer cells, which are the ones that go out and kill things like cancer cells and pathogens that are infected. Natural killer cell activity is activated through this formulation.

Without going on forever, because I could, this is a super powerful, really foundational supplement that is safe for nearly everybody to take. We don’t give it to pregnant ladies, and we don’t give it to children. We are bringing out a second product that doesn’t have the cara cara and rosemary, so we can give it to these two populations as well. Otherwise, it is really safe. 

It is safe for someone like my mom, who is elderly, fragile, and has a bunch of complications. It’s what I wanted for her. It is helping protect her from infection and helping her bounce back when she does get an infection. Recently, she got a portacath infection. She got a port, which they stick in your chest to help you take IV and stuff when you get older. That got infected because of the plastic in the bloodstream. 

Giving her Rejuvenate meant she bounced back way faster than would be expected for someone having had sepsis from such a bad infection. I was glad to have my own product. 

It’s called Rejuvenate Pro. We are really proud of the work that has gone into this. This will really help people stay healthier for longer, and it’s all about health span and lifespan. Most importantly, health span, so we don’t have all these diseases. Thank you for letting me share about that. I am really excited about it. 

Dr. Eric: 

You’re welcome. It is available outside of New Zealand, too? For those in the United States? 

Lisa: 

It is coming to the United States. We have a team who will be getting it shortly in a few weeks’ time. They don’t have it yet. If you want it at the moment, hit the Shop button on my website, and you will see it there. That is the best way to get it. But it is coming to the States. Watch this space. It will probably be there in about two months’ team. We have a team in Colorado, Longevity Launch, who are going to be distributors in the States for it. Really excited for that. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. I might need to give that a try as well. Always open to trying different supplements. 

Lisa: 

Unless you’re pregnant, everybody should be on it. If you’re over 40, then it’s a no-brainer. If you’re autoimmune, then it’s a no-brainer. If you have gut issues, immune system issues, this is the thing. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. You provided so much amazing information. I know we could talk easily for another hour or couple of hours, but any last things you want to say before we tell people where they can find out more about you? 

Lisa: 

No, I just want to thank you for the work you do. I was so glad to have a thyroid expert on my show. They are few and far between, people who really understand thyroid. It’s something I’ve been studying for the past couple years and still haven’t gotten my head around. As you know, it’s very nuanced. To have your expertise has been so wonderful. You have a good man here if you have anything thyroid and chiropractic, of course. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate that. Same with you. 

You said you have a physical practice, so anybody in NZ, they can come visit you. Do you also do remote calls as well? 

Lisa: 

Yes, I do. I work with people all over the world. I have a concierge health consultancy. People can hop over to my website, LisaTamati.com. 

Check out the podcast and YouTube channel. I’d love for people to subscribe there. Pushing the Limits is the name of the show. If you’re on YouTube, type in “Lisa Tamati,” and my channel will come up. It’s an incredible privilege. You will find that, too. It’s wonderful to learn from these people, isn’t it? 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. I have listened to some of the episodes you’ve had, and I need to listen to more. Your books, where can we find them? 

Lisa: 

A couple of them are still available on Amazon. They’re all on my website. Running Hot and Running to Extremes were my two running books I did. Relentless. Then the other two are e-books available on my website: the cancer book and another one for athletes on mindset. The first three should be on Amazon, I believe. I haven’t looked for a while. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you so much, Lisa. It was great being on your podcast and amazing having you on mine. So much great information that hasn’t been touched upon before on my podcast. Appreciate you taking the time. Look forward to keeping in touch with you in the future. 

Lisa: 

Exactly. Let’s stay connected, Dr. Eric. You’re in my network now; you’re on my radar. 

Dr. Eric: 

Same here. 

Lisa: 

Thank you so much, everybody. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you.

Recently, I interviewed aesthetic nurse specialist Rachel Varga. In this episode we discussed how toxins, EMFs, and inflammation impact aging and shares practical strategies to protect and rejuvenate your skin, hair, and overall well-being. From skincare essentials to cutting-edge therapies, this episode is packed with expert tips for achieving a radiant, youthful glow, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am very excited to be chatting with Rachel Varga. We are going to discuss how to get radiant skin naturally and go beyond that. We will also be talking about healthy hair, healthy eyes. This will be an excellent conversation. Let me dive into Rachel’s bio here:

Rachel Varga is a double board certified aesthetic nurse specialist. Since 2011, Rachel has been offering medical aesthetic rejuvenation in the specialty of oculoplastics and is known for providing a natural and healthy look and transformation and educating through her show The School of Radiance Podcast. Welcome, Rachel! 

Rachel Varga: 

Thanks so much for having me here. It’s great to connect. We had a fantastic conversation on thyroid and the skin on The School of Radiance. I’m excited to get into some natural skin radiance tips for everybody here. 

Dr. Eric: 

Same here. We had an amazing conversation on your show, as you said. This will be another amazing one.

For those who are not familiar with your background, could you go a little bit deeper? What made you decide to get into aesthetics and focus on helping people get radiant skin? 

Rachel: 

Absolutely. I did two years of peds ICU care. That was very challenging psychologically and with schedule of shift work. I thought to myself, do I want to become a doctor? I wrote the MCAT and took gen chem, organic chem, biochem. 

Then I started working as an aesthetics nurse. I got training. I started offering rejuvenation. That basically encompasses skin care, lasers, and other nonsurgical rejuvenation modalities. I fell in love with it. I started to teach other doctors and nurses. I started in the industry in 2011 and started teaching in 2017/2018. 

I published my first PubMed paper on eye aging recommendations: how I achieve non-surgical rejuvenation for the eyes because the eyes are the first area of the face to show signs of aging. Huge implications with thyroid health and the eyes, which I’m sure we’ll get into.

Around the same time, when I started publishing papers, I started to look at the nationwide data on what is impacting our health. I came across a statistic of autoimmune diseases: Deaths of unknown cause doubled compared to the year before. Subsequent papers have been written, one on oxidative stress, basically a biohacking paper. What can we do to clean up our environment to feel better and look better? That’s what I’m all about. I saw again that statistic: Deaths of unknown cause double.

If we want great skin, to support our thyroid and both look and feel our best, we really need to consider not just rejuvenation for looking great, but also every single thing that we’re doing throughout our day. This is where biohacking, modulating our environment, aka purifying it, with the approach I take, and published papers on it speak to, that is what is going to set the stage for reducing inflammation and slowing aging. 

I also observed quite frankly in a number of my patients over the years who looked the best. Actually, who didn’t need as much rejuvenation and got faster and more powerful results. What were they doing in their lifestyle? They were living a clean lifestyle: body, mind, spirit, energy. They were drinking filtered water. They were maybe filtering the air. Getting outside in nature, so they had less exposure to EMFs. They would do regular detoxes. They also ate specifically to what their body wanted, and they didn’t follow the trends. 

I basically started to take notes out of these patients’ playbooks, who I then called radiant. Why are these the substantive people? Why are they different? Why are they more beautiful, even if they have signs of aging? I started to study that and speak to that for many years now.

It’s great because you could be in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and actually be looking and feeling better than maybe you did even a decade before with just a couple of simple tweaks that do take a little bit of time to learn and integrate but make us look better by reducing inflammation. 

Dr. Eric: 

Awesome. Your first ever paper was on eye aging. That’s pretty cool. I was going to ask you about the foundations. Can you say them again and spend a few minutes on how important it is to incorporate those foundations? 

Rachel: 

Absolutely. If we think about this autoimmune disease category or deaths of unknown cause, of someone passing even before having a diagnosis, we are seeing this statistic nationwide doubling. There is something happening in our environment that is impacting the way that we look and feel, to the effect that some people are dying from these things.

You might think, This Rachel Varga nurse focuses on skin, and it’s all about the superficial. If you want to look great, you have to consider what’s going on on the inside, from what I consider a toxic bucket angle. If we think about our health, and we think about the toxins that we’re exposed to, it’s the toxic bucket. This bucket can get filled up if we’re exposed to tap water or forest fire smoke or industrial pollution or heavy metals from the air or mold. EMFs, things like that. Actually get into some of the simple things that we can do. 

I would say we’re in a different time than our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents. There are more things that have been modified in our food and our environment. If we want to continue to thrive and live a purposeful life, have great families, relationships, have energy to focus on what we can contribute to, in being a positive impact in the world, we do need to take a little extra care of ourselves in considering where we live and the amount of toxins we might be exposed to and then what we can do about it, which will make your skin look better. It will also probably contribute to maybe even a lessening of thyroid disease symptoms. All these things could potentially be supportive in just helping your body operate better. 

Air, water, lighting, electromagnetics, eating the right foods. Decreasing the load in your body of yeast, fungi, parasites, heavy metals, and mold. That is the angle that I recommend taking. 

When we think about biohacking or all these fancy gadgets and things we can buy to support our mitochondria, we will think red light. I would actually say purification first of your environment, and then living a more peaceful life, reducing the stress, slowing down the pace, being more present, psychologically and mentally, that is going to have a positive, supportive impact on how good we look and feel as well.

These things take time to learn. They take time to learn how to practice and reprogram. The way that we operate. I mentioned a couple of things that are the nitty gritty, foundational things that I recommend we start purifying first, which I wrote the paper on. How we move through life to both look and feel our best. They’re all going to work together. Of course, living a purpose-driven life. The whole thing about having beautiful, radiant skin naturally is that it might require some shifting in how you operate.  

Dr. Eric: 

I think a lot of people overlook the foundations, especially when thinking about healthy skin or healthy eyes. They don’t think about purifying their air, the water that they drink, let alone the impact of EMFs. Many people still aren’t aware of the negative impact they have. 

Quick question about the water: What type of water do you recommend? What do you personally drink? Reverse osmosis? Spring water? I’d love to get your thoughts on that. 

Rachel:

Ideally, if you can get yourself a parts per million water tester, that’s helpful. In general, we really want to stay away from tap water. The reason why is water is treated at a water treatment plant with a whole bunch of different stuff. Then the pipes that water travels through, they never get cleaned. They get laid in the ground. What can happen is in those pipes themselves, biofilms can accumulate. If you’re not filtering your water, you’re drinking those biofilms. That can inadvertently add to a toxic load.

The other thing with water is the pipes sometimes are like a plastic pipe, like a PVC pipe, which emit phthalates, which can negatively impact our hormones. 

For water purification, distilled water is always going to be the best. That’s what we use in chemistry labs and biochemistry for reactions because it’s the most pure. It’s hydrogen and oxygen, which is actually a chemical. When you hear things like, “chemical-free skin care,” that’s the biggest green washing ad joke out there from anyone who knows anything about chemistry. Some chemicals are good for us, such as water. The combination of the hydrogen atom and the oxygen atom to make the H2O water chemical or compound, if you will. Distilled water is best. 

What I find is more accessible is reverse osmosis. I have a page on my website at TheSchoolOfRadiance.com that is my Biohacking tab. That is where I have listed all of the different air purifiers, water purifiers, EMF mitigation fabrics, and things I personally use.

For reverse osmosis, you can do your whole home. Or you can have a countertop solution. Or something that your plumber comes and hooks up underneath your sink. A shower filter and things like that, too. Filtering your water is really important, so you’re reducing your exposure to biofilms and different chemicals that are utilized to kill things like pathogens in the water from the water treatment plants. A lot of things don’t get filtered out that are in your water now that I do care about filtering out for myself. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. I use reverse osmosis as well. I have used distilled in the past, too. The tap water drives me crazy. And people who purchase the plastic water bottles by the case. Most people don’t know. 

Rachel: 

You don’t know what you don’t know. It’s all good. But you know now. 

Dr. Eric: 

Exactly. It’s our goal to try to educate them. 

Let’s talk more about healthy skin tips. If someone has incorporated the foundations, what else can they do? 

Rachel: 

I do want to talk actually about air. People don’t think about air quality impacting the skin. Most of the body’s intake of heavy metals is through the air, either through inhalation or resting on the skin. When I was doing my research for this paper on oxidative stress status and the impact on skin aging, if you look up my name on PubMed, you’ll find many papers I have published over the years. 

When the metals rest on the skin, it tells our keratinocyte stem cells to die faster. We don’t want that. The skin cycle already slows down as we age, which is why we want to do things like cleansing and exfoliating and retinol. 

Having air purifiers in your home is great. It helps reduce that load on the skin from what actually lands on the skin. The saying “cleanliness is next to godliness,” I love that sentiment because cleansing the skin twice a day as well as the skin on the body is a great approach. 

A really simple skin tip is to wash your face in the morning and in the evening, with a double cleanse in the evening. The reason why we want to do that double cleanse in the evening is the first cleanse is you wash your face with your cleanser and rinse it off. That is getting off your makeup and skin care. Your second cleanse is actually washing your face and rinsing that off thoroughly.

A big thing that people miss. It’s like textbook. Someone meets with me, and they have red, irritated eyes and red, irritated, sensitive, dry skin. I ask them, “Are you cleansing the skin twice a day? Are you doing a double cleanse in the evening?” “No, I’m using an oil cleanser to take off makeup. I’m using micellar water. I’m using a makeup remover mitt.” That, I don’t find works. 

I have been doing this a really long time, since 2011. Two weeks of tweaking a skin care routine to care for the skin how it wants to be cared for can actually help reduce that skin redness, dryness, and sensitivity from caring for the largest organ of the body. 

Cleansing is really foundational. Rinsing the eyelids well, so you’re keeping these meibomian glands on the eyelids clean. 50% of the population has dry eye. That’s a pretty common thing to experience. Clean eyelids are very important. That’s why I don’t like those lash extensions that became popular a number of years ago. They are a breeding ground for bacteria, not to mention the time and money it takes to install them and reinstall them. No thanks. Not for me. 

I don’t even get my nails done because getting my nails done is also a degree of toxic exposure, too. 

Cleansing, moisturizing, second key foundation. A moisturizer should function like a multivitamin for the skin. It’s like taking a multivitamin internally. When we are putting something on the skin, we don’t just want it to make the skin feel good. We want it to be doing something for the skin. This is where hyaluronic acid, copper peptides, antioxidants really come into play. 

Of course, we want that formulation to be preserved, so it doesn’t build up bacteria in the container, which a lot of these super-clean, hippie dippie, crunchy type of skincare brands fall short. They could be not very stable from a micro perspective but also the actives not being kept stable, like Vitamin C or antioxidants. I actually use colloidal silver in my skincare line, which is pretty revolutionary.

Sunscreen is really important. Mineral sunscreen on the eyelids, the face, the neck, the chest, the hands, the high real estate area. Only mineral sunscreen. I don’t recommend chemical sunscreen filters at all, especially if we are putting products on the neck. Whether that be your skincare, your sunscreen, makeup. 

Perfumes. When we are putting stuff on the neck, especially perfumes that contain phthalates, that is right over the thyroid. I’ll just use essential oil as a little bit of a fragrance, but very conscious about the products that I use. 

If we’re putting stuff on our neck, it’s right next to the thyroid. The thyroid could end up picking up toxins and accumulating them, which impacts the function of the thyroid. I have worked with a lot of clients over the years who have thyroid disease, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism. First things first, we want to clean up the skincare routine, dial it in, and streamline it.

The fourth thing—cleanse, moisturize, sunscreen—is exfoliate. We want to be exfoliating the skin to get off that buildup of the stratum corneum, which is like corn flakes when they stack up. If you have dry skin or sensitive skin, you probably are not cleansing enough, and you are definitely not exfoliating enough.

If you start to do these four things with products that are customized to what your specific skin needs are, you should start to see some positive changes after just two weeks. 

Dr. Eric: 

We are going to talk a little bit later about your skincare line. Do you have your own sunscreen as well? 

Rachel: 

What I’ve done since 2011 is recommended products I really love. There were a couple of products that I thought the company keeps changing formulations, and I have to pull it, or it’s too hard to get, or I could make it better. 

I made a number of products that have sold over the years better: cleanser, hyaluronic acid serum, copper peptide serum, light moisturizer, heavy moisturizer, an eye gel. 

Sunscreen, there is a sunscreen I have that I love. It’s a great one. It’s 20% zinc. That’s from another company. It’s on my skin shop. 

It’s a combination of what I recommend of things I have made, where I have made some things from the med spa industry better, and then still some really good products that are still made by other companies. 

Dr. Eric: 

I must admit, I don’t moisturize or exfoliate. Most guys I’m thinking probably don’t. I am guessing you would recommend it for both men and women? 

Rachel: 

Absolutely. Here, we get into the concept of a team-based relationship. If you listening are in a partnership, and you’re the one who is really excited about health and looking after yourself because you feel crummy if you don’t, and you know that if you take better care of yourself, you will show up as a better partner and maybe a better parent and in your workplace. This stuff is really important to you.

If your partner isn’t really on the same page, there can be potentially some conflict around that. It isn’t about if one person is super into health and wellness, and the other one is like, “Oh, is that snake oil?” Skepticism is a sign of intelligence by the way. You can slowly start to integrate these things into your lifestyle and your home, so it’s not overwhelming for your partner. Ideally, you want to be in a team-based relationship, where both of you have shared values, which includes health and wellness. 

Oftentimes, my clients, probably about 70% are ladies, and 30% are gents. You’re sharing your products. You’re sharing your cleanser, your moisturizer, your eye cream, your sunscreen, your scrub. Even if you are having younger kids who are acne-prone, you are getting them set up with good products, too, so they don’t go to these big box stores and end up using products that have tin and DNA and BPA. I have seen that in products marketed to teens from some of the biggest brands out there. I go through ingredients of what products I’m using when I do one-on-one sessions globally.

For the guys, to start to do these basics is fantastic. Also, even looking at haircare. Guys usually use one bar of soap for their whole body: their face, their hair, their body. But the skin cell receptors on the face are different from the body. When I teach lasers, which I was for the last two days, at a med spa clinic, we have to change the settings when we go from the face to the body. Literally, the skin on the body is actually more sensitive than on the face. You might think it’s the opposite, but it’s not. 

The scalp is essentially an extension of your skin. For having healthy, thick hair, and getting ahead of hair loss, which for sure happens with thyroid disease, is how can we care for the scalp directly with maybe when you’re shampooing, doing some better exfoliation? I can make some recommendations for products. Also using some products that can promote supporting hair growth, too. 

Dr. Eric: 

You’re right. A lot of people with thyroid conditions have hair loss. I find it even worse in those with hyperthyroidism. You could have it with either, but it seems like those with hyperthyroidism, it’s extreme. Balancing the thyroid hormones is important. 

I get a lot of questions about what else can I do when it comes to stopping hair loss in addition to balancing thyroid hormones and growing back hair. You hear about things like biotin and other nutrients. We need healthy nutrients, healthy gut. As far as products go, I’d love for you to talk about, do some of those products actually work in helping to stimulate hair growth? 

Rachel: 

Oh yeah. After a couple of weeks, you will notice baby hairs. That can be annoying as a lady when you’re styling. I have to make sure that I style these little baby hairs down. But it happens pretty quick.

One of the products I use has a willow bark extract. It’s been used for decades. What I’ve found, being in the industry of helping people rejuvenate their skin, is I have really moved toward this angle of let’s support the body first. Let’s clear out the toxins, like skin redness, skin dryness, accelerated aging, hyperpigmentation, breakouts, those breakouts staying red longer, hair loss, weight shifts, the eyes showing more whites of the eyes above and below your iris, eye bulging. There is so much that our physicality can visibly show us that something is off.

With the first sign of noticing that something is off, say I’ve gone through a particularly stressful time. What I’ll notice is typically skin dryness, maybe some irritation to my gums, maybe a little bit of gut disturbance as well. Maybe some redness and irritation to the skin on my neck. Maybe irritation to the scalp. 

These are my initial signs that I have learned to read in myself that it’s time to slow down. It’s time to make sure I eat super clean. Keep that 2-2.5 liters of purified water every single day up. Lots of protein. I do 1-1.5g of protein per pound of body weight. Make sure I’m exercising. Fueling my body appropriately. Not going too hard on the caffeine. Getting appropriate sleep. Making sure I am putting my oxygen mask on first. Doing all those basic foundational things. 

If some things are persisting, like hair loss, and you have done the foundational work, you have done the gut testing, with what you provide guidance on, then look at supporting topically with, say, hair growth stimulating products on the scalp, skin care that will be nourishing the skin and helping with pigmentation and speeding up cell turnover, which slows down as we age. Then look at some in-clinic rejuvenation. 

More often than not, when we actually take the time, energy, and sometimes resources to bolster up our daily routine, our at-home practices, we can require less in-clinic rejuvenation, or what we do in the clinic, we just get a better response from, and we don’t need to do as much. That is quite simply something I have observed in myself personally. 

As an aesthetics provider, I get access to everything and anything in the industry as you can imagine. Back in 2017/2018, when I started to take this biohacking approach, I was also in a rough car accident. I had to reduce inflammation and environmental toxins and emotional/psychological stressors at every turn, so I wouldn’t be in pain. Then I noticed my skin got better. 

I think that there is a huge overlap to those who are experiencing thyroid disease. A little psychological tip is not to say, “My hyperthyroidism, my thyroid disease, my hypothyroidism.” It’s like “my acne, my fine lines and wrinkles.” Don’t reinforce that into your identity. It’s simply something you’re experiencing now. 

You will be making those positive, constructive shifts to overcome that. Or if you do happen to experience it, you know what to do. You’re dialed in to notice when something is off, and you’re really good at maintaining a lower level of inflammation and oxidative stress. Know that when that bucket gets full, it will tip over, and you will probably see skin, hair, eye, gum, and energy shifts.

Dr. Eric: 

That was some great advice. Definitely want to talk about eye health with you. Anything else you want to say about healthy hair before we talk about the eyes? 

Rachel: 

Use great products. Your haircare products probably have phthalates and different chemical compounds in them. When you’re washing your hair, your body is absorbing those toxins. Parabens and phthalates are really common in fragrance. Fragrance is a known hormone disruptor. With the hair, clean up your products. I have some great recommendations from other companies that I source on My Skin Shop as well. 

Even cleaning up your laundry and home cleaning products. Everything. You just want to be as clean as possible.

Dr. Eric: 

Again, really eager and excited to talk to you about eye health. I know you have some great tips for having healthy eyelids, those bags under your eyes that a lot of people have questions about. A lot of people have thyroid eye disease, which you’re familiar with as well. A lot of people are often not familiar with eye health and thyroid eye disease. This is really exciting.

As far as the appearance of the eyes, for those who have dry eyes, which doesn’t really relate to appearance, but the dry eyes- 

Rachel: 

Yes, they do. 

Dr. Eric:

I think more about how they feel, but a lot of people do appear with redness of the eyes. Those bags under the eyes. What are some things people can do for dry eyes, the bags under the eyes? 

Rachel: 

This is why I wrote this paper on oxidative stress, to teach other aesthetic doctors and nurses in their practices to take a good look at their patients. Do they look like they’re inflamed? 

The easiest way to tell if someone is inflamed is they will be tired. Psychologically, they will be scattered and stressed out and ramped up and in this hypervigilant, nervous system state. The nervous system is ramped up. They hear a sound and are like, “What’s that?” There are also attachment style and psychological things that come with that. I love talking about that stuff because it impacts how we show up and how we can be our brightest, most radiant versions.

When we look at the eyes, the eyes can tell us so much. There is this concept of the eyes being the window into the soul. This is how we can act with eye contact, with someone we are speaking to, and being present. No one really wants to talk to someone whose eyes are darting all over the place. That can tell you quite a bit from an NLP perspective about how they are operating.

The redness and darkness and puffiness around the eyes is a late indicator or sign that there is inflammation in the body. When I have done different analyses of products on the market, companies will hire me, and I will do a study for them, using photography to see, “Does this product that you take internally make the skin look better?” 

If it’s a really good antioxidant, antioxidants help to empty out the toxic bucket. They bind to free radicals and help reduce inflammation, which inflammaging is what ages us. I should be able to see reduction of redness, darkness, and puffiness around the eyes, including puffiness to the lower eyelid region, in about four weeks. 

If something is happening internally, what happens is visibly, we start to see those shifts with dry skin, red skin, changes, darkness, redness, puffiness, to the eyes. Itching, even flaking, there is inflammation that has been there for a couple weeks at least. Now, you’re seeing it manifest on the eyes. 

I’m a huge fan of making sure you have your foundations established. Doing that testing; eating the right foods; purifying your air, water, and lighting; reducing your exposure to EMFs; clearing out the yeast, fungi, mold, heavy metals, and parasites; potentially doing some additional things to support the eyes. 

I’m a huge fan of antioxidants, like I mentioned. I take them internally to keep my toxic bucket empty. What I find with the eyes is those who are prone to seasonal allergies, I’ve had family members experience this. I take a certain antioxidant, and they don’t experience seasonal allergies that year. I think it’s because those antioxidants are keeping that toxic bucket empty. 

Say you have done all that. You are doing the best you can, but there is something off with the thyroid still. Definitely working with someone like Dr. Eric is really wise to see what your thyroid levels are. Then supporting and making adjustments accordingly. 

Now in particular, ophthalmology and oculoplastic surgery, which I have been an aesthetic nurse in since 2011, what we will see is that white show above and below the iris of the eye and the eye bulging. That is definitely a later sign of thyroid disease. Get on top of that. 

You love to approach this from a more internal perspective, which I think is fantastic. That would be considered non-surgical. There are other non-surgical things we can also do. Say, for example, putting to the upper eyelid a lowbrow and also puffiness to the lower eyelid area. There are things we can inject around the eye to reduce the movement of the muscle.

That being said, if there is some underlying health stuff, I would say maybe doing injectables from a rejuvenation standpoint, like neuromodulators or fillers, might actually fill your toxic bucket a little bit. We might not want to do that. We might notice more brain fog after treatment. For me, I noticed once after fillers my HRV went down. It does require a little bit of recovery. 

There are lasers we can apply around the eyes to help thicken the skin and promote collagen and elastin. Those are non-surgical ideas. 

I really don’t think there is a skin product that exists that takes care of dark undereye bags and circles. The darkness is thin skin. You’re seeing the musculature and the blood underneath the skin, so we want to thicken that skin up. Sometimes, surgery is the option. It is what will provide more of a noticeable and robust effect. 

It really depends on what someone’s experiencing and what they want to do about it. Do they want to do the lifestyle stuff? Do they want to do the in-clinic, non-surgical lasers and injectables? Do they want to do the surgery? It just depends on everyone’s individual values and budget and lifestyle. 

The one thing I will say is if you have dark undereye bags, I don’t recommend doing hyaluronic acid filler in there. That is actually why I wrote my eye rejuvenation paper. I saw so many issues from that. There are other things we can do first.  

Dr. Eric: 

Talk about injectables. You mentioned fillers. Where does Botox fall? 

Rachel: 

That is a brand name. That is a neuromodulator. It modulates the message from the nerve to the muscle. 

Dr. Eric: 

There is a little bit of controversy in the world of thyroid health and the immune system that it could be potentially in some cases a trigger. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that. 

Rachel: 

That’s why I wrote my paper. 

Dr. Eric: 

Did you? 

Rachel: 

Yeah, the paper on oxidative stress status and its impact on skin aging. To prioritize the health of the individual. 

Dr. Eric: 

If there are signs of inflammation around the eyes, for me to get this information out there, for aesthetic providers to say, “Hey, I think there could be some underlying health stuff you might want to address,” before doing rejuvenation, how about castor oil packs? 

We chatted a little bit before pressing record. I get questions about castor oil packs. A lot with the thyroid but every now and then, someone with thyroid eye disease will ask about castor oil packs. You mentioned some potential concerns. 

Rachel: 

I forgot to mention dermal rolling and microneedling on the skin around the eyes. If someone doesn’t want to do something in the clinic, you can do some things at home to stimulate collagen. With the right products, with the right technique. 

This is something I highlight and teach in my tutorials as well. I don’t just put it out there because it’s literally microneedling at home, but it is fantastic. It’s noninvasive, cost-effective. I use clean products with it. It’s great. I’m a huge fan. I do it myself. I wanted to mention that there was one other option out there, from an at home cleaner standpoint. 

Now, when it comes to castor oil packs, I love castor oil. We know that there is a lot of benefits to castor oil. Say, for example, sleeping with a castor oil pack over your liver to help to dry out toxins. There is just oodles of information about castor oil being used for millennia. 

But your specific question around irritation to the eyes. I think what we have seen work the best is keep the eyes clean and warm compresses. I’m not of the position to make a blanket statement that castor oil is good for the eyes. I do have a concern of potentially the castor oil actually blocking the meibomian glands of the lids, which create lubrication. That’s why I don’t recommend oil cleansers or anything like that. We want to keep the lids clean, so those meibomian glands don’t get blocked. 

I don’t have a definitive answer on that. Is it going to be beneficial or negative? I don’t have a definitive answer. What I would say is you could try things and see if it works. I’m not a huge fan of trying things. I want to do something, but I also want to know that it works. We do know that warm compresses are helpful. 

I have dry eye, too. 50% of us do. What I have found helps me is getting in my sauna, red light therapy, warm compresses, washing my face in the bath or the shower with fresh running water in the morning and evening, and reducing my oxidative stress status, toxic load, and inflammation. 

The other thing I will add, which I don’t hear anybody else talk about, but it makes such a difference for me, is actually sleeping with a silver threaded eye mask. You have probably seen those jelly eye masks that you can heat up and cool down and put on your eyes. But what we see in the literature on how EMFs impact the skin is it ends up messing with your red blood cells, and we get reduced blood flow. 

On the skin, we can experience more redness and irritation as well as we have two eyeballs. They are very metabolically sensitive. They are actually quite sensitive to EMFs. When you are sleeping with an eye mask that is made of silver threads, which I have two brands that I really like their EMF protective clothing, they have silver threads woven into the fabric. That is on my biohacking page. One of them has an eye mask. I love that. I find it makes my eyes feel better.

The other thing for eyes is to consider wearing blue-light blocking glasses that work, not just the coating that your optometrist will put on your lenses. But stand-alone blue-light blocking glasses. I have some recommendations for those, too. I wear those all the time. The blue light actually reaches a little bit deeper into the skin than what we get outside. We are getting so much blue light. EMF exposure to these highly metabolic organs here that I think that those are actually two really great strategies. 

For eyedrops, I use methylene blue eyedrops. 

Dr. Eric: 

Very cool. I’m familiar with methylene blue. I didn’t know there are methylene blue eyedrops though. That’s interesting. 

Rachel: 

To be fair, this is not medical advice. This is educational information only. Some of these things are things I do because I am a super nerdy biohacker. I get to have conversations with some of the greatest minds in this health and wellness space. I look at the published data and write papers on it.

Methylene blue is a bit new for me, but it works for me. 

Dr. Eric: 

With red light therapy, you’re not giving specific recommendations, telling people to go out and get a red light and use it on their eyes. For people who want to use it, where did you learn how to incorporate red light therapy on your eyes in a safe way? 

Rachel: 

I started a podcast. I had the opportunity to interview the CEOs and founders from lots of different companies. Then they sent me their products. I get to try them out. What’s on my biohacking page are products that I personally use. 

I won’t say specific brands when I’m doing interviews because my recommendations are always subject to change. Same with skincare stuff. Different companies can tweak things, or things happen in the company that I don’t like from a personal, business, ethical perspective. 

But I started to utilize red light when I entered into this biohacking world. I’m glad I did because it really helped me overcome and manage pain through my two intense car crashes. Neither were my fault. The red light is very calming. I use it in my restroom. I also have it in my bedroom and my sauna here. I like it. 

There is so much literature now on red light. A lot of red-light products, like face masks or eye masks, I would just go for a panel. I think it’s more efficient. I think like an engineer, that highly thinking, analytical, what is going to be the most efficient option? I don’t think a trendy red light face mask is as good as using a large panel where you can basically do your whole upper body as opposed to wearing this face mask that makes you look like a Storm Trooper. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. I have a panel. 

Rachel: 

Perfect. You can spin around and get your backside, too. 

Dr. Eric: 

I know you referred to your skin line and shop a few times. I want you to talk more about that. Before you do that, there is so much more I’m sure you could talk about, but anything else related to our conversation before we get into your skincare line? 

Rachel:

I’m really happy and proud of each and every one of you who is taking the time to hang out with Dr. Eric Osansky and myself, to learn how to be healthier. You might have gone through different things in your life, things in your upbringing, trauma, the pace of your life now. There might be some things you’re not quite happy about. These things impact us physically. 

When you’re learning, you’re on this path of discovering what makes you feel better. Take it from this approach that we’re all individuals. We’re all wonderfully and beautifully created. I think so anyway. 

Taking a more individual approach is the way to go because something might not work for you but works for somebody else. It’s great to just become your own investigator or detective. Find what helps you be dialed in. Find what helps you feel great. When you feel great, the looking great will come. 

If you have historically looked great, but you feel like there’s some changes in your appearance, there can be some deeper underlying reasons of maybe why you have more inflammation in your body. Why you feel like you’re aging overnight, especially in perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause. For guys, losing testosterone, there is so many layers to beauty and optimization. 

Just do the best you can at being your best version. Do one thing each month, like getting a water purifier, getting an air purifier, getting a new haircare routine, so you are not putting phthalates all over your body or parabens. 

Switching up your skincare routine. Dialing in how you’re eating, your supplements. Do one thing a month, so you don’t get overly consumed with this stuff, or have it break the bank. 

But know that you’re on this path to be your best version, and I’m super proud of you. You’re one of these individuals who you care for yourself, and then you’re actually going to be able to take care of others better and be of service, too. 

That’s a really healthy position and framework to look at health optimization. Don’t get too stressed out. Definitely don’t fall prey to the bright, shiny objects or this new fad diet or this new fad biohacking product or this new skin gimmick. 

Same thing goes with dry eye treatments in the clinic. There is a lot that are not so good and are very expensive. Same with thyroid. You’re fully aware of some of the different approaches to thyroid. You can put a Band-Aid on it, or you can get to the root cause.

Just be gentle on yourself. Consume information from speakers who don’t get you ramped up into this high beta state. Once you learn these things, don’t become that health or biohacking or wellness hose when you’re speaking to other people. Everyone is on their own journey. I’m just happy you’re here with us. 

Dr. Eric:

That is some wonderful advice. Thank you so much. 

Talk a little bit about your skincare line. What differentiates your products from many of the others out there? 

Rachel: 

It’s been a labor of love. As I mentioned, I’ve probably sold about 15 different brands over the years. But I noticed there were some ingredient shifts. There were some ingredients in them that didn’t need to be there, and I can make it better. 

That’s why I’ve created my own cleanser, eye cream, hyaluronic acid serum, copper peptide serum, light moisturizer, heavy moisturizer, antioxidant serum that are as clean as possible. Super clean. Some of these products, I would even eat. I can’t say to eat it, but I would. That’s really important. What you’re putting on your skin, you want it to get the job done, but you don’t want it to be adding to your toxic bucket, which a lot of cosmetic products do. 

You can head on over to TheSchoolOfRadiance.com. That’s my website. My skin shop link is there. You can check out a free 30-minute lesson, where I talk about air, water, lighting, EMFs, eating the right food, and detoxing in an easy way. 

Book a one-on-one with me. You can use promo code Eric15, and that will give you 15% off a one-on-one with me. Learn how to use your products from the comfort of your own home. I mentioned dermal walling. A lot of us don’t actually learn how to apply our products and utilize them at a higher level and really dial in our home care. That’s what my tutorials do. I teach you how to become your own skin pro.

Of course, for the more personal development container, how we can both look and feel our best with a lot of things that I do, that I don’t share publicly for a couple of different reasons but really work, for myself and also those who I have served for many years, who I have observed as radiant. That’s my membership. 

Everything is over on my website. Shop your skincare. If you do need some specific recommendations, you’d like me to personally streamline your routine and select a routine for you, maybe talk about some rejuvenation stuff, some biohacking stuff, and give you that ongoing support, definitely book a one-on-one. That code is Eric15. I would love to meet you. 

Dr. Eric:

You also have a page for biohacks. 

Rachel: 

Yeah. Air purifier, water purifier, EMF protective clothing, the eye masks, bedding, all sorts of things that are going to help you set your home up for success for not only you but your partner and your whole family. Blue light blocking glasses, sauna. That’s at TheSchoolOfRadiance.com. You will see the word “Biohacking.” Click that for my recommendations.

In a one-on-one, I will go through what you might be doing now and some shifts you can make that you may not have thought about. 

Dr. Eric: 

All the resources they need are on the website, including a link to your podcast, I’m sure. Or they could go to your favorite platform and type in The School of Radiance. 

Rachel:

Yep. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. Do you have social media? 

Rachel: 

I have Instagram. @RachelVargaOfficial. I am all about inspiring you, motivating you. If I can do this stuff, you can do it, too.

If you are also looking for another resource that’s free, if you go to SkinCareChecklist.com, you will see my great information to help you out now. I recently updated this, so it’s new. 

Dr. Eric: 

I will check that checklist out as well. Thank you so much, Rachel. I knew this was going to be an amazing conversation. You definitely didn’t disappoint. I found this to be valuable. 

Took plenty of notes. You probably didn’t notice in the background, but I always try to take notes. This one, it was hard to keep up because you had gem after gem. A lot of information. Probably going to have to relisten to this myself. Thank you so much for sharing all this information with my listeners. 

Rachel: 

My absolute pleasure. I’m really curious. If you were just to take a quick snapshot at the notes that you took, what stood out for you? 

Dr. Eric: 

Of course, the eye care stuff is important. A lot of the people I work with have thyroid eye disease. Not everybody who has dry eyes has thyroid eye disease, but still. A lot of people have eye issues in general. 

Rachel: 

50% of us, yep. 

Dr. Eric: 

Even the skincare. My wife does everything you mentioned, like the moisturizing and the exfoliation. Do we really need to do that? Gave a really good explanation why not just women but us men should do it as well. 

Not just rely on the single bar of soap. I do use shampoo and soap. I don’t condition my hair, but I do have a separate shampoo for that. I’m not just using a single bar. 

The silver threaded eye mask. I use an eye mask, but I don’t think it is silver threaded. I’d probably know if it was. Things like that. 

You mentioned the oxygen mask. So much information that I want to learn more about. We might have to get you back on the podcast again to discuss more of these biohacks. 

Rachel: 

Yes, it’s different for everybody. I’m so glad those stood out. Just to clarify what the silver threaded eye mask is for. I wear it to give my eyes a break while I sleep from EMFs and wireless cellular radiation. Looking at sleep like beauty sleep, like recovery. 

There is a nuance between the ways that the gents age and the ladies age. Last time I checked, guys don’t go through perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause. We know there are some differences with what happens in the aging process between us. 

Dr. Eric: 

Without question. Thank you so much again. This was great. Look forward to having you on again in the future.

 

Recently, I interviewed Dee, who suddenly faced hyperthyroid symptoms, including a racing heart, tremors, and eye issues, raising the question of what’s really happening. In this episdoe, we discussed we explore her lab results, possible triggers like infections and autoimmunity, and the unconventional steps she’s taking from diet and acupuncture to functional medicine testing, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

Welcome to another Save My Thyroid health audit. I’m excited to chat with Dee. She has a pretty interesting journey. She has been dealing with hypothyroidism since, I believe, 2014. More recently, in spring 2024, she started to experience some hyper symptoms. Thank you for joining us, Dee. 

Dee: 

Hello, thank you! 

Dr. Eric: 

Before we start, can you remind me how you found out about me? 

Dee: 

It was from Google searches. I found your podcast. I had bought two of your books, the Graves’ and hyperthyroidism one, and I recently bought the hyperthyroidism diet one. I have been listening when I can to find out more about what could possibly be going on with me.

Dr. Eric: 

You were diagnosed with hyperthyroidism in 2014, and you have been taking levothyroxine for quite a while, 10 years. What happened in spring 2024, about five months ago from the time of recording this, is you started experiencing some hyper symptoms? 

Dee: 

We actually came back from a cruise. I have hay fever allergies. It seemed like both my husband and I got really hit with some allergies. I don’t know if it was being on the water and then coming back and being in the middle of springtime here in Illinois. I started with my eyes really being dry and sore and bagging. I think that is how I started looking it up. I saw my daughter, and she was like, “Oh my god, what happened to you?” I don’t know. 

When I looked it up online with allergies and the bagging, eventually, because the bagging was so bad, and I kept pulling that string on Google, it eventually brought me to Graves’. I don’t know what’s going on with that. I really tried to put that out of my mind. 

A couple weeks later, I started experiencing heart palpitations and feeling like my left arm was buzzing almost. It just felt weird. I didn’t know how to explain it. Trying to explain those symptoms to my doctor and husband, they were like, “Okay…” 

After the heart palpitations went on for a couple weeks, I finally, one night, told my husband I thought we needed to go to the emergency room because I thought I was having a heart attack. I was hypothyroid, and I had been hypothyroid the whole time. 

I did learn on one test prior to that- I was doing some weight loss drugs. The NP who I was going to ran a blood panel, and she asked me if I had ever been told I had Hashimoto’s. I had never even heard of it. My doctor, throughout the full time on hypo medicine, when looking back on my records, he had only run TSH. I don’t know if that’s common, but that’s what he had done. It seems like it goes all over the place because that is what it has been since April. 

I have continued to take my medicine even though I had hyper symptoms because my doctor still wanted me to. Finally, he had me bump it down to half a pill. 

Finally, in July, after putting up with more hyper symptoms, then hypo symptoms, I decided to take myself off the levothyroxine because I felt like I was doing it to myself at that point, given the hyper symptoms.

I was hoping that would resolve it because he really did think it was an overmedication problem at that point. But I am still having this stuff. I don’t know if I’m hyperthyroid now or hypothyroid, or if this is just Hashimoto’s. I really don’t know which way to go on it anymore. 

Dr. Eric: 

You stopped in July. We’re recording this in late September, so it’s been a couple months. You said you are still experiencing some of the hyper symptoms, like the palpitations? 

Dee: 

Not so much the palpitations, but the tremors. I don’t know if this has to do with it, but trouble sleeping, trouble going to sleep. I’m 55 years old, menopausal, so waking up every once in a while wasn’t uncommon. Now, it’s trouble going to sleep. It’s 10pm, and I’m still sitting in bed. Why am I not sleeping yet? I don’t know if that has something to do with being hyperthyroid, but I thought it did. 

I do try to track it. I bought an Apple Watch, and I tried to keep track of my heart rate. Right now, it’s 78. My normal resting on the FitBit is 68 when I’m sleeping. I don’t think 78 while being up and a little nervous on a podcast is probably too high. 

Dr. Eric: 

68 when sleeping. 78, on the higher side. You haven’t noticed it in the 80s or 90s as far as resting throughout the day? Not moving around but just sitting like you are now. 

Dee: 

Sometimes, it goes up, but most of the time, it stays down. Resting normally is 68, like sleeping. There have been times where it did get- That’s why I ended up at the emergency room. It was 116 sitting on the couch. That time, they did pull a TSH when I was at the emergency room, and that’s when I had a low TSH. I started thinking this may be hyperthyroidism. 

Dr. Eric: 

How low did the TSH go? 

Dee: 

It went to 0.67. 

Dr. Eric: 

You said heart rate was at one time 116 beats per minute resting? 

Dee: 

Yes. 

Dr. Eric: 

That resting heart rate has been a lot better since then. You have been off the thyroid hormone replacement since then for a couple of months. 

You mentioned Hashimoto’s. I know you had the Graves’ antibodies, the TSI, which is less than 89. Did they test the Hashimoto’s antibodies, either TPO, which is common in Graves’ but more closely associated with Hashimoto’s, or TG antibodies? 

Dee: 

Yeah, they did. The nurse practitioner for the weight loss drugs, she first did it when she ran my blood. 94 is what she had. Since then, I have run it a couple times. My TPOs in July were 17. That was on a scale of -34. I recently had it done just last week with the TSI lab, and it was 12. It was on a scale of 9. I guess there is two scales they run that stuff on, depending on what lab you’re going to. 

Dr. Eric: 

Different labs have different ranges. You said it was as high as 94 at one point? 

Dee: 

Yes, that blood test would have been about January/February, before I started experiencing any symptoms. 

Dr. Eric: 

You didn’t have the other antibodies I just mentioned. You don’t notice the TG antibodies in your report? 

Dee: 

I had one back in July that said less than 1. 

Dr. Eric: 

So negative. I will say this about Graves’. Usually, the TSI is positive. It’s not perfect. Antibody tests aren’t perfect. It’s possible you could have false negative antibodies. I will also say usually with Graves’, the TSH is undetectable, like 0.67 is definitely less than optimal, but usually, people with Graves’ will have less than 0.001 or .005. It depends on the lab. It will be undetectable. 

The eye symptoms are interesting. With Graves’, you’re right, it’s very common to have thyroid eye disease symptoms. Were those thyroid eye disease symptoms? It’s definitely a possibility. A small percentage of Hashimoto’s develop thyroid eye disease. Most of the time, it’s Graves’. It’s a little unusual. Usually, the TSI is very high in those with thyroid eye disease. Yours was undetectable. 

You have been off the thyroid hormone replacement for two months. Have you had a thyroid panel since being off the thyroid hormone replacement? 

Dee: 

Yeah. I had one done with the TSI. It gave me my TSH, T3, T4, all those figures. I just had that done the week before, September. 

Dr. Eric: 

We were chatting a little bit before. Did you say the TSH was over 2? 

Dee: 

Yes. It was 2.05. 

Dr. Eric: 

Definitely not hyper. It is interesting. 

Dee: 

Strange. 

Dr. Eric: 

I would say an optimal TSH is between 1-2, even between 1-1.5. Most doctors won’t consider a TSH of 2.05 to be hypo. Some functional medicine practitioners would consider it maybe a little bit higher than optimal. More hypo than hyper, let’s put it this way. 

I don’t think it’s Graves’. With Graves’, the hyperthyroidism would persist even after stopping the levothyroxine. Usually, we would see the TSI, not perfect, but your heart rate is also a little bit higher than optimal. 78 is not too bad.

I’m thinking it’s not Graves’. Could be the medication. As far as Hashimoto’s, the TG antibodies are negative, which is good. TPO antibodies, that’s interesting. 94, not crazy high. I have seen people in the hundreds, sometimes even in the thousands with the antibodies. 94, definitely well above the range. There is no question. It was 17, which is within that lab’s range. It recently was 12, which is mildly high, even though it was a little bit elevated. 

Based on your current numbers, without your past history, if you went to a doctor’s office, they might not even diagnose you with Hashimoto’s or hypothyroidism. Everything is borderline. The TSH is well within their lab range. The antibodies are slightly high. I don’t know if they would make a big deal out of it unless you were having a lot of hypo symptoms. They wouldn’t even talk about hyperthyroidism or Graves’, even with the tremors. They would be wondering if you were having any brain fog or fatigue or current weight gain or constipation, the hypo symptoms. If not, then they probably wouldn’t do anything honestly.

The question is: Where do you go from here? You have been off the thyroid hormone replacement for a couple months. You’re still experiencing the tremors. The palpitations aren’t there thankfully. The heart rate is definitely not 116 like it was previously. It’s not crazy high, so a little bit high. 

Just before we talk about where to go from here, as far as what can cause the hyperthyroidism, we already mentioned maybe too much thyroid hormone replacement. That’s a possibility. It’s just odd that you were on it for 14 years, and then you figured it was too much, that you would just have to reduce the dose and not come off of it completely. You have been off of it, and your numbers are still looking good.

There is also Hashitoxicosis, where someone has the antibodies for Hashimoto’s. By damaging the thyroid gland, you get the release of thyroid hormone into the bloodstream. Hashitoxicosis sometimes can damage transient hyperthyroidism. I am not sure if that’s what we’re seeing, just because you can’t always go by how the antibodies are. They are really mild. Your hyper symptoms were not mild back then. 

Who knows. Maybe it was a combination of the thyroid hormone. If someone has Hashitoxicosis, and they are taking thyroid hormone, they’re definitely going to feel really hyper. That’s a possibility.

There is also what’s called subacute thyroiditis, which is typically caused by a virus. Did you have COVID or anything? 

Dee: 

Throughout the course of COVID, I think I had it one time, and it was very mild. I think I’ve had three shots. I’d always gotten immunizations for it. 

Dr. Eric: 

Nothing in 2024? No viruses? 

Dee: 

No. The only thing is when we came back from that cruise, I was on antibiotics because the allergies were so bad the doctor thought I had a sinus infection, which was uncommon for me, too. I never get that kind of stuff. I’m a fairly healthy person, except when I had COVID. I tested positive, but I wasn’t really experiencing any symptoms. I think I’m just generally a pretty healthy person. That sinus infection was out of the blue. 

That all transpired when we got back from that. I don’t know if I had an infection. They gave prednisone. I think it kills a lot of stuff when you get it. I don’t know if I had an infection that we didn’t address.  

Dr. Eric: 

Possibly. Subacute thyroiditis is usually viral; sometimes, it can be bacterial. That is usually temporary hyperthyroidism, and then the person would eventually be hypo. Difficult to know for sure. 

I don’t think it was just the thyroid hormone replacement. I think something else caused the hyperthyroidism. It might have been temporary. I don’t think it was Graves’. Maybe Hashitoxicosis or subacute thyroiditis. 

If you are not taking thyroid hormone, those could cause hyperthyroidism. On top of it, you were taking the thyroid hormone. Then you had transient hyperthyroidism, which made you really hyper and have those extreme symptoms, including the very high resting heart rate. Subacute thyroiditis, usually temporary. Hashitoxicosis many times is transient. Assuming it was one of those ones, or another infection, but when I say subacute thyroiditis, I am suggesting that an infection, whether it was bacterial or viral, affected the thyroid.

Back to where we are now. Let’s say it was that. Maybe the hyperthyroidism is behind you. As far as why you’re still experiencing the tremors, and you still are having the eye soreness, too? 

Dee: 

I did go to a TED specialist for it. He measured my eyes. They said there was pressure behind them. He thought I was having dry eyes. During this, my eyes have changed. He was like, “That’s just age.” I was like, “They’ve changed. Didn’t look like this last week.” I get the whole age thing, but during this period, my left eye bags more, it’s swollen underneath, still to this day. My right eye has more bags. I get that he can conclude that that would be just age, but this all occurred within those three months. 

I did get a couple styes in the left eye during all this. I had never had a stye before in my life. I don’t wear contacts. I don’t wear my glasses as prescribed. They’re right here on my head. Once again, all of it happened at the same time. 

When I went to the TED doctor, he actually removed the styes. I think he said they were chalazions. I actually had three of them in my eye. Maybe my eye could still be bagging from all that trauma or something. I’m still not convinced about the eye stuff. It really did change drastically during that. 

Dr. Eric: 

I would agree. I don’t know if it’s TED. You went to a TED specialist. I believe him if he doesn’t think it was TED. But as far as attributing it to getting older, and out of the blue, especially when it developed around the time everything else happened, I don’t think it was a coincidence. Maybe not TED, but you figure a TED specialist- He did say there was pressure behind the eyes, but there are other things that could have caused that, as well as other symptoms. 

Do you still have something underlying? As far as what comes to mind, I can’t say it’s a typical case that I’m seeing. As far as doing further evaluation, further testing, it’s never going to hurt to clean up your diet and lifestyle. I’m glad you got my two books. It’s never going to hurt to change diet and lifestyle and see if that helps. You have already been doing that. If you’re following the recommendations, and it’s not helping, then further evaluations. 

If you go back to a regular doctor, maybe they will blow it off. Maybe they will refer you to a neurologist with some of the symptoms you’re experiencing. It’s not a bad idea to do that. Maybe they detect something. 

There is functional medicine testing, things like adrenal testing, gut testing, comprehensive stool panel. Would you find something if you saw a functional medicine practitioner, and they did those tests? Maybe. Even if you found something, does it mean that’s related to what you experienced? Maybe, maybe not. 

There are viruses, but there are other infections that sometimes can cause weird symptoms, such as tick-borne infections, like Lyme, bartonella. When I dealt with Lyme in 2018, there was no evidence of a tick bite. There was no rash. Lyme could affect pretty much all the bodily symptoms. It’s called the great imitator because- I’m not saying you have Lyme, but maybe something to rule out and make sure you don’t have that or any other type of tick-borne or even transmitted through fleas sometimes. That could cause tremors. That could affect the eyes. That could also be a trigger for the thyroid autoimmunity. 

In your case, you had autoimmunity a long time ago. We don’t know whether the antibodies were higher years ago. That might be something to look into.

There are also things like mold. That’s more of an infection. Sometimes, infections are transient. Other times, you’ll take the antibiotics, and they will help, but they might not completely eliminate it from the body. Something to keep in mind. 

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to go to a neurologist. They will do their sets of testing and see what they find. It could be another condition, another autoimmune condition. That’s also a possibility. Seeing a neurologist, a rheumatologist, might give information. They’re not going to address the cause of the problem. 

If you go that route, like I said, it’s not a bad idea. You would be going to try to get a diagnosis. Once you get a diagnosis, with Lyme, for example, they would just give typically antibiotics. It really depends. From a medical standpoint, they won’t do a whole lot. If it’s another autoimmune condition, they’re not going to do anything to address the cause of the problem. 

That’s why I’m saying it will always help to address diet and lifestyle. Whether or not you want to consider even some functional medicine testing or maybe looking into tick-borne infections.

I don’t want to lead you down a rabbit hole. It might not be that. But obviously, it’s not normal to have the tremors, and I agree with you with the eye symptoms. Something happened around that time. As I mentioned earlier, not a typical case. Most of the autoimmune markers are negative, and the only one that is positive is slightly positive. Odd that now without thyroid hormone replacement, your numbers are kind of stable. A little on the hypo side but not terrible.

Obviously, monitor that. I would continue to do an updated thyroid panel every 6-8 weeks. See how you feel. If you need to do one sooner than that, if you start feeling hypo symptoms. It’s important to figure out what the underlying cause is behind the tremors and other symptoms. 

Like I said, those are the two routes. The medical route is not a bad thing, to try to get a diagnosis. Sometimes, they’re successful at that. Sometimes, they’re not. Going to a functional medicine doctor, sometimes you can get that diagnosis as well. 

The question is, do you need a diagnosis? If you have one, the conventional medical world won’t do anything anyway, but still, sometimes it’s nice to know that they have Graves’ and Hashimoto’s. It’s nice to have the diagnosis. At least you know the reasoning behind your symptoms. It’s not a bad idea to look into that and maybe try to get a referral to another specialist. 

At the same time, you still can go the functional medicine route. Do what you’re doing with diet and lifestyle. You could do both. You could work with a functional medicine doctor while going the other route as well. That ultimately is up to you. 

Dee: 

I do have an endo appointment scheduled. When all of this stuff was going on, my PCM did write a referral for the TED specialist. He did write one for an endo. The area I live in, the first available was the 27 of November. I figure with the results I just got on my bloodwork, if it stays like that, they won’t probably be able to do anything, which I should be glad. I’m on your Facebook page, too. I read all of the things, that they give you the- 

Dr. Eric: 

They won’t give you methimazole. In a way, it’s good that it’s a couple months from now. You’re right. If you went right now, they would look at your numbers. Assuming your numbers now were the same, if your TSH was still around 2, your TPO antibodies were slightly elevated, and you’re not experiencing hypo symptoms, they’d look at your thyroid numbers, too, your T3 and T4. I don’t remember what those were if you told me those numbers. With a TSH of 2, they are probably within the lab range, is my guess. Maybe they are less than optimal. 

Dee: 

T4 index is 2. This was very comprehensive. Free T4 is 1.1. T3 is 3.1. 

Dr. Eric: 

Which is great. Free T4 was 1.1. Free T3 was 3.1. Those are optimal numbers. They are not hypo or hyper. I would pay more attention to those than the index. They might have done the T3 uptake. TSH of 2.05, free T4 of 1.1, free T3 of 3.1. An endocrinologist will look at those numbers, even with the TPO slightly high, and probably be like, “Let’s just keep an eye on it.” Wouldn’t give methimazole because you’re not hyper; that’s for hyperthyroidism. If anything, they might lean more toward thyroid hormone replacement based on your history of hypothyroidism. Even that, honestly the endocrinologist might be puzzled. 

This is kind of odd. You have been off levothyroxine for two months, and your numbers are not looking too bad. You’re not experiencing hypo symptoms. If anything, maybe a little bit more hyper with the tremors and the eyes, which aren’t a sign of hyperthyroidism, unless you have TED with Graves’. But I don’t think we’re dealing with that. I think your endocrinologist might be puzzled as well, not having an answer.

I think it’s good to give it a little bit more time. When you see the endocrinologist in November, it will be four months off thyroid hormone replacement. If you start going hypo, the endocrinologist will recommend to go back on levothyroxine, I’m sure. At that point, you can make the decision if you want to still do what we mentioned, like address the cause of the problem, and not just rely on thyroid hormone. There is a time and place for that. If it’s looking good, then again, it’s probably going to be a wait and see approach. 

That is odd that you were on thyroid hormone for 10 years, and all of a sudden, you became hyper. Now you’re off the thyroid hormone for four months, and it’s still looking good. That probably will be the mindset if it’s still looking good. We won’t know for two months. Feel free to give me an update. 

Wish I could have been more helpful with this. I think we need more answers. I don’t think it’s a matter of- Definitely don’t take methimazole. Seems like you would not need thyroid hormone replacement either, but let’s see what the endocrinologist says in two months with updated thyroid numbers.

I think you need to dig deeper. Continue with diet and lifestyle. It still might come down to going to a different specialist. When it comes to the tremors, if the endocrinologist is the right person for that. To me, I am going to be biased because I’m a natural health care/functional medicine practitioner. I will always say to go that route, to dig deeper, to look into further testing.

Dee: 

I’m hopeful they will go away. They came on suddenly. I have never had tremors before all this stuff. Maybe they’ll go away.

Do you think it’s all right to use your natural protocol when I do have the tremors? Like motherwort? 

Dr. Eric: 

Are you taking bugleweed and motherwort currently? 

Dee: 

I take motherwort more than bugleweed. It’s Thyroid Calming. It has all three of them in there.

Dr. Eric: 

From HerbPharm?  

Dee: 

Sometimes I take that. The sleep thing has been bothersome. It’s always at night more than during the day. It’s not even constant. The last couple days, it’s happened again, so I did take the motherwort. 

I started acupuncture after reading your stuff, too. I had my first treatment last week. I’m hoping that will help with the sleep. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah. The acupuncture is great. Who knows? Maybe that helps with the tremors, too. 

I wouldn’t take bugleweed based on your thyroid numbers. It sounds like you don’t need it. That’s antithyroid. Your numbers are definitely not on the hyper side. 

I don’t think there is a problem with motherwort. It’s not really targeting the thyroid, but more the symptoms, cardiovascular symptoms. Even if someone doesn’t have symptoms, they technically could take motherwort without a problem. Unless someone has a negative reaction to this herb, like any herb, but assuming they are tolerating the herb fine, motherwort is fine if you want to continue with that. 

Bugleweed, I wouldn’t take. 

Lemon balm, which this formula has, too, some will say has antithyroid properties. It’s very mild if it does. I use it mainly for its calming effects, not so much on the thyroid, but more if someone is having some sleep issues and anxiety. Even lemon balm or drinking lemon balm tea would be fine along with motherwort. 

I would say don’t take Thyroid Calming formula.

With the thyroid, wait until the endocrinologist appointment. Right now, your TSH is a little bit higher than I like to see, but your free T3 and free T4 look really good. Not too high or low in my opinion. 

Two months from now, I’m sure the endocrinologist will do another thyroid panel, and let’s see what that shows. Maybe at that point, some of your other symptoms might feel better. Maybe the tremors go away. The eye symptoms also could improve. If that’s the case, maybe you don’t need to look into anything further. 

If those symptoms persist, and if the thyroid numbers improve or don’t, whether or not the end result is you’re back on thyroid hormone replacement or the numbers still look good, and the endocrinologist says you’re good, if you’re still experiencing other symptoms, then you probably will have to look elsewhere. 

That’s where unfortunately, not that you have to do the waiting game. Like I said, you could still see a functional medicine practitioner now while waiting. Even seeing the acupuncturist. It’s not like you’re not doing anything. 

Do you need to spend a lot of money at this point, seeing a functional medicine practitioner? I’m conservative with testing. It depends on the doctor you see. Do you need to go in that direction? Maybe not. 

Maybe for now, just work on diet and lifestyle. Get the acupuncture. Wait for the endocrinologist. It’s up to you. It’s not wrong to see a functional medicine doctor. I’m biased. I will always say it won’t hurt to see one. 

If things resolve on their own, my concern is those antibodies. Even though they’re mildly high, ideally you want them negative. Retest them in a few months, and make sure they’re trending in the downward direction and looking good. If so, maybe you don’t have to do things to improve your immune system health. 

Even if your thyroid is looking good, and you have elevated TPO antibodies, I will say you want to try to figure out why. The diet, the lifestyle, the acupuncture, those things are great, and those alone might make a difference. Definitely nothing wrong with waiting a few months. 

Dee: 

Okay. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you again for agreeing to do this, Dee. I’m sorry I don’t have a specific answer, like this is exactly what you need to do. This is a unique situation. I appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation. Definitely feel free to give me an update after your endocrinologist appointment in November. 

Dee: 

Sounds good, Dr. Eric. Thank you for your time. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thanks, everyone for listening. Hope you found this to be valuable. Look forward to catching everyone in a future Save My Thyroid audit. Take care, everyone. Take care, Dee.