Recently, I interviewed Dr. Erin Ellis, a naturopathic doctor whose own health journey from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma to Hashimoto’s completely reshaped how she approaches healing. We talk about her path from cancer survivor to women’s hormone specialist, and how she uncovered the deeper connections between thyroid autoimmunity, toxins, and genetic vulnerability.  If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

Let’s talk about your background. The non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, I’m sure, a big surprise. Thankfully, you were able to restore your health, and that’s what motivated you to become a naturopathic doctor. You focus on hormones. Do you also help people with cancer, too? 

Dr. Erin Ellis: 

I don’t. I usually refer people out to board-certified naturopathic oncologists for alternative medicine. I will support patients post-cancer trying to get to the root cause of why they had the cancer in the first place because that’s what I’ve discovered for myself over the last couple years. Why does this keep happening to me? No, I don’t directly treat patients with cancer. 

Dr. Eric: 

What led you to start focusing on women’s hormones? 

Dr. Erin: 

When I graduated from med school, I wanted to do cancer care. Then I was like, no. The reason I wanted to do it is because I could relate. I had been in their shoes. I decided it wasn’t for me. I really found the need to help women and women’s health. 

I hated women’s health when I was in school because it’s hard. Hormones are hard. Everyone is different. You don’t want to do anything that’s really hard, right? Then I felt the need.

I really became infatuated with menstrual health. The lack of information and education out there for women’s health is awful. It’s really broken for women. They’re left feeling dismissed and suffering and having these atrocious periods. They’re entering perimenopause and menopause, and they lost their life. They don’t feel like themselves. They’re being dismissed by their doctors and feeling hopeless, doing all the cardio in the world and gaining weight left and right. 

That’s why I decided to help restore hope in women that their symptoms are real. We can help them. We just need to give their body the chance to heal and give it what it needs, and they can get their life back. That’s how I got into women’s health. I love it. It’s fun. Every day is different. 

Dr. Eric: 

Every day is different. Every woman is different. You were also diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. Can you give that story? When were you diagnosed? 

Dr. Erin: 

I had the cancer diagnosis in 2010. I went to medical school, starting in 2013, graduating in 2017. Right around graduation, I did lab work and had this underactive thyroid. I had hypothyroidism. I was on natural desiccated thyroid for years. Then I do my labs, trying to do them twice a year, maybe once a year. 

The fall of 2020, I had an antibody response, and I’d never had antibodies show up on my labs before. I would draw them every time. I all of a sudden had this Hashimoto’s diagnosis. I did labs after I had a 42-day cycle, which is very rare for me. I’d never had a long cycle. I was always clockwork, every 28 days. I decided to do my labs and check on my hormones. Then I had this antibody response. Holy cow, I have Hashimoto’s. 

I’m not entirely sure what was the driving factor. It might have been the pandemic as far as the stress of it. I had just opened my own practice, Hope Natural Health, in January 2020, not knowing that the pandemic was happening. Even though the pandemic didn’t affect my practice at all, still, it’s that world of uncertainty that we were living in for so many months, not knowing what the hell was going to happen. I’m not sure if that was the driving factor.

Or what I discovered later in these last couple years is it could have just been a compounded effect of all this poor cellular health I had had for all these years. Maybe the chemotherapy and all the stress that the medical treatments had done to my body that was put through this antibody response.

That’s how I discovered it, through routine labs. The only symptom was the prolonged cycle. I didn’t have any other thyroid symptoms. I was on medication. That’s how it all started. Back in 2020 with Hashimoto’s. 

Dr. Eric:

Five years prior, hypothyroidism. Then you were on desiccated thyroid. It wasn’t until 2020 that you first tested positive for antibodies. 

Dr. Erin: 

Yep. 

Dr. Eric: 

Any family history of Hashimoto’s? 

Dr. Erin: 

No. My dad has hypothyroidism. I think my grandma might have. Nobody that we know of has Hashimoto’s. As you know, it’s not really tested so much in mainstream medicine. Who knows? They could have had it and not even known it. 

Dr. Eric: 

Are you still taking desiccated thyroid? 

Dr. Erin: 

I had a real aha moment probably last spring. I see a chiropractor regularly. In 2010, I was diagnosed with cancer. I have been cancer-free since, as far as the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I was diagnosed at age 31. The form I had was very rare, typically found in older men. 31 and a female, so I did not fit the criteria. Otherwise healthy. I didn’t think I was unhealthy. That really changed my life. It changed my outlook on health and wellness. 

I became healthier. I started eating vegetables. I guess I wasn’t that healthy, but I was a standard American. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of this until I went to med school.

I continued on with life. In 2022, I had a really rough year. I’m 47. I started doing my breast imaging at age 40. We also have other cancer in the family. My mom’s had breast cancer twice. She’s also had endometrial cancer. We have done all the genetic testing, and I don’t carry any genes for anything. nor does she. 

In 2022, I had some stuff show up on my left breast, which is atypical lobular hyperplasia. I had a lumpectomy. Right after that, I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma on my back. I had surgery for that. Right after that, I had squamous cell carcinoma on my arm. That was a really rough year. 

2023 was. Fine. I had all my scans. Everything was clear. 

In 2024, in the beginning, I went for my MRI for my breast. Something else came up in two spots. They It ended up being the ALH again plus some DCIS, which is ductal carcinoma in situ, which is basically pre-cancer. 

I had been going to my mom’s breast surgeon because I trusted her, and she knows my family history. She said, “Erin, I’m really worried about you. You’re like a ticking time bomb.” She told me it was a matter of time before I developed breast cancer. “You should really consider doing a bilateral mastectomy, preventative, with reconstruction.” 

She put the fear into me, “Oh my god, I’m going to get cancer again. I don’t want this to happen.” For someone who has already had cancer, it is very triggering. You also put a lot of trust in doctors because that’s their specialty. I am not trained in oncology or surgery or breast health. 

I had gone to my chiropractor, and I told her I had gone to see a breast surgeon for breast reconstructive surgery. I had gotten all the estimates for cost. I had a potential surgery scheduled. I was thinking about it. She didn’t ask me. Well, she did ask me, but she made a nice, interesting comment. “A surgeon’s job is to do surgery. Have you ever thought about why this is happening to you?” 

You might agree with me, but doctors are the worst patients. I help women every day get to the root cause of why they have their symptoms. I never really thought about, “Erin, why are you having these symptoms? Why is this happening in your body?” 

She gave me a name of a lady I should have checked out. I listened to a podcast. It’s Dr. Jen Simmons. Light bulbs went off. Holy cow. This is fascinating. I cancelled everything. I am going to get to the root as to why I had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, why this stuff is happening in my breast, why I had skin cancer. Why can’t I get healthy? Why is all this stuff happening to me? 

I have never been healthier, right? I do all the things. I stopped drinking alcohol. I take all the supplements. I exercise, I sleep, I meditate, I cold plunge, I sauna. I do all of the things. I do way more than the average person. 

I started working with another naturopathic doctor. I am not managing my health. I don’t want to. I had done tons of testing. She put it all together for me. 

Moral of the story is I do have a lot of SNPs or genetic dispositions that essentially put me at a disadvantage. I have been at a disadvantage for a very long time, which made the ability for the cancer to grow in the first place. Cancer really is a normal response to an abnormal environment. I had an abnormal environment that developed this cancer. I haven’t fully restored myself since then. Any time I get “assaulted” by environmental toxins, pesticides, stress, you name it, it’s literally like I’m getting attacked. I have to work a lot harder than the average person to heal myself. 

I went on a really strict detox protocol. I have been doing glutathione pushes because I also found out that I have a genetic disposition to glutathione. Glutathione, for anyone that doesn’t know, is our body’s most potent antioxidant. I burn through mine. I need more. Who would have thought I needed more? 

I give myself intravenous pushes once a week. I was doing them twice a week to boost myself. I was doing a lot of cellular health. I did an oxidative stress test on myself. It said I had the cells of a 68-year-old person basically. At that time, I was 45, I think. 20 years older than what I should be. 

I did a lot of cellular repair and restored mitochondrial function. Really cleaned up my diet. Watched pesticides. Ramped up my sauna use because I had to work a little bit harder. I was doing the things, but I needed to do more of the things. 

I was on this strict supplement protocol for about six months. Meanwhile, I decided I was not going to do any more mammograms or MRIs, yet I still had this DCIS in my left breast. I had had the imaging in April 2024, and then I went for a QT scan. I learned that from Dr. Jen Simmons, this qualitative transmission test for the breast that is 40% more sensitive than a breast MRI. We are lucky enough to have one here in Arizona. I went and did it. They compared my MRIs and mammograms from March. There was nothing there. 

What I had done had completely reversed or reduced or got rid of whatever they said I was a ticking time bomb for and wanted to remove both of my breasts and go through this extensive surgery. I would have these antibiotics and disrupt my gut and put me through more of a disadvantage than I already had if I had done this surgery.  

I just did testing last Monday, and my environmental toxin markers have gone way down. More importantly, my antibody response has gone from my Hashimoto’s. I have no more antibody response.

I went off my medication. I honestly didn’t need to go off my medication. It wasn’t intentional. I ran out. My refill didn’t come in in time. I decided to see what I feel like not taking it. Your body truly has the innate ability to heal itself. If I’m healing and doing all of the work inside, maybe I have healed my thyroid. Sure enough. My thyroid labs aren’t much different than they were when I was on the medication. I feel no different from being off the medication than I did taking the medication. And my antibodies have now been negative for over a year. 

That is pretty much my health journey in the last year and a half with Hashimoto’s and getting to the root cause of probably that and the cancer diagnoses I’ve had. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s an awesome story. That’s great about the QT scan being negative as well as those antibodies coming back negative, not having to take thyroid hormone. You said it’s been a year since your antibodies? 

Dr. Erin: 

I have also been taking LDN. I have been doing that at 4.5mg. I am pretty sure that might have a role in reducing the antibodies and the inflammation in my body. I am still taking that. That is the only medication I do take. 

I believe it was October 2024 that I had no antibodies. Then I tested again here in September, and they’re still negative. 

Dr. Eric: 

How long have you been taking LDN? 

Dr. Erin: 

Since July 2024. 

Dr. Eric: 

If that is the case, is it better if you have to take LDN, which is suppressing thyroid antibodies, or thyroid hormone replacement? We could argue that LDN is a better option because it is preventing further damage to the thyroid. If you take thyroid hormone, it’s not doing anything for the immune system component. 

Dr. Erin: 

I never saw a reduction in the antibodies with taking MP thyroid. The other thing I also do is I don’t eat gluten. That was the first thing I pulled from my diet when I found out I had Hashimoto’s. I’ll eat it every once in a while. I feel like it’s less aggravating to my thyroid than it was. If I used to have a bit, I could feel it. My thyroid felt mad and angry. I didn’t feel good. Now I can tolerate a little bit. 

I still don’t eat it. I don’t like it. We’re human. Sometimes there are instances where there is gluten, and I’m not going to starve. You’re at a family dinner, and you’re not going not to eat because Mom made you pasta with gluten. That’s the other thing I do avoid. 

I still eat dairy. Dairy doesn’t seem to aggravate me. To each their own. Everybody is different. 

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned an oxidative stress test. Can I ask you about that? 

Dr. Erin: 

There is an oxidative stress panel through Vibrant America. It’s newer. I did that. I haven’t gotten my latest results back yet. It basically said my cells were in a war zone. I was doing a lot of phospholipid health, trying to restore the cellular membranes, so I could restore mitochondrial function that I think I was at a disadvantage for. That’s why I was getting assaulted, and bad things were happening. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s a urine test? 

Dr. Erin: 

Yep. What I hope I can inspire people to see is there is always a why. You don’t get these things because of bad luck. There is always a reason why these things happen in our body. 

One of the things I discovered is non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and glyphosate. I had high glyphosate levels. I still do. They’re not as high. They’re now in the low end of normal. They were really high. Glyphosate is found in most pesticides; Round Up is the most common one. 

This probably was a reason why I got the non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma. I don’t know any other reason why. If it’s found in older men, and I am a 31-year-old woman, why did it happen? I had these levels. My body wasn’t able to get rid of it because of that poor detox pathways I have. Working on that has been able to get some of these toxins out. I thought that was a fascinating correlation, too. 

Dr. Eric: 

I tested for glyphosate. I did an organic acids test, and I had a glyphosate panel in 2016 was the first time. it wasn’t crazy high, but it was there. I did things for supporting detoxification. I did a retest, and it was still there, but it was lower. I can’t say I test everybody, but I don’t know if I have ever seen zero glyphosate levels because it is so widespread. 

Dr. Erin: 

I was going to say most everyone has BPA and glyphosate. Those are the two. My BPA is still high, and my glyphosate is still high, but not as high as it was. I have to continue to do the work is what I’ve learned. I might get to a point where I don’t have to do the work. 

I also have these genetic SNPs, these issues genetically that I can’t do certain things. My body doesn’t do it. It’s how I was born. I probably will still have to work hard for the rest of my life. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you still do IV glutathione pushes once a week?  

Dr. Erin:

 Yep, I still do once a week. The good thing is my partner is a paramedic. He pokes me. I don’t mind doing them. It’s monotonous, but if it will keep me healthy- 

That’s why I love testing. You see the progress you’ve made. It makes what you’ve been doing so much- You get validation. What I’m doing is working. It doesn’t matter. I don’t mind doing it if I know it’s working. Maybe I can go every other week. 

I took oral glutathione when I was on vacation. It’s okay but not as effective as doing IV glutathione. If that’s what’s going to keep me healthy. I am fortunate enough to be able to do it myself. I’ll continue to do it. 

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned sauna to help sweat out toxins. Anything else to support your detox pathways? 

Dr. Erin: 

I do coffee enemas every once in a while. I do vibration plates. I do lymphatic massage. I had lymphoma. I had cancer of the lymph node. Your lymphatic system is how we detox anyway, but it’s the only system that doesn’t move. We have to move it. That’s why we always preach moving your body. Manual lymph drainage is good. 

I actually had developed (I still have it; it’s incurable) lymphedema in my right leg from the cancer. I had a tumor by the bladder. Over time, I developed this. It didn’t happen until six years after cancer. I have lymphedema and swelling in my right leg, so I do lymphatic massages to get stuff moving on a manual basis and to help my detox pathways. 

What’s interesting is I started doing those earlier this year perhaps. I took a round of four or five. Then I went on vacation. I was behind on them. I try and go every six weeks now that I’m on a maintenance schedule. I went over two months. I just had one a couple weeks ago, and she goes, “You were pretty stuck.” It goes to show me that these things work. I need to keep up on them. 

Plus I was out of my routine. We were on vacation and traveling. I didn’t have my sauna or vibration plate. I tell that to my patients. If you don’t think that the supplements you’re taking or what you’re doing is working, then stop them. I guarantee you that you will feel different. Yeah, they were working. Sure enough, they said they felt better when taking supplements, or their labs looked better. 

Like I said, it’s validation that what I’m doing is working, so I will continue. I am trying to think what else I do. Mainly a few supplements. I do some detox supplements. I have been doing a lot of gut work, even though I don’t have issues with my bowel movements. Those are healthy. I have been doing a gut healing protocol. I have done parasite cleanses, candida work. Everyone has that to an extent. I have been working on my gut lately and my stress levels. 

Not necessarily stress, but- I posted about this on Instagram. I am not stressed. Yeah, I own a business, and I’m busy, but I’m not stressed. My Oura ring would tell me I am stressed, and I couldn’t figure it out. I was sitting there watching a mindless reality show that isn’t stressful, and it was saying I was stressed. 

This has to do with my healing process. My body is under a lot of stress. It’s trying to heal. I swear within the last month or two, after I have been working on this stuff for over a year, and now the gut stuff, my stress levels are way down. My HRV levels have gone way up. I really feel like I have turned a corner as far as my body’s actually working again, which is really good. 

Dr. Eric: 

HRV, for those who aren’t familiar, is heart rate variability, which is from the Oura ring. 

Dr. Erin: 

Yeah. I used to have readings in the 20s and 30s. I look at my patients’ Oura data all the time. “You have some good HRV. What’s wrong with me?” Now I’m in the 70s. It’s awesome. 

Except the luteal phase. Women, if you have an Oura ring and have crappy readings in the luteal phase, that’s pretty normal, especially right before your period. It’s okay. 

Dr. Eric: 

Good to know. How frequently do you do sauna and the vibration plate when you’re home? 

Dr. Erin: 

Another thing I do is red light, but that goes with everything. I try to do sauna four times a week. There is research that if you do it four times a week for at least 20 minutes, you have a 40% all mortality reduction, which is pretty awesome. We just got a puppy, so my routine has been not normal. 

I go to the gym, come home, turn on my sauna, make my breakfast, do my vibration plate, do the red light in the sauna, take a shower, then do the cold plunge after that. I try and do this four times a week. Sometimes, I try to do a vibration plate every day because it’s only 10 minutes. I have been out of my routine lately.  

Dr. Eric: 

You do a cold plunge four days a week? Sauna, shower, cold plunge? 

Dr. Erin: 

Yep. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay, cool. I have not done cold plunging yet. I do cold showers, which I know is not the same. One of these days, maybe I’ll be brave enough to do a cold plunge. 

Dr. Erin: 

Unfortunately, in Arizona, we don’t get cold showers because our water is too hot. Maybe in the winter. The cold plunge feels real good here in Arizona. Mine is outside in our patio. It’s good. It’s only two minutes. 

Dr. Eric: 

I was about to ask, I assumed a couple of minutes. 

Dr. Erin: 

Two minutes in the cold plunge. I only keep it at 50. Women don’t need it much colder than that. Not much more than two minutes. Maybe three minutes. I just do two minutes. 11 minutes a week is where the research is. Maybe I’ll throw in an extra day of cold plunge there. I like it. 

Dr. Eric: 

During your health journey with cancer, Hashimoto’s, did you do any functional medicine testing other than oxidative testing? Did you do stool tests or adrenal tests? Did you mainly do oxidative stress?  

Dr. Erin: 

With cancer, no. I didn’t know anything about naturopathic medicine when I was diagnosed with cancer. I met a naturopathic doctor after I had been deemed cancer-free. I didn’t do any functional testing during my diagnosis. 

I have probably done every test out there throughout my eight years of being out of school. I never really did anything about it. I would get the results and say okay. We’re the worst patients. I didn’t do anything about it.

Most recently is when I did all of the environmental toxin tests. I have done an OAT. I have done neurotransmitter testing. I have done heavy metal testing. I have done stool testing. I have done cortisol, awakening response, the four point salivary testing. I have done DUTCH testing. I wanted to do DUTCH testing for my estrogen metabolism for cancer. That’s the urine test for hormones. I just did another stool test, so I am waiting on that. 

Dr. Eric: 

When you treated for parasites, did you treat based on the findings of the stool test? Were the stool tests negative for parasites, and you did a regular parasite cleanse? 

Dr. Erin: 

I did the parasite cleanse because at the place I do my lymphatic massage, he does muscle testing. I went to see him to learn a little bit more on a measurable scale. I tested for parasites through him. And some candida. 

I did the cell core parasite cleanse. Do I notice that I have passed anything? Not necessarily. Did I feel any different? No. I’m sure it did good. If you have a heartbeat, you have a parasite. I don’t recommend everybody going out and doing parasite cleanses without talking to your doctor first. 

Dr. Eric: 

Good advice. You deal a lot with hormones with your patients. What type of testing do you recommend? DUTCH testing? Blood testing to look at hormones? 

Dr. Erin: 

I like it all. I start with blood. The reason I start with blood is because I am looking at the whole person. I can get way more information on blood than I can on pee. 

If I don’t get anywhere with blood testing as far as hormones, which I usually do, I’ll go to urine testing, like a DUTCH test. I just ordered a DUTCH test for a patient who is struggling with her hormones. We have been doing a lot of work and not getting anywhere. Let me see how she is metabolizing, which I can get through DUTCH. I typically do blood because I can get way more information, way more labs. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you test thyroid in most people? 

Dr. Erin: 

Oh yeah. Hormones, full thyroid panel with antibodies. Adrenal function, like morning cortisol through blood, and a full reproductive hormone panel, in addition to blood sugar, vitamins, cholesterol, iron. 

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned Dr. Jen. She was on my podcast. Has she been on your podcast yet? 

Dr. Erin: 

No, but I would love for her to be on my podcast. 

Dr. Eric: 

You should reach out to her. She’s great to chat with. I told you about the conference I am going to. She was there last year. She did her book signings. 

Dr. Erin: 

Yeah. Breast cancer is such a thing. I really wish it wasn’t a thing. If anybody is listening that is going through breast cancer or knows someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, get her book, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer. I didn’t have breast cancer, but I had DCIS, so I bought it. It made me feel so much better. I went down a rabbit hole with her podcast, Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jen. I just gave it to a patient today. You can learn so much from her. It really just made these light bulbs go off in my brain. 

There is a reason why. All the imaging I had done in 2022 for my breast. In the lumpectomy and the biopsies. Did that play a role in this stuff happening in 2024? Did it? Who knows? Things that make you go hmm. 

It’s unfortunate that nowadays, we truly as a society have to be our own advocates and come armed with questions to our doctors. Is there a better way? You’re afraid to bring it up because they might think you’re nuts. I don’t want to do a mammogram anymore. I am not going to do surgery. All right, well, best of luck to you. You’re an idiot for not doing it, right? That’s the standard of care. We don’t have to abide by the standard of care. It’s your body. You can do whatever you want. 

Dr. Eric: 

You do a lot of things, which is great. For some of the listeners, this might be overwhelming. I don’t know if I can do sauna and cold plunges and vibration plates. 

When you work with someone with Hashimoto’s, let’s say, someone with thyroid autoimmunity, what would you say to start out with? What tips can you give to someone who is new? Should they start out with diet and lifestyle? It’s a good idea to work with a practitioner. I assume you don’t like the first consultation, talking about sauna. Maybe you do. 

What advice would you give someone who was either recently diagnosed or maybe even dealing with it for a long time and decided, “Hey, I want to address the cause of the problem?”  

Dr. Erin: 

I usually start with the basics, the foundations. If those aren’t in play, we have to start there. All of those are in play. I had gone to medical school. The foundations are sleep, hydration, movement, and diet. That is where we’ll start. Sometimes, people have two out of four things dialed in. Maybe they have zero out of four things dialed in. We will dial them in one by one. 

If you are only drinking one glass of water a day, let’s work up to two. Then three. Let’s make a goal. If you’re eating processed foods, let’s replace at least one meal with a homecooked meal. Teach them. 

There is a thing that came out from my naturopathic school, the naturopathic organization about nutrition and how naturopathic doctors get over 155 hours of nutrition in our medical school, whereas medical doctors only get 19 hours. We know what we’re talking about with nutrition. 

We’ll usually start there. Food is medicine. We can get a lot of good medicine from food. Nobody knows how to eat. That’s why we’re such a diabetic pandemic here, and everyone is obese. It’s a mess. We don’t know how to eat. It’s not anybody’s fault. Nobody teaches us how to eat. I’m going to go to McDonald’s and get this happy meal. It’s not food. It’s not good for you.

With diet, it doesn’t have to be hard. Shop around the perimeter of the grocery store. Maybe abide by the clean 15 and dirty dozen. It’s the Environmental Working Group’s lists every spring. They put it out in the summer this year. It’s the top 15 foods that are clean that you can purchase conventional. The dirty dozen are the top 12 foods that are treated with the most pesticides and chemicals, so you want to buy those organic when possible. Abide by that. If you start there, you’re doing something. 

Movement. Start by going for a walk for 10 minutes. You don’t have to do a 10k. Just move your body if you haven’t done movement in a while. 

Sleep. I think sleep is where I start with a lot of my patients. They’re not sleeping well. Your body can’t restore or repair. You will feel like garbage. You won’t have energy. Then you don’t want to eat well or move. If I get you to sleep, then you will have more energy, and you will eat better and want to move.

If those things aren’t dialed in, then sauna, cold plunge, any of that is not going to be helpful anyway. 

Dr. Eric: 

Great advice. I agree. Definitely want to start with the foundations. If someone is eating inflammatory foods, if they’re stressed out all the time, if they’re sedentary, it will be difficult to heal. Not getting sufficient sleep, like you said. Start with the basics. 

Later on, once they do that, maybe they can incorporate some of these other things like red light, sauna, cold plunges. All of these could be great options as well.

Before we wrap things up, anything else that you’d like to share, Dr. Ellis? 

Dr. Erin: 

My best piece of advice would be you know your body best. Don’t stop at no. If you aren’t getting the answer that you deserve and want to hear, keep asking. 

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I had this symptom and this swelling in my groin, and I knew something was wrong. I kept getting dismissed. My doctor said it’s nothing; I was too young to have cancer. It just got worse. Something wasn’t right. Can we get more imaging? Can you send me somewhere? What is going on? 

Finally, we got somewhere. Not the answer I wanted. If that never happened, I wouldn’t be sitting on this podcast with you. Life happens for a reason. 

Your symptoms are messages. Your Check Engine light is going off in your car. Same in your body. Something is not right here. Let’s figure it out. 

You should have energy in the day to do the things you want. You should be sleeping soundly. You should be having daily bowel movements. You shouldn’t have headaches, stomach pain, diarrhea, crappy periods. If those are happening, something is not balanced in the body, so let’s figure it out. You can heal and feel like yourself again. 

Dr. Eric: 

Well said. Where can people find out more about you? I know you have a hormone quiz. Feel free to share. 

Dr. Erin: 

I have a hormone quiz. You can find it on my social media and my website. I am very active on social media. Most active on Instagram, so come find me over there, @Dr.ErinEllis. Give me a follow. I usually shout out all my new followers in the DMs. Social media, website. 

I have a podcast. I am on a break now, but I have 3-4 years, over 200 episodes to watch. I should be back at the beginning of the year. 

Dr. Eric: 

Awesome. This was great. Thanks for coming on, Dr. Erin, sharing your story with both the cancer and the Hashimoto’s healing journey. I found it to be fascinating, and I’m sure the listeners did as well. 

Dr. Erin: 

Hope so. Thanks so much for having me, Dr. Eric. 

Dr. Eric: 

You’re welcome. Thanks again.  

A new study may have just changed how we think about two nutritional supplements that can benefit those with Graves’ disease. In this episode, let’s discuss how this combination may help lower thyroid antibodies, improve symptom control, and even reduce the total dosage of methimazole.  If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode. In this episode, I am going to discuss a recent study on Graves’. This journal article came out in August 2025, a few months ago. It discussed how taking L-carnitine and selenium can be beneficial for Graves’ patients who are taking methimazole. 

Even if you are not taking methimazole, I think this study is important, as it still demonstrates the benefits of combining selenium and L-carnitine. There have been separate studies showing the benefits of selenium and thyroid autoimmunity. There have also been a few studies showing that L-carnitine in larger doses—2,000-4,000mg—can block the entry of thyroid hormone into the cell. In some cases, it can be used as a substitute for antithyroid medication. I am not specifically telling you to use L-carnitine as a substitute. 

This is the first study, I’m pretty sure, that looks at combining selenium and L-carnitine in Graves’ patients. This does involve patients taking methimazole, too, essentially increasing the effectiveness of methimazole. It still is worth exploring the possibility of taking selenium and L-carnitine by itself.

I’ll talk more about this because it’s not like I haven’t been recommending selenium to most of my Graves’ patients. L-carnitine, I can’t say I recommend it across the board. I definitely recommend selenium more frequently, but I have a number of patients who take L-carnitine, too. 

Let’s talk more about the study. Again, I have the study in front of me, which I’ll make sure to include the link. I won’t read the study verbatim. Essentially, the trial asks: Can adding a combination of L-carnitine and selenium to standard methimazole therapy improve outcomes in new Graves’ patients? 

It involved 60 patients with newly diagnosed overt Graves’. They were randomized into two groups, one with methimazole alone and another group with methimazole and a supplement containing L-carnitine and selenium. 

The research is measuring thyroid hormones: free T3, free T4, TSH. It also looked at TRABs. I don’t think specifically the TSIs. You could test the TSIs in a blood test, but you could also test the TRABs. They looked at the TRABs. If you’re not familiar, TSI is thyroid stimulating immunoglobins, which is a type of TSH receptor antibody. 

It also looked at symptom scores for every two months for up to 24 months. Patients also filled out the questionnaires about classic hyperthyroid symptoms, such as increased resting heart rate, tremors, heat intolerance, and irritability. 

Let’s discuss some of the major findings. As far as what did not change significantly, the time for TSH, free T3, and free T4 to normalize was not significantly different between the two groups. In other words, by adding L-carnitine and selenium, it didn’t seem to speed up the normalization of thyroid hormone levels compared just to taking methimazole alone.

What did improve in those that took L-carnitine and selenium along with methimazole? First, the antibodies turned negative sooner, which is great. I mentioned before that there are a lot of people who take just methimazole. Most people are just taking methimazole. Some are taking selenium on their own. It’s not like people have to go full-out taking a natural approach. 

The point is, methimazole is focusing more on the thyroid than the immune system, but there have been a good number of studies showing that selenium can influence the antibodies, which makes sense. It helps to reduce oxidative stress.

It’s not addressing the triggers. If you have other triggers, I could talk more about this. I don’t know of any studies showing that L-carnitine normalizes antibodies. In those taking L-carnitine, selenium, and methimazole, the TRABs turned negative sooner. That suggests the supplement they took may help with the autoimmune component of Graves’. That’s a big finding.

Also, another positive finding is those taking the supplements had a lower methimazole dosage, so they required less methimazole on average. Their total lifetime exposure to methimazole was significantly lower. That is another benefit. 

If someone is on higher amounts of methimazole, let’s say 20mg, which is like a medium dose. 40mg is a higher dose. Perhaps a combination of that methimazole along with L-carnitine and selenium might allow the person to take a lower dose of methimazole. 

Again, it’s not a surprise because L-carnitine has some antithyroid effects by blocking the entry of thyroid hormone into the cell. Selenium can affect positively that autoimmune response. It’s not addressing removing triggers or healing the gut, but it helps to reduce oxidative stress. 

It makes sense that the combination of selenium and L-carnitine along with methimazole could result in less methimazole needed. I wish there was a study of bugleweed with selenium or bugleweed with L-carnitine or maybe all three. That study is not out yet. 

A higher rate of remission is also another benefit. The supplement group had substantially higher frequency of going into remission without needing surgery or radioactive iodine. 

We don’t know the relapse rate. We see that all the time with people who are just on methimazole. Months go by, and then the doctor mentions that the person is in remission. Then they are taken off the methimazole, and then perhaps a few months later, sometimes, longer than a few months, many times, if not most of the time, they will relapse. 

The person could take lower amounts of methimazole, which is always a benefit. Methimazole commonly causes side effects. It also does affect the gut in a negative way. The less methimazole you can take, the better. Better symptom management as well. 

There were some limitations of the study. It was not a blinded study. There was no placebo control. Patients and doctors may have known who was getting the supplements. This can influence symptom reporting or expectations. The symptom questionnaire that was used was not fully validated. The supplement dose and form matters.

It’s also worth mentioning that only 83mcg of selenium was taken, and only 500mg of L-carnitine was taken. I say “only” because I commonly recommend 200mcg of selenium, as do a lot of other practitioners. When it comes to L-carnitine, the other studies show that between 2,000-4,000mg of L-carnitine is what’s needed to block the entry of thyroid hormone into the cell. This study only used 500mg of L-carnitine. It would be interesting if different doses were used, too. 200mcg of selenium along with higher amounts of L-carnitine. 

I also should mention that over the years, I’ve had a lot of people take selenium. The majority of people eventually take selenium. If you just started working with me, I don’t always give it after the first consultation. If I didn’t recommend it right off the bat, usually, I am recommending it by the second consultation. 

L-carnitine, I don’t always recommend. From a symptom management standpoint, I’ve had a lot of success with bugleweed over the years. I typically recommend bugleweed initially. It depends. Some people do take bugleweed along with L-carnitine. Some people switch to L-carnitine after bugleweed doesn’t seem effective.

Even though not everybody takes selenium and L-carnitine in my practice, I have had a lot of people over the years take both. In higher doses, too, than what was used in the study. Again, it doesn’t always result in normalization of the antibodies. It’s something that people can definitely try. Keep your expectations in check. 

Taking selenium and L-carnitine alone, they’re not addressing the underlying cause of the problem. You still want to do everything I talk about on this podcast. Many episodes talk about diet and lifestyle. Looking at other triggers, like infections, environmental toxins/toxicants, mold, heavy metals, microplastics. 

This was encouraging. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad they have this study. Like I said, it would be amazing if they released a similar study with bugleweed instead of or in combination with L-carnitine. I don’t know if that will get done unless I put it together, which I have never done. I would need some assistance doing that. It would be very interesting to see that combination. 

Just wanted to share this new research study. It is specific to Graves’ patients. If you have another hyperthyroid condition, like toxic multinodular goiter, again, it’s not autoimmune toxic multinodular goiter. Some people with that condition can have an autoimmune component, but typically, they don’t. The L-carnitine might help with thyroid hormone. Of course, a lot of people with toxic multinodular goiter are also told to take methimazole. We wouldn’t be modulating the immune system like this study succeeded in doing. 

I wanted to share this study. I found it interesting. Hope you found it interesting as well. 

Also, I wanted to mention that if you’re dealing with Graves’ or a different hyperthyroid condition, it can feel incredibly lonely. You go online searching for answers. Most of what you find online is about Hashimoto’s. Most of the information is hypothyroidism. Most podcasts, too. This is the only one that has an emphasis on hyperthyroidism and Graves’. 

When you go to your doctor, of course, they’re saying three things: take antithyroid medication, do radioactive iodine, or have surgery. No one explains why you have hyperthyroidism. For those with Graves’, they don’t explain what your antibodies mean. They might test you one time, and it might be a struggle to retest. Could be confusing, overwhelming. At times, it makes you feel like the only one going through this. 

That’s one of the main reasons why I created a new community specifically for Graves’ and those with other types of hyperthyroid conditions that is not on Facebook. No one should have to walk through this alone, confused, unsupported. Inside this group, we focus on answers you can’t find elsewhere as well as give support that can make a big difference.

The name of the group is Healing Graves’ Naturally. Even if you have a different type of hyperthyroid condition, I think you can still benefit from joining.

I do have a hyperthyroid-related group on Facebook. But it is really large, which might sound appealing. It has close to 25,000 members as of recording this. To me, it is overwhelmingly large. I wanted something smaller. I wanted something off of Facebook because Facebook could close my group at any time. 

As far as some of the benefits of this group, which is on a platform called School, it gives hope beyond the standard three options. You’re not going to hear about antithyroid medication, radioactive iodine, or surgery. Not to say others might not bring them up in the group, but the goal is to go beyond those three treatment options with natural root cause approaches. 

Of course, you will get some guidance from someone who’s been there. I have been in your shoes. As you may know, I personally overcame Graves’. I know the fear of the rollercoaster of symptoms. I know what works and what doesn’t work. 

I also talk about my process of the Save My Thyroid method I have been using to help people all over the world. For many years, I have been in remission since 2009. I have been working with other people ever since then.

Evidence-based natural solutions. That is what this episode was about: giving some updated research, practical science-backed strategies, nutrition, lifestyle, functional medicine insights. 

Right now, the group is free. My goal is to help as many people as I can. At the same time, I don’t want it to get as big as Facebook. My plan is it will become a paid group eventually. It won’t be within the next few weeks or months, but it will most likely make the transition to a paid group.

Those who join for free will not have to pay anything. Once you’re in the group, you’re in. It won’t be a massive charge, but you might as well join for free while you can. 

Also, as an incentive to join, you will also get free access to my brand-new Graves’ survival road map training. It’s not just a single video. This is almost like a course. I should call it one. It has eight modules. All you have to do is click a link in the show notes to join the community. You’ll be happy that you did. 

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. As usual, I hope you found this information to be valuable. Look forward to catching you in the next episode.

Recently, I interviewed Dr. Sharon Stills, who has spent over two decades helping women move through perimenopause and menopause with clarity and confidence. We talk about why so many women are misled into avoiding estrogen, why it’s never “too late” to find balance, and how adrenal and thyroid health fit into the bigger hormonal picture. 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 Dr. Sharon Stills. We are going to be talking about menopause, hormones. Really excited to have this conversation. 

Let me dive into her impressive bio here. Dr. Sharon Stills is a licensed naturopathic medical doctor and graduate of the Sonoran University. She has spent over two decades transforming women’s health with a special focus on guiding women through perimenopause and menopause. 

Creator of the Pioneering Red Hot Sexy Menopause program and host of the annual Mastering Your Menopause Transition Summit, she combines her expertise in European biological medicine, pro-aging therapies, and bioidentical hormone replacement to help women rediscover vitality with natural methods. 

A respected voice in her field, Dr. Stills has lectured internationally at the Paracelsus Academy; contributed to Women’s Health Network; and served on the boards of the Bioregulatory Medicine Institute and UCLA’s Archive of Healing. 

In 2025, she is on the verge of opening the Lasting Wellness Center in Scottsdale, AZ alongside her son, Dr. Ben Stills, offering advanced diagnostic and therapeutic care for chronic illness and women’s health. Welcome, Dr. Sharon. 

Dr. Sharon Stills: 

Very nice to be here. 

Dr. Eric: 

Very excited to have this conversation. How long have you been focusing on menopause and perimenopause? What led you down this path? I guess your own experience, but I’ll let you dive deeper into your background. 

Dr. Sharon: 

Actually, it wasn’t my own experience surprisingly enough. I went to naturopathic medical school to be a pediatrician. I wasn’t interested in women’s health and hormones. This is back in the late’ 90s. There wasn’t a lot of education we had on women’s health and hormones in naturopathic medical school, which seems surprising. Or maybe it was that I wasn’t focusing on that. I was focusing on pediatrics.

When I opened up my clinic after I graduated, an interesting thing happened. A patient diagnosed with pancreatic stage IV cancer came to my clinic. Then a woman who had just read Suzanne Somers’ book on taking bioidentical hormones while she has breast cancer came to my clinic. These two patients totally changed the course of my practice, my career, my specialties. 

One of my professors said, “Just wake up in the morning, and tell the universe to send you what you can handle, how you can help, and where you can be of service.” I guess the universe had other ideas for me although I still do some pediatrics because who doesn’t love kids? 

This woman who came with Suzanne Somers’ book was like, “I want what she is having. I want these hormones.” I was taken aback because I didn’t realize Suzanne Somers was dabbling in alternative medicine. I just knew her as the actress who played the ditsy blonde in Three’s Company. That’s interesting. I love when people don’t like to stay in their lanes. She was into it. I have an open mind. I decided to read the book. I was like, “Oh wow, actually, she is not so ditsy in real life, and this makes a lot of sense to me, what she’s saying and what she’s doing.” 

At the time, she was working with Dr. Jonathan Wright, who ended up becoming my mentor and who I studied with and learned hormones from. He is the grandfather of bioidentical hormone replacement in the United States. He wrote the first script for Bi-Est. Everyone who uses Bi-Est is 80/20. That’s because of him. A lot of people don’t know who he is nowadays; they don’t give him credit. They don’t know the beginnings of where this all came from and what he saw and how he came up with 80/20, which is the ratio of estriol to estradiol in a Bi-Est cream. 

I started treating her with these hormones. This is all good, but I can make it better because I am a naturopathic physician and have training in European biological medicine. I know the body is a whole terrain, and these hormones need to be in a healthy, happy body. “Sure, I’ll do this for you, as long as we also do your lymph system.” 

The microbiome wasn’t popular back then, but it was in my world because in Europe, we knew all about the microbiome and were talking about it way before it was being talked about here in the States.

I treated her. Her husband sent me flowers. He was super happy that he had his wife back. Thus begun the Dr. Stills husband fan club. 

I looked at myself and thought, Well, one should tell people. She told people. The next thing I knew, I had a lot of menopausal women in my practice wanting hormones. I was at the time in my early 30s. Menopause was not something I was thinking about, but I had extreme hormone dysfunction. I had the worst premenstrual- Some women get PMS two days before their period. They get a headache, bloating, breast tenderness. I am not downplaying that. Although that is common, it is certainly not normal. 

I literally had PMS 2.5 weeks every month. I would get my period. I would bleed and feel like garbage. I would finish my period. I would have five or six days or maybe a week where I felt like a normal human being. Then my PMS would kick in, and I would spend the rest of the month suffering. So bloated. People would ask me when my baby was due. Cravings, breast tenderness, headaches. You name it, I had it. 

Here I was suffering. I am helping all these women who are decades older than me. I’m watching them; they’re aging backwards and feeling amazing. They’re having a good time, and I’m thinking, I need to do something for myself because I can’t in good conscience sit here with horrible hormones and not be practicing what I preach. 

I tweaked what I was doing for them to a cycling woman. I didn’t need the exact same hormones, but I needed lymph support and liver support and gut support and blood sugar support and all the support. I needed progesterone, DHEA, and so forth.

I balanced my hormones and got rid of my horrific PMS, which was like, bye, it’s nice to see you go. So much so that when I went into menopause myself, I was 48 when I was done. I was a little on the earlier side, but it’s an average. 

I never even had a hot flash. I never had any symptoms of menopause because I had what I call pregamed and balanced my hormones a couple of decades prior in my early 30s. I have always loved menopause. It’s been this beautiful time for me. 

When did I start? I started a very long time ago doing this. I have close to 25 years now of experience because I really started doing this right out the gate. 

Dr. Eric: 

All right, that’s awesome. Love what you said about it’s not just you have been taking the bioidentical hormones for a long time, but also supporting the liver, the lymphatics, the gut. You look at the whole body, not just recommending hormones to everybody without addressing root causes. 

Dr. Sharon: 

I actually termed it on the hormones first. I am hormone-forward. A lot of times, I do in my practice get the hormones handled. I know there is a lot of people who are clean the mold, get rid of the parasites, fix the gut. I find if you don’t have your hormones balanced, you just suffer a lot longer, and it’s harder. Our hormones are integrally involved in- 

I remember when I first learned about hormones. Even as a doctor, before I started diving into this, women have hormones, so they can get a period and get pregnant and have a baby. They can have hot flashes when they go through menopause. I never really stopped to think, wow, the hormones are helping regulate the nervous system, the immune system, tight junctions in the gut; they’re supporting bone health, brain health, the cardiovascular system and arterial health. They’re involved in detox and everything. 

The way I work in my office is women, men come in with a laundry list of things that they’re complaining about. If they’re in this perimenopausal/menopausal/postmenopausal range, let’s handle your hormones, and let’s see what’s left. A lot of times, the long laundry list is-

As humans, I like to blame and complain. It’s in my heritage. We complain, but then when we feel good, we forget. A patient will come in, and I’ll give them hormones according to what their testing showed. I’ll follow up with them in four weeks because after four weeks, I find there is big change. “How are you doing? “I’m okay.” “Let’s go through. Is your joint pain still there?” “Gosh, no, I forgot. I don’t have any joint pain anymore. My headaches are gone. I’m sleeping well. I have more energy.” 

I find in this stage of life, hormones can really handle a lot. I’d rather balance the hormones than play whack-a-mole on seven different things. Once we get the hormones balanced, then we can see what is still left. 

I do see joint pain reverse a lot because someone needed estrogen or testosterone or DHEA or cortisol or thyroid. You can also have joint pain because you have bad body mechanics, or you’re eating foods you shouldn’t be eating, or you’re deficient in a nutrient. There are lots of reasons. I’d rather just figure out what are the hormones affecting? Then we can go look. 

Yes, I am testing everyone for their microbiome. I am doing extensive viral testing, extensive bloodwork, extensive gut testing. I am looking at everything. They probably taught you this, too. You need to get your patients to feel better, or they’re not coming back. You get a few chances/weeks. As a society, we are not very patient people. We want quick action. Hormones are very lovely. 

I always say there is no magic bullet to health. I have said that for years. As I started working more and more with hormones, if there was a magic bullet, it could very well be the symphony of properly prescribed hormones. They can really make a huge difference in someone’s life: the way they feel, the way they age, the way they prevent or ward off chronic disease. 

Another thing they taught us in medical school: If someone comes in with an autoimmune disease, let’s say, and they have been sick for 10 years, you have that conversation the first appointment. “You have been sick for 10 years, so I won’t get you better in a week. You need to give me some time to reverse.” 

With hormones, I have women who come to me in their 80s who have been misled and been told, “Hormones cause cancer. You can’t have them. It’s too late.” All this ridiculousness that floats around out there. They have been suffering for decades. 

I finally give them hormones, and often, it’s overnight. We get a phone call the next day. It’s certainly within that two, three, four-week period. I am not saying everything is perfect. We have moved the needle significantly to where they feel like they have their life back again. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s awesome. I definitely want to focus more on some of these myths and misconceptions when it comes to hormones. One you just mentioned is you hit menopause five years or seven years, and after that, you’re not going to benefit anymore from hormones. You just mentioned if an 80-year-old woman walks into your practice, you won’t say, “Hey, you’re past the window. I can’t help you with hormones.” You find that’s not true, obviously, if you are recommending hormones still. 

Dr. Sharon: 

I have women travel to me from literally all over the globe. Part of it is sad that they have to. I just had someone do a second opinion consult the other day who will fly in to see me. She has a laundry list of things bothering her. All these typical hormone things. She was told she can’t take hormones because 20 years ago, she had ovarian cancer. 

Women are withheld hormones for that reason, because they’re too old, which is not true. They come to me because I’m like, “That’s not true.” So many doctors are just not taking the time to get properly educated. 

I had a patient before you who just went to see her pulmonologist. The pulmonologist started screaming at her for being on hormones, saying, “What do you need hormones for? You’re 68 years old.” Ridiculing her. She was so upset. The pulmonologist should really check PubMed and look at the data and see what the data actually says, or stay in her own lane. 

This happens everywhere. Gynecologists’ offices, primary care, oncologists. People are misled about hormones. When I say “people,” it’s mainly women. They suffer. It’s never too late. 

Is it optimal to start supporting your hormone decline when it’s happening? Yeah, definitely. You’re losing bone, volume in your brain, immune function, all these things that I say over and over again. If we can catch it right away, yeah, it’s better. 

But if we have to wait 10 years for whatever reason, it’s still going to help. We can still slow down the aging process. We can still start to reverse things that have happened. It’s never too late. 

I do hot yoga and Bikram says, “It’s never too late.” You could be 90 years old and come to the hot yoga room and start to repair and regenerate your body. It is never too late. 

I have RED. R stands for Reinvent your health. It’s never too late to do that. Obviously, I should know this by now because I quote it, but what is it, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cheer? Obviously, it’s better to prevent or treat earlier. 

I’m a really good example. I started balancing my hormones and paying attention in my early 30s. I never had a hot flash. Most women have had hot flashes. A lot of women have had hot flashes ruin their life, ruin their sleep. That’s because I prevented it. I am very fortunate. This is what I do for a living. 

It’s never too late. To anyone who is listening, if you’re suffering, you do not need to suffer. 

Dr. Eric: 

Going back to perimenopause. True or false: When you’re in perimenopause, you’re not supposed to take estrogen. 

Dr. Sharon: 

True and false, it depends on who you are. As a naturopathic physician, I am very individualized, which often makes a lot more work for me but better outcomes for my patients. I don’t have protocols. I don’t have plans. 

We have been talking about this. We are opening up this huge clinic. My son and I were like, “We should sit down and make the detox plan.” After 15 minutes, we looked at each other and said, “We can’t do this. Different people need different things. They have different constitutions.” 

If I was treating 17 people who have scleroderma, they all have different treatment plans. Sure, there might be some overlap. They might be using DMSO or MSN or whatever. They’re different. You have an autoimmune disease for a different reason than every other person. There are emotional components, toxic components, nutritional components, etc.

When it comes to menopause, perimenopause, it is not a disease. It is a transition. It is a natural thing. When women are postmenopausal, it’s more like, “Yeah, they all need estrogen.” There are always little unicorns, which is why we test. 

I had a woman the other day who was still making testosterone. She was in her early 70s. “Go, you!” She eats a healthy diet. She exercises. That’s few and far between. 

In perimenopause, your hormones are at Disneyland riding the rollercoaster. Some women need estrogen. Some women don’t. My experience is that women either lose their estrogen or progesterone, and they produce testosterone longer. Or they lose their testosterone first and produce progesterone and estrogen. That’s what I see from looking at thousands of tests all day long. 

Dr. Eric: 

I brought that up because someone on the podcast said that perimenopausal women shouldn’t take estrogen because of those peaks and valleys. They might be in a valley, but then if they’re on estrogen and reach that peak, they might be in an estrogen dominant state.  

Dr. Sharon: 

Estrogen dominance is so played out. You can be estrogen dominant because you don’t have enough progesterone. I tell women all the time, “You need estrogen. You’re also estrogen dominant.” It’s a relative thing. You can be estrogen dominant in response to your progesterone. Yes, you can be estrogen dominant because you’re not clearing your estrogen or because you’re getting xenoestrogens, which are exogenous from the outside. There is a lot of toxicity. There is a lot of estrogen-like plastics and fertilizers, etc. 

You have to understand your body. I have some women in perimenopause who take estrogen one week of the month because that’s when they need it. Some women need it all month long. Some women need a little bit. Some women just need estriol. You can never make a blanket statement like that because then you are not paying attention to your patients. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. It’s great to get different perspectives. 

Dr. Sharon: 

I get very heated about this. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s okay. I have another true/false question. I think I know the answer because I have done my research and listened to you on other podcasts in preparation. Still, I like to ask in case other people haven’t heard. True/false: You need healthy adrenals in order to have healthy sex hormones. 

Dr. Sharon: 

Everyone says you don’t need to take hormones because when you go through perimenopause, your adrenals will take over. Why take hormones because your adrenals will do the job? 

Now, your adrenals are probably not going to be healthy by the time you go through perimenopause. You are alive on the earth, and you tell me someone who doesn’t have stress or someone who doesn’t know how to deal with their stress. 

Yes, there is a few urban monks out there, living among us. For the most part, by the time we get to menopause, perimenopause, our adrenals are SOS, help me, help me. There is a big misconception that everyone has high cortisol, and high cortisol is ruining your life.

I test cortisol. I test it in the 24 urine. I test it in saliva. I test it all the time. In this age range, most women and men have low cortisol. They don’t have a rhythm. They don’t have a cortisol awakening response. They’re high at night when they should be low. They’re in the basement all day long. Maybe they get their second wind. 

Do you need to have healthy adrenals? Yeah, always paying close attention to the adrenals. The adrenals are important for inflammation, sleep/wake cycle, mood regulation, gut regulation, immune regulation. They play a role. To me, they’re important hormones, but they’re side by side. 

There are unicorns. Ther are some women whose adrenals are surprisingly okay. You still have to look at their mitochondria, neurotransmitters, and other things. 

What I say most often, in the 90th percentile of everyone I look at, is their adrenals need support. They might need to be toned down at night. The morning, the noon levels are super low. It’s like when you’re post-menopausal, the adrenals, even if they’re perfect, won’t put out what the ovaries are putting out. Even if you have good functioning adrenals, maybe you will get to a postmenopausal state of hormone production. That is not going to give you symptom relief, and that is not going to give you the protection and prevention. To me, both of them are equally important. Obviously, I don’t want anyone suffering. You shouldn’t have to deal with symptoms.

 The other part of protection and prevention against cancer and dementia and Alzheimer’s and autoimmunity and osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease, the biggest killer of women. Hormones are the biggest thing you can do to hedge your bet to ward off chronic illness. It’s not like fix your adrenals and forget about your hormones. To me, we’re doing both. 

Dr. Eric: 

You can look at it from this perspective, too. If a woman is postmenopausal, so they have really low estrogen levels and are experiencing those hot flashes and night sweats. That itself is very stressful. It would be very difficult to say to that woman, “Just focus on managing stress and optimizing your adrenals” when those symptoms are causing a lot of stress by themselves. 

Dr. Sharon: 

Exactly. When we have hot flashes, that is our brain saying, “There is low estrogen.” There are women who say, “I just have a real good mindset, so I don’t care about my hot flashes. I just say they’re power surges, and I’m a wise woman now.” You could be a wise woman without hot flashes. Symptoms are signs from your body, “Hello? There is something going on here. I need you to pay attention.” That’s why we have symptoms. It’s our body’s way of talking to us. 

There are a lot of things you can eat your way out of, you can move your body out of, you can sleep your way out of, you can meditate your way out of to improve your health. When it comes to your hormone tank being empty, you can’t do it. You have to fill the tank with hormones. All those other things, they might nudge you a little. I see this. I have a lot of clinical experience. I have been doing this for 25 years. 

There is that other myth, “I am going to have a natural menopause, so I won’t take hormones. But I will take Vitamin E and flaxseed and maca and black cohosh.” We have decided herbs are okay, but bioidentical hormones are not, even though that is the root cause, and that’s what we’re missing. We are not deficient in maca. We are deficient in estrogen, progesterone, DHEA, pregnenolone, or whatever. 

I see a lot of these women. Maybe they’re feeling a little better. Then they come see me, and I put them on hormones. I hear the same thing all the time. “I wasted five years of my life. I feel so good now. I was suffering. I don’t know why I did that.” Sometimes, we get in our own way. We get on our little soapboxes. 

I’m super natural. I practice what I preach. I really walk my walk. I have to. I was very sick as a kid. If I don’t live what I preach, I wouldn’t be doing the things I’d be doing. I’d be lying on the couch. 

We talk a lot about root cause medicine. The root cause of menopause is hormones. I always kid around that the ovaries are like, “That looks nice. We are going to hang a hammock and walk to the beach. We’re retiring. See ya. We’re done.” That is the root cause. The ovaries are not putting out your hormones anymore. We didn’t used to live more than half our lives postmenopausal. It wasn’t that big a deal for our ancestors. We can live. 

I plan to live until 130. We are biochemically designed to live to 120, I think. Maybe it’s upped a little. I added on 10 years when I started doing ProLon and fasting and inducing autophagy. I get another 10 years for this. 

If you look at women who are on hormones and are in their 80s, versus if you look at women who aren’t, it’s drastic. Women who aren’t on hormones are old. Women who are on hormones are going on motorcycle rides or going sailing. They’re living life. They’re sharp; they’re strong. They’re having sex. They’re sleeping. They’re excited. They’re passionate. We really need to change the whole conversation, the whole psyche of society of what it means to age. 

Dr. Eric: 

A lot of what you said makes sense. I think some of it also is fear. Some of it is certainly, “I want to do everything naturally and don’t want to take hormones.” But then there is also another myth that taking progesterone is safe, but taking estrogen increases the risk of cancer. 

Dr. Sharon: 

That’s not true.

Dr. Eric: 

Especially bioidentical estrogen. If you’re dosing properly. Again, you’re the expert. Let’s talk about that. That is a fear of a lot of people. “I don’t want to take estrogen because it can cause cancer.”

Dr. Sharon: 

In the early 2000s, which is the study that freaked everyone out and ripped hormones away from these generations of women who were on hormones because they said it increased your risk of cancer. It was a really poorly designed study. It was even worse poorly interpreted. It’s now been debunked. 

Even from that study, the women in the estrogen-only arm had less breast cancer. They were taking synthetic estrogen, which I would never recommend. Even the women who are taking Premarin, pregnant horse urine, which has DNA damaging estrogens in it that don’t belong in a human body, they even had a reduction in cancer. 

Where this came from, it was the women who were taking estrogen and progestins, which is the synthetic type of progesterone. I never recommend, even with that, you still shouldn’t take horse estrogen. Still not a good idea to put that in your body. 

When we’re talking about bioidentical, we’re talking about naturally compounded, identical to what your body produces. When it gets to the cellular receptor site, the cell’s like, “Oh, I recognize this. I know what this is. This is estrogen.” 

To say that estrogen causes cancer is such a lazy medicine. There are different kinds of estrogens. Estrone, which is E1, is inflammatory because it hits the alpha receptors, and it does cause growth. Yes, estrone uncontrolled, unbalanced, imbalanced, not protected with progesterone, without DHEA, without testosterone, without proper thyroid hormone and cortisol, yes, that can be a factor. Cancer is never a one cause thing. It’s multi-factorial, why we grow a tumor in our terrain. 

Estriol, which is E3, is the beta receptors. It’s very anti-inflammatory. I use it to treat active cancer. 2-methoxyestradiol, which is an estrogen metabolite from estradiol, very anti-cancer, anti-angiogenic. They would love to make a pharmaceutical out of it if they can figure it out because they can make lots of money. That’s what the pharmacy companies do.

There are different kinds of estrogens. If you understand estrogen as an umbrella, just like if a husband and wife have eight kids, they’re not all the same. They all have different personalities. It’s the same with estrogen. Yes, some are more inflammatory, like 4 hydroxy estrone, which is a metabolite that is known to cause DNA damage. There are some, like testosterone which is anti-cancer; DHEA is anti-cancer; progesterone. It’s the symphony. 

What I find is women who end up with cancer from a hormonal perspective, it’s because they’re not on hormones, and their hormones aren’t balanced or are depleted. My experience is totally the opposite. 

Dr. Eric: 

When it comes to testing, a lot of practitioners these days do dried urine testing. Let’s talk about how you test the hormones. 

Dr. Sharon: 

How I test is with a 24-hour wet urine, which is a collection of all your urine over 24 hours. 

The reason why dried urine testing was created was because they decided it would be easier to market. They didn’t think women could do hard things like pee in a bucket for 24 hours. They came up with this “Let’s have them dry it. Let’s not have them collect. Let’s have them do four samples.” You need to get the whole 24-hour gestalt of what is going on because there are ebbs and flows. There is a circadian rhythm happening. A lot of mistakes are made when collecting dry urine. It doesn’t give you the whole story.

When we compare them side by side, we see that the test results are very inaccurate. Women bring them to me, and I won’t prescribe off of them or give them the time of day because I want accurate information. Dried urine has good PR. They made their mark. 

A lot of doctors who really understand hormones are in the clinic all day. We’re not out there on Instagram, influencing. We’re seeing patients. We’re in the clinic. We’re in the trenches. We don’t have time to fight against what the ethos is saying in society. It’s sad that this happened. 

I have been doing 24-hour wet urine testing since I was in medical school in the ‘90s. Dried urine testing wasn’t even a thing then. 

It really is the gold standard. A lot of people who do blood never look at the metabolites, never see the breakdown. Estriol, which is E3, has a very short half-life. You can’t really see it in the blood. It’s not easily measured in serum. 

The word on the street is estriol doesn’t matter. That’s crazy. Word that estriol is dangerous, and you don’t need it, which is totally absurd. 

Everyone talks about estradiol as the strongest, the only one that matters. Estradiol, estradiol, estradiol. When you get 24-hour urine testing, you see estriol in healthy women, postmenopausal, premenopausal, perimenopausal. A lot of them will produce more estriol than estradiol. That’s really the ratio we want to be in. 

If you can only see what you’re looking at, if you don’t know where to look, you don’t always get to see the truth. 

Dr. Eric: 

Is that testosterone, too? 24-hour urine? 

Dr. Sharon: 

Yes. I check all the estrogens, all the metabolites, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA. I test glucocorticoids. You have cortisol and cortisone storage form and metabolites. That’s helpful, but it doesn’t show you the circadian rhythm.

I always make patients do a 24-hour saliva test because I can see in a 24-hour wet urine, “Oh yeah, you’re not producing a lot,” or “You’re overproducing,” but it doesn’t tell me when. 

When it comes to adrenal health, the when is really important. We want to have that nice ski slope. We want to have that nice circadian rhythm. We are also looking at free thyroid hormones. We look at melatonin, oxytocin, growth hormone, nitric oxide levels. We look at a full symphony. Doesn’t mean that I don’t go to the blood to check SHBG and DHT and a gazillion other levels to look at overall health. Parathyroid hormone, vitamin D. There are certain things you need to go to the blood for. 

Dr. Eric: 

Regular thyroid, too? Do you look at regular thyroid in the blood, like TSH, free T3, free T4? 

Dr. Sharon: 

Yeah, the 24-hour urine just shows free T3 and free T4, but it doesn’t show the antibodies or TSH or reverse T3. Reverse T3 really helps guide what I’m going to prescribe, if they’re going to be T3 only or a compound. 

When I do a urine, I can say, “Your T3 is looking low.” I can look at their symptoms. “You’re definitely going to need thyroid, but let’s get some stuff in your blood and see if your reverse T3 is too high. Do you not want to get T4 because you are just going to convert it to reverse T3 anyway? If your antibodies are elevated, well now, we probably need to support your thyroid still if it’s been damaged. Now we need to figure out why your immune system is attacking your thyroid.” 

Dr. Eric: 

Before we wrap up, I want to ask you about castor oil packs. It’s such a hot topic. I listened to another podcast you were on, where you raved about castor oil packs. 

Dr. Sharon: 

I love castor oil packs. I have been prescribing those for 25 years, too. We do a computerized regulation thermography, which is a machine from Germany, to look at regulation of all your organs and your teeth. It’s one of the only tools available that can diagnose if your lymph system is congested. News flash: most people’s are. 

Castor oil is cheap. It’s easy to do. It’s empowering because you can do it yourself. It’s nurturing. It makes you sit down and take care of yourself, which a lot of women have a hard time doing or don’t think they have time to do. It helps drain. It helps detox. 

You can do them over your liver, your thyroid, your breasts. I have people mummy up, where they do it from here to your pubic bone, depending on what I see in the thermography. 

I’m really old school. I know there are different ways to do castor oil, but castor oil packs were from Edgar Casey, who was in the early 1900s a medical medium. He was a doctor, but he channeled different treatments. Castor oil packs is one of the things that he channeled, and he has a clinic in Virginia Beach. He is no longer with us. Heritage House is his company that sells his remedies. His work is still around. The most popular is castor oil. 

I am real old school. If he is the one who brought it to us, we should probably do it the way he says to do it. 

I make patients heat the castor oil, get a pack, put hot water bottle or low EMF dry heating pad, lay with it for 45 minutes. Let it drive it in, rather than just rub some castor oil on and call it a day. 

The reason why I do that is it’s what I see in my thermography scan. I see patients who, when they take the time to do that, we see flow and clearing and less toxins than if you’re just rubbing some on.  

Dr. Eric: 

Great. You actually can compare the before and after with the thermography and see those changes. 

Dr. Sharon: 

I’ll have women say, “I’ve been doing it for two years.” “You lit up like a Christmas tree, so it’s not working.” Then we’ll do it old school and check. Now, things are moving. 

Dr. Eric: 

All right. That’s pretty cool. I’m glad I asked about that. Thank you. This was great. This was a lot of information packed in a short period of time. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts on hormones and testing for hormones and finishing up with the castor oil packs. 

Dr. Sharon, where can people find out more about you? 

Dr. Sharon: 

We have our new clinic, Lasting Wellness Center, in Scottsdale, which we will have LastingWellnessCenter.com. We are in the middle of building it out. 

DrStills.com has been my website for 25 years. That’s always a good place.

If you sign up for my newsletter, that’s the one place. I keep swearing I’m going to become consistent on Instagram. I don’t know, I go in and out because I get busy, and I like to be present in my life. I don’t always want to be holding a camera. 

We do communicate to my community through my email list. We have a very big community. We are very good about communicating through email. That’s a good place if you want to know what’s going on.

Very soon, I will be at Lasting Wellness Center. We have a huge clinic, 7,000 square feet. We have all my diagnostics and therapeutics I have collected from Europe over the years. Opening a clinic is like giving birth to a dozen babies. I will be there. I will be busy getting that all. I really wanted to have a place where people could come and heal. 

People are very sick. Unfortunately, they’re getting sicker. I wanted them to have a place to come get EBU and hypoxia training and oxygen and hydrogen and all the tools. Sometimes, when we’re really sick, we need to be somewhere and be held and be handled and be nurtured and have therapeutics done, so our body can heal. That’s where I’ll be. 

Dr. Eric: 

All right, that sounds amazing. One day, I will need to visit when it’s open, take a tour. 

Dr. Sharon: 

Yes please. Come to our grand opening. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thanks, Dr. Sharon. Appreciate you taking the time to chat about hormones. 

Dr. Sharon: 

Thank you. Always a pleasure. 

Recently, I interviewed Linda, who faced sudden double vision and eye changes that no one could explain at first. What began as mild symptoms quickly turned into Thyroid Eye Disease (TED), forcing her to make tough decisions on when to move beyond homeopathic care and consider Tepezza. We talk about what finally made a difference, what didn’t, and how she kept her immune system and hope strong through it all. 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 am chatting with Linda here. Very excited to have this conversation. How are you doing today, Linda? 

Linda:

I’m doing well, Eric. 

Dr. Eric: 

You were diagnosed with Graves’ in May 2023. We will talk about some of your Graves’ journey and your thyroid eye disease (TED). Quick question: How did you discover me? 

Linda: 

I wish I knew now. I am always looking on the internet for resources and opportunities. I saw your website and thought it looked helpful and interesting. I subscribed to the podcast, and I began to read the things that you posted. I got your first book, which was really so helpful. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful, thank you for listening and reading. I do appreciate that. 

History of Graves’ that started a little over two years ago. You dealt with double vision. You had Tepezza, which I’d like to talk about. You saw a naturopath, who tried some things. If you could take a few minutes and give a little bit of your backstory, so everyone can hear some of the things you’ve tried. 

Linda: 

My symptoms began in January 2023. The way the health care system works, I didn’t get my endocrinologist appointment for four months. They were completely willing to let me be untreated. 

Because of that, I decided to go to a naturopath I had worked with years ago when I had an autoimmune flare, is what she called it. She immediately did a food sensitivity test. Within two weeks, many of the symptoms had dissipated, which was helpful since the western medical model was they put me on a beta blocker because they didn’t want me to have the thyroid storm? 

Dr. Eric: 

The thyroid storm, yes. 

Linda: 

That was all I had to help me stay healthy. I feel like an autoimmune illness came after a series of very stressful events that I handled as best I could, but I realize I was not in a good place emotionally, spiritually. Physically, I was fine. In hindsight, I realize that was what set me off in that.

The first symptom I had was double vision. I am a big tennis player, and I wasn’t seeing the ball well. I didn’t understand what was going on. I went to my optometrist who said there was nothing wrong with my eyes. Then I went to my regular medical doctor who did some initial tests and said I was tracking for hyperthyroidism. 

Dr. Eric: 

Double vision you had before you were diagnosed with Graves’? 

Linda: 

Yes. No one said anything about TED for nine months, even though my primary, constant, and current symptom is double vision. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. Did you have other eye symptoms? Did you have bulging? 

Linda: 

I did begin to get a little bit of bulging after a year and a half, which is what led me to consider Tepezza. 

Dr. Eric: 

Prior to going through the Tepezza, that was when you received some other treatments, like the homeopathy and IV ozone? 

Linda: 

Yes, that’s right. My naturopath had very good results with homeopathic drops, so I was on those for maybe nine months. There was no resolution of the double vision, so she suggested these oxygen infusions. 

After the first one, the double vision did go away, but it came back. I did a series of them, and it did not- Some of my antibodies also went down. They hit a plateau, where it wasn’t working.

She also did a heavy metal test. Years and years ago, when I had some high antibodies, she did the heavy metal testing and did a detox program, and the antibodies went down. We also did that, and I tested high for lead. I don’t know why lead somehow seems to find its way into my body, despite all my efforts. We did go through one of the detoxes. 

It’s all very expensive. I used to have a health HSA, but I don’t have one anymore. I had to constantly be thinking about how much I could spend. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah, I get it. When I dealt with chronic Lyme in 2018, I also went the IV ozone route and had a few dozen sessions. Definitely pricey. I had that combined with the UV light. I do think it helped. 

In my situation, I don’t know if I absolutely needed that because it’s not getting rid of Lyme. I had Lyme and bartonella. It’s just helping with the immune system. Like you said, it can be pricey in general, seeing naturopaths, functional medicine practitioners like myself. 

You gave it a try. The homeopathy you did for nine months, and you didn’t see much progress, so you switched to IV ozone. Didn’t seem like it helped much with the double vision outside of the first visit, but it helped with the antibodies. The heavy metal testing as well. Did some detox protocols to help with lead.

About a year and a half later, after dealing with double vision, you did Tepezza. It’s eight infusions three weeks apart, correct? You went through one of those rounds? Did it help at all? 

Linda: 

Yes. It did. I can visually, for people who can see, my double vision kept getting worse and worse. I would change the prescription and order another pair of glasses from Zenni because I had ordered my first ones through my optometrist. It was so expensive, but it really helped. 

Then I found out on my own through my research about prism glasses. None of my caregivers said anything about prism glasses as an option. My optometrist said it could help, but my eyes will change. They kept changing, and I kept changing the prescription. That did help immensely to get rid of the double vision. It was getting worse. 

The Tepezza was the last resort. Even my ophthalmologist had seen a lot of symptoms. She was a little hesitant. She said I could stop any time I wanted. She said I could even lower the dose. I felt some agency going into the process. 

It did help. All the inflammation in my eyes went away. It was very mild bulging, but everybody said my eyes looked so much better. And the double vision got less. In other words, when I wake up in the morning, I have a pair I put on. The morning is always difficult. For the first hour, the double vision is the worst. After an hour, it resolves. Then I wear the glasses that have the least amount of prism in them. It did help with it but did not eliminate it. There are times during the day where it just goes away. 

Dr. Eric: 

I haven’t had a lot of patients go through Tepezza, but I’ve had a few. It does seem to work well with bulging. The double vision, depends. Some people, it doesn’t seem like it does much. With you, it sounds like it helped but didn’t get rid of it completely. With the bulging, the inflammation, it greatly helped. 

There were some side effects? 

Linda: 

I had the best experience I could have had. I had a friend who had just horrible cramping at night. What I did was get some compression socks, and I would wear them after each treatment for 2-3 days. Once in a while, I had pretty light cramping that went away with rubbing my calf, which was completely no big deal.

The other side effect is my nails became extremely brittle. Even though I stopped in March, another ophthalmologist said it’s still in my system. Give it some time. I’m giving it some time. That was it. Those are very doable side effects given what I’ve heard from other people. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. I had one male patient who temporarily lost his hearing for a few months. 

Linda: 

I was terrified of the hearing loss. 

Dr. Eric: 

It depends on the person. I heard the numbers. I don’t know how accurate, but 10%. You could look at it either way. 90% won’t get hearing loss. To me, 10% is still a large enough number where 1/10, that’s not good. The ringing in the ears, the tinnitus, same thing. 

It sounds like it worked well. Minimal side effects. I’m guessing if you had to do it all again, you would? You don’t regret the Tepezza experience? 

Linda: 

In hindsight, I would have done it sooner. I wanted to see if there was any way not to do it. Western medicine has its place. All my life, I have always done my best to avoid it. Honestly, with this disease, it’s the first time I’ve ever been on medication my whole life, which I feel grateful for. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s great. A bummer you had to take Tepezza, but there is a time and place for it. 

When I dealt with Graves’, I was able to avoid antithyroid medication, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a time and place for methimazole or PTU. Same thing with Tepezza. I’ve had some people where it made a huge difference, especially with the bulging. 

If you could do without it, great. It’s not like you didn’t give it a try. You tried homeopathy, the IV ozone, diet and lifestyle changes. You can’t regret and say, “I didn’t try not to get it. I didn’t try to avoid it” because you did. You ended up getting it, and it helped with minimal side effects, so that’s great.

What current challenges if any are you having then? The eyes are still not perfect. Also, the antibodies are continuing to go down? What do you want to further improve? 

Linda: 

The antibodies have been- I did take the methimazole for a year and a half, I think. After I read your book, the message I got very clearly was, “It will deal with the symptoms. It will not fix it.” I was already on a very low dose. I decided to stop. I did. 

I felt better in the mornings. I just felt a little more energized, and then I kept testing. The three numbers had been in normal range for six months, since I have been off the meds. I think I have two that are now in normal range. They tested four different numbers. Two are still high. It has been a very slow- They’re all going down. Even the two that are still very high are going down. That’s really the main concern, is to get those antibodies down into normal range, with the hopes that will address the double vision. 

Dr. Eric: 

Well, on the application, you did put that you have elevated TPO antibodies and TG antibodies. You also had TSIs. How are they looking? 

Linda: 

They went down. They got into normal range around January of this year. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay, that’s awesome. Usually, the TSI are the ones more closely associated with Graves’. TPO antibodies are commonly found in both Hashimoto’s and Graves’, usually more closely associated with Hashimoto’s. TG antibodies are more Hashimoto’s antibodies. It’s pretty common to have antibodies for both Graves’ and Hashimoto’s.

It’s great that TSI is better. Hopefully, those other antibodies continue to go down. It sounds like you’re doing some great things. 

Do you have any questions here? Do you feel by reading my book, listening to the podcast, you know what to do from this point forward? Do you feel like you’re on a good path? 

Linda: 

Yeah, I do all the things you talked about. I made sure to test Vitamin D, and it was great. A lot of the things you discussed in the book in terms of testing. I asked my regular medical doctor, who is wonderful. She is one of those people who believes in all different kinds of healing and treatment. if I say, “Hey, could you test me for this? Could you give me a referral for that?” she does everything she can to support my health in that way.

My naturopath had wanted me to test for diabetes. I tested the cortisol. That’s the other thing you had suggested. My naturopath had done it years ago, which came in normal as well. Everything you talked about in the book that I hadn’t been doing, I found ways to test for what was there or add some more supplements. I looked at the supplements you have for the eyes. 

Dr. Eric: 

The TED Bundle? 

Linda: 

Yeah. I was already taking two of them, so I bought the immune one, I believe. 

Dr. Eric: 

SMT Immune? 

Linda: 

Yes. The only issue at this point is my eyes and eye health. What else can I do? I am a believer that you do whatever you can, and your health is the most important thing. That should be arriving soon. I’ll add that and see if it’s helpful. 

Dr. Eric: 

Keep me posted. 

Linda: 

I will. Sorry I didn’t find your book a year and a half earlier. I did find it, and that’s what matters. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah. I wish you did, too, but it’s great that you found it. Earlier would have been better, but I’m glad you eventually found it. 

You’re looking good. I have been working with Graves’ patients for 16 years. Many times, it’s really obvious the TED, when zooming with them. I didn’t see you before Tepezza, but it sounds like it made a big difference. I can’t say you looked better than you did previously, but you look really good. Hopefully, you’ll continue to improve. Sounds like you did some great things.

I wanted to have this conversation to- I’ve had one or two audits talk about TED. Not sure if I’ve had anybody who has done Tepezza. The double vision, talking about the prisms. Anything that could be helpful. The bulging is bad enough. Sometimes, the natural approach does help with that, but not always. If it doesn’t, then Tepezza can be an option to consider. 

With the double vision also, talking about the prisms, they seem like they were a game changer, and nobody else mentioned that to you. There might be others dealing with double vision, who are looking to get surgery or something else. There is a time and place for that. I wanted to chat with you about your experience. 

Some people might not be happy because we spoke about Tepezza and other things. Of course, my approach is to try to do everything that I can naturally. Again, there is a time and place for conventional medicine or medical intervention. 

Thank you so much, Linda, for this conversation. You have made some great progress. Definitely keep me posted with that TED Bundle to let me know. Hopefully, you see some further improvements in your eyes. 

Linda: 

Thank you so much for everything you do and everything I’ve learned. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you. Thanks, everyone for tuning in. Hope those who are dealing with TED, whether it’s bulging or double vision, found this to be helpful. I’ve helped a lot of people over the years with TED. It is more of an immune system condition. Like I said, I’d be lying if I said 100% of people responded to the natural approach. There is a time and place for other options. Thanks for tuning in. Everyone, have an awesome rest of your day. 

Recently, I interviewed Bria Gadd also known as The Period Whisperer, who is a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, holistic health coach, and certified personal trainer. We talked about her own perimenopause journey and the lessons that shaped her work from understanding health debt to managing stress and supporting gut health. We also discuss metabolic typing, including the concept of “oxidizers” how your body’s rate of turning food into fuel can influence whether you thrive on higher-protein or higher-carbohydrate foods.  If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am very excited to chat with Bria Gadd, as we are going to talk about hormone imbalances, something that pretty much applies to everyone. At one time or another, I think many, if not most, of us deal with hormone imbalances, especially Bria’s and my clientele. Let me go over Bria’s short but sweet bio here. 

Bria Gadd is a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, holistic health coach, and certified personal trainer, who specializes in female hormones, helping women with weight release and energy gain in pre- and post-menopause, and finding clarity in hormonal chaos. Her podcast The Period Whisperer is a top 1% wellness podcast in the world. With an Instagram following of over 17,000, Bria has been featured in Fox News, Women’s Health, and top women’s podcasts such as The Midlife Makeover Show, to name one. Welcome, Bria. 

Bria Gadd: 

Thank you so much, Dr. Eric. I am so happy to be here. I really appreciate it. I love your show. I hope everyone listening, who I’m sure have been listening for a while, leaves you a good review because I think the content you share is so valuable. 

Dr. Eric: 

Same with yours. I have listened to yours as well. I definitely recommend listening to The Period Whisperer. She has some great information to share. My interview is on there, too. 

Bria: 

Yeah, go listen to it. It was a really good one.

Dr. Eric: 

Let’s dive into your background. How did you start doing what you do now? How did you become The Period Whisperer? 

Bria: 

I love it. I will try to summarize this for everyone. I got into nutrition and fitness as a nutrition coach and fitness trainer in my late 20s when I was having babies and trying to find a way to feel good and also do something from home. That was a big driver for me. That was where I really fell in love with health and working with women specifically on finding time in their life to prioritize themselves.

Around the age of 37, I noticed a shift in my clients. A lot of my clients were around my same age box, which is pretty common. First, I started to notice shifts in them not getting the same results, not having the same energy, maybe having some actual cycle issues with their menstruation, fatigue, things like that. 

I remember thinking, what is going on? All of a sudden, it happened to me. I was like, I don’t have everything figured out. I’m a mom. There is a lot to figure out in life. I thought I had fitness and nutrition sorted. It started as a low-grade fatigue and then major energy drops, changes in my cycle, digestive issues. All of those things should have had me at least get checked out. 

But it was my sleep that went. I have always been a super sleeper. Suddenly, I started to feel like I was waking up every night in a sweat. All the things that come with that, what I call undeserved weight gain, where you ‘re not changing anything, but it’s changing. It didn’t make sense to me.

I went to my healthcare practitioner and had my bloodwork done and asked all the questions. She was great, but in the end, she said, “Bria, you’re the picture of health.” I remember thinking, if this is the picture of health, and I’m 37, this sucks. I don’t think I can do this. It was a pretty dark moment. I knew I was missing something here.

I am almost 44 now. Seven years ago, nobody knew what perimenopause was. I had never heard of it before. These days, you can’t open Instagram without seeing something about hormones or perimenopause or menopause, which is great in many ways and overwhelming in others. 

That was a real pivoting change for me. I have to better understand what’s happening. Because of my cycle changes specifically, let’s start with hormones. I learned so much better understanding with functional health as opposed to that physical health, what our doctors look at. Really what was within my control and the lack of understanding and education in this area for women. 

That pivoted my career and my education to specialize in this area and help women understand what’s happening in their body and know what they can control and what they can do to get the support that they need. 

Dr. Eric: 

That is awesome. Thank you for sharing. Are you sleeping better these days then? 

Bria: 

Yes. I feel better now in my 40s than I did in my 20s. Sleep is absolutely much better. You know it’s so important. 

Dr. Eric: 

Definitely for overall health. 

Why do so many women have hormone imbalances? I’ll just start with that simple question, but not so simple answer. 

Bria: 

What I have seen in my practice and my own journey, pretty much all hormone imbalances stem from something I like to call health debt. Health debt in my mind is when basically the energy supply of your body is no longer meeting the energy demands of your body. That is when we really start to see the body compensate by pulling energy from different systems, and shut down non-essential personnel in the name of survival of the body. That is when we see shutting down of the reproductive hormones a little bit more. Just close and conserves. 

When we’re in this health debt, we have to look at where we’re coming from, to answer that question of hormone imbalances. It certainly comes from the fact that we’re inundated by stressors more and more in our life these days. Our environmental stressors, food stressors. 

Also, we can get thrown into this health debt if we’re having something going on in the gut. If we’re not breaking down, absorbing our nutrients, suddenly we don’t have the nutrients to make any of the hormones, not just the sex hormones but the thyroid, the adrenals. That really is stressful on the body because it works like that orchestra. If one thing goes off suddenly, that’s where these imbalances start to come from.

I think it’s quite easy and common to fall into them, especially if you’re not paying attention to your body and what it’s saying to you. 

Dr. Eric: 

True. Couldn’t agree more about gut health. We’ll talk more about the importance of the gut, how it affects nutrients. If you don’t have a healthy gut, healthy stomach acid, you’re not going to be able to digest.

Now I did my research. I listened to some episodes of your podcast prior to having you on, just like I do with everybody. You spoke about metabolic typing. Can you talk a little bit about what metabolic typing is for those who are unfamiliar with it? 

Bria: 

Absolutely. One of the most common questions I have always gotten being in the wellness space for women is, “What should I eat? How much should I eat? Give me a nutrition plan.” I get that. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.” Most women are pretty great at that.

I always find the answer to that is so individual and personal. Where metabolic typing comes in is it helps understand the rate that you, as an individual, that your cells turn food into fuel. If you have a faster rate, it’s not about the state of your metabolism being fast or slow. It’s really about the rate that those cells turn things in.

I find that this helps us understand why some people can feel amazing and have mental clarity off of a more ketogenic, lower carbohydrate diet, and other people can feel unwell and sick. Why some people can feel all glowy and wonderful on a plant-based, vegan diet, while other people look sick from that vegan diet. 

When we think about metabolic typing, if you are a fast oxidizer, if your cells turn food into fuel really quickly, then we want to look toward eating slower-burning fuel. That’s more red meats, higher in purine proteins, probably a lower carbohydrate diet, higher fats, higher protein. If you are a slow oxidizer, you will feel a lot better from eating what we call faster-burning fuel, probably more complex carbohydrates, lighter proteins. 

It helps work with the body’s system, and it helps us understand the basic fuel mixture we want to work with, so we can feel full and satisfied and give our body what it needs in between our meals. 

Dr. Eric: 

How do you determine someone’s metabolic type? 

Bria: 

There’s a great book called Metabolic Typing, and the test is right in there. You can pay to have the test done. This is something I do with my clients to get a more elaborate picture. There is a really simple self-test that you can actually do at home to have a rough understanding of whether you’re a fast or slow oxidizer. 

That is simply to, in the afternoon, maybe, when you might be able to have a snack. You don’t want it to be your meal. You would either choose to have something like an orange or a piece of meat. Specifically, the orange I find helpful. If we have an orange, this is a fast-burning fuel. It’s a carbohydrate. 

After you have that as a snack, if you pay attention to your body an hour or two later, if you feel really good, you’re likely what we call a slow oxidizer. It needs that faster-burning fuel, so you don’t get sluggish and bogged down trying to get through it. If you feel jittery or hungry already or a low energy crash, that’s a better indicator that you’re what we call a fast oxidizer. Eating straight up simple carbohydrates or too many carbohydrates can really make you drag your body down and throw off your blood sugar levels. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you find that more people are one or the other, a slow oxidizer or a fast oxidizer? 

Bria: 

I find it’s pretty in the middle. There is something we call a mixed oxidizer as well. When you think about where this stems from and where the research came from, it was looking at where we come from genetically in the world. 

It helps explain why you think about certain parts of the world, where maybe in the way north, there is not a lot of vegetables available. We are talking rich seal meats and rich fats that way. Genetically, that is what people evolved to work with in their body. Versus parts of Asia, when we see people with diets much higher in rice and vegetables, higher carbohydrates. Proteins are more expensive. They have adapted that way. 

I do find it pretty split. This mixed oxidizer comes into play a lot as well. That is what I am. We see that a lot from people coming from western Europe, in England, Ireland, Scotland, where you’re having a good mix. You have some meat and some fish and some potatoes and some vegetables. We have that mixed combo in there. 

I do find it’s pretty split. If you are a fast oxidizer, and you’re not eating a higher protein diet, it’s a real struggle for you to feel well and therefore to lose weight or feel your best or optimize your hormones. Vice versa for slows. 

Dr. Eric: 

I don’t know if you are familiar with hair testing. Some hair testing looks at slow versus fast oxidizers. 

Bria: 

This is different from that. It’s called the same thing. It is a different theology and a different result. 

Dr. Eric: 

Good to know. It sounds like though ideally you would want to be a mixed oxidizer.  

Bria: 

I find in some ways being a mixed oxidizer is easier because then we have a bit more fluidity and option. However, it’s not as direct. When I am working with my clients, and they are mixed, they don’t know what to eat. It can be more confusing. It’s a little bit more cut and dry if you’re fast or slow. You’re going to need a higher this or a lesser that.

Most importantly, I find it really helpful to give us a starting point for the macronutrient fuel mixture. If you’re a fast oxidizer, we likely want to be having a minimum of 30g of protein in our meals. If you’re a slow oxidizer, we can probably get away with 20g of protein and making it up with more carbohydrates and some fat. If you’re mixed, we can sit in the middle there. You might feel just as well on either side of those. 

That’s where it becomes very bioindividual. We have to pay attention, which I think at the end of the day is the name of the game. Listen to your own body. That’s where your answers are. 

Dr. Eric: 

True. Couldn’t agree more. 

Let’s talk about stress. Stress also is important. We spoke about sleep also. When it comes to stress, how does stress impact the hormones? How important is it to do things to manage stress or at least manage the perception of stress in order to have healthy hormones? 

Bria: 

It’s critically important to try to manage that quickly. Stress is the biggest energy sucker of our body. When we’re coming back to that example of health debt, if we want to reduce the demand on the body, we want to reduce stress to the body for sure. 

At the same time, we want to have capacity for stress. If we have capacity and bandwidth and reserves for cortisol or stress in the body, that’s going to allow us to handle the aging process, the shifting of these hormones that we know are happening in perimenopause and menopause. Lots of things there.

When our cortisol is elevated, that is the body’s alarm system of saying, “Okay, we need to manage this life-altering, life-threatening situation.” As a result, it suppresses the sex hormone production at that time. Our bodies are designed to handle stress not chronically but acutely, like in a short term, so we can survive. 

What we see more and more for women, and this also goes to that question of why so many hormone imbalances, is people under much more chronic stress these days. That significantly depresses the production of our sex hormones, which is also why we’re seeing symptoms of perimenopause earlier and earlier in women than before. We’re seeing the impact of that. 

As you know, the adrenals and thyroid work quite closely together. We’re seeing some major impacts on those. Of course, the sex hormones are really impacted by the thyroid hormones. It massively matters how we manage stress in our lives and also how we reduce it. 

It’s not just our emotional stress; it may be stress from us staring at screens all the time and stress from the fact that social media can tell us all the scary things going on in the world at any given second. It’s also the stress happening in our body from the food we’re eating, from whatever dysbiosis may be in the gut, from the environmental toxins we’re exposed to that may be impacting the liver and all of these pieces.

Long-winded answer. It significantly makes all the difference. My whole process with my clients is how do we reduce the call to cortisol in your body? How do we reduce stress and your brain’s experience of stress? 

Dr. Eric: 

There is that adrenal-thyroid relationship, where there are a number of factors that can affect the conversion of T4 to T3. One of those is having high cortisol. Gut and liver play a big role in that conversion as well. Like you said, it’s not just emotional stressors. That is a big factor, but all these other things are stressors as well. 

Sometimes, I’ll share my story when I was dealing with Graves’. Prior to my diagnosis, I was overtraining. That was also putting a big stressor on my body. I think you do adrenal testing, saliva or DUTCH. Back then, in 2008, it was the adrenal saliva test. My cortisol was in the tank. My DHEA was in the tank. It’s hard to know if it was more due to overtraining or emotional stressors. I’m sure it was a combination. I was working out too hard, and I wasn’t listening to my body.

I agree with everything you said. You mentioned earlier how you weren’t sleeping, and I’m sure that wasn’t helping in your pursuit of having happy hormones at the time. Like you said, things are a lot better. You’re sleeping better, and it’s probably no coincidence that you feel better now in your 40s than you did in your 20s. 

Bria: 

Yeah, I sleep more appropriately now. I can relate to that. That was part of my issue. My cortisol was in the toilet. It felt like, is this perimenopause? Ultimately, I think perimenopause gets a bad rap. Our sex hormones get blamed, but they are just the messenger. Don’t shoot the messenger. Who is throwing off the messenger?

For most women, especially under 48, the sex hormones might be off, but it’s probably not because you can’t produce the amount of sex hormones that you need. It’s likely because something else is causing a problem. Of course, the shifting of hormones into retirement is a stress on the body. I can’t even handle this stress, and you’re throwing another thing at me. It gets challenging. 

Dr. Eric: 

It does. I want to get your opinion on fasting. Going back to diet a little bit. There are so many perspectives on fasting. Obviously, there are some advocates of fasting, and there are some who are against fasting. 

I am bringing this up because we are talking about stressors. Some are concerned that extreme fasting especially might be a stressor on the body. I want to get your perspective. What do you think about fasting? Do you fast? Do you recommend for your clients to fast? 

Bria: 

What I use for myself and what I recommend for my clients is a typical nighttime fast and fasting in between meals. When we are talking about our sex hormones, in a time when we know the body is under more stress than usual, our first line of defense against calling on more cortisol is regulated blood sugar. 

If you wake up in the morning as a woman, when our cortisol should be getting its highest spike, and we don’t eat, that means we don’t have glucose coming in, so the body is calling on more cortisol. Now we have more cortisol. Then you have a coffee, and there is more cortisol. Then you work out, so there is more cortisol. Then you’re not eating again until lunch. You are massively impacting your sex and adrenal hormones in a very negative way. 

In my practice, with myself and my clients, I feel very strongly that we eat within two hours of waking, that we eat enough in that meal to last us 4-5 hours until lunch, and then 4-5 hours until dinner. For whatever reason, if life gets in the way and we need a snack, we have a snack.

Let’s say you wake up at 6am. You have breakfast at 8am. You have dinner at 6pm. That’s a 14-hour fast plus a 4-5-hour fast between those meals. That seems to support the body in a much better way. Sometimes, in order to regulate that blood sugar, depending on what’s going on with the gut and the body, we need a snack at night in order to be able to sleep through the night, which is priority #1.

To answer your question, I see the value of fasting when it’s done appropriately for women, but not during the time of day when we need the most energy. We need to give the body what she needs in order to do this big job that she’s doing in general. 

Dr. Eric: 

Everybody is different. There are some people who might seem to be doing fine with 16-8 fasts or occasional 24-hour fasts. I think a big concern is having such a small eating window. Like you said, during the day, that’s when you want to make sure you get the nutrients and protein. 

Over the years, I’ve had some people I work with who are doing 20-hour fasts on a regular basis. Even an 18-hour fast regularly, that is only a six-hour eating window. It’s difficult to get the nutrients and protein you need. Also, I think it could be a stressor on the body as well. 

Bria: 

Like you said, it’s very individual. If you’re in a place in your body where your health is solid, the foundations are solid, you feel really good, and you want to play with tools and hacks to test it out, it could be something that might be beneficial for you. Only you will know if you try it.

If you’re trying to use it when you’re in a health debt situation, when you are having these symptoms, your PMS is off, you can’t lose weight naturally, and you are feeling exhausted, that is a time to use that more extreme fasting for another time in your life when you’re solid. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. Let’s talk about building muscle. How can women build muscle mass? 

Bria: 

Obviously as a trainer, I think putting on lean muscle is the gold standard for protecting our hormones, our bodies. It’s like wrapping our body in armor.

We have to make sure we have the energy to handle that stressor. You and I both have already shared how overexercising is actually doing the opposite for us. 

I always like to make sure our basics are in place for women. Do we have enough sleep happening? We need at least seven hours of sleep to be able to repair and create muscle synthesis. Let’s make sure that’s in place. Let’s make sure our nutrition is on. 

Let’s make sure we get functional movement in a day. I’m not sure about you, but for me, I spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer working with clients, so I need to make sure I am getting up for lymphatic drainage, for my mindset, for walking and moving the body. No matter what, these are things that have to be there first. And stress management and joy. 

Once those pieces are locked in, then I think putting on lean muscle at any age, but definitely in perimenopause and menopause, really comes down to, now, I have this additional energy because my foundations are in place. I’m not in debt. Where do I want to invest this energy? 

What we see is that the best use of your energy is going to be in resistance training. Weightlifting or body weight resistance training. To be specific about it, I find three, four days a week of resistance training complemented by good flexibility and mobility training is enough to make a difference and put on that lean muscle. 

During that process, you can notice, “Am I hungrier now? Maybe I need to support with more protein,” which our body needs to create muscle. It can be staged and simple for women, but it is so critical. 

Once our ovaries retire, our adrenals are going to be producing some of those hormones, and the rest is coming from our tissues. We want to put on that lean muscle as long as we have the energy and capacity to do so. 

Dr. Eric: 

How long personally do you train? When you do resistance exercise, is it 30 minutes? An hour? 

Bria: 

I typically do a 45-minute workout. 15 minutes of that is mobility and stretching, whether it’s on the front end or back end. About a 30-minute lift is what I do. That is enough for most women, unless you are trying to win a competition. Then you will need more. 

Dr. Eric: 

I need more on the flexibility/mobility side. My wife does a pretty good job in that area. She probably didn’t need to do more of that resistance. I won’t say I need less resistance, but incorporate some more flexibility/mobility training. 

Bria: 

It’s an important piece that a lot of us overlook. The strength of our muscle is always going to be limited by the elongation and flexibility and elasticity of it. If you are doing one without the other, you’re going to hit a plateau. 

For me, I like two days of resistance training to one day of solely flexibility and mobility. I find that really helps make all the difference and keeps our body happy and our nervous system calm. 

Dr. Eric: 

For anyone listening, including me, where would you start? Personal trainer? YouTube videos? Probably not on your own. What is some advice? 

Bria: 

It’s hard to know what to do. It’s always good to ask yourself how you feel about this stuff. A lot of people, athletes especially, when I say, “Go do yoga,” they roll their eyes and groan. There is so much beauty and value in doing yoga. For athletes, that quietness doesn’t feel very productive. 

There is a lot of noise that comes up in your head when you are not used to more stillness. If that’s how you’re feeling, looking for workout programs or going to a mobility stability class that is around myofascial release with a roller, or more athletic stretching and mobility can be easier to get into. Or if you haven’t tried yoga, I would recommend doing that.

I have been a long-time user of online workouts. I just work out at home because I find that’s the most efficient thing for me. Some people really love the environment of being somewhere else. 

My suggestions are know thyself a little bit in what you want. If you are not someone who will be motivated on your own, look at the local gyms or community center or classes and find a mobility/stability and stretch class to go to regularly. Or a yoga class. There are hundreds of yoga classes around. I would go to the class because then you would have an instructor to help guide you in the process. 

Dr. Eric: 

Good advice. There are stretch labs everywhere. Yoga. I like working out at home. I don’t do the same workout at home as I do when I go to the gym. That’s why I go to the gym. I do have a personal trainer. If I asked him to focus more on flexibility and mobility training, but I haven’t. 

They have classes at the gym that we go to, too. A few weeks ago, my wife on a Sunday morning asked me to go to yoga with her. “No, I’m good.” Maybe next time, I’ll say yes to the yoga class. 

Bria: 

Two times a week, Dr. Eric. 

Dr. Eric: 

When it comes to losing weight, building muscle mass is also important for weight loss. The metabolic typing you mentioned. Is there anything else you want to add when it comes to women looking to lose weight? 

Bria: 

I think one of the first things that we always want to do when we’re wanting to lose weight is let’s make sure our kindergarten foundations of health are in place. We often skip over these in the pursuit of seeing the changes in the body. In order to create stability in a body that for women in midlife is almost like it’s on a floating bridge. There is no stability here because these hormones are shifting. We want to create a lot of stability.

Before we start getting into workouts, before we start changing into a calorie deficit for example for fat burning, we first need to solidify the foundations of our health. I look at that like a dining table that we eat on that has four legs. We have sleep, nutrition, movement, and joy, which goes hand in hand with stress management. 

We need to hold space for at least 7-8 hours, if not nine, of sleep in a day. If we’re not there, the body is not going to be able to lose weight. We need to be able to sleep. That is when our fat burning happens. That is when our hormones get produced. We want to look at that basic functional movement. Before we start stressing out the body with resistance training, we need to get our basics in, in walking and stretching. 

Look at nutrition. We have to make sure we’re not cutting out the things that are costing the body more energy than they’re providing, so we have the energy to repair and burn stored fat. We’re eating consistently. We talked about those things. 

Then stress and pleasure. Pleasure is a really massive opportunity to bring energy into the body. If you’re stressed, we can’t add pleasure. We need to find ways to manage that. 

If we think about those four pillars of a table, if one of those legs is rickety, it’s not a very good dining experience. If two are rickety, you’re not coming back to that restaurant. If three are rickety, your meal is on the floor. Really starting with those foundations first and foremost, making sure these are as easy for you as brushing your teeth is priority #1 for weight loss. 

Priority #2, especially in this age box, is noticing where the loss of function started to happen in your body. Are you pooping every day? Is that digestion good? is there bloating or gas that we don’t know or understand where it came from? Are we waking up multiple times at night? Then we are looking more at adrenals and liver. Are you waking up in a sweat? Are we having a lot of funky PMS? That will speak more to those sex hormones. 

Pay attention to where those weak spots are. Focus on strategies that work on improving that area first. If function is off in the body, if the thyroid is off, and we start stressing out more but cutting calories and doing more fitness, it will do the opposite. It will start to hold onto more fat and break down the muscles, which can be very confusing for people. 

Dr. Eric:

Let’s talk a little bit more about gut health. You just mentioned the importance of healthy bowel movements. We chatted earlier about gut health. What do you do to help your clients improve the health of their gut, including any functional lab testing? Do you do it on everybody with regard to the gut, or is it more selective? 

Bria: 

I always do a GI Map, which is a functional stool test. You know what it is. For those listening, it’s a wonderful thing. It certainly rules out things like pathogens and parasites and yeast and fungus, which is helpful. I think the greater value in it is looking at the good bacteria and bad bacteria, the commensal and opportunistic, to really understand the state and capabilities and where the weak spots are in the gut, as well as some good intestinal health markers. 

It’s a really great lab. I run it on all of my clients, even if they don’t have digestive issues. I have found over time that for many women, they might not have any digestive issues, but they are not breaking down and absorbing any nutrients. Their gut is almost like a dry garden. It doesn’t have what it needs.

People have genetic weak spots naturally in their body. Some people might have massive GI distress, and that makes it very easy to say, “Okay, let’s start in the gut.” For a lot of women, when we aren’t getting those nutrients or detoxifying those hormones, we’re seeing the downstream effects in the thyroid, in the adrenals, in the sex hormones. They’re experiencing those symptoms but not the GI issues.

I really like to run that as a good understanding of what is going on and what is our customized strategy to make sure we have a really nourished gut. 

Dr. Eric: 

I think it’s important what you mentioned. Just because you don’t have digestive symptoms doesn’t mean you have a healthy gut. 

Bria: 

What I see most in my clients who don’t have digestive issues but are really struggling with sleep, a lot of more common thyroid symptoms. Maybe they have temperature issues in their body; they’re cold all the time. They’re losing hair. We are seeing a very depleted gut at that point in time. We need to renourish that, so we have those minerals and vitamins.

I know you probably speak to this all the time. In those clients, I often see low T3 and an elevated reverse T3, which makes it so challenging to feel good in your body. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah, definitely agree. It sounds like you test for reverse T3 in your patients. Do you test thyroid in everybody? 

Bria: 

I do. When I work one on one with a client, I really will always start with the GI Map; a DUTCH, which we have talked about to test adrenals, sex hormones, balance, and detoxification. I like to do a good blood chemistry that has a full thyroid panel, iron, verifies some of the sex hormones and minerals. I like to see Vitamin D, magnesium, zinc, B12, things like that, just to get a better picture of what’s depleted and try to get an understanding of root cause a bit more, so we can focus our efforts. 

Dr. Eric: 

With the DUTCH, when it comes to women in perimenopause, do you recommend a DUTCH Complete? They also have the cycle mapping. In perimenopause, might be challenging. Is it just the DUTCH Complete you typically recommend? 

Bria: 

Most of the time, I do a DUTCH Complete. If I have someone who works a lot of shift work, and we know their cortisol is all over, we can do the Plus, where they also do the saliva. I find the DUTCH Complete is very thorough for women in this age box. To understand what is off and why might it be off, and fingerpoint at some issues. Help us create a strategy that works for them in their life to reestablish calm and balance in the body. 

Dr. Eric: 

HRT. What are your thoughts on specifically bioidentical hormone replacement therapy? Yes, no, depends on the person? 

Bria: 

Yes, and depends on the person, for sure. I think it can be very beneficial for people. I feel very strongly that we need to make sure those detoxification pathways are clear before we start introducing things like that. It’s really a matter of where we are at, why are we there, and would this be a benefit? It is dependent. 

Sometimes, if our progesterone is okay, but our estrogen is way high, because of a detoxification issue, then when we correct that issue, often it just comes back into balance, and we don’t need to add bioidentical hormones. It is very person to person. 

I think we can see that it’s, more often than not, not just the sex hormones. If it was, we could all just take hormones and feel fine. That’s not the case. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m with you. There is a time and place for HRT, but if someone does a DUTCH test, and if they have high 4 hydroxy and 16 hydroxy metabolites, and you want to focus on improving the estrogen metabolism. If someone has compromised adrenals, that could also affect the sex hormones, so you want to try to optimize the adrenals. Definitely agree with what you said here. 

This has been a great conversation. I did warn you I was going to ask this question, so you’ve had time to prepare as far as some hormone balancing hacks. 

Bria: 

For sure. I do have a few. There are some that I think a lot of us here, we have talked about a few of the basic ones. Holding that space for sleep. The consistency of eating enough that you feel full and satisfied. Functional movement. 

Some of my favorite tools that are very helpful as hacks. I really am a big believer of waking up and having an adrenal cocktail right away: a big flush of water, some lemon, some good sea salt in there. You can google adrenal cocktail recipes. Supporting those adrenals first thing in the morning can be a really powerful thing. 

What I love these days is a good green juice. We are having a nice flush of water. We are fueling that gut, which will help support the adrenals, too. I find this makes a massive difference for most women. Wake up, flush the body with water and some good nutrients. 

Another one that I find super helpful is I run into a lot of women who are drinking all their water, but they are peeing every hour. When the body is going through this added workload of perimenopause, we demand more minerals. Remineralizing with good electrolytes once, even two times a day. If you’re working out, definitely with your workout, and maybe a good one in the afternoon. I find that can make a big difference in mental clarity, the calming of the body, detoxification. 

If you are struggling with sleep, if you are waking up every night between 2-4am, try a snack half an hour before you go to bed. Test out a little snack. Some of my favorites are a spoonful of nut butter. Sometimes, that alone can make a huge difference. 

If our blood sugar is off, whether it’s because of how we’re eating, or because of our gut, it’s hard to say until we test. It’s going to wake you up. Then it becomes very hard to do anything else if we’re not sleeping well. 

Those are three of some of my favorite things to do that are quick, easy, and affordable that really move the needle for women. 

Dr. Eric: 

With the adrenal tonic, is that something someone could do every single day? 

Bria: 

Yeah, that can be done every day first thing in the morning. Without whatever life is going to throw at you, first thing in the morning is when we are having that highest cortisol spike. We just want to give the adrenals some extra love during the time they are working extra hard. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. Just water, lemon, and sea salt. No harm in taking that on a daily basis first thing in the morning. 

Bria, this was amazing. You shared a lot of information. I loved this conversation. Anything else before we wrap up that I should have asked you, or any last words you want to say before I ask where people can find out more about you? 

Bria: 

The big message I always want to get across to women listening is that perimenopause happens for us, and not to us. It’s like the gift you didn’t want, but you needed. This added workload to your body is going to shake down and point out where the problems are. 

Although it’s frustrating, and you might not feel like you have the capacity right now to handle the symptoms that are coming up, I think this is your opportunity to do the deeper underlying work with Dr. Eric or a practitioner that might specialize in your area to lock in your health, so you have the next 4-5 decades to feel great. Really try to think of this shift as a gift, this opportunity to do the real work, so you can feel your best going forward. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. AS far as where people can find you, your website is BriaThePeriodWhisperer.com. You have a big following on Instagram. I’ll let you share the details. 

Bria: 

My website is great. @Bria_Period_Whisperer on Instagram. Check out The Period Whisperer podcast, where this is all we talk about. If you’re in it and need some more support, it’s there for you. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you again. This was a really good conversation. Just really enjoyed it. I’m sure my listeners did as well. 

Bria: 

Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Eric.