Far too many people are living with misdiagnosed Graves’ or ignored hyperthyroidism and they don’t even know it yet. In this episode, I explain why these oversights happen, what red flags to watch for, and how to ask for the right labs. You’ll also hear how small clues like heart palpitations or low cholesterol can point to a bigger thyroid problem. My goal is to help you recognize the signs early and feel confident advocating for your health.  If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

The other day, my wife got a call from a friend. I am friends with this friend’s husband. She said that her husband was diagnosed with elevated TPO antibodies. She wasn’t sure what TPO antibodies were and wanted to know if I could explain it to them. The doctor did some blood testing. All I really knew at that point in time was that the husband got TPO antibodies, and they were 135, something like that. I actually didn’t even look at the report. They didn’t send it to me. They just wanted to talk to me. 

I ended up speaking with the husband. When I think about elevated TPO antibodies, a lot of people with hyperthyroidism do have elevated TPO antibodies. If that is the only thing they’re mentioning, I am thinking more hypo. My friend probably had elevated TSH, and they did TPO antibodies and found them to be elevated. He probably has Hashimoto’s. 

I was speaking with him. One of the first things he mentioned was he was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. At first, I wasn’t sure if he said “hyper.” If you say “hyper” and “hypo” fast, they sound similar. I repeated, “Did you say hyperthyroidism?” He said, “Yes, hyperthyroidism.” He was mentioning that he was fatigued. He knows from his research or what the doctor told him that fatigue is more common with hypothyroidism, but he has had a lot of fatigue. He isn’t losing weight. Essentially, he went to his primary care doctor, who ran some blood tests and told him he was hyper.

What I wanted to bring up is he also mentioned that he had blood tests about a year ago. Those blood tests apparently also showed that he was hyper, but they dismissed it. The medical doctor that he just saw mentioned that his last numbers were also hyper, but for whatever reason, they didn’t do anything. 

I figured I’d have another episode focusing on hyperthyroidism just because with Hashimoto’s, it definitely does get misdiagnosed. Someone could have fatigue and weight gain, and maybe they do a TSH, and it’s within the lab range, but not optimal. It’s higher than it should be, higher than the optimal range. Without question, people with Hashimoto’s often get misdiagnosed or maybe not diagnosed at all. 

Many times, doctors will just dismiss it and run the TSH. TSH might be 3.5, which is within the lab range. I can’t really say it’s misdiagnosed because that’s the range they use. It just gets ignored essentially for many years until the TSH gets to the point where it’s out of range, or the person goes to another practitioner, maybe even a functional medicine practitioner. 

Anyway, my friend went to a primary care doctor. He didn’t get the Graves’ antibodies. He has another appointment in a couple of months, not until January 2026. I am recording this in mid-October 2025. Probably won’t be released for a little bit. He is waiting a couple of months to get the blood test, and then he has his follow-up appointment in January. 

It sounds like he is on antithyroid medication. I asked him if it was methimazole or Tapazole. He wasn’t sure. He was out and about, but that is what I am thinking he is on. I told him he probably has Graves’ because if he had it last year, something like subacute thyroiditis will disappear. It could be Hashitoxicosis. That’s a possibility as well. He hasn’t had a thyroid ultrasound or seen an endocrinologist yet.

The point is that Graves’ can get misdiagnosed. Hyperthyroidism can get misdiagnosed. It can get overlooked or ignored. I wanted to bring up a few situations here. 

There was a case report showing that a patient with a thyroid storm was actually misdiagnosed as having a panic attack because symptoms overlap heavily. That’s pretty scary. If someone goes to the ER, and they’re presenting with a thyroid storm, but they are told they have a panic attack. This is an extreme situation. I would imagine most of the time, a person who is experiencing a thyroid storm won’t just be told that they are having a panic attack. 

The background is: “Graves’ is characterized by hyperthyroidism, and its symptoms often overlap with those with panic disorder, which may make it difficult to distinguish between the two conditions. In this report, we describe how proper diagnosis of thyroid disease in patients with mental illness can lead to appropriate treatment.” 

They encountered a 34-year-old woman. Thyroid crisis from Graves’ was misdiagnosed as a panic attack. The patient was being managed as a case of panic disorder and bipolar disorder in a psychiatric outpatient setting. 

About six months before the presentation, she had lost about 16kg in weight. A month before presentation, she developed several unpleasant symptoms as her condition worsened. Several weeks before, she had severe palpitations, tachycardia, discomfort in her throat. She visited the ER on a Sunday morning, presenting with nausea, severe tachycardia (elevated heart rate), fever, restlessness with anxiety, and we treated her as panic disorder with fever. Then noticed proptosis, bulging of the eyes. Considered the possibility of Graves’, and thyroid function tests were performed, even though data from her clinic was not available because it was a weekend. 

In this situation, if it wasn’t for the woman’s eyes being suspicious, who knows? She might have been dismissed and labeled as having a panic disorder. Really scary. 

I can’t say this happens a lot. I have had patients I have worked with with hyperthyroidism who have been to multiple practitioners. On average, hyperthyroidism does get diagnosed a lot quicker than hypothyroidism, but there are definitely exceptions. People get the runaround and have to go to multiple doctors. 

I also wanted to bring up this other one from March 2025. Talking about how Graves’ therapies really haven’t advanced much. The abstract says up front, “Current therapies for Graves’ primarily aim to manage hyperthyroidism through synthetic antithyroid drugs, radioactive iodine, or surgery. However, these approaches are often limited by their incomplete efficacy, and the risk of inducing hypothyroidism.” 

They talk about other potential treatments that are up and coming. At least they’re experimenting with them. They’re medications, not addressing the root causes. That’s another issue. 

Same thing with Hashimoto’s. For many years, Hashimoto’s treatment was levothyroxine when you go to a medical doctor or endocrinologist. No different with hyperthyroidism. For many years, it’s been antithyroid medication, radioactive iodine, or thyroid surgery. If you bring up diet and lifestyle changes to most doctors, including endocrinologists, they will dismiss it as not being helpful. Very discouraging appointments. 

A reminder that the goal of this podcast. There are a few goals. One is we are spotting misdiagnosis stories. Teaching listeners the red flags that can often get dismissed as anxiety, panic attacks, or other symptoms. 

Another area which I need to focus more on is underdiscussed populations. I don’t talk a lot about children and teenagers because most of the people I work with are adults. I do see some children and teenagers as well. I have some episodes on that. I am not saying that should be the main focus, but probably something I do need to talk more about. There are other populations and things I should focus on more on this podcast. 

Going over the science. Recently, I released an episode that spoke about L-carnitine and selenium in combination with methimazole. If you take those two with methimazole, you might need less methimazole, which is always a good thing. That was also a recent study. Always trying to keep up with the latest research in thyroid health and thyroid autoimmunity. 

Now, what I’d like to do is talk about how to reduce the risk of misdiagnosis as a Graves’ patient. Hyperthyroidism without an autoimmune component, like toxic multinodular goiter. Of course, we need to know the symptoms that mimic other conditions. We just gave panic-like symptoms, anxiety. It’s sometimes difficult, and we will talk about other things you can do, like testing. 

Anxiety, racing heart, tremors, sweating. That could be mistaken for panic attacks. Depression, fatigue, sleep issues, irritability, may be labeled as a mood disorder. Having weight loss and high appetite might be brushed off as having good metabolism or someone’s dieting. 

When I dealt with Graves’, I lost a lot of weight and had a higher appetite. I was dieting, detoxifying, overtraining. Eventually, I saw a doctor because I developed a tachycardia. If I saw a doctor sooner, they might have said it was due to the dieting and exercising. That’s what I thought, too. I was intentionally trying to lose weight and figured because I was restricting calories—I wasn’t doing smart things back then—that’s why I had increased appetite. 

Post-partum changes sometimes are written off as new mom stress or depression. It could be post-partum thyroiditis. We do need to pay closer attention to the person’s symptoms. The problem is with many medical doctors, they just don’t spend enough time with the patient. They of course have them fill out a comprehensive health history, or they should. Even then, they might probably just spend a minute or so skimming through that, going through that quickly. 

Quite frankly, most medical doctors aren’t seeing a lot of people with hyperthyroidism walk into their office. When they have certain symptoms, that is probably not the first thing to come to mind.

You also need to do appropriate lab testing. TSH is usually what doctors start off with. I mentioned in the case of hypothyroidism, a lot of people are above the optimal range but within the lab range, so they are dismissed. 

Hyperthyroidism is different. If someone has Graves’, TSH many times will be depressed. If the doctor or whomever orders the test and sees depressed TSH, if they haven’t ordered thyroid hormones, they should. Many times, they will just do a T4. Sometimes, TSH isn’t completely depressed. Sometimes, it takes time for that to happen. It could happen real quickly but not always. 

You really want to do a full thyroid panel. At the very least, TSH and free T4. That is not a full thyroid panel. Not just TSH. You want to do TSH, free T4, free T3, antibodies. If you are suspecting Graves’, do TSI. I prefer TSI over TRAB. Still, that is better than not testing any antibodies. 

In this case, even though my friend was hyper, he just had TPO antibodies tested. That is a drawback of seeing a conventional medical doctor. They are even less likely to see hyperthyroid patients. They just default to those TPO antibodies or sometimes TPO and TG antibodies in everyone, even if someone presents with hyperthyroidism. 

Definitely want to do the right antibodies. If you want to do all three antibodies, nothing wrong with that, especially if someone is presenting with hyperthyroidism. Many misdiagnoses happen because only TSH is checked. TSH doesn’t tell the whole story. 

Another thing is to be familiar with the red flag combinations. If you have rapid heartbeat and weight loss, I could understand where if you go to a primary care doctor, they might not catch on that it’s hyperthyroidism. 

That’s also why you want to look at other aspects of one’s health history and do appropriate testing. If that same person has rapid heartbeat, weight loss, and some eye changes, especially bulging of the eyes, in that case, that was what made the people at the ER realize it wasn’t probably just a panic disorder but a good chance it was Graves’.

If someone is in post-partum, and they are having sudden mood swings and other symptoms, maybe the milk supply drops. If they are having tachycardia. Test the thyroid. Do some testing. Don’t assume it’s stress or mood related. 

If someone does a lipid panel, and they see low cholesterol, which is very common with hyperthyroidism. I wouldn’t rely on the lipid panel because some people have elevated cholesterol with hyperthyroidism. Very common for people with hyperthyroidism to have low cholesterol, less than 150. LDL will also be lower. Most medical doctors don’t pay attention to low cholesterol, just high cholesterol. 

If you go through a physical, and maybe they don’t do TSH at all, but you are experiencing symptoms. You have low cholesterol, and you’re probably going to have some other symptoms as well. Just low cholesterol would not justify doing a thyroid panel. There is a reason for low cholesterol. It could potentially be genetic, but it could be something else as well.

Advocate for imaging if needed. When I went to an endocrinologist back in 2008, I was already diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. I was referred to an endocrinologist, where I got the official Graves’ diagnosis. We could see I didn’t need an ultrasound. An ultrasound is not going to diagnose Graves’. 

If you’re hyper and have positive TSI antibodies, that is pretty much diagnostic of Graves’. If you have hyperthyroidism and bulging eyes, you probably have Graves’. Some people do a radioactive iodine uptake test, which in many cases is unnecessary, especially if TSI is elevated in the presence of hyperthyroidism. 

I asked for an ultrasound because I wanted to see if I had thyroid nodules. She palpated my thyroid and didn’t think I did. I still wanted that ultrasound. That’s why some will do the uptake test, if they want to see if the nodules are hot or cold. If they’re cold, there is a greater chance of them being malignant, but still only a 5% chance. It won’t confirm if someone has malignant nodules or not. 

Also, don’t be afraid to seek a second opinion. Do so sooner than later. If you’re experiencing all these symptoms and they dismiss them as anxiety, panic attack, and if you don’t agree, or maybe you agree because they’re the expert, but they could be wrong. You might want to consider getting a second diagnosis. 

Endocrinologists are not perfect, especially if you are looking for a natural approach. Usually, they do a good job of diagnosing. If you go to one GP, and they just say you have anxiety or panic attacks, you could go to another GP. Might want to see an endocrinologist. 

I know it’s challenging because they might not even bring up thyroid. Why would you go to an endocrinologist if they are not thinking thyroid, and you aren’t thinking of thyroid? It could be challenging. If you have to go to another GP, then go to another GP. Hope that they do the appropriate testing. 

Don’t be afraid to offer to pay for it. If they say your insurance might not pay for a thyroid panel, it comes down to diagnosis codes. If you have insurance, and they are putting in the right diagnosis codes, that they are suspecting it might be, that’s the thing about testing. You don’t know if it’s thyroid or not. That’s why you’re doing testing. If you knew, you wouldn’t have to do testing. Insurance isn’t going to deny the claim because the doctor ordered a thyroid panel, and it turned out to be normal. They did it to rule it out, to make sure. 

I shouldn’t say that the insurance company won’t deny because they do crazy things. It comes down to proper diagnosis codes and all that good stuff. 

Of course, look beyond thyroid labs. I mentioned some other symptoms are still important, even though you don’t want to rely on symptoms. If you get a bone density scan and have osteopenia or osteoporosis, there could be a lot of reasons for that. Could be hyperthyroidism. Maybe you had hyperthyroidism in the past. I would argue that most people who have low bone density don’t currently have hyperthyroidism. 

The point is you need to keep an open mind. You need to really work with a practitioner who is not just going to rush you in and out. Trust your instincts as well. 

If you are working with a natural healthcare practitioner, choose one who has experience with hyperthyroidism and Graves’. Doesn’t mean that has to be the main focus, like myself. It doesn’t have to be their #1 focus. 

I would at least call the office or visit their website, and if they don’t have anything on their website about hyperthyroidism, that’s a big red flag. If none of the testimonials on their website talk about how they dealt with hyperthyroidism and restoring their health, that’s another red flag. 

You could speak with an office worker and ask them some of the top conditions that the functional medicine practitioner works with. If they just say “thyroid,” I would dig deeper and ask about specific thyroid conditions. If they say “hyper” and “hypo,” then see what they have to say. If they just say, “hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s,” another red flag. 

The main purpose of this is to bring more awareness. That is the purpose of this whole podcast and other things I do. Hopefully, you found this to be valuable. 

Also, I have been talking recently about my Healing Graves’ Naturally community. Living with Graves’ or other types of hyperthyroidism, you can feel incredibly lonely. You go online and search for answers, and most of what is online is about Hashimoto’s. 

If you do see an endocrinologist, they will typically just tell you to take antithyroid medication or do radioactive iodine or surgery. Nobody explains why you have hyperthyroidism or Graves’. If you have Graves’, they don’t talk about what your antibodies mean. They might only test them a single time. It could be really confusing or overwhelming. At times, it makes you feel like you’re the only one going through this. 

I do have a couple of Facebook groups. The problem with Facebook groups is they are so large. I don’t trust Facebook. They could shut down my groups at any time. They sometimes will randomly delete people’s comments. I still have my Facebook groups, but I also created a new community specifically for Graves’ and hyperthyroidism that is not on Facebook. It definitely is something I recommend checking out. 

Inside this community, we focus on the answers you can’t find elsewhere. Right now, it’s smaller, and that’s the goal. The engagement is really great. Definitely would check it out. The name of the group is Healing Graves’ Naturally. A number of different benefits of being part of the community. Hope beyond the standard three options recommended by endocrinologists. 

There is a time and place for antithyroid medication. A lot of people I work with are on methimazole, carbimazole, or PTU. Some like myself take natural agents like motherwort, bugleweed, or higher doses of L-carnitine. Obviously, the focus isn’t going to be on medication, radioactive iodine, or surgery. It will be on finding and removing triggers, healing the gut. You will obviously get guidance from someone who has been there in myself. It’s not exactly the same. You are not working with me one-on-one. 

In the Facebook groups, I am just not present. Sometimes, I will do a random Q&A. I do some commenting, but I don’t spend a lot of time in there because in my hyperthyroidism Facebook group, as of recording this, there are almost 25,000 people. It’s just too big. 

If I do post something, which I do regularly, they are very basic. Only a small amount of people see them because that’s Facebook’s algorithm. Anyway, you will get some support and guidance in the group. There is a lot of engagement from others in the group. Of course, evidence-based natural solutions as well. 

Also, just to let you know, the group is free. I want to help as many people as I can. Eventually, my plan is probably going to become a paid group. I want to keep it small. The goal is not to keep it super small. I don’t want 10,000-20,000 people in the group. I think that’s too big. My perspective maybe will change. Today, you can join at no cost. 

When you join, you also gain free access to my brand new Graves’ Survival Road Map Training. If you are interested, click in the show notes. Become part of the community that finally puts Graves’ and hyperthyroidism at the center of the conversation. I’m sure you’ll be happy that you did. 

I am going to continue to spread the word. The interviews that I do will focus on both Graves’ and Hashimoto’s because most people I interview aren’t familiar with hyperthyroidism. You will see that not all but more of the solo episodes will focus on hyperthyroidism. 

Hope you found this episode to be valuable. Look forward to catching you in the next one. 

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.