FASTEST Way To Fix Thyroid Permanently [Start IODINE]

Iodine deficiency is probably the number one cause of thyroid problems in general. Iodine is antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial. It does an amazing job with our immune system. And here's the other thing that iodine does.

Dr. Amy Hornman, also known as the thyroid fixer, has helped thousands of people regain their energy, confidence, and overall well-being. And today, she's here to break down the tiny, often overlooked gland that controls it all, the thyroid. It literally runs your entire body.

How does thyroid affect the inability to lose weight? You could be on a keto carnivore diet and still have insulin resistance. And we had a woman that was very, very diabetic. She was on a GLP1 for over a year at a full max dose. She didn't lose a pound. Her A1C wasn't moving. So, we started adjusting and optimizing her thyroid. She literally reversed her diabetes. She's down to a 5.4 before A1C and lost 150 lbs. I've had patients come in saying that they think that they have early stage Alzheimer's. It's like, no, it's not early Alzheimer's. It's your thyroid. Let's talk about four steps to fix it. Step number one.

All right, let's break this down. Okay, this episode with Dr. Amy Hornman was personal for me. The thyroid, particularly low thyroid. Now, I had low thyroid for many years and I completely fixed it naturally in a few months with four easy steps. And I wish I knew this information back then when no doctor could help me. And I want to say one thing. If you feel tired, if you have high insulin, if you have weight gain, check your thyroid. And it's not just TSH.

So, Dr. Hornman, my first question, how likely is it that someone has a thyroid issue without even knowing it? Oh goodness. Well, the stats in the United States are really staggering. So, we know that right around 20 million Americans are officially diagnosed with hypothyroidism. But here's the unfortunate thing, and this ties back to my experience when I was misdiagnosed. There are an equal, if not greater amount of people that are undiagnosed. They're walking around with a thyroid problem, but they're being dismissed because of the inadequate testing we're doing. Of course, conventional medicine isn't listening to them. So, there's there's a lot of people that are walking around misdiagnosed.

That's why I asked that question because I myself, as you have had low thyroid in your case, you had Hashimoto's as well. So many people just they don't know about it. And when we talk about the symptoms that people can notice and see, they're going to maybe figure out that maybe they have a thyroid issue. I do want to ask in your practice, you have been a doctor for decades. How many patients have you actually helped with thyroid issues? This is to give people hope so that they can change as well. Oh, I love giving people hope. That is that's so important because yes, yes, you can get optimized. Oh my goodness. At this point, we're tens of thousands quite honestly. I mean, between the one-on-one practice that we do and being able to prescribe to all 50 states, that's huge. That's allowed us to really open up and and help so many more people. But then even just the the large group programs that we have where we're educating the masses and empowering them to talk to their doctor in the correct way. So, tens of thousands at this point.

What do you think might be the biggest mistake that a doctor is going to say to their patient? So, a regular doctor, maybe they're not so specialized in the thyroid. What is the number one mistake that they miss with that patient? It's a variety of different things. It really starts at the very beginning with that doctor not asking the patient the four most important words that any practitioner can ask you when you're working with them. Whether it's a health coach, an integrative practitioner, a conventional medicine doctor, your OB/GYN, if they do not ask you how do you feel, you need to get up and walk out and find a new doctor because it really starts there. We have to overlay how you feel, what your symptoms are, what's happening in your body. We have to overlay that with your labs.

So then the second mistake is the lab testing. So number one, when we're when we're testing thyroid and we'll throw in hormones in there because thyroid and hormones go hand in hand. I'm talking about the sex hormones progesterone, estradiol, testosterone, DHEA. We want to look at those as well because they play together. The thyroid controls hormonal balance. So when we're testing, are we testing properly? Are we testing everything to get all the knowledge of that patient and of their their current health state? If we're not testing properly, let's say in the case of the thyroid, the most common test is TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone, you all have it. If you've if you've ever had your thyroid tested by your doctor, guaranteed they tested TSH. Well, here's the issue. That's a brain hormone. That is not a thyroid hormone. So, we're testing that your brain is sensing how much thyroid hormone is in your body and is it screaming at the thyroid or is it not? But that does not give the whole picture. It doesn't tell us how much actual thyroid hormone is in your body. It doesn't tell us if you're converting your inactive thyroid hormone to the active thyroid hormone. So the the simplicity of testing in conventional medicine is also a huge hindrance to patients moving forward and really getting better and upleveling their health.

Okay. So two big mistakes there. The doctor won't ask you how you feel. Second big mistake, they just test the TSH and say, "You're good. Keep going." And they could have low thyroid, low T3. And we're going to talk more about those specific tests. People should write it down. If they write it down, they can ask their doctor.

So, let's understand a bit about the basics in case somebody doesn't know. What is the thyroid and what does it do? What is the thyroid? Where is it on the body? Yes. So, it's a tiny little gland. It's shaped like a little butterfly right in our neck. And you know, tiny gland, big job though. It runs your entire body. So, I say from head to toe, it runs the show. It controls your hair growth, your eyesight, your body temperature, your brain function, your mood, your metabolism, ability to burn fat, your energy, your digestion, your heart rate, everything. It it it determines whether or not you get to poop every day. It literally runs your entire body. So, it's very important. And it's actually a little bit mind-blowing that we're not paying more attention to this in conventional medicine, but that's just that's what they've been taught in med school, unfortunately. So really, when we're talking about the thyroid, we always have to start there. You know, a lot of people, they'll they'll get pulled into, let's say, an Instagram influencer to speak of, well, you know what? I need a detox and that's going to fix all my problems. I need to sprinkle some adrenal fairy dust on my adrenal glands and that's going to fix all my problems or all I need to do is a gut protocol and heal my gut. It's like, wait, let's start with the master gland. Let's start with the one in charge and then you can go down from there and address any other symptoms that aren't fixed and and made better once you do start addressing that master gland.

Okay. So, how does thyroid affect many problems in the body? So the first thing is that how does thyroid affect the inability of somebody to lose weight? So they're just gaining weight no matter what they do. What's the mechanism? Great question. So every cell in your body has a receptor site on it for thyroid hormone, but specifically for T3. So let me back up to those tests. We were talking about TSH. Sure, go ahead and get that. And with TSH, we want it less than two. And that's pretty universally standard across all countries. So, no matter where you're listening, TSH, we want that below a two. Now, let's back up and tell the listeners, we're not looking at the standard lab value range off to the side of your labs because you might have your labs right in front of you listening to this and you're going to say, "Well, well, wait, it's not high or low. It says that it's normal." Okay, that's great. But that standard lab value range was actually derived from sick people. Basically, they didn't when they did those lab value ranges, when they when they comprise those lab value ranges, they did not go out and look for healthy individuals, thriving individuals, people in their 60s and 70s that are skiing down sides of mountains and working out in the gym. They tested people in the hospital with massive issues. We don't want to be that kind of normal. I don't want to be normal like the overweight person with heart disease. I want to be optimal like that badass at 70 skiing down the side of a mountain. So, we want to look at the the results from an optimal versus normal perspective.

So, that's part one. So, then we start testing and we look at your free T3. That's the active thyroid hormone. We want to know how much active thyroid hormone is ready to attach to that cell receptor site. Then we want to know okay, you have this other inactive thyroid hormone called T4 and that has to actually morph and convert and become T3 to actually attach to that receptor site on your cell. When it does, it's like electricity. It's like it lights up your whole body. It turns on your metabolism. It turns on your fat burning. It amps up your energy. Your ATP production. Your hair starts to grow. Your digestion starts to work better. More gut motility happens and you get the poop every day. So, we need to look at both the inactive thyroid hormone and the active thyroid hormone.

Now, there's a really interesting test that we do on every single person every single time you have your thyroid tested, and it's called reverse T3. And reverse T3 is actually telling us how well is your body taking that inactive T4 that can do nothing on its own. How well is it peeling off one of those iodine molecules and making it into T3? Is it doing a good job? Because if it's not, that reverse T3 will be elevated. Now this is a a a relatively universal statement as well. I've looked at many labs from different countries. Reverse T3 we want below a 12. So less than 12 is optimal. Anything above a 12, that tells us that you might not be on the right thyroid hormone replacement. You might have things going on inside of your body like iodine deficiency or or selenium magnesium deficiency that is driving up that reverse T3 and preventing you from converting the inactive thyroid hormone to the active thyroid hormone. So those tests really give us that beautiful picture, but to kind of back up, I had to say all of that to long answer to a short question to answer your question. It's it's about that T3 attaching properly to the receptor site on your cells everywhere in your body, your brain, your heart, your your skin, your muscles, everywhere in your body and doing its job. Literally plugging in like the the right plug to the right outlet plugging in and then turning that system on.

Okay. I want to go more into the labs that people need to talk test because you you did mention reverse T3, T4, T free T3 and TSH and we can talk about the optimal ranges a bit later. Um, so that would explain why somebody like for example women or men trying to lose weight and they cannot lose weight. It could be your thyroid. And by the way, is it mostly men? Is it mostly women that experience these issues? Both. Oh no, it's women. We get hit the hardest. So yeah, right. You guys have it so easy. It it really when we're looking at hypothyroidism/Hashimoto's, the autoimmune form, it it really is affecting about 90% female, 10% male. I mean, it it just does. And the reason this is is because men have naturally higher testosterone levels than we do. Testosterone is very protective. It's like a it's like a a shield of armor against autoimmune. So women get hit with all autoimmune conditions more than men because they have that shield of protection. And then we have those fluctuating hormones. So pregnancy, natural, right? But hormonal roller coaster, perimenopause and menopause, hormonal roller coaster. And that roller coaster of hormones activates something I call thyropause. And that thyroid is when your thyroid gland craps the bed after the age of 40 due to fluctuating hormones. And women are just more set up for that because we are going to go through perimenopause and menopause and we are going to experience that hormonal roller coaster. So what I'm hearing is that like women have not the short end of the stick, but it could be on any stage of their life, adolescence, even in their 40s, even in their 50s, menopause, where you have these hormonal changes and they can have thyroid issues or even the autoimmune Hashimoto's.

Okay, so we spoke about thyroid and weight gain, not losing weight. What about thyroid and insulin or insulin resistance? Is there any connection there? Huge connection. Huge connection. So I always talk about the thyroid, insulin, and cholesterol triangle because we know that elevated lipids, elevated cholesterol is driven by high insulin, but it can also be driven by low functioning thyroid. Well, the thyroid also controls your blood sugar and insulin management and control. So if your thyroid is low and slow, you could be eating perfectly. You could be on a keto carnivore diet and still have insulin resistance and still have an elevated A1C and disregulated blood sugar because again, it, that the thyroid gland is the master. So it starts there and quite often I I will see that I'll even see individuals on a GLP1 who are full-blown type 2 diabetic. They're not just using a GLP on the side or micro-dosing it. They're on a full dose, high dose, normal dose of a GLP-1. They are type 2 diabetic and they are not losing weight and their A1C is not coming down. That GLP is not doing a thing in their body because their thyroid is in the toilet. I mean, we had a woman that had an A1C of an 11.4, which is very, very diabetic. So, in the United States, 5. Well, in functional medicine, we like your A1C to be 4.8 to 5.2, but 5.6, six or above, you're going to get a little bit of a red flag next to your number. She was an 11.4. She was on a GLP1 for over a year at a full max dose. She didn't lose a pound. Her A1C wasn't moving. We check her thyroid. She's on the wrong thyroid treatment. So, that's something else we can talk about. Not being on the right thyroid treatment. Her reverse T3 was elevated. Free T3 was low. It wasn't working. So, we start adjusting and optimizing her thyroid. Now, the GLP1 can do its job. She literally reversed her diabetes. She's down to a 5.4 A1C and lost 150 lbs. But that GLP1 was not working because her thyroid was in the toilet.

Wow. I think someone's going to be like perking up thinking, "Wow, I'm doing carnivore keto, doing all the dieting, but if your thyroid is not on, switched on, your T3 is not correct, reverse T3." That That's incredible.

Okay, I want to talk about what destroys the thyroid because people want to know, well, what the heck am I doing to kill my thyroid? First question, what foods do you think people are eating? What healthy foods are destroying the thyroid? Well, so there are some foods. I wouldn't use the term destroy because I don't want to scare people away from eating veggies. Scare them. It's fine. I was eating all these wrong foods. I used to have a spinach smoothie all the time. Right. Exactly. That was terrible. Just like you said, like the oxalates, they can wreak some havoc on your thyroid. You know, the spinach, kale smoothies. Um, and then cruciferous vegetables in their raw form. So, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, they contain something called a goitrogen. And now we've all heard of goiters as associated with the thyroid. That's why our government started sticking iodine in our salt to try to reduce the amount of goiters that we were seeing, especially in the goiter belt, which is like right around the Great Lakes, Michigan, Lake Erie, up there in the States. But those goitrogens can wreak a little bit of havoc with the thyroid gland. Now, I'm not saying, you know, if you are a veggie eater, if you're not carnivore and you you you throw in some veggies, just don't eat them in their raw form. Cook them down, break down that structure, put them in some olive oil, grill them, roast them, sauté them, but break down that goitrogenic structure so that you can better utilize them and those goitrogens aren't affecting your thyroid. Also, taking digestive enzymes to help your body break them down. Also very, very helpful.

That was a very diplomatic answer. If you speak to the likes of Dr. Elizabeth Bright, she's going to say broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, oats, yam, soy, all of them are terrible. I mean, it's pretty like not not the best. But what I'm saying is that these are healthy foods that people think that are less eat more of them. But if you have a thyroid problem, maybe eat less of them and eat like for example like more meat.

Um, next point is iodine deficiency. How can that lead to low thyroid? Ah, iodine. I love me some iodine. So, iodine deficiency is is probably the number one cause of elevated reverse T3, but also the number one cause of thyroid problems in general. And this is really where my mind is blown that there are so many people out there anti-iodine. They're they're telling people to even avoid foods that contain iodine. And I'm like, can we just go back to the science? Can we go back to the fact that your thyroid gland needs iodine to even produce T4 and T3? It needs iodine to convert that inactive thyroid hormone T4 to the active thyroid hormone T3. In addition, iodine is antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial. It does an amazing job with our immune system. I increase my dose of iodine if I'm traveling. I'll put it in a little spray bottle, squirt it up my nose. I'll take two or three doses during the day to support my immune system. It protects your breasts. It protects your thyroid against thyroid cancer. And here's the other thing that iodine does. Two other just fascinating fascinating things. Number one, it increases the p-53 protein. Now, this p-53 protein actually helps to suppress tumor growth. So, when we're looking at cancer, we know there's basically DNA cell mutation going on. And the p-53 protein will basically come in and and stamp that down and say no cells no you're not going to divide anymore you're not going to mutate and metastasize anymore. It also helps to dampen the VEGF response which is responsible for cell growth. So p-53 protein tied to iodine helps us prevent cancer.

The other thing again going back to science and common sense where I do not understand why people are anti-iodine. We are constantly exposed to fluoride, bromide and chlorine. So they are the toxic halide/halogens depending on their form. Fluoride is in our water. We brush our teeth with it. Hopefully you've stopped doing that but as kids of course we had the fluoride treatment at the dentist. You know the dentist would always brush our teeth with fluoride. We're all using Crest and Colgate. Bromide everywhere. Everywhere. I I I don't want to hear that you you don't have a hot tub. I'm sorry. That's not saving you from bromide. It's in your clothes, carpet, furniture, everywhere. And then, of course, chlorine is in our water system. You're not going to avoid that. So, we are being constantly exposed to these very, very toxic halides that destroy our thyroid, but also wreak havoc in our body as well. The only thing that will kick off those halides from our cell is iodine. It's almost like they compete at that cell receptor site. So if you don't have enough iodine in your body, then those toxins will attach to your cells. They will destroy your thyroid. They'll downregulate it. They'll make all of your symptoms worse. And it's all because you're not taking iodine.

So would you say that if somebody doesn't have a thyroid problem, they still need iodine? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Just from for all everything that we just talked about, you still want to protect your cells from the toxic effects of those halides, but but cancer protection, uh, immune support. I mean, just antiviral, it it's huge.

As Dr. Hornman mentions, many things can affect the thyroid, and one big thing is what you eat. And one step I did to reverse my low thyroid was to do the carnivore diet. And for you, it might be simply dropping the carbohydrates. But here's one thing you might notice. Some side effects. Some things like low energy, nausea, headaches, or even cramping. And a really easy way to fix this is to be generous with your salt. Try to use at least 5 grams of high-quality salt in every meal each day. But if you still don't feel your best, you might want to consider adding in electrolytes. One that has sodium, potassium, and magnesium because it's so important for your brain and also for your body. And that is why I have Element as a sponsor of today's episode. Now, I like to use a high-quality supplement like Element because it has a science-backed mix of sodium, potassium, and magnesium without anything artificial and there are no preservatives. And I personally choose the raw unflavored option. and it has a lovely salty taste that I put in my coffee and also in my water. And right now, Element is offering my viewers this free sample pack on every order. So, you're going to get eight single servings of Element to try for free. So, if you want this, just head to drinkelement.com/theprimalpodcast.

Going back to what destroys a thyroid. So, it was iodine deficiency, some foods that people think that are healthy. The next one is birth control pill. Yes. 283% increased risk of hypothyroidism if you've been on the birth control pill for more than 10 years, which I have. I'm not passing judgment. I'm just throwing stats out. So, the birth control pill is synthetic hormones. Okay? So, synthetic hormones. Now, listen, if you're in your teens, 20s, you know, you have a daughter that age, they don't want to get pregnant. I get it. There's a time and place to use birth control. But when I have a patient come into the practice and she's 45 years old and still on birth control, I'm like, "Come on. Come on. It's time to just be a responsible adult. Let's get off the synthetic birth control that is wreaking havoc with your own hormones. It's suppressing your body's ability to produce enough progesterone and you're increasing your risk of hypothyroidism, especially if you've been on it for more than 10 years. Because that birth control, those synthetic hormones, the progesterones in birth control, will increase something called thyroxine-binding globulin, thyroid-binding globulin, TBG. And that binding globulin will bind to your thyroid hormone and that thyroid hormone won't be able to get to the cell to attach to the receptor site on the cell to give you metabolism and energy and all the things that the thyroid does.

Whoa. Okay. So, I was on a birth control pill. Actually, I was on it when I was like 15 because of acne, you know, like they prescribe like Jasmine or something or Jasmine or what and then you just stay on it because it controls your periods. This is like a bit of female talk, but people there's so many women that are on birth control for just because they just stay on it and the doctor wants you to stay on it. So there those are the things that are going to destroy your thyroid.

Before we get to the signs that people can see if they have thyroid problems, I want to know about you because you're like a girlfriend to my heart. You had low thyroid and also Hashimoto's. How did you find it out and what was your story and are you completely healed now? Great question. Thank you. So yes, I am completely healed. I I live in optimization land, which I invite all of you to join me in. It's a It's a beautiful place to be where you don't gain weight looking sideways at a brownie. You have abundant energy through the day. Your brain functions. You're you're the best employee, wife, mother, friend ever because you're ready to go. It's it's an amazing amazing place to live. So, how do you get to optimization land? Well, you have to get your thyroid optimized the right way. But it really does start with the actual diagnosis. So if we rewind 25 plus years at this point, I was competing in figure competitions. So for those of you who don't know, it's like bodybuilding but more feminine. Your diet is very strict. I mean, chicken, broccoli, asparagus. I'm going to the gym twice a day, doing cardio twice a day, and checking in with my coach because we all need somebody to guide us. So, I was doing my check-ins, and every time I would get on the scale for this one particular show. Now, I had done plenty of these. I had done plenty of shows. I'd done photoshoots that I would diet down for. Maybe not the most healthy lifestyle ever, but it was still a very clean eating lifestyle. And this one show I was getting ready for, the scale kept going up and I would report in to my coach and he's he's thinking that I'm eating donuts and pizza and that I'm not following the plan. I'm like, "No, really. I've tightened it down even more. Like I'm going to the gym three times a day because, you know, you start to self-blame. You start to question yourself like, well, maybe it's me. Maybe it's my fault." That scale went up 25 pounds before I I just stopped getting on it. I believe in looking at pictures that I put on around 40 lbs in like 2 to 3 months on a 5'2" frame. That was not comfortable. It was embarrassing. I was ashamed. I was hiding in sweatshirts. And I became very depressed because I did what we all do. I went to my doctor and the first doctor said, "Oh, no. You're normal. Everything is fine." Again, going back to that standard lab value range that I was talking about that we don't look at. He was looking at that. He was looking for the H or the L next to any of my markers. Probably did not test my thyroid properly. I didn't know at the time what to ask for and dismissed me. Yeah, you're normal. Everything is fine. Second doctor, eat less and exercise more. I was like, are you kidding me? I literally brought in what I was eating to these doctor appointments so they could see that I was not BSing them and they still told me eat less and exercise more. I went to six different doctors before finally one diagnosed me with hypothyroidism. So at least I had a diagnosis at that point. I would have taken anything. I would have taken a big bad scary diagnosis because it would have been an answer. It would have at least been something that I could have tied back to my symptoms and explained why my body was rebelling against me. So I got that diagnosis and she put me on Synthroid, levothyroxine T4. I didn't know any better at that time either. I was just excited that I had a pill and I had a name for what was going on with me and I thought well this is it. The magic pill it's going to fix me. And I gave it five months and I did not lose a single ounce of weight. I did not grow any hair back. I still felt like absolute garbage. So, I start doctor googling and I see this thing called T3 and I go back to her and I said, "Um, you know, T3, it's the active thyroid hormone. You've given me T4, which is the inactive thyroid hormone. Um, you know, there's some studies out there that show that they do really well together. Can we do that?" She says, "No, that's not standard of care." I said, 'Okay, well, thank you. I'm going to find somebody who will.' And that's what brought me into the world of functional medicine where I got an hour visit instead of a 5 to 7 minute visit. I was asked how do I feel? My blood work was explained. We tested everything that we needed to be needed to be tested and I was put on the right treatment. So, it really is about number one getting the diagnosis, knowing what's going on with you, then having someone to paint that picture of how your systems work together to explain your symptoms, and then getting a plan that's going to work for you.

I get asked all the time, Dr. Amy, what's your favorite thyroid hormone? You know, because there's a lot of integrative and functional practitioners out there that will only prescribe natural desiccated thyroid because it has the word natural in the title and they think that is the absolute best gold standard and they put all their patients on NDT. My answer is the one that works for you in the combination that works for you and in the dose that works for you. I am not married to one medication. I believe that because we have it at our fingertips to combine and change ratios and personalize someone's treatment, we need to do that.

So if somebody's on levothyroxine, synthetic T4, but they don't feel good, should they then consider natural desiccated thyroid or is there something something else like a combination of T3, T4? Yeah, it just depends on them. So I'll give you an example. Number well, let's let's do a stat first. Only 2% of everyone with hypothyroidism will do well on T4 only. So if you are sitting there listening to this, you're on levothyroxine, tirosint, synthroid, levoxyl, euthyrox, that's all T4. You're probably not in the camp of the 2% doing well on T4. If you have symptoms, you are not in the camp of 2% doing well on T4. You're in the 98% camp where you need T4 and T3. Now, what does that look like? It might mean moving over to natural desiccated thyroid, but NDT is 80% T4. So, this is where we have to get really nuanced with your labs. We have to look at what is your reverse T3. So, you're on T4 only. Let's say you have an elevated reverse T3 of a 30, well above that cutoff of a 12. So, we go, you know, if we move you to NDT, you're still going to be pumping in 80% T4 into your body. You're obviously not converting. We're going to be working on the factors of conversion, making sure you have the iodine, the vitamin D, the selenium, the magnesium, looking at your insulin resistance, all the things. But I think in this case, it might be better to do a really low dose of a natural desiccated thyroid and then put in T3 on top of it. So now we're changing the ratio. Instead of someone being stuck at 80/20, 80/20, now that we've added T3, they're at like maybe 70/30, 50/50, or even 40% T4, 60% T3. That's going to bring the reverse T3 down, bring the free T3 up, and that's what's going to work beautifully with their own unique biochemistry. Thyroid optimization is a beautiful nuanced art. There is no one-size-fits-all. There is no standard dose. It's funny. I'm I'm actually in the the end stages of finishing up my book that's going to come out in May 2026. My editor just messaged me the other day. She goes, "I want to put in here if there is kind of an average dose of T3." And I just laughed. I'm like, "But there isn't. I can I can show you a patient that is optimized on 10 to 15 micrograms of T3 and they're living their best life and this person over here needs 200 micrograms a day. There's no standard dose. It's all nuanced and personalized.

I think that goes to the point of find a good doctor that understands this stuff. And Dr. Hornman, do you currently see patients? We do. We do. But we can prescribe to all 50 states, most of Canada, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. So, I spent years building a team so we could do that. You know, back when I was misdiagnosed, I I I knew in my heart I needed to help people everywhere, mainly women everywhere. And and we needed the furthest reach possible because I don't care if you're in New York City or LA. We've had patients from both. I mean, you think that if you're in a big major city or you're going to Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic that you're going to get the best of the best care and that is not the case. So, yes, I'm very proud to say that we can prescribe and provide care across the United States and into some other countries as well.

Awesome. I'm going to leave your link in the show notes. Um, but people need to understand what the symptoms are so that they'll know if they have low thyroid. So, let's go through some symptoms. 15 visible symptoms that you can see on your body. First one, the goiter. What is that? So, it's a growth actually on your thyroid gland. So, you could have nodules, you could have goiters. Whenever you can palpate and feel an actual bump in your throat, right around your thyroid gland, that that's a growth. Now, we'll we'll ultrasound that. We'll check the size, possibly biopsy it just to rule out cancer. Thyroid cancer is very, very rare. Of all the hypothyroid cases, really, we're only seeing in like two to five percent. So don't worry about it. It's usually nothing. Usually you just need some iodine because iodine will reduce the size of nodules and goiters. But yes, it's a it's a palpable little nodule that's most likely benign. Perfect. Okay. Um number two is your skin. So dry skin, cracked skin, acne. Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. Uh, the dry skin is huge and you know people will be lathering themselves with body lotion and oil and it just doesn't work because the skin cell turnover rate whenever you think hypo think hypo low and slow and then that can pretty much cover all systems. So, if we're thinking about skin, then that skin cell turnover rate slows down and we actually will get kind of dry, scaly patches or like you said, acne because we're not sloughing off the dead skin as often as a as a full functioning thyroid would and that can create that sebum and debris buildup where we get the acne.

Okay. Symptom number three and four is hair and nails. So, hair loss, thinning hair, and then weak, brittle nails. I don't have that problem. Like, as you can see, lots of hair. Oh, beautiful hair. Yeah. No, that's a that's a huge problem with people. I would say I would say hair loss is in the top three complaints of women. I will have women who gather the hair that falls out of their head in the shower and put in a bag so they can show me how much hair they're losing. And and I mean, it's it's big and it's devastating. Now, it's not always tied to the thyroid, but the thyroid does control nutrients getting to the hair. So your circulation slows down and we're not getting all the nutrients to the follicle itself. And then the rate of hair growth. So your hair goes in three phases. The growing phase, the falling out phase, and the dormant phase. And all of those phases start to slow down when we are hypo, low and slow.

Okay. Next one is the number one sign that Dr. Bright said to me that you have low thyroid. Body temperature always cold. Yes. So you could actually be one or two. You could always be cold and have cold intolerance so everyone else around you is comfortable and you're putting on a a winter coat or the flip side and that does not the flip side does not mean that you are hyperthyroid. You can have dysregulation in your body temperature to where you're always warm and this isn't a hot flash, ladies. This is that heat intolerance. So, it's like when you, let's say you go to visit your grandma and she's got that thermostat pumped up to 78 degrees, you're like, I just can't like your your hands and feet are turning red. You're literally feeling very, very uncomfortable. It's like your body actually overheats. So, it can be heat or cold intolerance.

Okay. Next one is metabolism. So, inability to lose weight. That's the big one. That that really is the number one complaint and the number one symptom that I see with my ladies. So, it's just like what I was doing. You could be doing everything right. You could do be doing all the things, even the GLPs, and nothing is working because of your thyroid.

Okay. High cholesterol and high triglycerides. Yes. Yes. So, it goes back to that thyroid insulin cholesterol triangle. The thyroid direct control over cholesterol regulation, but also if it's making you insulin resistant and you don't have that glucose and insulin control, that's going to drive cholesterol because really that cholesterol is driven by processed foods, high sugar, being insulin resistant, not having control of your blood sugar. That's what drives cholesterol. It's not red meat and egg yolks. It's It's the processed foods and sugar that drives cholesterol. I'm so glad that you said that. So, are you a red meat and egg yolk fan? Oh, yeah. I would say I'm carnivore-ish. Yes. Oh my god, I love you so much. We are like connected and you'll be connected to my audience because I'll love you as well.

Okay. Next one. Toenail fungus. Toenail fungus. It kind of goes back to that hair, skin, nail correlation where we just don't turn over cells as much. I would say the toenail fungus would be I I have this uh category called the wacky wild symptoms of hypothyroidism. Not common, but can absolutely be tied back to. Yeah, I thought it was a bit weird.

Okay. Constipation, diarrhea. Yep. And that's that gut motility. Every single cell in your body, including your whole entire GI tract, has receptor sites on it for T3. If we don't have enough T3, that peristalsis or moving things through the digestive tract, or even just starting with digestion itself in the stomach, low betaine, hydrochloric acid, low digestive enzymes, food is not getting broken down and assimilated, and it's not getting passed through the gut adequately. So, we get a backup, we get bloating, we get constipation, heartburn, reflux, and just low assimilation of our food.

Okay. I think people are going to be thinking, well, I'm kind of also I've got this constipation diarrhea. No, it could be a thyroid.

Um, focus. So, the next one is focus, brain fog, cognition, not being able to pay attention, ADHD. Yes, all of the above. Anything you can think of with the brain, anxiety, depression, focus, memory. I've had patients come in saying that they think that they have early stage Alzheimer's and they're scared. Like they're literally forgetting things. They can't they can't even reach for words when they're speaking at work or or giving a presentation. It's like, no, it's not early Alzheimer's. It's your thyroid.

Okay. Next one is low energy. Very much so. Low ATP production at the mitochondrial levels. The thyroid is responsible for that. So very low energy and thyroid fatigue, as you know, it's it's indescribable. It's a crushing fatigue. It's not just like, oh, well, you know, I really could use an extra cup of coffee. It is my body wants to shut down. It's 2:00 p.m. and I don't think I'm going to make it through the rest of the day. I mean, it is a crushing fatigue. Yeah, I sometimes experienced that. I mean, previously when I didn't know I had like low thyroid that I was just always feeling tired, but now I just feel so much better. And I said that to my husband that I hope that people if they have low thyroid, they get it fixed because it's such a difference when you have optimal energy.

Um, next one is eyes and hearing. Your vision can be affected and hearing as well. Yes, absolutely. So thyroid eye disease is huge. It's usually more correlated with Graves' disease or hyperthyroidism, but hypothyroidism can have dry eye and just, you know, exacerbated vision issues. Tinnitus is also one of those kind of wacky wild symptoms. It could be its own unique diagnosis caused by something else or it could be related to the thyroid. So when patients come in with some of those wacky wild symptoms, I say, you know what, we're going to treat your thyroid anyways because you have all of these symptoms over here that are definitely correlated and then we're just going to watch and wait. You know, we'll see if your tinnitus gets better with proper thyroid treatment or if you have to maybe research and go a different route to treat that.

Okay. Next one. Changes in heart rate. Low and slow. So, I'll have I'll have patients when we when we start treating them and start optimizing them, they just like, "Oh my gosh, my heart rate's increased. It's like it's it's going too fast." They go, "What is it?" They go, "It's like 70." And I'm like, "Right, because you were like in the 50s before." And it's not because you were some Olympic athlete. It's because you were hypo, low, and slow. And your heart rate was literally too slow. So heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure can all be too low if you are hypothyroid. And so when we start treatment, it actually brings your heart rate into a normal realm. But for you, it's going to feel a little bit speedy at first until your body balances out. So somebody can just test their pulse like right now. Stop the video, test your pulse. What is it? And what should a normal pulse be? And what is something that you could think it's low thyroid? Well, so we really like to have people do their vital signs as soon as they wake up in the morning. So, literally as soon as you open your eyeballs, have a blood pressure cuff, um, a thermometer, preferably like an old-school mercury one, not a digital one, and and, you know, take your your heart rate, use your Apple Watch or whatever you're using, and before you sit up and your feet hit the floor, take it in that prone lying down position and and monitor that. And so if you are very, very low in all of those three, that can be indicative of a thyroid problem. Then when we start treatment, what we can do is then measure those markers in the morning. You take your thyroid medication, preferably containing T3 of some sort, not T4 only. And then we test you maybe an hour later and we should see those markers go up. So, it's it's not a a standalone diagnostic tool, but it's a great at-home tool for people to kind of get an idea of whether or not they are hypothyroid.

I think so. And their doctor probably wouldn't tell them. Um, so dropping the outer third of the eyebrows, the Queen Anne's sign. What is that? Yeah, it's it's kind of weird that it just attacks the outer corner of your eyebrows. Now, you can get eyebrow thinning. I definitely need to like get some like henna done or something with my brows because it's it's not from being a child of the 90s and over-waxing. It's literally from hypothyroidism, the eyebrow thinning. But yeah, the outer corner of the eyebrows is like a classic sign of hypothyroidism. I had really thin eyebrows as well, but I was plucking my eyebrows, so maybe it's not the reason. I don't know.

Okay, next last one. Carotenemia. Orangey yellow hands. I don't really see that that much with hypothyroidism. Okay. No, I would say um, the other one I would toss in there, we did brain, all of that. I would say uh, frozen shoulder and joint pain. That's a big one that people don't usually tie to thyroid, but that can absolutely be related to thyroid.

Now, if you have one of these symptoms that Dr. Honolin mentioned, you need to check your thyroid and at the same time try to remove the obvious toxins, things like gluten, sugar, and one big thing is the chemicals that you put on your skin because these chemicals like parabens and phthalates can cause disease. They can disrupt hormones and even lead to insulin resistance because whatever goes on your skin can enter your bloodstream, reach your brain and penetrate your cells potentially causing long-term health issues. And that really made me stop and think because I have healed so much through the Primal lifestyle, but I realized I was still exposing myself to harmful chemicals through my everyday skincare. And that's why we launched the Primal Tallow Balms and Soaps, which is our chemical-free skincare. And it's packed full of vitamins A, D, E, and K2. One of the best things is there's no nasties, there's no preservatives, there is no artificial scents, there's just one ingredient, grass-fed, grass-finished tallow. And I've been using the unscented soap and tallow balm and honestly, it has been a game changer for my skin. Both products have improved my skin texture, my hydration, and a little goes a long way. Like this balm I've been using for the last 2 months already and it has lasted me a long time. I use it every single day. And great news, our USA store is now

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Okay, so that was 156 symptoms, so people will know, okay, I kind of have a low thyroid. I need to get it checked. Let's talk about four steps to fix it. Hopefully, these are the four steps that you would do as well.

Step number one, correct iodine deficiency. This is the fun part. So, Dr. Hornman, what brand should I use? How much? How fast should I like titrate them up? All right, let's break this down.

Okay, so I have spent the last three years diving into iodine. Now, I knew it was good. I really wanted to dive into what is the best kind. What's the best kind for hypothyroid patients because I wanted to bring it in as part of my fixer formula supplement line. I knew it was important. I mean, it's vital. It's vital. I talk about it all the time. So I looked at potassium iodide, iodide, Lugol's solution, which is kind of the OG iodide, and then I moved over here and I looked at Nason iodine, which is a monatomic form of iodine. Both are adequate. I will say that if you're on Lugol's and you're doing great, keep going with it. But I really, really like the Nason iodine. It's more bioavailable and it's more gentle.

So what do I mean by that? Part of the reason why there are practitioners out there nasing and poo-pooing the use of iodine with hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's is because some people, and you know, it only takes one to ruin it for the rest. Some people took a little bit too much and went into a thyroid storm or hyperthyroidism. It caused their thyroid gland to dump thyroid hormone, and they became really jittery. You know, elevated heart rate, tachycardia, A-fib, I mean, stuff that, yeah, it could land you in the hospital, and you might need a, you know, some metropol or beta blocker to bring you back down. That's not a good scenario. So rare. It's so rare. And you don't start someone out at a high dose of iodine. You do have them titrate up, which we'll talk about.

So, in looking at the two types of iodine, I really, really like Nason iodine. More bioavailable, more gentle to the body. Very, so much easier to titrate up without having any of those jittery symptoms. But whatever iodine you're using, get it in liquid form. Do not get it in capsule form. You can't titrate up a capsule. You can titrate up a liquid. So, we just start with one drop in a small shot glass of water, and you just slam that down. Now, you can put some sea salt in there. It is recommended to take iodine with salt or even do a salt-loading protocol before you start iodine. That will also help your body better absorb and utilize the iodine. So sometimes even sprinkling a little bit of sea salt in there just makes the taste so much better. The taste does not bother me, but for some people, they have an issue with it. I mean, remember when you put iodine on a wound? Your mom put it on like a little cut that you got when you were little? Yeah. It's like it tastes like that. Like it tastes like it smells. It tastes like a band-aid. So, you basically want to kind of mask that.

Now, you can also put a little bit of apple cider vinegar in there. That totally cuts the taste of the iodine, but what we're doing is we're going up by one drop per day, and we're listening to our bodies. We are tuning into how we feel. I want you to feel better. A lot of my patients are like, "Oh, yeah. All of a sudden, I'm We haven't even gotten to the thyroid optimization medication part. I'm already just on the iodine, and I'm living my best life. This is awesome." Perfect. That's where I want you to be. But if you're like, "Yeah, I took that extra drop, and I I made it to like 20 drops of iodine today, and now I feel like I drank 10 Red Bulls, and I'm kind of jittery and anxious, and what do I do?" Okay, that was too high of a dose. Then what we're going to do is you're going to take some vitamin C. You're going to take some extra salt today. You're going to skip the iodine tomorrow. When you go back to it, you're going to go back to the dose that you were on, you know, like yesterday when you felt normal. We're going to go back to that dose. And that's kind of how you find your sweet spot.

I like using anywhere between six and 50 milligrams a day. It all is individual, personal dependent, right? It's just it's unique to each person. So with, let's say cancer cases, even looking at the work of Dr. David Brownstein, he was using 50 to 100 milligrams per day of iodine. Milligrams, people, not micrograms, milligrams. So, I normally don't have to go up that high with people. I can personally take 50, no problem, every single day. I'm not that sensitive to it. It works really well in my body. But super sensitive people, we might just hang them out down around like six to 12 milligrams or 25 milligrams. That's totally fine. At least you're getting it in. You're getting it in.

Do you think then that in some cases that iodine could fix thyroid issues? If we're catching it in the beginning? So, I get the question a lot like, can I reverse my hypothyroidism or my Hashimoto's naturally? I said maybe. It depends how far along the destruction is. When you have Hashimoto's, your thyroid gland is being destroyed. If you've been on medication, even if it's crappy T4-only medication for years, it creates a negative feedback loop in your brain to your hypothalamus and pituitary to basically shut down your own thyroid hormone production. So, how long has that negative feedback loop been going on? So, sometimes we can get off medication and just use iodine, sometimes we can't. It depends where the person is in the process, but we regardless, we still implement it. We still implement the use of iodine because in my opinion, we all need to be on it. And then we can kind of see how that person is responding. Maybe we'll use some black cumin seed oil to bring down Hashimoto antibodies. Obviously, going gluten-free, controlling for stress, getting the processed foods out, moving them to a carnivore diet is fantastic for autoimmune. So, we can do all of that and just kind of see how they respond. It's about quality of life. Okay? So there's no gold star given anywhere for the person that doesn't take thyroid medication but that's walking around you 20 pounds overweight and sick but, "Oh, I don't take medication." Like there's no gold star for that. You want to live your best life and whatever that looks like. Let's do that.

Now, I'm talking, I'm not talking about the band-aid medications that your doctor wants to give you. No, I'm not advocating for you to go on antidepressants and statins. I'm advocating for you to get hormones replaced in your body that are no longer being properly made. So, if we can't get your thyroid gland to make enough T4 and T3 and convert that T4 to T3 to run your entire body with just iodine, then we're going to add in some thyroid hormone, too. Got it.

Before we get to the the hormone, the medication, um, when you said 50 milligrams to 100 milligrams iodine, or those doses, how many drops is that? So, if you think of Lugol's, that there's two uh percentages, 2% and 5%. So, how many drops? It depends on that particular manufacturer's um dose. So, I haven't looked at Lugol's in a in a long time just because I shifted over to Nason iodine. And so my iodine fixer, it's anywhere between 9 and 36 drops because of how many micrograms is in each drop. So, it just you just kind of have to do math with iodine. You have to get how many micrograms and plug it into ChatGBT, and then it'll tell you whatever iodine you have, how many drops you need to get to that. Okay? But you do start with one drop and then titrate. Titrate means increase. Increase slowly. You don't just do 9 to 36 drops in one hit. And again, that's uh Dr. Hornman's um thyroid fixer supplement. That's not Lugol's or the Nason which you mentioned, but I'll leave everything in the show notes. People can choose what they want to buy. Um, but iodine is very important.

Next one is medication before we get to the diet. So this is where people are going to think, okay, I'm on T4 or synthetic thyroid uh medication. What should I do? Do I take NDT? What's your thoughts? Right. So there's a multitude of different thyroid hormone replacements out there. So let's just shift that right away. We're not going to call it medication. We're going to call it thyroid hormone replacement because we're replacing hormones that are no longer being properly made by your body. Now, in the one category, we have T4. We have Synthroid, Levo, Thyro-Tabs, Levoxyl, Unithroid, or just even a compounded T4. Then in the middle category, we have natural desiccated thyroid. This is derived from a pig's thyroid gland. Porcine derived thyroid glandular. That's your Armour, your NP Thyroid. Back in the day, we had Nature-Throid. There's WP Thyroid. And then there are even some supplements that are thyroid glandulars derived from cows, so bovine thyroid glandulars. Now, in the States, those are being threatened by the FDA. We here at Fixer Formulas, we make a thyroid glandular. We've been told to sell what we have and cease and desist making any more. So, we don't really know what's going to go on with NDT medication here in the States. To be continued on that, we'll see. And then over here, we have that third category of T3. That's your liothyronine or the brand Cytomel.

Now, the T4 and the T3 categories, they're often referred to as synthetic. I don't like that term because they're biosynthetic. They are biologically identical to the T4 and the T3 that your thyroid gland makes and can change the lives of many. So again, going back to my answer of what's my favorite, it's the one that works for you and the combination that works for you and the dose that works for you. We can overlay and and play around with all of those different thyroid hormones to get the right match for you. So it might be a little bit of T4 and T3 and a lot more T3. It could be T3 only. That's what I am. I don't convert whatsoever. So I am T3 only. It could be NDT with a little bit of T3. I mean, we can mix and match and just personalize the heck out of your treatment. It makes sense. So that would be step two, which is the hormone replacement therapy. So it's not medication. But again, I think it's best to consult with a doctor for that one.

The next one people can do by themselves. Step three, the diet. I've got a bit of a game here. You tell me if these foods are good for your thyroid or not good for your thyroid. Foods and drinks. So, yes or no? Ready? First one. Beef. Yes. Good. Ribeye, chuck, short ribs, good. All good. All of it. All of it. Eggs. Good. Yes. Salmon. Yes. Healthy fats like butter. Is it good for the thyroid? Absolutely. Sometimes I just eat butter as a stick, you know, like Kerrygold. Just take a bite of it all day. You're kidding. You eat a whole stick of butter? Not the whole stick, but like when I'm cooking with it, right? I'll just slice off a piece of that Kerrygold butter and I'll eat it like a snack as I'm cooking with it. I do the same thing. I love butter. Um, so do you think that a higher fat protocol, especially for somebody that has lower thyroid, is really good? I do. I do because fat, the good healthy fats are so nourishing to your cells. I mean, that outer layer, that lipid, i.e., fat layer of the, that's the membrane of your cell. If we don't have enough fat, I mean, we we did ourselves a disservice back in the '80s with fat-free everything. I mean, it was it was crushing people's health. So, yes, absolutely. High fat is very, it's it's like anti-inflammatory. Think of it as soothing the body. So 100% it helps. That's why I'm a huge fan of, you know, carnivore/keto, kind of more for leaning more carnivore um with the protein and then the really good fats for people with thyroid problems. Oh, that's good. I'm carnivore as well. So awesome.

Okay, next one is coffee. It's fantastic. High in antioxidants. You just don't want to take it with your thyroid medication. Go an hour away from taking your thyroid hormone. But if you have low thyroid, should you avoid coffee, like the stimulants, the caffeine? It's not good for it. Do you think it's okay? It's okay. Of course. Just get a high-quality one, organic, mold-free. That's the last thing you want to do is expose your body to more mold when you have a thyroid problem. Um, I really like the mushroom-based coffees as well. So, you might have a little bit of caffeine, like 50 milligrams of caffeine as opposed to 200 in a regular cup of coffee. So, just a high-quality coffee or mushroom coffee, totally fine. Okay. And then the last one, uh, tea. Yes. Also good. Um, same rules apply to coffee. I'm not a big tea drinker, so I didn't go down that rabbit hole of how much garbage there or heavy metals are in tea, but I do know that they can occur. So, you want a high-quality tea, and you want it again an hour away from your thyroid medication. Okay.

I've heard that you should take one Brazil nut a day to help with your thyroid. Is that true? Selenium. Yes. So, it's Brazil nuts are very, very high in selenium. We technically need selenium. So, it's a little bit better if you get a supplement that contains selenium. But here's the key. You only need 100 micrograms a day. Thyroid patients are notorious for hearing that selenium is good for them and taking like a bag of Brazil nuts or like 400 micrograms of selenium a day. And there is a point where it can be too much, and it can push up your reverse T3. So yes, I would say one or two Brazil nuts a day or just get a supplement that contains 100 micrograms of selenium. What if you do carnivore or keto? Do you have to do that? Get selenium again? You know, so I would I'm going to use myself as an example. I get supplement fatigue a lot. You know, there's so much that we could take and that I can take and that's, you know, intriguing. Uh, but I prefer to get what I can from food. So, okay, maybe a couple days a week I'll pop the selenium supplement, and then I'll just rely on my meat sources and like pop in some Brazil nuts. So, I mix it up. I mix it up. Okay.

And what do you say for people that say ketogenic diets or low carb diets suppress T3? Do not do it if you have low thyroid. Okay. Here's the thing. We have to look at the pros and cons of what we're doing, right? So if let's say you are keto or carnivore, low carb, and you are dedicated, and that is your lifestyle, and you are 100%, and you never break out of that keto ketogenic state, and it's been months, months, years, years, years, and you're starting to feel hypothyroid. Would I tell you to stop doing that if it's improved all of the other markers in your body? Absolutely not. Because keeping you at a healthy weight, keeping your inflammation down, keeping your insulin in check is much more important to me than your T3 level. And I know, oh my god, the thyroid fixer just said that. You always talk about T3, and you just said that's more important than your T3 level. Yes, because we can replace your T3. We can give you a little bit of T3. We could even give you a little bit of T2, and that's going to help with your metabolism. But I don't need you to come and start eating garbage and come out of that beautiful ketogenic state just to maybe kind of sort of bump up your free T3 level. There is some evidence that there is a lowering of the thyroid function and lowering of T3 with long-term low carb diets. But again, we have to really step back and look at the pros and cons here and say, what can we do to overcome that little bit of a downregulation in the T3 production from being low carb or carnivore, and let's just let's just replace that. Let's not bring people out of their beautiful diet and out of that beautiful state. Let's just replace that hormone a little bit. Easy.

Okay, step four, which is get these thyroid labs. You mentioned it earlier. Let's spell it out for people. First one. So, you mentioned TSH. What is the optimal range that you mentioned? Yep. TSH, we want that below a two. And what if it's like zero? That's okay. Oh, I'm glad you asked that. Yes. So, there is everyone listen to me. Do not allow your doctor to tell you that you are hyper with an ER, hyperthyroid, because your TSH is low. That is the sign that a doctor doesn't even know their basic physiology. Okay, so we talked about that feedback loop, right? So even if you are taking crappy T4-only that doesn't work, it still is going to tell your brain that there's enough thyroid hormone in the body, maybe not the right kind, but there's enough. So your TSH can even go down on T4-only. But then when we add in that beautiful active thyroid hormone T3, oh my goodness, the brain is so happy. It just basically says like, listen, um, we don't have to yell at the thyroid anymore. That TSH doesn't have to go up because when TSH goes up, it's your brain yelling at your thyroid. We go, "Oh, we don't have to yell at the thyroid anymore. All things are good here." So TSH is going to go down. So a low TSH does not mean you're overmedicated. It does not mean you're hyperthyroid. And in fact, I have seen people with low TSHs that still are very, very hypothyroid. Their free T3 is in the toilet. Even with a TSH of a 0.1, their their free T3 is still low, or their reverse T3 is still high, and we'll still see antibodies. So TSH is one of those like check it if it's screaming at us. If it's above a two, definitely pay attention, but don't don't do any kind of diagnostic criteria based on TSH.

Okay, next one. Free T3. People should get tested. What should that be? What is the range? Upper quadrant of the range or slightly over. So this makes it very universal. No matter where you are in the world, you want to take that lab value range, that standard lab value range that's off to the side. Remember, take it from groups of sick people. I want you to cut it in four. And you want to be in the upper fourth of the range. And I don't even care if you're just a little bit over. If you're telling me I feel great, this is amazing. Okay, then we leave it alone. That's where I want you to be. Okay.

Next one is free T4, which I think you don't really care about. Don't care about, right? So, actually, I get concerned if I'm looking at a lab and the free T4 is higher. So, in the States, if I'm seeing a free T4 of like a 1.3, a 1.4, 1.5, I start making a bet in my head. I go, ooh, this person's going to have an elevated reverse T3 because they have too much T4 on board. What's the only thing that converts to reverse T3? T4. So, we don't want a high amount of T4. Okay.

Next one is reverse T3. You said that's not optional. You have to have it. What is the value? Less than 12. So, in the States, it goes from a 9 to a 25. We want that less than 12. So, you can kind of do some some, you know, reverse math. If you I've seen I've seen the labs in Mexico, and all you have to do is move a decimal point. So, it's like a 0.9 to a 0.25. Okay. Well, then you want to be at 0.12. Okay. What if you don't get the reverse T3? Like, I haven't got mine. So, I've got my free T3, free T4, TSH, antibodies. So, what if you don't have it? For people, do they have to go get it? Are you optimized? Do you feel good? Yes. Excellent. Okay. Then I would say you're good. But if you're not optimized and you have symptoms, then I would say immediately go out and get that because that is going to tell us whether or not you're converting. And then we can start implementing things like adding in iodine, adding in magnesium, vitamin D, selenium, lowering your insulin, and possibly changing your thyroid hormone treatment. Got it. I'm going to test it anyway next time. Okay.

The antibodies because if somebody has autoimmune like Graves or Hashimoto's, what are the two antibodies that people need to test? Yes. So, thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin. There are two. I've seen many doctors only test one. And I'm like, why didn't you just add on the other one? There's two that we need to test. And both of those, we want at zero. Zero. So if you have been told that you don't have Hashimoto's, but you're looking at your TPO and your TGA markers and they are showing a number. So let's take the TPO with LabCorp here in the States. LabCorp less than 34 is the cutoff. So let's say you have 20. Your doctor goes, "Oh, well, no, there's nothing to see here. You don't have Hashimoto's." I go, "Wait, excuse me." Um, so this person has 20 soldiers that are going out and attacking their thyroid gland on a daily basis. You're going to wait until they collect 15 more soldiers to officially give them the diagnosis of Hashimoto's. Meanwhile, while we're waiting for them to gain 15 more antibodies, 15 more soldiers, they're going to go 20 pounds heavier. They're going to not be able to get off the couch. They're going to lose their job because they can't think properly. Like, just address it now. Acknowledge the fact that their thyroid gland is under attack with 20 soldiers, not 34, and let's do something about it.

Okay, last question. So, we had the four steps and the tests. Fasting. People have so many problems with fasting for thyroid patients. Do you think fasting is good? Fasting is fine, but ladies, you tend to not eat enough when you fast, and you don't get in your protein. So, we have to protect our organ of longevity, which is our muscle and our muscle tissue. And in order to do that, and in order to have beautiful hair and gorgeous skin and healthy nails, we need amino acids and we need that protein. And what I find with women when they jump on the fasting bandwagon is that they do it too much. They're doing an OMAD, one meal a day. They're fasting for like 16 hours, and they're not getting in enough protein during their eating window. So if if if you're good about fasting and you're tracking your macros and you know that you are getting in one gram per pound of lean body mass of protein, then you can fast. But if you're struggling to do that, then I would rather you get in the protein and get in your food and not go into the starvation mode through fasting than than than fast. Perfect answer.

Was there anything that we missed pertaining to thyroid, low thyroid, carnivore, fat, butter? Oh goodness. I mean, we covered so much. The the last thing I would say would be I had mentioned it earlier about T2. T2 is the forgotten thyroid hormone, and that is directly responsible for increasing basal metabolic rate. It will brown white adipose tissue. So the white squishy fat that we don't want, this, I don't want this, or the visceral fat around our organs. We want to brown that white adipose tissue. Decreases inflammation, decreases oxidative stress, and most recently, the studies have come out that it will turn off a gene that promotes fat burning or fat accumulation. So basically, we're we're telling the body that when we do go off of our normal carnivore lifestyle and we tend to eat a little bit more because it's the holidays, we're not going to put fat on our body. So that's huge. Now, T2 is available over the counter. You don't have to beg your doctor for it like you do with T3. So that is a a a very cool biohack, thyrohack that we can do to at least help us with energy production, lowered inflammation, and fat loss. Amazing.

Dr. Orman, thank you so much for your time. I can see you're so passionate. All the links are going to be in the description. I would highly suggest if somebody thinks they have thyroid issues, go see you or go see a doctor who knows the stuff that you know, plus get some iodine. All the links in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. I hope you love this episode. Check out this one next by Dr. Elizabeth Bride. It is everything about how to fix a thyroid, how to do high fat, and how to take iodine. See you next week.