Note: This transcript is not 100% accurate.
00:01
Sometimes people will finally get diagnosed after five, maybe 10 years of having really overt thyroid symptoms. And I really wish that people would talk more about the thyroid gland and how it can malfunction and what to do about it. So I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s a few years after I graduated from pharmacy school and I probably had symptoms for about 10 years.
00:27
Within three days, like my acid reflux that I had for three years, like vanished. The bloating, I was like, wait, I have a flat stomach. I never knew I had a flat stomach. That irritable bowel syndrome was gone. Like three days it took getting off of gluten and dairy.
00:48
Welcome to Uncover Your Eyes, where we break down the most pressing health topics shaping lives today. Today, we’re going to dive deep into talking about your thyroid gland, thyroid conditions, specifically Hashimoto’s disease, which is an autoimmune condition where your immune cells attack your own thyroid gland. Thyroid conditions affect millions globally with
01:17
20 million Americans being affected by some form of thyroid disorder. Women are five to eight times more likely than men to develop these conditions, but the scary fact remains that 60 % of those with thyroid disease are unaware of their condition. Today, we’re going to explore Hashimoto’s disease and thyroid health with the thyroid pharmacist and thyroid expert, Dr. Izabella Wentz.
01:43
who is the author of many books regarding Hashimoto’s and thyroid disease. Thank you so much for being on today, Dr. Wentz. Really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here with you. So I wanted to, you know, talk to you obviously about your expertise, which is a lot about the thyroid gland. I want to say it’s a gland that we don’t talk about very often as healthcare providers. I mean, it’s small and we kind of dismiss it, but there’s so much it’s doing. So…
02:11
Do you mind just touching on what it does? Why is it important? Of course, the thyroid gland is this tiny butterfly-shaped gland that sits at the base of our neck. And not many people think about its function unless it’s out of balance, right? The thyroid gland plays such an important role in our overall metabolism, energy production, generating our body temperature. And really, there are thyroid hormone receptors.
02:39
every part of our body. And a lot of times people are not properly diagnosed with a thyroid condition, oftentimes because thyroid symptoms, whether a thyroid is overactive or underactive can be so nonspecific because our thyroid gland does impact every cell, every system in our body. Sometimes people will finally get diagnosed after five, maybe 10 years of having
03:06
really overt thyroid symptoms. And I really wish that people would talk more about the thyroid gland and how it can malfunction and what to do about it. So I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you. So, you know, there’s hypothyroidism, hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and there’s also Hashimoto’s, which you talk a lot about. Can we talk and kind of distinguish the three so that we’re clear on that?
03:32
Definitely. So in healthcare professional school, I know a lot of us have seen this picture of perhaps a woman and her body’s cut in half and one half of her is hypothyroid. So she has an underactive thyroid and she is sluggish and she perhaps is gaining weight. Her heart rate is stopped or her heart rate is slowed. It’s not stopped. And on the other half, we have a woman who has an overactive thyroid or hyperthyroid.
04:00
And we see a contrast in symptoms. Perhaps she has some palpitations. She might have some eye protrusion. She might have some anxiety. She might have excessive weight loss that is not intentional. And what not a lot of people realize is that most causes of an underactive and overactive thyroid are actually due to an autoimmune process where essentially our immune system begins to attack a part of our
04:28
thyroid physiology. In Hashimoto’s, what generally occurs is that a person will become hypothyroid with time because Hashimoto’s antibodies will attack the thyroid gland to the point where essentially the thyroid gland can no longer make enough of its thyroid hormone. And then we also have Graves antibodies, which can really interfere with controlling the thyroid hormone output. And a person may become
04:57
may have an overactive thyroid when they have Graves’ disease. What I feel like a lot of people don’t really fully appreciate is that in the early stages of Hashimoto’s, which sounds rare and exotic, but it affects, it’s the primary cause of hypothyroidism affecting, I would estimate, 97 % of those who are hypothyroid, who take medications like Synthroid, Levothyroxine, and so on and so forth, in many cases, they can have symptoms of both.
05:25
an overactive and an underactive thyroid when they do have that Hashimoto’s. so oftentimes women might present with symptoms like hair loss and brain fog, and they’ll have the classical quote unquote depression or a slowed mood, but they might also have anxiety and palpitations, which are thought to be more overactive symptoms. And they might struggle with their digestion. They might have diarrhea and or constipation. They might be puffy,
05:55
They might have excessive fatigue, but they might also have insomnia. They might have excess weight, but they might also have weight loss, upper loss of the eyebrows, called thigh brows is a red flag symptom. Cold intolerance is going to be another red flag symptom. And then probably the most common symptoms women report are going to be like anxiety, hair loss in the early stages.
06:23
And many women might actually struggle with fertility challenges when they have thyroid dysfunction. So these are some of the symptoms. I know they sound like they could be caused by anything. And that’s why I feel like it’s so important to test thyroid function properly. And I know that you have a bit of a story behind this. Do you mind sharing a bit about your story and your journey? Of course. So I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s
06:50
A few years after I graduated from pharmacy school and I probably had symptoms for about 10 years. My symptoms started with chronic fatigue like symptoms. I was never diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, but I was sleeping 12 hours a night and waking up unrefreshed and just really exhausted throughout the day. I then started to have panic attacks and irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux, carpal tunnel syndrome, a lot of hair loss and
07:19
Initially, I finally sought out some answers and I was diagnosed with elevated thyroid antibodies. And I remember my doctor who was treating me for carpal tunnel looked at me and he said, wow, you know, I would have never expected that you have hypothyroidism because you’re not necessarily overweight and you’re presenting with anxiety and you’re presenting with all of these symptoms and you’re in your twenties. I wasn’t, you know, an older woman typically
07:47
people expect older women to have this condition. And he sort of was like, oh, I’m gonna really start whenever I have more patients like you, I’m really gonna start testing them for thyroid dysfunction because, know, a lot of times what we’re taught in school is that it’s an older woman’s disease and that we happen to have hypothyroidism as we age and that women are gonna be, you know, very heavy and very sluggish and very overweight.
08:14
But for many younger women, it can present with anxiety, palpitations, multiple miscarriages, and actually irritable bowel syndrome, which sounds kind of random, but there’s a big connection there. And so it’s been quite a journey for myself. First of all, the diagnosis was a bit shocking. I was like, wait a minute, I’m not old. why do I have this? Like, I’m not, my grandmother should have this, right? Not me. And then it was a…
08:41
of me was excited because I was like, okay, now I could take thyroid hormones and I’ll feel so much better, right? I learned about them in pharmacy school and I was like, this is going to be great. And they helped, but like not that much. So I went from sleeping 12 hours to 11 hours a night, which of course was an improvement, but I still didn’t feel human. I still had the acid reflux, hair loss and carpal tunnel and joint pains and anxiety, palpitations, all of these things remained.
09:09
And at that point I decided if I was going to have this condition, I would be the healthiest person with the condition. I felt like all of my symptoms maybe were connected and I wanted to figure out what was driving the symptoms. And that’s how I sort of stumbled on functional medicine. I didn’t really know it was functional medicine. I just was looking into PubMed and patient forums and random trainings, whatever trainings I could get my hands on to try to figure out how to get myself to feel better.
09:38
Would you say nutrition was, I mean, there’s always diet, lifestyle, but would you say nutrition was kind of the main thing that you geared towards? One of the really big game changers for me was absolutely nutrition. I had never believed in dieting. I was like the kind of person that was like, if there’s cake, I will always say yes to it, right? Story of my life.
10:08
I thought that I overall had a healthy diet because I was eating low fat dairy for breakfast. I would have whey protein smoothies and Greek yogurt. And I cooked a lot of my meals. I would eat whole wheat bread and so on and so forth and edamame and all of these things that I thought were really healthy, right? And come to find out I was sensitive to gluten, dairy and soy. And so I did a food sensitivity test.
10:38
sort of just kind of as a last resort, right? I had heard that the gluten-free diet might help, but I didn’t have, my endocrinologist tested me for celiac disease, which I did not have. So I was like, you know, he said I didn’t need to worry about that. And I was like, okay, I’m not going to worry about it. And I went to an integrative doctor where I did this test and these foods came up. And at first I was like, I’m just going to like do the diet to prove that it doesn’t work, right? Yeah.
11:04
Within three days, like my acid reflux that I had for three years, like vanished. The bloating, I was like, wait, I have a flat stomach. I never knew I had a flat stomach. The irritable bowel syndrome was gone. Like three days it took getting off of gluten and dairy. And then within two weeks, my carpal tunnel was gone. And I really just started diving deep into trying things. Like I realized that B6 might help with carpal tunnel.
11:33
And so I started taking a B6 supplement as a pharmacist. was very skeptical. thought like, no, I just didn’t think any supplements worked. That was kind of my training is that like, right. Vitamins don’t really work and nothing really works except for drugs. And then I thought I was going to get like toxicity from everything and that everything contained like heavy metals or, you know, junk in it. And so I was very surprised because between the dairy free diet, the B6 and then my, um,
12:02
pyropractic adjustments. I ventured into trying, you know, different healing modalities. I was like, I don’t have carpal tunnel anymore. I used to sleep with two braces on. I couldn’t type. I had dictation software. I had like a whole ergonomic reset in my office. Like I couldn’t do yoga or do a lot of the things that I enjoy doing because of that carpal tunnel. And I had that for over a year and was taking, you know, I was taking NSAIDs, proton pump inhibitors.
12:29
Like pepsid, all kinds of things. And all of a sudden I’m like, oh my gosh, maybe there’s more to this nutrition stuff that I learned nothing about in pharmacy school, right? So that was a really big part of my healing journey for sure. Wow. A lot of the symptoms that you mentioned, a lot of them are very similar to just people having other conditions like depression or anxiety where you get those panic attacks, you’ve had that acid reflex.
12:59
How do you know as a patient when you need to get tested for thyroid? And what is the panel that should be done? I know a lot of times just they test for, I want to say the TSH, but sometimes you need a fuller panel. what can patients do? That’s such a great question because I know I would get my thyroid tested every year and my tests always came back as normal.
13:27
And then of course I saw my test results and I was like, knowing what I know now, I’m like, wow, they didn’t do the right tests. And even the test that they did was absolutely not normal. So the most common test that is done is the TSH test, thyroid stimulating hormone test. And generally speaking, if you’re a healthy person without thyroid dysfunction, your TSH should be somewhere between 0.5 and two.
13:56
I would venture to say probably even around one. And generally speaking, if it’s above two, there’s going to be something going on with your thyroid. If it’s under 0.5, there’s something going on with your thyroid. And really having those test results, feel like is really key. Don’t just trust your doctor to say that your test results are normal. I know when I was being gone through the process, the reference range was as high as
14:25
a TSH of 10 was considered multiple. Now it’s like much more strict where you don’t really go above 4.5, but I’ll tell you, I felt like an absolute sloth when my TSH was at a four. Like it was like really dragging my feet and really feeling brain fogged and fatigued like all day long with that kind of TSH. So that’s one thing to consider is that doing that test and making sure you get the results and you understand what
14:54
your function should be with a healthy thyroid function. The other- should be between 0.5 and two despite what the norms on that blood work panel are. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. So even if it’s… What they did is when they took the thyroid disease is so common, so when they determined the reference ranges, there were some people with thyroid disease in the pool of quote unquote healthy blood. And so the reference ranges just became overly lax. And I know they’ve been working on making them
15:23
more strict, I feel like they still need to do a little bit more work with that regard. And then the other component that I really love to see for people is the thyroid antibodies. The thyroid antibodies can be elevated for five to 10 years before there’s even a change in TSH. These thyroid antibodies can indicate that you have an autoimmune attack against your thyroid gland. If you find these antibodies, this is a really great indication that you can start making lifestyle changes and perhaps prevent
15:53
that damage to your thyroid gland. I love to look for thyroid peroxidase antibodies and thyroid glabulin antibodies. Those are going to be the most common. And then there’s also TSI antibodies for Graves’ disease. These antibodies, just having them alone, even with quote unquote normal thyroid function, you can be symptomatic. So there’s a lot of research tying them to anxiety disorders, just a general feeling of unwell fatigue, even miscarriages.
16:21
So I’m a big, big proponent of people making sure they get those numbers checked. Then the other numbers that I, the other labs I like to look at is going to be free T3 and free T4. These are the active thyroid hormones that are free to interact with our receptors. And then in some cases, reverse T3 can be helpful. Some people can have thyroid-like symptoms that are not necessarily driven by thyroid dysfunction.
16:52
It might be like a stress response or it could be due to anemia. And in that case, they might have elevated reverse T3. And that can be a clue as to where the symptoms might be coming from. So do you think that patients who feel that they have any of these symptoms and that they might be a thyroid have hypo or hyperthyroidism should be pushing for the entire panel or just the thyroid antibodies and the TSH? I would ask for a full panel.
17:21
So getting the TSH, thyroid antibodies, free T3, free T4, and if possible, reverse T3. I know not every doctor is open to testing reverse T3. And some things people can do is really advocate for themselves if they have a family history, if they find that their doctor’s still not able to order the labs or unwilling, they can also self-order labs.
17:50
So you can go through companies like Alta Lab, Rupa, so on and so forth that allow you to self order. You touched a little bit on nutrition and gluten, soy. Can we touch on sugar? Yes, absolutely. Sugar can be very tasty for some people, but it can also be very, very addictive, right? Yeah. And one of the key things that we see in people with Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism
18:19
is going to be blood sugar swings. And having excess sugar in our diet can absolutely contribute to those blood sugar swings, especially if we don’t have enough protein and good fats, if we’re just relying a lot on processed foods and a lot of carbohydrates and even sweets. Like it doesn’t have to be like sugar on sweets. Sometimes it’s just like a really high carb diet, right? We might not think of muffins or
18:47
bread as quote unquote sugar, but a lot of these foods do turn into sugar in the body. These can put us on a blood sugar roller coaster when we have too much carbs and sugar, and then we end up with making the situation worse when it comes to thyroid dysfunction. So really a big, big thing that I recommend for people is to balance their blood sugar. Oftentimes this looks like getting more protein and fat.
19:16
every two to three hours initially, if they are really dealing with blood sugar swings and limiting the amount of carbs they take. I used to recommend like, you 100 % quit sugar. And I feel like that is still a good place to start for a lot of people. Some people do have to have it, you know, black or white, because even if they have a little bit of sugar, it’s like a slippery slope.
19:42
That said, you might be able to have it in moderation. It’s not something like a forever thing, I would say, with gluten. Even trace amounts of it can be harmful for people that are very sensitive. If they have celiac disease with sugar, we generally just want to not eat pounds and pounds of it a day. But you can have some carbs and you can absolutely have healthy fruits and apples and so on and so forth.
20:09
especially the healthier you are and the more you get your blood sugar in balance. But overall, my experience has been with the standard American diet and the standard Western diet, people just eat way too many carbohydrates and they’re not eating enough protein and fat. Absolutely. Do you think there’s these diets, right? The keto, the so many diets that people can be on, whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, like some people will turn towards these diets for health reasons. Are there any specific diets that you feel
20:37
can be beneficial with thyroid conditions? Definitely the gluten-free diet and then oftentimes the dairy-free diet. In my experience with people, I don’t know if this is just because these diets were really popular or trendy, but the paleo diet seemed to be a really great diet for a lot of people. I know it does emphasize a lot of healthy meats and it does eliminate grains, so you’re not going to be on that blood sugar roller coaster.
21:06
and you’re going to be eating plenty of veggies and more like real whole foods diet, that can be very helpful. The autoimmune paleo diet was another diet that became very popular in the last decade for people with autoimmunity. And that diet is like the paleo diet, but it happens to be a bit more restrictive where people will also restrict nuts and seeds, eggs, nightshades. And this can be, I feel like helpful.
21:36
in the short term for like a 30 to 60 day period to try to figure out what might be triggering your food reactions. However, I find that some people do it for too long. And there can also be the slippery slope of like orthorexia where you think it’s like food is evil and you think you just need to eliminate more food or eat a perfect diet to be healthy. But you know, a big part of proper nutrition
22:04
is actually figuring out like why are foods not working for you? So for example, people who are set, who have a lot of food sensitivities, they might have digestive enzyme deficiencies, right? If you’re, you’re reacting to a lot of fatty foods, then perhaps your pancreatic enzymes or your bile needs support. If you’re reacting to a lot of protein foods, perhaps you need to support your stomach acid and so on and so forth. Or they might have some kind of gut infections that are preventing them from properly
22:34
Digesting their food so they end up with intestinal permeability and no matter what they’re eating They’re still reacting to it And so I always encourage people to like take a holistic approach rather than just like eliminating more foods Then being like okay. What else is going on? What else is setting off the balance of my immune system? Generally like my rule of thumb is like three months. You should be in remission on a healing diet
23:00
If not, then you need to look for deeper root causes. And these could be nutrient deficiencies. A lot of times it is related to like gut health and chronic infections in my experience. Oh, I’m so glad you met. You talked about gut health because I know you talk a lot about, not a lot, but you know, you do talk about blasto, which is something I had never really even heard of. And then, you know, I kind of did a little bit of research after hearing what you’ve talked about. Can you touch on that? And like, how do people know that they have this bacteria?
23:30
Um, so it’s a protozoa, is sort of like a bacteria, but it’s actually a parasite. And I know people think of parasites and they think of like giant worms. It’s not something like that. So you’re not going to, you know, find a friend in your toilet or anything like that. It’s going to be a microscopic creature. So something you can only see under a microscope. And most people don’t know that they have it, but some of the symptoms, red flag symptoms include irritable bowel syndrome and then chronic urticaria or chronic hives.
24:00
And then it’s also been tied to Hashimoto’s and their research. Now, I had found that I had I IBS, chronic hives and Hashimoto’s and I was like searching for my root cause. So I did like tons and tons of testing from every functional medicine company that I could find. probably did 20 stool tests at some point. And one of them finally revealed I had this in my system and I treated it. First of all, I read that it was like impossible to treat, but
24:29
So I kind of overdid it on the protocol. took like heavy duty anti-parasitic meds and then like months and months of herbal protocols. But a lot of my food sensitivities actually vanished and my hives and IBS and all of these symptoms got so much better and the thyroid antibodies reduced. And so I was like, huh, this is kind of interesting. And of course I started writing, I was writing my book about getting Hashimoto’s into remission.
24:56
and sharing my story and started working with people with Hashimoto’s. And all of a sudden I’m seeing this infection in like 25, 30 % of the clients that I’m working with and doing their stool tests. So I reached out to one of my mentors and I was like, Hey, are you seeing this on stool tests and with your population? And he’s like, yeah, every now and then, but not like 30 % of people. And so I just started to try to
25:25
do as much research as I could on this little bugger. And I came across the connections with IBS and chronic hives, as well as multiple food sensitivities. And I was like, wow, that really does fit some people who are doing like the autoimmune paleo diet because they’re sensitive to everything and they’re having hives and they’re having IBS and so on and so forth. And interestingly, a few years ago, there are now studies connecting to
25:55
connecting blasto to Hashimoto’s and eradicating blasto can in some cases induce a Hashimoto’s remission. So that’s been kind of cool. I feel like I made my contribution to science, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Finding that. think I was the first person to write about it on the internet. I’m not sure, but yeah. You were the first person I heard it from. I had never even heard about this. Would you go as far as to say that the
26:23
blasto is what’s causing the Hashimoto’s or no, you already have the Hashimoto’s because it’s an autoimmune condition, but the blasto is making it more aggressive or not letting it bounce back into remission. It could be either or. So in some cases, people have more than one thing going on, but really anything that causes intestinal permeability and can set off like our immune cytokines and get the immune system out of balance can cause an autoimmune condition.
26:52
And I would say it’s not every single person with Hashimoto’s, but I’ve seen probably with the tests I use closer to 20%, I’m not sure if it’s still at around 30%, that that is a very relevant trigger for a lot of people. And it could be like their number one trigger oftentimes co-occurs with H. pylori. So sometimes you do have to treat both. And in some cases it could be an exacerbating factor. And I don’t really know for who it’s going to be what.
27:21
But whenever I see it, I get excited because I’m like, ooh, I know how to make this better. We know how to make this go away. And we know symptoms are going to really improve once we treat it. How do people know? I’m assuming all these tests are done by stool tests. But typically, a stool test is not done when you have a hunch of a thyroid condition. How do they know whether they should be requesting a stool test? I think definitely if you have an autoimmune condition, there’s a big gut and
27:50
autoimmune connection. So Dr. Alessio Fasano, he has found that every case of autoimmunity has a gut connection with intestinal permeability. And when I heard about this, was like, okay, so you have autoimmune and you know that you have intestinal permeability. And if you can treat that intestinal permeability, Alessio Fasano has found that you can get the autoimmune condition to go into remission.
28:18
So then it’s about like, okay, let’s track down what’s causing that intestinal permeability. Cause there’s like a three-legged stool of autoimmunity. It’s going to be the genetic predisposition. It’s going to be the intestinal permeability and potentially an environmental trigger. We might not always be able to find the environmental trigger. We might not always be able to eliminate it. We can definitely try, but we can always like go after the gut and figure out what’s causing it to be leaky. Sometimes it’s a food sensitivity like celiac or food reaction. Sometimes it’s a protozoa.
28:48
Sometimes it’s gonna be like SIBO. So we just have to really look, I feel like under a microscope and dig deeper into what’s happening. There’s also people who have celiac disease and once they go gluten free, their Hashimoto’s goes into remission as well. they might not necessarily have blasto, but that celiac disease and the gluten was causing them to have intestinal permeability. And so I like…
29:16
There’s a lot of stool tests out there and unfortunately I kind of have a love hate relationship with them because a lot of times the methodology is changed with time and I might not see as good of results. So the company that I was using 10 plus years ago has gone out of business. The founder, I think was a naturopathic doctor that passed and it was, you really don’t get the same quality that you used to.
29:44
these individuals would like to put the stool under a microscope and just really do proper examination. There are tests on the market like GI map, gut zoomer that I will use and I find those can be very helpful, but sometimes they still miss things. Is there a place for, you know, I know nutrition and there’s that functional medicine side of it. Is there a place for medication and when does that come into play for you and when you treat your patients?
30:13
So absolutely, feel like medications are a very important component of treating Hashimoto’s. The challenge is that most people by the time their thyroid condition has been discovered, they already have sustained damage to their thyroid gland to the point where they do need at least a low dose, sometimes a very high dose of medication to replenish what their thyroid gland would have been making.
30:39
In the early stages, if we just have those antibodies and before all the damage occurs, we can absolutely get rid of the thyroid antibodies, get rid of the attack and preserve thyroid function. you know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So I’m a big proponent of using the proper thyroid medications for people, especially when they are symptomatic, when their TSH is above three.
31:06
Perhaps women trying to conceive, might even want to get that reference range a little bit tighter. Oftentimes, I find that people do benefit very much from a comprehensive approach, and that does include thyroid hormone replacement. What are your most common medications that you are prescribing? So I’m a pharmacist, and I don’t prescribe medications. But I definitely advocate for people to talk to their doctors about looking into T3-containing medications.
31:36
Just because levothyroxine and synthroid, these are T4 containing medications. T4 is one of our thyroid hormones, but it’s the less active one, and T3 is the more active thyroid hormone. On paper, T4 to T3 converts really well each time, but that doesn’t happen so easily in the body. A lot of times, people do benefit from the addition of a T3 containing medication, such as
32:05
Cytomel or leothyronine to have more of that active thyroid hormone on board or utilizing something like natural desiccated thyroid. So I oftentimes advocate for that, especially if people are having symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, and hair loss and cold intolerance that’s ongoing despite being on thyroid, the T4 thyroid meds. And then some people that have a lot of trouble with stabilizing their thyroid function, I oftentimes might recommend tyrosine.
32:35
which is a gel cap formulation of T4, the gel cap allows it to have fewer drug interactions. Thyroid hormones are notorious for having poor absorption and anything like a sip of coffee, having food too closely or various calcium or iron supplements can really interfere with proper absorption. so tyrosine sort of bypasses that. And I find that people can get stabilized on that much easier.
33:05
Wow, that’s a really good point. I would have never known that the timing of the medication is so important for your thyroid and gel capsules, right? I guess that’s the better formulation to go towards. The gel caps can be a really big game changer for people who have gastritis or they maybe like to chug their medications with coffee or eat too close or take too many vitamins too close because the gel cap just gets absorbed where it’s to be absorbed.
33:34
versus the tablet formulation is kind of finicky. You know, you’ve also mentioned or you’ve talked a lot about low dose Naltrexone, right? I think it is. Can you touch on that? Like, is that a common medication that people are on? So there’s a really interesting story history of low dose Naltrexone. So as the name implies, it is a low dose version of a commercially available medication known as Naltrexone.
34:03
And typically it’s made by compounding pharmacists, but it’s something that’s been found to really help modulate the immune system. And for some people that can get their autoimmunity into remission. I know a lot of times people for Graves’ disease will utilize it and that helps them get into remission as well as Hashimoto’s. So I would say, you know, it’s not like a hundred percent effective for every person.
34:30
but there are a lot of people that really do benefit from it where I feel like it’s really worth a try. Are there like new drugs or sort of new innovations on the rise like with these thyroid conditions? I just talked to a company that was using mRNA technology to introduce like thyroid antigens to people or actually they’re doing the studies in mice and they already have clinical trials for type 1 diabetes.
34:59
where they’re able to normalize thyroid function and eliminate thyroid antibodies after like three or four of these injections. And I think that’s fascinating. Now they are preclinical. So, you know, these are the studies on mice and rats and stuff like that. And I feel like it’s been really interesting because they are not necessarily getting the funding that they’re hoping for. I feel like there’s a lot of charities out there that want to
35:28
cure type one diabetes and perhaps other types of autoimmune conditions. But with thyroid disorders, I feel like a lot of doctors don’t and patients don’t really appreciate the autoimmune component of it. Right. So they think that essentially all you have to do is take thyroid hormone. And many of them don’t realize that the weight gain, the depression, that the hair loss, the brain fog, fatigue that you’re experiencing is like residual.
35:57
thyroid and autoimmune symptoms, and that if you can actually go after the autoimmunity, you would feel like a brand new human. And this is an interesting innovation as well as Cernova Cell Pouch, which is just getting into clinical trials right now, and that helps to regrow the thyroid gland. I’m hoping these technologies will become available in the next few years. These days, I’m also a big…
36:25
been a fan of low-level laser therapy over the thyroid gland, that can be very, very helpful for regenerating thyroid tissue as well. Is that red light therapy or… Yeah. The studies that were initially done were using cold lasers. And so they would draw, take a marker and draw your thyroid gland on you and then do specific treatments with the cold laser, kind of something like a dental laser you would use.
36:53
and they had shown really remarkable results with thyroid function improving. If the thyroid gland was enlarged or shrunken, like it would look better on ultrasound and thyroid antibodies reducing. However, there’s also some anecdotal evidence with using red light therapy. So some people anecdotally have reached out to me and said they’ve been using red light therapy over their thyroid gland and that they are seeing results as well.
37:19
Now, this isn’t something that the companies can necessarily market. Right. So it’s kind of like under the table. Off-label usage. Yeah. Yeah. It’s off-label usage. And I really wish every clinic offered cold laser therapy to thyroid patients. It’s not something that we necessarily see. It’s kind of still hard to come by, right? Right. I want to ask you something. So a lot of healthcare providers, including myself, see women
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predominantly telling us that they have thyroid dysfunction or they’re on thyroid medications coming in. And a lot of us just accept it. It’s almost like a norm, like as if people are in depression meds, that’s very normal for us. And we just write it down and okay, let’s move on. What are some questions or some triggers for us as healthcare providers that we can kind of say, oh, okay, well, I get that you’re on the medication, but maybe you need to go see your endo for…
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solving this issue as you might need XYZ. So, are we looking for people who are still fatigued or like, what are we looking for such that we can make better recommendations to them? Yeah, definitely. If you have somebody with residual depression, residual fatigue, residual hair loss, weight loss resistance, cold intolerance, these would be some red flags that perhaps they’re under treated or not treated properly with thyroid.
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mode. And then the challenge with endocrinologists is that a lot of times they don’t really focus on the autoimmune component. So most endocrinologists won’t necessarily prescribe things like low dose naltrexone or look into gut health. And so in many cases, if you see a person still struggling with anxiety or a lot of inflammation, that might be somebody to refer for more functional medicine testing.
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Thank you so much. I mean, this was amazing and eye-opening, I think, for a lot of our listeners. Can you tell us, I mean, I know you have many books and we will have them all listed, but tell us where people can find you. Definitely. So my website is thyroidpharmacist, and then I also am on Instagram under Isabella Wentz PharmD. I’m on Facebook under thyroidpharmacist. I also have a podcast that I just started called Thyroid Pharmacists Healing Conversations.
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and I have books on Amazon and wherever fine books are sold. Hashimoto’s Protocol is probably my most popular book and it kind of breaks down what to do over the course of 90 days from an elimination diet standpoint, lifestyle changes, supplements to use, what labs to ask for to help you take charge of your own health. For people that like more research, my first book, Hashimoto’s The Root Cause is probably
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going to be their favorite and then people that like really practical things and recipes. I also have Hashimoto’s Food Pharmacology, which has over a hundred recipes for people to take charge of their health. So I have like the whole collection wherever people are on their healing journey and whatever support they need. Amazing. And we will link all of that. You don’t have to write any of that down. Everything will be linked in the show notes for everybody to be able to click. So thank you so much, Dr. Wentz. This was
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eye-opening and I think really helpful for a lot of women and everyone suffering with thyroid issues. Thank you so much for having me and for helping to spread the awareness about the importance of thyroid issues. really appreciate it. Thank you listeners and viewers for tuning in. If you want to catch more episodes of Uncover Your Eyes, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube. To learn more about me, follow me on Instagram @Dr.MeenalAgarwal
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Until next time, keep those eyes uncovered!
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See comfortably, near and far.
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with total multifocal contact lenses. Feels like nothing.