Unveiling the Hidden Truths of Thyroid Health

Mary Kate, the host of the Are You Awake Yet podcast, talks about the importance of the thyroid and her new course, The Thyroid Rejuvenation Blueprint. She explains the role of the thyroid in metabolism, growth and development, and temperature regulation. She criticizes traditional medical testing for only looking at a few markers and recommends comprehensive testing for thyroid antibodies. She emphasizes the importance of finding the root cause of thyroid issues and rebalancing the immune system. She also discusses the complexity of thyroid metabolism and the need for a holistic approach to healing. She promotes her course as a comprehensive guide to understanding and improving thyroid health. Hello, and welcome to the Are You Awake Yet podcast. I'm your host, Mary Kate, and today I will be discussing the thyroid in more detail. I just launched my course, The Thyroid Rejuvenation Blueprint, and I want to talk a little bit about it today and why it's important. But first, I just want to say that this is my second season doing this podcast, and I hope to continue bringing value to you. So if there are ever any topics that you are interested in, please reach out. I would love to dive in more detail if it's something I do know about. And I would also love to have more people on the podcast this year and discuss the role of different practitioners in the area who definitely are providing the amazing services to their community. So if you know of anybody or if you're that person, let me know. I would love to get connected. Okay. So getting into the thyroid, I just want to set up the foundations first. I go much deeper in the course, but I just wanted to give the initial understanding of the thyroid because maybe you've never really given the thyroid much thought about what its role is and why it's so important. And also because there are so many individuals now with thyroid dysfunction, so it's really important to talk about. And even if you don't have thyroid issues, this is something you want to know about because you can really prevent having thyroid dysfunction from knowing what it's all about and how to create a healthy metabolism. So I even recommend this course to individuals who just want to make sure that they're keeping their body healthy and their metabolism healthy. The course, of course we label it as thyroid, but it goes beyond that. It is really how you can heal your body from inside and out. So just understanding the physiology of the thyroid, so its role in metabolism, being able to regulate metabolism. So thyroid hormones influence the body's metabolic rate and they regulate the consumption and production of energy in cells. So that's critical. And then growth and development, crucial for normal growth and development, especially the central nervous system. And then temperature regulation, the thyroid hormones help to regulate body temperature by influencing these metabolic processes. So that's why many people will notice their metabolism just isn't right when their thyroid is out of balance and they will struggle with weight gain and inability to lose weight. They typically have other issues going on with the nervous system and hormones. And then definitely have temperature fluctuations. A lot of people note that they're always feeling cold. What's interesting is that when you go to your doctor, so if you have symptoms that are coming up, and you go to your doctor, they typically will test a TSH, which stands for thyroid stimulating hormone. And it's a pituitary hormone, so it means it's made in your brain. And then this tells the thyroid what to do. And then they will actually sometimes look at a total T4. And this is measuring like the total amount of inactive thyroid that's bound and unbound to a transport protein. And so then they don't look at any of the other markers typically. Some may, but it's pretty rare. And I can say this with confidence because I've seen so many people in their labs from their physicians and what's being ordered. But they're not testing a total T3, a free T3, a free T4, a reverse T3, thyroid antibodies. And obviously thyroid antibodies are so critical because that's an indication that the body's immune system is attacking itself. And the production of these thyroid antibodies can create hypo and a hyper state. So people can have symptoms of Hashimoto's or Graves. And this can be really affecting like what the body is doing with thyroid. And so what's also interesting is sometimes people can have antibodies that actually don't alter TSH and don't cause like a glandular issue, but can cause like a cellular change and create a lot of issues still without having the TSH altered on a lab. And so your physician will tell you, well, your thyroid's good, so you're fine. And again, they're not even testing thyroid antibodies on a typical basis. And so it just creates a lot of frustration, I think, with patients because they know they don't feel good, but they're being gaslighted and just told that everything's fine. And so my point being is if you're only getting the bare minimum ordered and you're just doctors dismissing your symptoms, you want to keep looking. You want to go to someone like me or another functional practitioner that can really dive deeper into your situation, get more comprehensive labs to help you get to the root of your situation so that you can get help before it becomes a real serious thing where you can actually have real thyroid damage. And then for some people, yes, you do have to be on medication because the thyroid's never going to produce thyroid hormones at the capacity that your body needs. And there's some natural ways. I've actually helped a couple patients that they need a little bit of like glandular hormones. And so we can actually give them a little bit of thyroid support. And as long as we've, you know, taken care of their immune system, then they do well. And so it's not even a medication is what I'm trying to say. It's like an actual supplement that you can get from a practitioner grade brand. And then the next thing I want to talk about is how complex and amazing the thyroid metabolism is. And it's not as easy and simple like Western medicine makes it out to be where there's dysfunction and then they just say, take medication. No, no, no. There are so many interactions that are happening and a lot of checkpoints that are happening in the body. So what I like to explain to people is that there are these interactions. And for example, if you don't have a healthy liver or a healthy GI tract, and then your thyroid metabolism is going to be unhealthy because the liver and the GI tract actually take inactive forms of thyroid and convert them into the active form of thyroid. So think about it. If someone has an unhealthy liver, let's say it's congested, just not functioning properly, and their GI tract is leaky, then their body is trying to get their tissues, this active form of thyroid, but it can't. So then everything slows down, right, because the cells aren't getting the thyroid. And then the brain gets the signal that there's not enough thyroid hormones. So then TSH gets released to stimulate the thyroid gland more so that we can increase more thyroid hormones and then the cycle continues. The body creates more hormones and the same thing happens where the body cannot get the active form of thyroid. And so this creates this consistent chronic cycle for somebody that makes them start to have all these hallmark signs of thyroid issues because their cells are not getting what they need. The brain is saying, we need more thyroid, and it keeps pumping it out, but the root of the issue is not getting taken care of. So it doesn't warrant, I mean, it's just not a good idea to take medication in this state because then you're just doing the same thing. You're saturating the system, but the underlying issue is still present. And then there are like transport proteins and enzymes that are important for carrying the thyroid throughout the body and then enzymes that convert it into the active form or protect the body at times and convert it into the inactive form. So think about if the body is under stress for any reason. When I say any reason, I mean physical, mental, emotional, I mean, you name it. You aren't eating well. You're not sleeping well. And then if you can't make proper transport proteins, you can't carry the thyroid to the tissues. And if you can't convert it into the active form, and then again, your doctor gives you medication, this is not good. You're not getting to the root, and it's just going to allow the process to continue. And then if we think about what if you have antibodies attacking the transport protein for thyroid? So potentially it could be specific foods that are creating more inflammation, leading to more antibodies and attacking that transport protein over and over and over again. And then there's no transport protein to carry the thyroid to the cells. And then you just give somebody T4 medication. You're not solving their problem. You're masking it and then long-term creating more issues for this person because they're not getting to the root. So what solves this problem is rebalancing the immune system by removing the triggers and using specific formulas that aid in the reduction of inflammation. And there are many strategies to do this. And I will preface that this is not the case for every single person who has thyroid issues. There are some cases in which individuals do have hereditary glandular issues and being on a specific dose of medication can help, but it is more rare. Like most people have at least something going on with metabolism at some degree, right? And so this is exactly what my course does is it teaches you all about thyroid metabolism. I give you this whole body approach to healing. And this course doesn't just talk about food. We talk about the emotional health, the habitual health, physical health, proper blood oxygen physiology. And so each section has exercises and tools to teach you how to actually implement these strategies into your day-to-day, you know, overall health. And so for those of you who want to do the course and work with me, which that's what I highly recommend because the course is going to give you the foundation and the blueprint of the thyroid, the physiology, everything you really do and need to understand. And I make it fun. I don't just talk science. I actually use a lot of analogies and try to just create a more smoothness to it. I don't like to get heavy with the science, although that those bones are still there. That structure is still there. It's just a little bit more lighthearted and can make things just kind of fun to learn about. Like it's cool to know what your body's doing. The reason it's cool to know is because then when you get a symptom from your body, you can actually understand like, oh, this is probably what's going on and this is what I've got to do. And so the last thing I just want to talk about is that there are some tests that I might do. So say, you know, you're doing the course and you do want to work with me because you want to get more specific. So again, courses like blueprint, foundation, really important. You get just all the exercises and understanding of like how you can kind of take control of your own health. And then for specifics, working with me, we would potentially run testing to get to the root of your issue because everyone's so different. This is what makes this work so unique is there are thousands of different tests out there to do. But you know, we first do a background. We go through a health history. I have you fill out all these forms and then we meet and we talk and we get to the root of like, OK, where did this really go wrong? And what is the most important pathway we need to start with? Because for most people, the reason they got into this autoimmune state is because they were under high stress. They were not eating well. They were not sleeping well. They were doing this and that. And it was kind of like this whole like culprit all at once that kind of set them off. And so we have to then find balance with kind of that most common denominator first and then we slowly work our way and, you know, bring harmony to all the areas. And everybody's harmony is different. That's what's so beautiful about this work is like things that I can handle a little bit of, maybe somebody can handle more of or vice versa. So that's what's really cool. So one test that I might do is an example might be like, OK, if somebody removed gluten and again, I talk about this in a lot of my podcasts, but gluten is not the same protein our grandparents consumed. It is deamidated. It is hybridized and sprayed with tons of pesticides. So what I mean by that is the structure of it is completely changed. They change it in the lab and then they cross pollinate it. So it's like this GMO protein that's highly inflammatory and then full of a ton of pesticides. So it's very triggering for a lot of people. And then the bones of it, the bones of gluten, like the protein itself, actually mimics a transport protein for thyroid. It looks very similar in the body. And so if you have antibodies to a transport protein for thyroid, then every time you eat this food, you are creating more antibodies towards the thyroid. So usually most people who have thyroid issues do need to remove this. But I've had a lot of people who they remove it. For some, they feel like 80 percent better. For some, they might feel like 20 percent better. But what I'm saying is they don't feel 100 percent better. And this is typically because there's cross reactivity. And what I mean by this is we're going beyond gluten because there are many people with gluten allergies or sensitivities that react to proteins in foods that are structurally similar to gluten. And so they actually have a panel in which you can test these foods to see if you're having a cross over effect. And again, in more detail, I'm saying that gluten may be playing a big role in the antibodies and creating these antibodies, but there might be other foods that are breaking down and look so structurally similar that they're creating the same reaction gluten is creating. And the only way to know those foods is to test them. And so there's actually tests that you can do that would tell you. And then for some, it might be doing a gut panel to see how severe their gut health is. We may see bacteria overgrowth or yeast overgrowth or parasites. And again, I don't think that that was maybe the root for some. It can be. But I think having this whole immune system go awry first allowed for like the gut to break down and then the potential for these things to overgrow. And I mean, you still have to take control of them. But most importantly is you need to make sure someone's detox pathways are open before you start like detoxing them. And so that's critical. And then for some, I've seen mold exposure create a lot of autoimmune issues and it can take some time to really ramp down the immune system and you have to like remove yourself from the mold. And then once you're out of the mold, you have to detox from the mold. And so there's actually mold panels that can tell you the specific strains that you might have because the way of detoxing can be a little bit different. And then always looking at like standard blood labs, we want to look at like inflammation levels, organ function, blood sugar regulation, the ability to methylate, vitamin D levels, all of these play a significant role. And then, of course, like I said, having my intake forms and the initial appointment, that's where we start painting the picture of what's going on with your health. And that's where we start to do some digging and get to a really good starting point. So I hope that gives you a little more understanding of thyroid health and hopefully nudges you to start the course, because I always say if you don't take care of your body, where are you going to live? And again, my goal is to really start creating harmony in the body and get your body to a more balanced state so we can really help the immune system. And again, I'll reiterate, this course is not just for people who have current issues, but for anybody who wants to keep their health sound. So thank you for listening to this podcast and please rate and review my podcast. I always appreciate it. Take care.