The Ultimate Thyroid Episode: Everything Your Doctor Hasn’t Told You with Dr. Amie Hornaman - SUMMER REBOOT - Episode 285

This is a 2-part podcast all about the thyroid.  Part 1, I interview Dr. Amie.  Part 2 begins around 1 hr 10 mins, where Dr. Amie interviews me.

Important links!
 
 Find & get in touch with Dr. Amie Hornaman here:
 https://betterlifedoctor.com/

Follow The Thyroid Fixer Podcast here (Apple link but you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-thyroid-fixer/id1529800263

I am a writer as well as a holistic nutritionist and podcast host.  Join my Substack to read unique perspectives on our wellness - body, mind, spirit and soul:
https://sandykruse.substack.com/publish/home?utm_source=substack

Grab my Essential Thyroid Guide (this is a simplified guide and not a clinical book):
US:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW4X3WJD
Canada:  https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CW4X3WJD

Thyroid health is crucially important yet often misunderstood and poorly treated in conventional medicine, leaving millions suffering with symptoms while being told they're "normal."
 
 • The thyroid is the "master gland" controlling metabolism, energy, brain function, heart rate, digestion, and emotional well-being
 • Conventional medicine considers TSH up to 4.5 "normal" while functional medicine seeks levels below 2.0 for optimal function
 • Only about 2% of thyroid patients do well on T4-only medications like Synthroid; 98% need combination therapy with T3
 • Thyroidectomy patients especially need T3 supplementation since the thyroid gland is a primary site for T4 to T3 conversion
 • Key nutrients for thyroid health include selenium, magnesium, and iodine (which helps protect against environmental toxins)
 • Thyroid health closely connects with hormonal balance, particularly estrogen during perimenopause and menopause
 • T2, an often-overlooked thyroid hormone, can benefit metabolism and fat burning without suppressing natural thyroid function
 • Personalized treatment must address medication, nutrition, supplements, lifestyle factors, and mindset
 • "Progress is not linear" - even optimized patients need adjustments as their bodies change
 • Daily practices like time in nature, journaling, and energetic clearing can support thyroid healing alongside medical

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction with Dr. Amie Hornaman
• 9:42 Dr. Amie's Personal Thyroid Journey
• 32:08 Why The Thyroid Is Your Master Gland
• 45:32 T4 vs. T3: The Medication Dilemma
• 1:05:24 Essential Nutrients For Thyroid Health
• 1:10:00 Dr. Amie Begins interviewing me
• 1:22:30 Toxins and Their Effect on Thyroid
• 1:38:16 The Estrogen-Thyroid Connection
• 2:02:38 Sandy's Thyroid Cancer Story

Transcript

Sandy Kruse: 0:02

Hi everyone, it's me, Sandy Kruse of Sandy K Nutrition, health and Lifestyle Queen. For years now, I've been bringing to you conversations about wellness from incredible guests from all over the world. Discover a fresh take on healthy living for midlife and beyond, one that embraces balance and reason, without letting only science dictate every aspect of our wellness. Join me and my guests as we explore ways that we can age gracefully with in-depth conversations about the thyroid, about hormones and other alternative wellness options for you and your family. True Wellness nurtures a healthy body, mind, spirit and soul, and we cover all of these essential aspects to help you live a balanced, joyful life. Be sure to follow my show, rate it, review it and share it. Always remember my friends balanced living works. Remember my friends, balanced living works. Hi everyone, welcome to Sandy K Nutrition, health and Lifestyle Queen.

Sandy Kruse: 1:32

Today with me, I have a special guest. Her name is Dr Amie Hornaman and she hosts the top-rated podcast in medicine and alternative health, the Thyroid Fixer, with listeners all over the globe. She is the founder of the Institute for Thyroid and Hormone Optimization, an organization with transformational, proven approaches to addressing thyroid dysfunction and supporting people in their returning to full health. They're returning to full health. Dr Amie is also the creator of the Fixer supplement line, which I can't wait to talk about that which offers revolutionary proprietary supplements that are changing many people's lives. Dr Amie is a woman on a mission to optimize thyroid patients worldwide and give them their lives back, and today we're going to talk all about thyroid optimization from a functional perspective, and it's very different from a Western medicine approach, and everybody who's listening you guys know how much I love to talk thyroid. So with that, welcome, Dr Amie. Thank you for coming.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 2:48

Hey Sandy, my pleasure for being here.

Sandy Kruse: 2:50

My pleasure, yeah, so of course I'm going to ask you why are you so passionate about thyroid health?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 2:58

Well, because of my own pain to purpose story, like many of us, have that land in this space right. So, and like many thyroid patients, many of your listeners, I was misdiagnosed, and I was misdiagnosed six times. So this my symptoms started occurring about 20, some years ago and at that time I was getting ready for a bodybuilding competition and I was doing figures. I was on the feminine side, but you still had to prepare by pretty strict dieting. You know fish, chicken, broccoli, asparagus. You're going to the gym once, if not twice a day really, with the goal to get your body into a lean athletic, but yet you know shapely and muscular, low body fat state, and then you step on stage in a bikini, which actually, when I say it out loud, sounds a little bit crazy. Probably is, but I really liked the challenge back then. I really liked that challenge of getting my body into that particular state and then competing. So I had done many of these. I did so many shows, so many photo shoots, that I dieted down for this one particular show I was getting ready for.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 4:12

That is when my body rebelled against me and I didn't know what was happening at the time. I had to step on the scale weekly to report back to my coach, because we all need a coach. Can't think for yourself when you're doing these things, can't think for yourself on a day-to-day basis about what you're eating, right? Yeah, and I would report back to him. And every week the scale would go up, and I mean five pounds, 10 pounds. Then I'm up 15 pounds and I didn't know what was happening. Like I'm, I'm I'm blaming myself, I'm thinking maybe I'm eating too much, maybe I need to work out more. And then you start taking this, this judgment thing on, like everybody at the gym is judging me oh my God, they're looking at me, thinking, oh, she must be eating the donuts. Maybe my coach is thinking I'm not even following his plan, I'm totally going off the rails, when in reality I was doing everything and then some. So by the time that scale hit 25 pounds and I'm 5'2".

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 5:11

Me too, right? Yes, so I always tell people what if I were to go get a weight, a 25 pound weight, and strap it around your back and tell you, go ahead and walk around with this all day long, you'd be like you're crazy, my back's going to hurt, I'm going to be tired. Well, that's exactly what we feel like when you strap on an extra 25 pounds. It's not even. No, it doesn't work. The body doesn't like it and my body was literally rebelling against me. There was nothing I could do to stop the weight from coming on, nothing. So what I did do is what we all do. I went to my doctor and I went to my doc and I said listen, doc, here's what's happening. Oh, by the way, I'm really tired and my back hurts too and my hair's falling out. Can you tell me what's going on with me? He says you're normal, everything's fine. Sandy, I wish so badly I could go back and see the labs that he ran on me, because I guarantee you it was TSH and free T4, right, there's no way he ran all the labs. No way, no. So you know, I did the whole second opinion thing. I left there and I was frustrated, but not hopeless yet. So I went and I said okay, I'm going to get a second opinion. I went to doctor number two and I was told it's all in your head. So then I left there and went to doctor number three, and then four, and then five, and then six. Doctor number six actually touched my throat and said swallow. I was the first doctor, first doctor to lay hands on my thyroid gland and she says well, you have a goiter, I'm feeling something in there. We're going to get an ultrasound done. But to me it appears as if you have Hashimoto's. Here's a pill. And I mean I was excited. I left her office. I'm like, thank God, somebody's finally telling me what's going on. Now I have a diagnosis, now I have a name for it and I have a pill for it and everything's going to be fine.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 7:10

And then I gave it five months and it wasn't fine and I didn't lose a pound and I didn't feel better and my hair wasn't growing back. Everything was just continuing down the downward spiral. Along with my mood, my frustration, self-blame, self-loathing definitely came on. I would cry in my car, I would pray for a different answer and then, sure enough, I kept hearing the name of this functional medicine guy and you know, when you hear the name of somebody a couple different times, like three times, right, it's God, it's the universe, whatever your belief system is telling you and speaking to you, and you kind of pause and you go okay, okay, okay, I will listen. I've heard this name three times, now I will go.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 8:01

So I went to see this functional medicine practitioner and actually back then we didn't even use the term functional. I want to see this functional medicine practitioner and actually back then we didn't even use the term functional. I want to say it was integrative, it was naturopathic, so he was a naturopathic doctor and he had his pharmacy degree, he was an alternative practitioner, he had all these degrees. The most important thing is he sat down with me for 90 minutes and that was 5 million times longer than any conventional doctor had ever spent with me. Right, you go into conventional medicine it's a five to seven minute visit and then you're out the door. So he spent 90 minutes.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 8:35

He went over my labs. He drew labs for everything I mean, I had 10 vials of blood coming out of me sat down with all my labs, painted this picture and said, oh look, this is low over here and this is high over there and this is what it means, and I know it's still in the standard lab value range. But because of this and because of that, because of your symptom, here's what's going on with you and here's what we're going to do to fix it. So we're going to change your thyroid medication. I was given, of course, t4 only, which doesn't work. It doesn't work. So then he put me on armor and he added a little bit of T3 and he changed my supplements and my nutrition was okay, because I was on point with that and that's what I was telling all the doctors. Listen, I got the nutrition part down. It's everything else that's going on in my body that no one could figure out. And he fixed me and from that point on I became his apprentice. He was my mentor.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 9:32

I changed careers, went back to multiple years of school after that and here I am helping other people because it needs to be done. I mean, you know it needs to. People need help and they need real answers. And my God, if I would have stopped at doctor number four or doctor number five which is a really decent amount of doctors telling you the same thing that most people would be like you know. I mean they've got to be right. They're doctors, five of them telling me I'm fine, I've got to be normal. I've got to be fine then, but I wasn't. And that's the message that I want to send out to everyone that you absolutely can get optimized and you can get fixed, and don't ever give up. And you just got to keep plugging away until someone gives you an answer.

Sandy Kruse: 10:19

Yeah, I mean everything that you said just there. I mean everything that you said just there. I can relate to so much, like everything you know. And I think it's difficult when you keep going back because, like you know how it is, like you keep going back, you keep telling the story and I can remember exactly how I felt and I can I align so much with you and it's, it's, it was for me. It was different order. For me it was after I had my thyroid completely removed and I was told that I would be healthy and normal and fine just by taking that T4 only, and everything would be exactly the same. So I think it's really important to outline because I don't think people understand. I remember when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer this was in 2011. I actually didn't even know how important my thyroid was. I was like, okay, I know, it's something in my neck, I don't really. I think a lot of people don't realize how crucially important this little gland is.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 11:28

So maybe if you could outline why we should care, everyone should care yes, absolutely, doctors should care more and pay more attention that it is the master gland. So your thyroid is the master gland of your body. It runs the show. I mean it controls your metabolism. It controls your GI motility and dictates whether or not you poop every day. It controls your brain function, your heart rate, your blood pressure, your body temperature. It literally controls your entire body. So why wouldn't we focus on it first? Why wouldn't we? But we don't.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 12:07

In conventional medicine Instead, mainly women are hit with hypothyroidism. So I don't want to just rule out the men, but I'll say a woman will go in to her doctor and she'll give the laundry list of symptoms that is hypothyroidism and she'll get an antidepressant, a sleeping pill, a PPI, a statin. I mean, she'll get all the band-aid, maybe even some birth control, and it doesn't matter if you're menopausal, here's some birth control, right. We'll get every band-aid medication under the sun instead of focusing on the master gland. And I'll just say one other thing.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 12:49

I gave a talk to a group of integrative wellness physicians years ago and the talk was basically to educate them on the thyroid because, even though they were integrative, they really didn't know the thyroid they came from conventional medicine entered into this integrative practice and they were still learning. So I was in there talking about all the different tests that should be run and the importance of reverse T3. And then I moved over to why are we in the synthroid box, as I call it, the T4 only box. Why are we in this box? I said if somebody comes in and they're depressed, you'll give them an antidepressant.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 13:25

If that one doesn't work, you'll give them another one. If that one doesn't work, you'll give them another one. Then you'll stack on an antipsychotic, maybe an anti-anxiety. Let's throw in a benzo and a sleeping pill for this person, but you won't use anything more than one medication for thyroid, and there are plenty, and the thyroid is nuanced and we can combine and we can change ratios and we can go T3 only and there's so many things that we can do to optimize someone where they wouldn't need all those band-aids. The one doc raises his hand and goes that's all we've learned to conventional medicine. Doctor after conventional medicine doctor, you're dealing with what they have learned and we can't expect them to do anything different if that's all that they know.

Sandy Kruse: 14:12

Yeah, I mean, that's just so perfectly put and I'm always of the thought that thyroid health is it's one of those foundational things. You got to look there because it is that thermostat, so it controls everything about your life technically. If you were to look at are you happy, are you sad, are you hot, are you cold, are you angry, are you right, are you jittery? Do you have heart helps? Do you it? Are you jittery? Do you have heart palps, do you? It controls everything. It is that thermostat, so why wouldn't you start with that as a foundation, right? So I couldn't agree more.

Sandy Kruse: 14:58

Now here's the other caveat to this. I don't know what it's like where you are, amy, but here we have this range of 0.4-ish of a TSH to up to five sometimes, and I know personally I feel horrible. If I go over 1.5 in my TSH, my hair starts to fall out, I have what I call lingering symptoms and yet, okay, I'm different because I have thyroid cancer. So they will monitor in me and they will check me. But if you're just somebody coming off the street going to see your doctor, saying you have those lingering symptoms, but they only check TSH and they say you're normal, which is probably what happened to you. What then?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 15:52

What are the options? Where do you go? Well, that's where you almost have to move into the functional medicine space, because in functional medicine we take those standard lab value ranges, so we'll take TSH. Since you mentioned that, yeah, here in the United States it goes up to a 4.5. It used to go up to a 6, and then it used to go up to a 10. Way back in the day We've got it knocked down now to a 4.5. But in functional medicine we want it less than a 2.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 16:24

And we don't care if it's suppressed, because for some reason functional medicine practitioners actually understand the physiology of how the thyroid gland works and what happens. When you give someone adequate amounts of T4 and T3 instead of T4 only, it's going to shut down the pituitary from sending out TSH. That's what happens. And when I get questions from patients that are like well or not, really from patients, if they're a patient, we're doing it all for them. They don't have to worry about getting some BS answer that their TSH is suppressed and they're hyper. But online, you know, on my Facebook group, if I get messages from my audience, I say how do I talk to my doctor and tell her that she doesn't have to worry about my TSH being low, because I feel great. I say have her go open up a medical textbook and refresh herself on how the thyroid gland works in the body and the HPT access, because it's basic physiology that it seems like conventional medicine, especially endocrin physiology that it seems like conventional medicine, especially endocrinologists totally miss.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 17:28

So functional medicine has their optimal ranges. And how we got these optimal ranges is we said, you know, instead of taking these lab values and numbers from groups of sick people, let's find the fit, badass, healthy people, test them and then that becomes the optimal range. So I heard Mark Hyman explain this, so I have to give him credit for this analogy. But it's a beautiful analogy. The standard lab value range is like the side of a barn. If I send you back 50 yards, I give you a ball. I say hit the side of a barn, you're. Send you back 50 yards. I give you a ball. I say hit the side of a barn, you're probably gonna hit it. If I put a bullseye on the barn which is the functional medicine optimal range and I send you back, you might hit it, you might not. It's gonna get a lot harder to get in that range.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 18:19

But in that range is the sweet spot. That's where we know that you will feel your best. Now, in there there's again, there's personalization, there's nuance. But if you're out here, if you're in that TSH of a four, you're not gonna feel good, or a 3.5 or a 2.5. And then it becomes even more narrow, like in your case. Okay, we want it two or below, but for Sandy, she needs it 1.5 or below and that's her sweet spot. And I have other thyroid cancer, post-thyroidectomy, post-thyroid cancer patients that we have to keep their TSH way suppressed like 0.005 so that the tissue regrowth doesn't occur.

Sandy Kruse: 18:58

And that's where they feel, yes, they did that for me for the first five years. Yes, they did that for me for the first five years. And interesting that you say that Okay. So this is kind of interesting because it's going way back. But when they first removed my thyroid, I was put on T3 only because they were giving me the thyrogen shot and they wanted me to go hypo. Right, so they wanted the drug, the thyroid drug. You know, t3 has a shorter half-life, right, right, so that I wouldn't have to be hypo for as long.

Sandy Kruse: 19:36

Okay, they were giving me the shot, but then that was after that. Then they're like okay, now you have to go on the standard of care which is T4 only, that's when everything, that's when shit hit the fan. To be honest, shit hit the fan, that's when everything. When I was on T3, only right after surgery it wasn't so bad, like I was like okay, not too bad, so interesting, because then it was a whole other whatever situation it's too long to explain, but I was suppressed for five years and virtually undetectable. But I did have at the start some I guess you could say some tweakments, maybe I don't know energetically my body, because I did have some heart palpitations, I did have some sleep issues. So does that make sense to say that maybe if you do remove the gland or ablate the gland, that there may be some adjustments before your body's going to be okay? What do you think of that?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 20:43

Oh yeah, I've spoken to many patients that have signed on to work with me or my team and they're almost pre-planning. They're going okay. I've been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I'm scheduled to have a thyroidectomy and then I want to start working with you and I always tell them okay after that thyroidectomy. And then I want to start working with you and I always tell them okay, after that thyroidectomy it's going to appear that you're fine. You are going to be like why do I need anybody's help? I feel fantastic Because, as you know, you get a little bit of a thyroid dump when they remove your thyroid and for some people it'll last a week.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 21:19

Some people it'll last a month where their thyroid hormones are. You're almost in a hyper state, like to last a month where their thyroid hormones are. You're almost in a hyper state, like it's like this woo, this rush, and you're like I'm good, thank God, I got this thing out, I feel great. And then one to four weeks later the hypo comes on and then it's a crash and then it's oh my God, I feel so bad. Oh, I'm putting on the weight. I can't even function, I can't even think, I can't open my eyes, I'm so exhausted, my hair is falling out and it's like a switch flipped and it's horrible. But that's where we have to catch people in those early stages. Okay, maybe week one, you don't quite need T3 yet, but as those hormones start to decline and go out of your body or get utilized, basically now we have to start adding in the thyroid hormone replacement. And honestly, and you'll resonate with this, one of the things that pisses me off to no end is when a doctor, when they remove the thyroid gland or they use radioactive iodine, no more thyroid gland left. Here's T4. Now again, let's break out the textbooks, doctors.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 22:26

The thyroid gland produces what T4 and oh T3. So, oh wait. Also, the thyroid gland is one of the main conversion areas, the main conversion gland for T4 to T3. Now you'll still get some conversion in the gut, the liver or the peripheral tissues, we know that. But one of the main glands is the thyroid gland for converting that inactive thyroid hormone to the active thyroid hormone. But we just took it out and now we're giving T4 only. Does that even make sense? It doesn't even make sense and it's standard of care. I mean, it blows my mind what the treatment is for post-thyroidectomy patients, let alone those with a thyroid who just aren't getting optimized, like myself, and given T4 only. But for you guys without a thyroid, my God that's. I mean. To me it's borderline malpractice, honestly, because they take an oath to do no harm and you bet your butt that's going to do harm. Giving someone T4 only that just had a thyroidectomy.

Sandy Kruse: 23:26

Oh, amy, I mean, we'll probably go there more on your podcast but there's definitely a downstream effect that will affect anyone's life when they have their thyroid removed. And it's so interesting because you speak with some people and they're like, oh yeah, I'm hypothyroid, or I had my thyroid removed or I had this, and they're like, yeah, I'm fine. They don't gain weight, they go on the T4 only, and they say they're fine, like, why, why, why is it that you know I had to have the complete opposite? And then you hear about some people who are like, yeah, it's perfectly fine.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 24:14

Normal, okay, but are they fine? So here's my question, right? So here's a good stat for you to hold onto and use. If you haven't heard it, I heard this at A4M 2% do well on T4 only 98% need T4 and T3. Here's my argument with the 2%, though I appreciate those stats because it really kind of drives the point home that we need that blind. We need T4 and T3 or T3 only. But of that 2%, can I interview them? Because I'll tell you a story.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 24:45

I sat next to a woman on a plane and you know, you start talking to, to, to. What do you do? What do you do? And I tell her and she goes oh yeah, I'm on, I'm on Synthroid, I'm, I'm doing just fine, except that she was about 50 pounds overweight and her hair was super thin. So that's when I pause and I'm like what is fine, it's the person's perception, and sometimes you're sick for so long that that becomes the new norm. You feel like that's how life is. I must just be getting older. So I'm supposed to not have energy, gain 50 pounds and lose my hair. But that's not the case. And well, that's why you and I are here pounds and lose my hair, but that's not the case, and well, that's why you and I are here talking to people about that. But yeah, what is fine?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 25:30

So I wouldn't be too upset because I don't think too many people are fine on T4 only, especially if they don't have a thyroid.

Sandy Kruse: 25:36

That's a very good point, because a lot of people ignore symptoms or they make excuses for symptoms, right, like you know, a big part of when I went back to college was symptomatology, and if you're not really paying attention and, just like what you said, you make excuses, you go oh, I'm getting older, I'm perimenopausal, I'm, you know, this is all just normal. So it makes a lot of sense what you're saying. Yeah, but you know, then there's people like us who, like you know, I want to be dancing on that dance floor until I'm like in my grave, like oh yeah be vibrant, I want to feel good and it's all about that health span and being healthy until I'm not here anymore.

Sandy Kruse: 26:28

That's kind of my plan. So there's some cases that are more complicated and I have a lot of conversations, mostly with women, and they get really complicated. But what I love is when I hear people educating themselves. So what about if they're on T4, t3, their TSH is a little bit higher? T3 might be free I'm talking about free, free T3 might be a little bit lower. And then they got a high reverse T3. And reverse T3 is not even checked in Canada, by the way, just so you know, I know.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 27:22

You guys get screwed with that Totally. It's horrible. How do you end up getting it? Don't you end up self-ordering, can you?

Sandy Kruse: 27:31

self-order. When I look at my own labs and I see that my free T4 is high and free T3 is low, I know what I got to do. I got to address a lot of like. And then I always self analyze and I go okay, what's going on? Okay, I'm a stressed out case right now. Yeah, we need to figure this out, sandy. And so that's where I step back and go. I need to practice what I preach. So I kind of know, but in Canada we don't check it. So I kind of know, but in Canada we don't check it. So what would somebody do? What would you do with a patient to help them if they still have all of these lingering hypothyroid symptoms?

Sandy Kruse: 28:14

And that's kind of what their labs look like.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 28:17

So, first things first, I want to drop the T4. I won't keep someone on. Let's say someone comes in and they're on 88 micrograms of T4 and five micrograms of T3, which is this itty bitty dose. It's not enough. So automatically let's drop the T4 and increase the T3, because that's going to give us our quick win. That's going to drop that reverse, that's going to bring up the free T3. It's going to drop that reverse. That's going to bring up the free T3. It's going to help the person feel better with symptoms. Because we know that that's what we have to do, based on how that person is converting their T4 to T3. And of course, at the same time we want to look at what is driving that reverse T3 up. Is it elevated insulin? Is it estrogen dominance? Is it iodine deficiency, nutrient deficiency? But here's the thing Sometimes it can be a genetic predisposition of non-converting. So the D101 and D102 gene.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 29:17

Now my story is I was put on armor and T3 in the beginning when I met my mentor Through the years. You know it worked at first and then it started not to and we started changing over. Then we used Synthroid and T3. And then at one point in time he goes. You know what? I want you to pull the Synthroid and just go T3 only. And I felt amazing and the reverse T3 wasn't elevated, and by elevated I mean out of the optimal range. So we want reverse T3 below a 12. So it wasn't elevated and he said, you know, just pull that. And then what I want you to do is, after a few weeks that you're feeling good, I want you to put that T4 back in. I go, okay, I'll do that. Oh, I felt horrible, went hypo again, gained five pounds in a week and actually that was the first time that I felt what true depression feels like. I was like, oh, these people that talk about not getting out of bed in the morning, I get it now. So I pulled that T4 again and we tried that twice adding it in, pulled it for a week, pull it back out. How do you feel? And in doing that trial and error, I found that I am a T3 only candidate.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 30:31

It wasn't until last year, actually probably six months ago, that I finally did a genetic test that has the D101 and D102 marker. I always suspected it because there were there were no other causes of a reverse T three and my reverse T three wasn't even elevated, but I did well on T three only. So I got that test done and sure enough, I have like one copy too. I'm not a geneticist, I don't know, um, but one of my health coaches is, so she she explained it for me and she's like oh yeah, you have this snip and that snip and that's why you don't convert. That's what I thought all along.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 31:10

So I know I just went down a rabbit hole. But going back to your question, I always change the dose first and then address what are the underlying causes. Because if you just spend time addressing like okay, well, let's keep you on this same dose with your elevated reverse T3 and let's work on your insulin resistance and let's add in the nutrient, and that's great to do, but then the person's going to be three, four weeks down the road going, hey, you know what I still feel like garbage. Can we do something here to make me feel better? So we know that they don't convert well, with an elevated reverse T3.

Sandy Kruse: 31:51

You know, I do have to say the thyroid is such a complex organ and over the last 13 years I still, when I speak with different people who are experts, I still learn new things. It's like, oh wow, so nutrients that's a really important piece to thyroid health. So are toxins right? So let's go through some of the important nutrients that are really the basics. What do you need to have in your diet to have a healthy thyroid?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 32:33

So we know selenium, we know magnesium. Now, on the selenium note, I don't know if you see this with your clients, but so many thyroid patients will read that selenium is good and then they'll go out and they'll buy something from Walmart and they'll start taking 200 to 300 milligrams or micrograms of selenium every day and they'll overdo it and even elevated selenium will push up reverse T3. So then that can become a problem on the other side of the spectrum. But magnesium, selenium and then this is one that we did not talk about prior to the podcast. I don't know how you feel about it.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 33:06

Iodine I am a fan of iodine and I know the functional community. The integrative community is split 50-50 on pro-iodine. On iodine, I'm pro-iodine. I interviewed Dr David Brownstein. I've read his books. He is just beyond knowledgeable in the area of iodine and there's just too much evidence there for me to tell someone to avoid iodine.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 33:30

Now we start low and slow when I use iodine, as I do with all my patients. I'm not going to start you on 25 milligrams Like, come on, let's start with. I like using a liquid. I like starting off with tiny little drops, because with the liquid you can titrate, and I always tell my patients you're going to know if you take too much iodine, because you're going to feel hyper that day and don't worry, it'll wear off. You're not going to go into a thyroid storm unless you dose 50 to 100 milligrams every day on yourself. But if you're starting off with like five milligrams, maybe working your way up to 10, 12.5, you know, just slowly titrating up that iodine dose, I mean that's a beautiful thing. It helps lower, reverse T3. It helps the thyroid gland produce T4 and T3.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 34:15

And then back to your toxin comment. We know that the three halides that are toxic to the thyroid fluoride stop using the fluoride toothpaste. Chlorine, which is in our water supply for sure. So unless you can, if you can't afford a whole house water filtration system, for goodness sake get something for your shower to filter that out. And then bromide, which is so hard to avoid. You know I got a couch over there with some pillows. I got a rug right there, I'm wearing clothes, I'm sitting on a cloth chair.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 34:52

If you live by a golf course, I mean if you eat bread, you're exposed to bromide. It's a fire retardant that is actually put in our food supply. So bromide is incredibly toxic to the thyroid as well. Now what will happen if we're exposed to these toxic halides, which we all are? The receptor site on the cell for iodine can also accept those three toxic halides. So if you don't have enough iodine in your system to attach to that receptor site, what's going to attach to the receptor site? A toxin? So when we have enough iodine in our bodies, that kicks out the toxic halides out of that cell receptor and the iodine takes its place instead. So iodine is also used as a detox, and rightly so, because it's literally protecting our thyroid against those toxic halides.

Sandy Kruse: 35:50

Yeah, I definitely align more with you. I've heard opposite to this. I've heard that we know that. One thing we do know is that too much iodine can exacerbate thyroid.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 36:07

Yeah, yep, exactly.

Sandy Kruse: 36:09

I remember so long ago, amy, I was working with a practitioner and we did an iodine loading protocol and this was before I went back to college. I'm like I just because what happened? I had thyroid cancer and I also had a breast tumor at the same time. So I did the biopsy, the core biopsy, and that was one month before I had my thyroid removed. So some might say, oh, completely unrelatable.

Sandy Kruse: 36:45

I personally know myself, I know my own body, that it was definitely relatable, that it was definitely relatable. And you know I had a practitioner who I was working with at that time and she would say, to paint the lugules on the sore fibrocystic side, because it was a fibroadenoma, it was not cancerous and anyway. So I think iodine is definitely a crucial nutrient, not just for the thyroid. I mean I don't have the gland anymore, but I still make sure I get enough iodine. It's good for the brain, good for your breasts. You on that that you know how much of the standard American diet has. I mean, unless you're taking in a ton of iodized salt, which actually everybody's now sea salt, sea salt, and isn't sea salt lower.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 37:44

It is. But even the iodized salt isn't the right kind. So it's not like you're missing out by using, like Redmond's real salt or sea salt or anything like that. You really do need to supplement with iodine. When the government started putting iodine iodized salt out to help with goiter, it did help a little bit. But what we're finding in actually studying the, the, what the body needs for iodine needs potassium, iodine iodide.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 38:17

And to your point about the breast, oh my gosh, fibrocystic breast disease responds so well to iodine, as do fibroids, uterine fibroids, hair all the symptoms of hypothyroidism can be helped, I mean maybe not eliminated. I don't want to go so far as to say, just take iodine and you don't need your thyroid medication. No, no, no. But they can definitely help. Like I'll start patients on iodine as we're starting them on that optimization journey in the beginning, and you know I mean it's not linear. People will get better and they're like oh, there's my hyposymptoms again. So giving them that little bit of iodine, sometimes we'll hear within days like, oh my gosh, I feel like myself again, my brain's lighting up and I have more energy. So just from that alone. So it definitely helps. But to your point, you have to be careful of the dose. So yeah, what happened to you when you did the loading?

Sandy Kruse: 39:13

I forget. You know, I think I got up to like 50 drops, okay, something, and it was the Lugols. Yep, yep.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 39:24

And then that's a lot, that's a lot of drops, that's high.

Sandy Kruse: 39:29

And then you know, I don't recall feeling anything major either way. Okay, I don't recall feeling anything major either way. And then we kind of went down to just a standardized 10 drops every day.

Sandy Kruse: 39:47

And now, at this point in my life, I'm 54 and right in the very, very late, late stages of perimenopause. Okay, I still take iodine, even though I don't have the gland. I still take it a few times a week and a little bit of water, a couple drops, just to ensure that I don't become deficient. Because I often wonder, you know, like people don't realize how poorly sourced our food is and even though I'm very cognizant of that and careful, I think when people say, oh well, I eat healthy, I don't need supplements, I'm like you probably do.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 40:33

Yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 40:34

You know you might be able to get by until you're about 40, 35, 40, and then you're going to see symptoms of something. And now we're seeing younger and younger women and men with issues right Like it's. It's it's getting worse.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 40:51

It's getting worse, it really is. And it, you know, is it the toxin? I mean, I think it's getting worse. It's getting worse, it really is. And you know, is it the toxin? I mean I think it's a combination, it's the increased amount of toxins that we're exposed to, the increased chemicals that we're using. You know, I shared before we jumped on here that now I'm living in Iowa. Now I live in kind of a wooded zone of Iowa.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 41:10

But I mean you drive anywhere and you see fields and fields and fields of gold, like corn crops and soybean crops and all of that, and what they spray on those crops is horrendous.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 41:24

I mean, yeah, you have the glyphosate, but then you have a boatload of other chemicals and I hear the farmers around here talking about their Roundup Ready Seed like GMO Monsanto all day long, Like that's what you're eating, that's what you're putting in your body. And then we have all the xenoestrogens that women, teens, are being exposed to. And then we wonder, why are girls getting their period at the age of nine? Yeah, we're actually speeding up their aging process, we're kicking them into puberty early and that's going to equal a boatload of other diseases down the road, because the body wasn't supposed to go into puberty at the age of nine. It's the hormones that we're being exposed to in our environment that is causing that. So, yeah, I agree with you, I think I mean we're going to see, we're already seeing it now way more autoimmune, way more thyroid problems, way more hormonal issues than ever before and I think it's only going to get worse.

Sandy Kruse: 42:27

Yeah, and allergies right. Then there's like the allergies are insane, like I remember growing up. I'm like I never heard of anybody being allergic to peanuts, like what. And you know my daughter's anaphylactic to peanuts, so she also had eczema at birth. So all of these things are like telltale signs of these issues. So thyroid is especially vulnerable to these toxins. So people will say, well, how do I get away from it? We kind of touched on. You know I'm always like good, better, best options for food. You do what you can with you know the budgets that you have, but it's like you know, vote with your dollar, you'll get better food, that kind of thing. But how do you rid your body? Like you said that you're living? I know you're a biohacker, but what do you do to make sure that you're not absorbing all of those toxins all the time?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 43:28

You know, I mean you do your best. I mean I'm very, very public and open about not being perfect, because I think that's important for our audience to know. And I respect the people like Brian Johnson who have trillions of dollars to spend on biohacking equipment, but most people don't, and most people can't live their life minute to minute thinking about what the next biohacking tool is going to be that they need to implement. So will I use iodine? Yes, I have a sauna. Yes, finally got one this year, so I use that for detox as well. Do hot yoga in there, just sit in the sauna, exercise obviously daily, just for circulation and all that. And I do my best. Yes, I buy organic fruits and vegetables. We buy a cow from a farmer that says that he doesn't use hormones and whatnot, so I have to take him at his word.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 44:22

Whatever, you do your best, but am I a hundred percent perfect? No, you know. No, I'm not. There are certain shampoos that I like that that have parabens, but they really do well on my hair. You know there's a concealer from MAC that I love. I mean I'm not going to go crazy trying to protect myself at 100%. If I can hit 80%, that's a win.

Sandy Kruse: 44:48

Oh, you and I are so aligned in that because I'm always it's always about the 80-20 rule. Are so aligned in that because I'm always it's always about the 80 20 rule, and so I actually look at my nails so the I took off my gel nails.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 45:03

You did, you did girl.

Sandy Kruse: 45:05

I did it after six years of no break. I never had a break, I never. I wasn't one of those people who would. I didn't do the tips, but I did the gel overlay, you know, on my own nails. Anyway, I took it off because I looked at my thermography report.

Sandy Kruse: 45:28

I know it freaked me out, amy, because I was like, oh my God, my nail beds are red. And then they reported unusual, what did they say? Thermogenic activity on my nail beds. I'm like, okay, I got to go take these off. This is my sign. But I was having wrist problems, hand problems, so it all connected to symptoms. So it all connected to symptoms, which is why I'm always like everybody's so bioavailably, bio, individually different, and how it affects you would affect differently, different people differently. You get my point. So I think we should move on to estrogen, because that's a big topic and the one thing a lot of people who are listening they're perimenopausal or menopausal and they see their thyroid if they've already had thyroid issues going up and down and all around, or they develop new thyroid issues right around menopause. So why, how is the thyroid connected to estrogen?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 46:43

So it has a this way and that way connection, meaning, as we said earlier, with reverse T3, you don't want to be in an estrogen dominant state because that could push up reverse T3 and can really have an effect on your body's own production of thyroid hormone. You also don't really want to be in a low estrogen state because now you have symptoms overlapping. This is why I have the whole concept of when I treat patients, I say we do both and Meaning you're not going to come to me and we're just going to do thyroid, we're going to do hormones too. Because if we don't look at hormones, if we don't look at insulin, if we don't look at ferritin, if we don't look at your nutrients, if we don't look at everything, what's the point in just focusing here? All that's going to happen is you're going to tell me okay, yeah, I feel a little bit better, but I still have this symptom and that symptom. I'm so bloated, I'm still gaining weight, my hair is still falling out. Well, again, let's look at hormones.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 47:40

And specifically when we look at estrogen, having an optimal estradiol number is vital for longevity. So really, when we look at thyroid, it's kind of more about the here and now we'll say it's. I want a metabolism, I want to feel good, I want my brain to work, I want to be able to go to the bathroom. Like that's the here and the now. Estrogen has a little bit here and now. Definitely helps your brain, helps with vaginal dryness, vaginal atrophy, helps with water retention. It definitely helps your hair.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 48:16

But when we look long-term, having an optimal estradiol level specifically is going to reduce your risk of Alzheimer's by 67%. It's going to protect your bones against osteoporosis and osteopenia. It's going to be cardiovascularly protective. It's going to help your skin not wrinkle and you not age quickly, because estrogen provides a baseline for collagen and elastin production. It does so much. In the long term, that's your bone, brain, breast and heart protection with estradiol. Now the other hormones come in and help with that too. If we looked at the benefits of progesterone, the benefits of testosterone, they're going to cross over with estradiol as well, and all those are going to cross over with thyroid. So we have to do everything at the same time. There are huge, huge benefits to optimizing the thyroid, tremendous benefits to optimizing thyroid and hormones together.

Sandy Kruse: 49:08

Yeah, it's so funny because, until my estrogen really started to drop, I was pretty, I was coasting along, amy, I was feeling good, I was like you know, this is good. And then, when estrogen dropped, it was just a kind of a shit show of symptoms, and that included rapid weight gain. It included my HbA1c went up to 6.1 in a matter of I think it was six months. So I think it was. I just looked at this February of 2022. My HbA1c was 5.5.

Sandy Kruse: 49:57

October 2022, I started to get some hot flashes. I'm like, oh, is this menopause? And then, at the same time, my HbA1c was 6.1. So it's like and then you know then, the rapid weight gain, it was like everything. It was like a storm. And I'm like is it thyroid? Is it menopause? What is it? And the symptoms, like you said, can absolutely cross over, especially if you know you have thyroid disease or if you're chronically hypothyroid, like you would be if you don't have a thyroid gland. So I love that you said you start testing everything, because all the hormones are the symphony and they got to work together, are the symphony and they got to work together. So, okay, what would you do with a patient like that who all of a sudden started to get menopausal symptoms like estrogen completely crashes Like what do you do? Where do you? Even?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 51:07

begin. Let's bring in the bioidentical hormones. Yeah, you know, I mean, they're a beautiful thing. Let's replace those hormones that are no longer being properly made. Because here's the thing we now know. Enough evidence is out even in the fake news world, right, Not just the functional world, but in the actual Wall Street Journal world that, hey, it turns out that that study that was done, that women's health initiative study that scared the bejesus out of every doctor and woman and everybody got their hormones ripped out of their hands. Yeah, we were wrong. Yeah, and now the authors of the study are coming out tail between their legs going, yes, so you know, we probably didn't do that really well. So you know, you can use your hormones again, ladies.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 51:56

We now know that hormones are safe. We've known that forever. The general population needed to hear that from the authors of the WHI that ruined hormones for everyone so many years ago. So now we know the hormones are safe and we also, when we look at the animal population, we know that animals will basically start their decline when they can't reproduce anymore. I mean, that's when disease state starts coming on, and it's no different for us. Hormones give us life and hormones protect us. Just like I said about estradiol 67% reduction in Alzheimer's. So now we can use bioidentical meaning identical to what your body made when you were 20 years old. We can use hormones that are damn near identical to that to support your body and allow you to age truly gracefully and have you be an amazing badass into your seventies, eighties, nineties, and you're feeling fantastic. So why not use them? We have them. Why not use them?

Sandy Kruse: 53:02

Yeah, I I often wonder cause I I ended up having that was a whole other, I guess, detour cause. I went and did, became a certified metabolic balance coach, lost 4% total body fat, had to make changes, not to technically really what I ate, but it was more how I ate, and you're going to find this really interesting because we were talking about biohacking. All of this happened while I was intermittent fasting, uh-huh. So this is the thing, right, but this is what I mean Like. So I call it the maniverse, amy, because woman to woman, we know that a lot of the things that these big names in podcasting and the biohacking world and the wellness world, these men that they talk about, they're not based on women.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 54:05

Yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 54:06

Yeah.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 54:06

I agree, I love Mindy Peltz. With her, you know, Fast like a girl, her whole concept of fasting. But outside of her, honestly, I tell women like, please don't listen to other influencers tell you to fast because you're going to tank your hormones. And I was just at an event, um, with Ben Greenfield. I've been on his show but we were talking about that intermittent fasting thing and he even came out and said, yeah, you know, this whole intermittent fasting thing it's ended up, you know, tanking people's thyroid and tanking their metabolism and I really don't like women to go over, you know, 12, maybe 14 hours in a day. Thank you, You're the first dude that has come out and said that. Like, thank God, somebody is saying that to these women.

Sandy Kruse: 54:55

Yeah, I had a feeling you would align with that. So, taking the thyroid, I don't know if there's enough research on this, but here's just a thought, because I was actually just posting about this recently, about how everyone and their mother is going on Ozempic oh God, yep. So I wonder, because I'm like, listen, it's like we live in this world of easy, let's take the easy way out. And I'm not saying there's not a place for it, there absolutely is a place for it. But you're seeing a lot of these celebrities who might be like five pounds heavier than they should be or they're not eating. So what does that do to the thyroid when they get off of those drugs?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 56:05

Yeah. So I think you know, the more we have these drugs in play and I call them the Beverly Hills soccer mom drug of choice for weight loss because so many women are abusing it totally that and and you know, here's the thing, here's the side note is they are amazing medications for those who are obese, who have type two diabetes, who have maybe even you know, some of my patients have 50 to a hundred pounds to lose and it's going really slow. Or they hit a plateau and just when we balance out 50 to a hundred extra pounds on the body and the detriment that that can do versus the side effects of the weight loss drugs, we'll take the weight loss drugs and we'll go low and slow so we can get that weight off and make them healthier. People who have 10 to 15 pounds to lose, that are using this and you know we're seeing more and more come out. So now we know it does burn muscle. It burns the fat off of your face. There's such thing as Manjaro face and and I I played around with it when it first came out.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 57:09

I experimented, because I like experimenting on myself so I can bring it back to my people Um, and I had to get fat put back into my face because I look like Skeletor. I lost all the fat, like right here below my cheeks, and I became sunken in. Now I do see women that now I caught this long before I started losing muscle. But I I started seeing the signs. It was right after Peter Atiyah came out. It was like you know what they're leading muscle mass with this stuff. I'm like no, and then I'm like oh, there's my mother's arms because I'm losing muscle and I'm seeing like my skin gather. And now I see some women that are on these and I know exactly what you're talking about. They look horrible. They have no legs, they have no ass, they have no body whatsoever because they lost all their muscle and they look at least 15 years older than they are and it's like, okay, congratulations, you're lower body fat, but you look like you're 80.

Sandy Kruse: 58:04

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder what it does to the thyroid, because we know that extreme diets will slow the thyroid.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 58:13

I totally missed your question. Sorry, I went off on a tangent, that's okay.

Sandy Kruse: 58:17

That's okay, Like I'm sure, I'm sure it would right, Like it would slow the function of the thyroid. So not only would it, not only would it do all those things that you were saying, but logically it would probably slow thyroid function down right but logically it would probably slow thyroid function down right.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 58:35

Oh, yeah, yeah. Any kind of starvation mode, any kind of caloric restriction whether it's through just sheer will or it's through a drug that kills your appetite any kind of caloric restriction is going to shut down the thyroid. So even if we use these GLPs with patients, I have them. Make me a deal on two fronts.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 59:02

Number one you're going to eat protein like it's your job and I don't care, if you're not hungry, you can sip a protein shake. So blend that protein shake up with two scoops of a high quality bone broth based protein and make it 40 grams per shake. And if you have to drink three shakes in a day because you can't possibly eat anything else, then you do it and you at least get your protein in and eat a beef stick and eat some Greek yogurt in between, I don't care, Get your protein in. Number two you have to lift heavy, because you have to keep on that muscle and by you know, keeping the calories up and the protein up and then still lifting heavy to activate the muscle, that it helps. But if people don't do that and they go into the starvation, yeah, it's going to tank your thyroid.

Sandy Kruse: 59:50

Yeah, and then do you, what do you think of amino acids? Cause that's something that I have really, in the last couple of years, gone on where, oh my God, amy, you'd probably think I'm insane, but I used to work out fasted and I'm like huh benefit. And then I completely changed in terms of how I work out and I I take amino acids before I work out, sometimes after as well. Essential amino acids, not branch chain, essential creatine. While I'm working out I'm drinking Like does that make sense to you to keep that muscle?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:00:34

Heck. Yeah, oh yeah. I love amino acids and creatine and you know, with creatine we're finding more and more benefits for menopausal women, like brain health and cardiovascular protection and bone protection. I mean all of these, these creatine benefits are starting to come out now when really, I mean creatine has been around for 25, 30, 40 years. I mean I remember it again back in my bodybuilding days. That's when you know it was kind of in play. It was a bodybuilding supplement. You took it because it pushes nutrients and water into the cell and makes you stronger, makes your muscles pump. But now we're finding all these other benefits of creatine too. And yeah, amino acids hands down, no brainer, absolutely.

Sandy Kruse: 1:01:16

Okay, we have to get into a little bit. You did touch up on T3, only like how that sometimes really really helps patients. So we have to talk about T2. And I had done a bit of research on it. This was a couple years ago. So initially T4. Then I went T4. I went to my doctor and I said can you please give me a little bit of T3? I think I'm a poor converter. So here I was telling him that. He said okay, and that's where that all began. Then two years ago I started a little bit of desiccated, because I researched that desiccated has T1, T2, T3, T4, calcitonin and I'm like, okay, it kind of gives you that whole nice little symphony of thyroid hormones. But apparently there's not a lot in desiccated, right, but maybe talk a little bit about T2, because a lot of people don't talk about it and I heard one doctor's point of view. He was very against it.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:02:29

Oh, okay, you have to tell me who that is. I'll have to look him up, because I haven't heard any against arguments yet.

Sandy Kruse: 1:02:35

He believes you should try and get your body to do it on its own through nutrients.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:02:42

Okay so yeah, I mean okay, yes and no. So, to your point, it is in natural desiccated thyroid, because the thyroid gland makes T1, 2, 3, and 4. We just don't talk about it a lot, right? So when we're looking at, we'll say, a 60 milligram dose of armor or natural desiccated thyroid NPR armor, in there there's roughly six to nine micrograms of T2. So of that and I might even be shooting high that might be in a 120 dose, it might be even lower for a 60.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:03:24

But when we're looking at the studies on T2, I mean 30 years of research has been done on this bad boy and really I only started looking at it about 15 years ago because it was in a bro science supplement and I was using it with my patients that were stuck on T4 only, and this is before I gathered prescribers in every state. So now we can prescribe to every state, but back in the day we couldn't and I would have patients come in on T4 only and they're gaining the weight. They can't lose the weight, no matter what they do nutritionally, exercise, wise, nothing. So I would give them this bro science supplement that had this angry, freaking name and I'm like just trust me, just take this, and then they come back. They're like, oh my gosh, my energy is finally up. I have this nice steady energy through the day. It's not like a jacked up, jittery energy and I'm finally losing the weight. I'm like, hmm, this is interesting. So you start looking at the literature and we find that T2 activates brown adipose tissue. So that's stimulating. It's kind of like jumping in a pole plunge. That's why we do it right To create autophagy and to simulate that brown adipose tissue, which then improves insulin resistance. It makes us more thermogenic, it increases our basal metabolic rate. So T2 will actually increase your RMR without doing anything else. Now, of course, if you add on exercise on top of that, you know, hey bonus. It activates ATP production at the mitochondria level.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:04:55

And really the most important thing with T2 is that it can be taken by anyone, thyroid problem or not. So those who are stuck on T4, only my God, yeah, take it, because it's going to give you something. And T2 can become T3 by attaching an iodine atom to it, so it can become T3. It's not going to readily become T3. So you're not going to take T2 and take your free T3 level from a 2.5 to a 3.5. That's not going to happen. But you might get a little bit of a boost, a little bit more of T3 in your body from the T2. But it doesn't matter because it's not working on the thyroid gland itself, so it doesn't have that negative feedback loop of shutting down your own thyroid production when you take it. So that's why average people who don't have a thyroid problem can take it if they just need to lose weight or feel better and have more energy. And thyroid patients can take it too if they need to lose weight because they're not quite optimized and they wanna have more energy. So really it works in both populations.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:06:03

And I'll say one other thing about it. Back to the burning fat versus burning muscle. Here's the thing with T3, it's beautiful, I love it, I'm T3 only, like I shared, but it doesn't differentiate burning fat versus muscle. It's going to burn both. Now I mean again, eat enough protein, lift heavy enough. I don't notice that I'm losing muscle or anything like that.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:06:29

But when you look at bodybuilders, they're really. They were the OGs of biohacking, because I got to tell you they slash. We were trying everything on ourselves long before it became came into the biohacking world Like peptides, sarms, you know, growth hormone, ghrp, all of it we were doing first. So when it comes to losing body fat, bodybuilders would take T3, they would abuse it, whether they had a thyroid problem or not. And I was watching an interview with one of these pro trainers and he goes you know, I don't let my athletes use T3 because they're going to lose muscle and then they're going to come out the other side of this show with a thyroid problem because of the negative feedback loop. And now they're going to come out the other side of this show with a thyroid problem because of the negative feedback loop and now they're going to need thyroid medication.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:07:18

Because I use T2? Because it only burns body fat, it leaves their muscle alone and it doesn't create a thyroid problem. I was like yay, good job, dude, thank you for putting that out there, because I've been using it with my ladies too, and and it's been a miracle. So, finally, 15 years later, with my ladies too, and, and it's been a miracle. So finally, 15 years later, I formulated it myself and put it in a non angry bro science. So now it's in my thyroid fixer, my metabolism fixer. But the big question I get from people is can I take it if I don't have a thyroid problem Like, yeah, absolutely you can. That's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of it.

Sandy Kruse: 1:07:53

Oh, so I I'm obviously I'm careful about what may potentially affect my medications. Mm-hmm, yep, I did do some research that it shouldn't affect.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:08:08

No, it should not now, because it does not have a thymemetic effect. It also doesn't have a cardiovascular effect. So you know, when you start taking T3, there are some people that are really sensitive to it. I mean, you give them 2.5 or 5 micrograms and they're like my heart it's pounding, it's racing. T2 doesn't have the cardiovascular effect. So that's another way to you know, sometimes if I do have somebody that's really sensitive to T3, let's ease into it, let's use T2 for a while, let's get you some quick wins, a little bit more energy, some weight loss, and then, you know, let's check your adrenals, check your ferritin, let's check your gut, let's check all those things that are making you really sensitive to T3. And we'll try to add T3 in down the road. But this is a beautiful adjunct therapy for those who can't tolerate T3 as well.

Sandy Kruse: 1:08:56

Okay, I'm going to have to talk to you more about this offline Cause I'm like I cause I've had so many extremes with how I feel, you know you get jaded right.

Sandy Kruse: 1:09:13

Like you're like, oh God, like, do I want to go? I I've even gone through a compounded stage where I was doing a customized compounding and they were using a pine extract for time release and I'm allergic to pine. Oh, I ended up going really, really hypo. Anyway, I've had my share, amy, of symptoms, but this to me sounds extremely intriguing because it's almost like when you're doing everything else and you go what haven't I done? That's the one thing I haven't done right there, the teaching. So that might be somewhere I need to go.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:09:58

So I have a random crazy idea and you can edit this out if you don't want to do it. But what if we kept going and made this a joint podcast with two parts? Because our conversation so far has been so fluid and like a conversation and I love it that I could publish that as a podcast, part one, and now I'm going to take over and ask you questions and kind of flow into that. Totally up to you, but I'm just throwing it out there.

Sandy Kruse: 1:10:33

I love this idea.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:10:35

Okay, okay, so you'll just have to send me the recording. So let's what you just said. So I'm going to ask you a question now. Okay, okay, let's go. Okay, so you just said that you've had, you've been on a roller coaster, right, so can you get into. And I know your listeners have heard this, but I want my listeners to hear this too what is your story with cancer and I've not dove into thyroid cancer on the show yet. 400 and some episodes, you would think right, but what is your story? And then let's talk about, like, what medication are you on? What were those highs and lows? What are your roller coasters that you're dealing with? So let's discuss.

Sandy Kruse: 1:11:19

Okay. So I can definitely now go back and say thyroid issues for me began postpartum, after my second child. So I can you know I was never diagnosed with anything and I don't think I have to be because now in hindsight I can look back and go okay, all of a sudden I didn't have any breast milk. I wasn't sleeping, I was a stressed out mess. I was a complete and utter mess. I had, you know, a lot of postpartum trauma and I had a toddler as well, a husband who was traveling. So take all this into account. I got really, really, really skinny. I had a baby that had colic, didn't sleep for eight months and the breast milk. That was so weird for me, amy, because with my first child I had too much breast milk. I ended up getting mastitis twice. I had plenty of breast milk. It took me two years to lose all the weight because I had gained 60 pounds, but I was borderline toxemic with my first.

Sandy Kruse: 1:12:40

So I think it started after my second child with undiagnosed issues with my thyroid and I could pretty clearly say postpartum thyroiditis that developed into thyroid disease. So I would have been 35 when I had her and I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 41. And it was an incidental finding. So one day I have to go. One year before I was diagnosed. My daughter was diagnosed with cancer. She was five at the time. So compounding stress, oh my God. Yeah. So I can say this is why I'm always like you know, why do they have all of these, you know, baby visits, but nobody really checked. Maybe things have changed because this was going back in 2005. She was born, not enough care for the moms, not enough. Are you okay? Let's check all your blood work, let's check your numbers, let's see what's going on with you. So I can pretty clearly say that's where it began.

Sandy Kruse: 1:13:49

And then, when my daughter was diagnosed with cancer, the stress there, and then I had a migraine with aura. About one year after she was diagnosed and it was the first time I had ever had a migraine with aura I thought I was having a stroke. I'm like what's going on? I saw my doctor it was a substitute doctor, thank goodness, because she was the one who ran investigative tests and she's like this is weird. Not many women get migraines with aura starting at 41. So let's do some tests. They did a carotid artery ultrasound and found that I had five nodules. Nobody had ever checked my thyroid, nobody had ever palpitated to see if there were lumps there. Then they sent me for the fine needle biopsy and one of the nodules was cancerous and they said let's take the whole thing out, because 80 of our patients come back to have the other half taken out. So that's where it all began okay, that's Okay.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:14:52

So then you have it removed and, just like we were talking about earlier, that thyroid dump that occurs. So how did you feel after they took it out? You know?

Sandy Kruse: 1:15:05

it's so funny because right after they took it out, I was like, hmm, not so bad, like I felt like, okay, they took out the whole gland and then a couple of lymph nodes just to ensure that it hadn't spread nothing spread anywhere, and I felt okay, and that was in October 2022. I remember the exact dates. And then in January, and I was on T3 during that time, so it was a little bit longer, it was a few months and I'm like I'm not doing bad, I'm kind of in my flow. When they took me off the T3 and they made me go severely hypothyroid to get the thyrogen injection to make sure I had no thyroglobulin, my TSH climbed to 32. And I honestly, amy, that was when I was like, oh my God, like I felt like I was dying. My face I actually have pictures my face I didn't even look like the same person. I had such severe edema.

Sandy Kruse: 1:16:12

You know they say moon phase. It was awful, I couldn't get off the couch and yeah, it was not fun.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:16:22

No, no, no, I know I have pictures somewhere of my moon phase. I've tried to dig them up but I might have thrown them away. When I was just pissed off when I ran across, I'm like, oh, I don't even look like myself, but I wish I would have kept them away. When I was just pissed off when I ran across, I'm like, oh, I don't even look like myself, but I wish I would have kept them, because that's real and I mean I'm sure you've seen it too the before and afters of people where you have your own, you know, you have your own experience, we have our own experience. But really looking at someone else, when they have that before and after, you really go, oh, my gosh, the face changed so much. And it's not about losing weight in the face, it's literally about that edema, like you said.

Sandy Kruse: 1:16:58

Oh, and even the hands, and that's like a big thing that a lot of people maybe don't talk about, but like I still sometimes will get that. But the swelling in the hands, you know, I couldn't put on any rings, I was like I don't. It was an awful feeling. And then I had the hands. I couldn't put on any rings, it was an awful feeling. And then I had the injection. Then they're like okay, now you go on T4. And that's where a whole other slew of problems began, where everything slowed down. And it's that whole conversion thing that we were talking about where slowed down. And it's that whole conversion thing that we were talking about where I literally had infections that wouldn't heal. And I don't know, I'm writing about it in my book because I am writing a second book. It's almost like this. I don't know, amy, it's like a shame, like what's wrong with you. And then I was sent to a gastroenterologist. I was put on a proton pump inhibitor.

Sandy Kruse: 1:18:07

I was told I have too much acid in my stomach and it was a high dose. And then they told me I had Barrett's esophagus. So it was like it was this snowball effect again of health issues where I'm like, like what's going on? Like I was okay on T3 only but this all happened while I was on T4 only while I was on T4, only yeah, yeah.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:18:40

So then what I mean? This is like a suspense story. So you're on T4, only You're going hypo again. Here's all the symptoms. Yeah, what's next?

Sandy Kruse: 1:18:47

So then they started doing scopes. I had multiple scopes. I started seeing a naturopath doctor. I started to do IV because I'm like, okay, I got to go a different route because I was exhausted, my hair was falling out. I mean, these are all things that I know that you would have heard many times over, but it was the whole gut component that really threw me for a loop. Because when I started seeing a naturopathic doctor and I said you know, he's like you can't be on these proton pump inhibitors for a long time because it's going to hurt you in the long run. So he tried to wean me off. I did everything. I went gluten-free for two years. I quit coffee for six months.

Sandy Kruse: 1:19:40

We thought that the component was diet-related. I completely overhauled my diet. This is all. Before I went back to college and we went off the proton pump inhibitor for a year. I went back to have a scope and she said well, now you have Barrett's esophagus. So now, not only did you have thyroid cancer, you're at risk for esophageal cancer. So I went back on the proton pump inhibitor. That was when I started reading Stop the Thyroid Madness. Maybe you've heard of that.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:20:16

Yeah, yeah, classic.

Sandy Kruse: 1:20:18

And I started researching. That's when I went back to my endocrinologist, said you need to give me some T3. Like I read about this I'm a poor converter. This is what's wrong with me. This will help the infections, because the fact is and I've never spoken about this publicly I had been bleeding for over a year. Yeah, but it was. It was fissures. Yeah and um, it just started happening where I and it was. It was scary. I'm like, in all honesty, like, do you swear on your podcast? Yeah, go ahead. I was like what the fuck? Is this my destiny? Am I gonna die of anal cancer like farrah fawcett? Is this what everyone's going to remember me for?

Sandy Kruse: 1:21:09

Like this is what I thought was happening, amy, and so it was. And you know, as much as Western medicine does good in their part, I felt like I was harmed. I felt like this was really doing me harm. Because why on earth would they think that, just because I have infections and bleeding and I was slow to healing, that this was because I had too much stomach acid? Like, are you kidding me? Much stomach acid, like, are you kidding me? It set me on this pace of. I just needed to learn more. That's when I started seeing the naturopath doctors. That's when I tried to wean but I'll get to the whole PPI part and I did all this stuff and repaired a lot of inflammation.

Sandy Kruse: 1:22:09

I started doing IV therapies regularly just to help with adrenal function. So you know the Myers cocktail and high doses of vitamin C, and it was like it was so good for me because I started to feel better, the T3, all of that. And then I was like, well, maybe I could go natural instead of synthetic. That was when I did my little trick with let's try to compound it. And then that was a big fail and I slowly weaned off the proton pump inhibitor not off down and, believe it or not. 12 years later I'm still on it. Okay, just a low dose, very low, okay. So what I? I was initially on like 60 milligrams, like it was. One and a half of it was called Tecta I can't remember which one it was and it was. It was very high. And then when I had my follow-up scope, she's like oh, looks like the inflammation has really gone down now. So I'm like but I thought you said I had Barrett's esophagus. So I was very confused because I didn't think that that was reversible reversible, right?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:23:35

I mean, we hear that it's not. So have you tried using, like betaine, hydrochloric acid? I take it every day. All that, all the things right, yeah, so I've done all that.

Sandy Kruse: 1:23:40

I've tried bitters, because then you know to continue with the story. I went back to college when I was 46 and now I'm 54. So I went back to the Canadian school of natural nutrition, got my diploma in holistic nutrition. I'm like I got to help other people now Right, but the whole thing with the PPI, it's actually I. I'm still looking for a geneticist, somebody who's because I carry some weird genes thyroid genes, I also carry a gene for CF, cystic fibrosis and I know that GERD and chronic heartburn. By the way, I didn't have heartburn until I tried to wean off the PPI.

Sandy Kruse: 1:24:26

That's the crazy thing? The PPI, that's the crazy thing. So I wasn't put on the PPI for heartburn. I was put on it because I had fissures and I was bleeding and they said and, by the way, it never helped it was when I went on the T3 that things started to heal and things started to actually repair in my body To actually repair in my body, interesting Okay.

Sandy Kruse: 1:24:50

Okay, so I have done everything in relation to diet nutrition. Still, to this day, I take betaine, hydrochloric acid pretty high dose like 1500 milligrams with every protein meal. I also take a digestive enzyme and I think that's the only way I didn't become anemic in my forties, because I was also estrogen dominant. I had the high you know. I had a lot of blood clots and heavy periods. I had all of that Right. So I think I hacked my own digestion.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:25:32

That's beautiful. Well, I'll connect you with my health coach. That's an epigenetic human performance coach by far the best with genetics that I've ever run into ever. So we'll figure out what's going on with you there.

Sandy Kruse: 1:25:47

We'll figure that out. It's been 12 years, Amy, it would be nice to find a solution to. Finally. I'm on the smallest dose now. I'm on what is it? 20 milligrams of over-the-counter Nexium now, Okay.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:26:01

And then what's your dose of thyroid then? What are you on right now?

Sandy Kruse: 1:26:05

So I am on two different doses of Synthroid. I think it's. Is it 125 and 112? Five days a week I take the higher dose, weekends I take the lower dose. I take 15 milligrams, or is it micrograms?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:26:28

of desiccated oh, so that'd be milligrams of the desiccated Yep.

Sandy Kruse: 1:26:32

And then I take two and a half micrograms of Cytomel twice a day and it's so funny. Talking to my endocrinologist, he's like I do not have any patients. I have one other patient, only one that he gives T3 to, but no other patient that's on such a complex mix. But it's like it's my mix. It makes me feel good and I'm good with managing. Obviously I take handfuls of supplements. I can manage my medications no problem, so it's a good mix. It's custom, very custom.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:27:09

It's very custom, but that is the thyroid, like we talked about earlier. It's nuanced, it's personalized. You have to figure out what is going to work for your body and then, I'm sure, all the things that you're doing too. So what is your? Go into your kind of personal repertoire with supplements, that you don't have to go through all of them, because I know we have boatloads of supplements in our house, you and I. So what are your main supplements that you like to focus on and what do you do for your body like biohacking nutrition? Let's kind of break that down. So.

Sandy Kruse: 1:27:46

I found that, like I was explaining in the first part, in 2022, I became. I don't like labels, but if somebody wanted to label me, they could say I was insulin resistant. Okay, yep, it was for a very short time. As soon as I saw it, I caught it. So I I eat three meals a day, five hours apart.

Sandy Kruse: 1:28:11

Amy, I do not snack, and the only time that I find my weight creeps back up again is if I develop a new habit. So last year I started having a no sugar matcha every day and I gained four pounds just like that because it was like another freaking meal. And then I'm like, holy shit, this is why I'm gaining weight. Then I stopped that. That kind of put me off track. Otherwise, I've been able to maintain.

Sandy Kruse: 1:28:48

I do take a glucose stabilizer, so I've been using. It's out of it's out of Sweden. It's called Sigrid and it's a silica nano nanoparticle, yeah, and they've actually done white papers on it. In comparison to metformin, highly effective. So I do do that. And then my estrogen can kind of play games with me right now, in the sense that my estrogen completely tanked recently and I put on four pounds just like that again. So I'm like okay, here we go again. It's, like you know, with hormones. It's just like what you were saying in the first part it's always about the mix of all of it together.

Sandy Kruse: 1:29:43

So, even though my thyroid might've been functioning okay, what was going on with my other stuff? So I do not ever snack anymore, and that's how I manage my weight. And I eat three meals. I start with protein. I know there's other glucose experts that say start with your veg. Nope, no, it's protein. Protein is just such a good and it's such a good foundation. It's like a buffer for when, when I eat. So I'll even, like you know, I'll have dessert, I'll have whatever, but I will not have it two hours later because that's me calling on insulin once again to say, hey, come lower my glucose, and then I run into problems. So I found that this is extremely helpful and maybe it's helpful for other thyroid patients who have trouble with weight loss. Like you know, we were saying listening to all these people who say fast and fast, I'm like, no, technically I'll do an overnight fast of 12 hours, but I don't do more than that. Right, and then supplements, oh my God.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:30:58

I take a lot. All right, wait, we'll stay on the nutrition, because the more we talk, the more I'm saying the same thing in my head, like, oh my God, we're so aligned Like we're, we're so aligned in so many things. So, on the nutrition piece and I love that you're doing the three meals a day, I love that you do protein first. That's yes, I'm in total agreement with that. How much protein are you taking in? And, because you were insulin resistant, what are you doing with your carbohydrates? And what do you like to do with your clients that you see, like, listen, you're insulin resistant. And of course we we don't know if it's the thyroid causing the insulin resistance, like in your case. You were eating great, but here's the insulin resistance popping up. Oh, here it is. Is it the thyroid that's off and it just is dysregulating someone's insulin left and right? Or is it that they're legitimately eating too many processed carbohydrates and sugars? So what do you do with yourself and then with your clients in that realm?

Sandy Kruse: 1:31:59

Well, for me, I definitely have a threshold for carbohydrates. Threshold for carbohydrates Meaning if the majority of my meal is going to be carbohydrates, I'm going to run into problems. I can't, I don't really count. There were times that I was, you know, keto. I was keto because I've done every diet under the sun since I had my thyroid out and keto was one of them, and I think it put me in a really bad headspace with counting macros, right, and so I will try to have 25 grams of protein with each meal and then if I am having a workout day. So I'm very cognizant of what's going on with my stress levels and how much I work out. I've been working. I had been working out with a personal trainer for six years. I actually just stopped recently and just joined my gym. It's just too expensive, yeah, and I'm like I know how to do this stuff. Why, why, why am I doing this? So it's always been twice a week for the last six years of mostly strength training, and on those days I take in more. I take in more protein, I take in my amino acids. I take in all of that In terms of carbohydrates, like right now because I had put on four pounds, just like that over a month, and then I found out that it was estrogen related.

Sandy Kruse: 1:33:43

My estrogen just tanked. I am now more cognizant than I normally would be, meaning my carbohydrates would be a dark, 100% sourdough rye bread and I'll have like a tiny little slice with each meal, almost like just to ensure I get some nutrients that are going to keep me full. Yeah, some nutrients that are going to keep me full. Yeah, you know, I, I, I change how I eat depending on what's going on, and right now I'm actually just kind of starting to come back from a not great phase of plummeting estrogen. It's not fun.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:34:26

Now, are you on bioidentical hormone replacement or you're on estrogen? Okay, I am.

Sandy Kruse: 1:34:32

Good. So, but it's you know and this is the other thing I don't know Do you know who Dr David Rosen sweet is? Yeah, absolutely love you. You're just a great man. And the reason is is because he educates women on their symptoms, and we know that. So here's where things could get crazy.

Sandy Kruse: 1:35:03

We say around perimenopause. So I had a period March 1st and I call it a baby period. I'm 54. So it was like three days, not even a real period. I didn't have to wear a tampon, but I did have to wear like a liner so, and it was somewhat steady. So I call that a period. Some say it's not, but I'm like it was.

Sandy Kruse: 1:35:28

So here's what happens at perimenopause. And then, when you have thyroid, I'm like holy shit, is it my thyroid? Is it estrogen? I don't get it, because when I tested my estrogen, amy, it was like I was like I'm young again. Look at this, my FSH, my like all of it. It was like I was not even close to menopause. This would have been, I think, end of February.

Sandy Kruse: 1:35:58

And then I had like a period March 1st, right, all of March I was okay, but then crash in April. Okay, but then crash in April. So this just goes to show you how fast things can change with perimenopausal women, especially in the latter stages. So what happened was I'm like I was taking my HRT and I'm like, huh, I'm still getting symptoms. This is kind of weird.

Sandy Kruse: 1:36:27

Maybe I'm taking too much, because Drid rosensweet does show he has a chart where he shows that sometimes symptoms of too much can look like symptoms of too little. And right, maybe I need to lay off taking so much of my hormones while I exacerbated my issues and I had the worst and I'm like, oh my God, now I see how bad menopausal symptoms can get. So in April I had all of it the depression, the weight gain, the inability to sleep, the hot flashes Like I had all of it, not just a little bit of hot flushing. You know, which is when I started HRT, I had just a little bit of hot flashes, like I had all of it, not just a little bit of hot flushing. You know which is when I started HRT, I had just a little bit of hot flashes. I'm like, okay, I'll be fine, this was not good.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:37:19

Yep, I know, that's what happens. That's what happens. So, no, I love, I love Rosen sweet because he has the same kind of outlook as Dr Lindsay Berkson. So if you've never interviewed her or listen to her same thing, and she always references Rosen sweet, I think they have done collaborations and whatnot together. So okay, so what, what did you do then? Did you change your, your dose of estradiol and then the symptoms went away? Or where are you at now with your hormones?

Sandy Kruse: 1:37:53

So I actually my doctor went on mat leave so I found a new practitioner here in Canada. It's not that easy to find, so let me make that clear, if any kids are listening. There is a place called Science and Humans. That's relatively newer. They do bioidentical hormones and all they do is longevity, menopause, andropause, that's it.

Sandy Kruse: 1:38:26

They're in Canada. Andropause, that's it. They're in Canada. So I saw them, had blood work, found out that in fact it was definitely not too high. It was like crashed and they doubled my dose of progesterone and estrogen and so that I'm just starting to come back. To be honest, it's only been a couple of weeks and I'm just starting to come back from that crash, because women can crash. I felt the crash.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:38:57

Amy. Well, you know, what I love about your story is that you are really sending the message again of just being real. And also, here you are. You're a thyroid expert, you deal with nutrition, You've been dealing with this for years, You've been optimizing yourself for years and something shifted and it was like, oh, here I got to change things up again. Here's some symptoms again. And I always try to tell my audience and my patients progress is not linear and just because we have you optimized today doesn't mean that you're going to be optimized a year from now because you're, or, in your case, a month from now because something can shift dramatically. Something just changes.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:39:43

Number one we're women with hugely fluctuating hormones. We're very, very, we're much more complex than men and then we just have life that occurs, and to your point, earlier. Are you exposed to toxins or did you have an underlying infection that got kicked up, a viral load that shifted your body? Or is it just something happened? We don't know what? Surged your estrogen to where you're like oh, all my numbers are like I'm youthful again and I just had a cycle and I feel great to literally coming down the other side and into a deep dark hole. You know. Sometimes you don't know, but I think your story is important for listeners to hear that it's not always linear and it doesn't mean that everything you've ever done is now shit canned. You know everything you've done has built the foundation so that now, I would suspect, you will come back to your normal self, your normal optimized self, more quickly than, let's say, two years ago.

Sandy Kruse: 1:40:52

I agree. And then you know, I always say it's not like you climb a mountain, you reach that peak of optimized health and then you never have to do anything again. It's like we're constantly changing and you know we get a whole new body. What is it? Every decade a whole new body, and so of course we're going to always change and we have to be able to be flexible enough to change with it but also to identify it. So the thing is, even in end of April when was it? Mid-april? Mid-april, both my kids moved back home. It was a lot of stress, a lot of rejigging, a lot of stuff going on and finding kind of that new normal. That's going to be stressful. So that kind of stuff, even life changes, are going to affect you. We're not robots, and that's the other thing I loved about Dr Rosenzweig he doesn't treat patients like they're robots. Everybody's so unique.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:42:02

Yeah, yeah. Everyone is unique and that's the thing I mean. That's what you and I try to get out. That message to the world is you can't do a cookie cutter anything. There's no cookie cutter nutrition plan, there's no cookie cutter supplement plan. There's no cookie cutter thyroid optimization or hormone optimization plan. Everyone is so unique. So talk to me. What do you like to do with your clients with supplements? So kind of go into what are your keystone supplements that you take every day? What do you bring in and out and what do you like to do when you're working with people?

Sandy Kruse: 1:42:42

So, to be clear, I haven't worked with clients in a year because I'm focusing on my podcast.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:42:49

And yourself. So that's not bad, yeah, yeah yeah, and writing.

Sandy Kruse: 1:42:55

I just finished my Essential Thyroid Guide and I'm writing, I call it my book, book and it's called. The working title is Bridging the Gap Between Science and Soul, because I do believe that not everything can be explained by science, but science is important. So, you know, I'm a little bit you're going to laugh I'm a little bit country, I'm a little bit rock and roll. You know a little bit about the woo, I'm a little bit about the science, I'm a little bit about both. And you know, when it comes to supplementation, I'll tell you this story.

Sandy Kruse: 1:43:27

This is a really interesting story. I had one client and she was a vegetarian and you know how it is. Sometimes you get very close and you hear a lot of personal stories and she was at a breaking point in her life where, you know, she wasn't sure on where to go. Let's just say she wasn't sure on where she was going in her life. And when I did symptomatology with her, I had a questionnaire, I looked at everything and I'm like, oh my God, girl, you are so low in methylated B vitamins, b complex specifically.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:44:16

Okay.

Sandy Kruse: 1:44:17

And this is one of the foundations that I love for clients. Only because when you're under stress, when you're not eating well, when you you know you are having a diet where you are eliminating food groups, you are probably not optimized in your B-complex, because B-complex is water soluble in and out. It's in and out, it's in fast, it's out fast. Even with my kids. I'm like like if there's anything that you're going to take when you're away at university, take a b complex, but methylated, so there's. I'm sure you've seen people go to whatever drugstore, buy something off the shelf and they'll buy cyanocobalamin, which is made from cyanide, and it's like okay, well, not all people depends on your genetics, but it can do a lot of harm. So B-complex is one of those staples and while I don't, I have a really opposing view on different probiotics.

Sandy Kruse: 1:45:28

I do not believe and this is going so against the grain, amy, but I do not believe in soil-based probiotics. I'm cool with that. I'm aligned. Yeah, I'm aligned. So here's the thing. I look at this and I'm like my parents were farmers. Okay, we are talking as old school as it gets Grew up in old Croatia farming, or they did everything the old way, and so I like to emulate, if I can.

Sandy Kruse: 1:46:03

I live in Toronto so it's hard, but I like to emulate how they ate. So eating with the seasons and sure you get a little bit of spore-based probiotics, but through inhalation, through maybe what's left over in the food. I just don't know if I resonate with taking mounds and mounds of soil-based probiotics. However, I do feel that taking a daily multi-strain human strain probiotic can kind of keep those bacteria at bay. But if you do the research they don't proliferate right, so they're transient. So it's almost like it's kind of keeping everything okay, but it's not like it's creating a perfect environment. So I'm always like when you take a human strain it's good for you. But you know there are some that I am doing so much studies on, like I'm starting to take l-reuteri. Have you heard a lot?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:47:08

about L-reuteri. I've heard of it, but go deeper. I don't know enough about it to speak on it.

Sandy Kruse: 1:47:15

So L-reuteri has a lot. Do you know? You must know Dr William Davis. He's the wheat belly, he created the wheat belly series, so I interviewed him about a year ago and he talks a lot about making your own El Rudray. People don't realize how beneficial it is and how it can actually create a better environment. I actually tried to make my own El Rudray yogurt. It was a bit of a fail, so now I'm just taking it Just take it.

Sandy Kruse: 1:47:43

Just take it and uh, but it can do a lot of beneficial things for brain health, for just overall digestion and um, like people who are anxious, people who have other issues so and and even for weight loss, for metabolism. It's just one of those strains and then I've been uh, taking acromantia, but I do I was just going to ask you about that. Okay, yes, so there's a gut test that's out now. Have you heard of it? It's called VitaTract or Vytract, something like that. Vytract.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:48:21

I haven't heard of that one, although I believe somebody may have connected me with those gut people. I usually use diagnostic solutions, which has, you know, the GI map that has the acromantia right there.

Sandy Kruse: 1:48:35

This one does too.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:48:36

Okay, okay. So yeah, what are your thoughts on it? What are you seeing?

Sandy Kruse: 1:48:40

So, the only thing I'm going to say I haven't done it yet, but they do say I'm going to say yet, but they do say I. I'm gonna say I feel it's more hype on this whole connection to like, oh it's gonna work like a glp-1, like I don't see it okay, I don't.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:49:03

I'm diving into that research now, just trying to weed through it all. There's a a lot of studies out there.

Sandy Kruse: 1:49:08

Well, I'm kind of I don't know. I'm kind of living proof in that Like I've been taking it for two months steady, because I'm testing it, Like, just like you, you know how you like to test things, I do too. I test things and like I don't see anything. But I got a lot of other stuff going on too right now, so maybe I'm not. You know, it's not the perfect environment for me to say it doesn't work, but I don't see it. I'm just taking it because they do say having acromantia just is a greater, a beneficial environment for your gut microbiome. So that's what, that's why I'm doing it and I'm only going to do three months, I'm only going to pulse it because too too much is also not good either.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:49:59

Right, right. So I have a couple of different thoughts for you. Number one I want to send you metabolism fixer because that has the T2 in it and it has suppressa in it, which suppresses the appetite. I want you to stack that with the acromantia and see if that bundle doesn't affect your appetite. And obviously we don't want it to be like a weight loss drug like we talked about. We don't want it crushing your appetite to where you're not going to eat your protein, you're not going to want to eat. That's bad. But I think if it takes the edge off, that'll be an interesting experiment. My second question to you is because you deal so much with metabolism. I mean, you just said that you got your, you did a special training or got your degree in metabolic disorders correct?

Sandy Kruse: 1:50:50

I am a certified metabolic balance coach.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:50:53

Okay, that's amazing. So with that, are you noticing any tie-in with acromancy or lowering insulin resistance and improving metabolic disease?

Sandy Kruse: 1:51:04

Ooh, I don't know.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:51:05

Okay, I couldn't tell you That'll be. Your job is to dive into that. Dive into that research and then pair it with metabolism fixer.

Sandy Kruse: 1:51:15

Interesting because you know, I I do find I have my mom's like this too. She has a higher HbA1c, but hers started much later. It started after 75, and so for me everything's starting like early, like early right, like I feel like I don't know. I do feel like not having the gland puts you at a little bit of a disadvantage. It's kind of like people who don't have a gallbladder. They kind of have to be a little bit careful about the fat that they eat.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:51:56

Yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 1:51:56

My husband doesn't have a gallbladder, so for him, I'm always giving him ox bile. So, by the way, that's another big supplement for people who are listening. If you don't have a gallbladder or if you're eating a high fat food and you get that gallbladder pain, you know, you can like, if you, if you know you have gallstones, taking ox bile so important, so important, um, and you can get higher doses. There is a company, but I don't know if they're in the U? S. They're called VitaZan. They have a higher dose of ox bile, which is really good for my husband. He never has issues if he has a higher fat food.

Sandy Kruse: 1:52:35

Now back to the whole metabolism thing. So from age 41 to 54, I have had variances of 25 pounds up and down, and so for me I'm always looking for what can I do that's going to keep me the most stable without doing something extreme, without doing something extreme. That's why I went and I did the program and became a metabolic balance coach. Because it's very sensible where you're eating a variety of foods, which is something I believe that we need to eat a variety of foods because that's good for our microbiome of foods, because that's good for our microbiome, right, right, and it's kept me the most stable that I've been since.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:53:36

I had my thyroid out. Oh, that's beautiful, isn't stability a wonderful place to be where you're literally you're not gaining weight, looking sideways at a brownie. That's what I always say. That's how I was before I was optimized. I'm sure that's how you were before you came into this stabilization place.

Sandy Kruse: 1:53:52

But you know, anybody who has had thyroid problems would know that like this is very emotional for me, and I'm sure you would feel this too where you wake up at 3 in the morning and go holy shit, I'm gaining weight again. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yes. And you're like what do I do now? I've done this diet, I've done keto, I've done this. I, you know, and you, you try everything and you wonder and then I actually have gone. I went to Sedona in 2022 and I saw I call her my spiritual hypnotist and I sat with her for two hours and we worked on clearing limiting beliefs, which is something that I'm a big believer in.

Sandy Kruse: 1:54:45

Right, Because, what do they say? They say, oh, once you lose your thyroid, you're going to get fat. Once you hit menopause, you're going to get fat, everything's going to go downhill. And so I left Sedona with this little box and it had a crystal on it and I wrote this after I saw her and it was my mantra that I worked on with her and it said I am thin and I am healthy, and that was in August 2022. And then October was when I had the high HbA1c. The weight was just going going up. The high HbA1c, the weight was just going going up and I decided to finish my certification to become a metabolic balance coach, started November 1st, lost 4% total body fat by December 2022. So what I'm saying is it's not like she magically waved a wand and said okay, now you're going to be thin and healthy, but it's like she set me on that trajectory to try and clear some of those limiting beliefs that were there.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:55:55

Yes, oh, that's so important. That is so important. I'm glad you mentioned that too, because I think, with everything that we've talked about today from the right thyroid treatment, the right thyroid treatment, nutrition supplementation, all the different things If you believe that you're fat and nothing's going to work and I'm never going to get better and this is just a disease that I'm going to have to live with, and this and this and this, then you know what the answer is You're right, like you are, absolutely. Whatever you believe, you are right because you will self-perpetuate that belief to fruition. It'll show itself one way or another, good or bad, yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 1:56:37

Yeah, I do believe that, and some people need to get help to figure out how to, and whatever resonates with you may not resonate with me, and vice versa. I do a lot of getting into that.

Sandy Kruse: 1:56:54

theta state yeah and visualizing because I feel I'm that kind of person that I have to, because I can be my own worst enemy where I get into that spiral, just like I said. You wake up at three in the morning and you're like, oh my God, I just keep. And then the scale just keeps going up, up, up and I'm like I'm five, two like you. In university I was a hundred pounds, soaking wet. I'm a little person. It's not my genetic composition to be heavy, so why is this going to make me heavy If my doctors and everyone saying you're optimized, your thyroid is optimized, everything's working perfect, so why would I be heavy? Right, Right.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 1:57:42

So what did you, besides the meeting with your woman in Sedona and that little box, do you have a daily practice to really anchor your thoughts in a positive direction so it can continue working on your body coming on? I mean, I do resonate with that. I've been in that position. And then I'm thinking of, oh my gosh, all the women out there that are totally resonating with what you just said, either in the weight department or the other place I hear this is hair Like what am I going to do? My hair is falling out, it won't stop, I'm going to be bald, and their whole day is taken up by that anxiety and those looping, ruminating thoughts about how much worse can this get? Same with weight. So what do you recommend people do? What do you do on the daily?

Sandy Kruse: 1:58:42

So you have to, whatever it is and this isn't about any kind of religion but if you don't have some sort of a grounding practice and I'm not talking about that you have to go and buy the earthing bed sheets and sleep on ground. I did do that for a while, by the way, and I'm not saying anything's wrong with it, it's just, for me it's Try everything. Yeah, exactly For me it's action. So my degree is actually in English literature Try everything. And then I started to pick it up again and I actually built two websites while I was taking care of kids not working, and one of them was for advocacy for the type of tumor that my daughter had, and one of them was for thyroid. These are so like old.

Sandy Kruse: 1:59:43

I did this in my forties, but the writing was extremely therapeutic for me, and I say this to my kids all the time, who are now young adults, and they're like well, I can't really write. I'm like, but nobody's reading this. Like for you, nobody's reading it. You don't have to be good at grammar or anything, but there's something about from the heart putting pen and from the head down to paper. There's something. And I feel like even kids these days. They don't even know how to write cursive. They don't know like they don't write. Everything is done and I think that something is lost there, because it can be very powerful when you do that.

Sandy Kruse: 2:00:28

The other thing is some sort of an energetic clearing. So I used to feng shui people's homes. This was I brought in a consultant when my daughter and I were sick. I was like, okay, is there bad energy in my house? Like what's going on? Like, is this, you know, is my house cursed? So bringing in some sort of a clearing practice. So I still to this day feng shui my home, my whole home. According to the annual Flying Stars, this might be out there for some people, but it's not that hard. There's a lot of help there and I use, you know, like sage, I think is almost overused. It's become so like almost commercialized. So I just burn a little bit of incense every morning just to kind of clear the space, clearing your space.

Sandy Kruse: 2:01:23

I walk my dog every single day and I purposely do not walk on the sidewalks, we go in the trails, we go in the forest. Do not put on your headphones. Take those headphones off. Pay attention to what signs are there, because often those little signs can give you hope for a change or for something different change or for something different. Like I, I feel like we just deflect. Every day we deflect and then look for an easy way. Mind you, there are some easy things that I do do. I do do a brain tap or new calm almost daily, almost daily, but that, like that, helps get my, my brain there, which I need. A little bit of help that gets me into that theta state. So those are some practices that I feel are extremely powerful for anyone who's looking for a change and you're grasping at straws and trying everything, just like the earthing bedsheets. I mean I shouldn't say that because for some people it works. Yeah, it does, but it just didn't for me.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 2:02:31

But just saying, you know, yeah, exactly no, I love all of that, and actually you just you just hit me between the eyes with a statement. So I am going to promise you that I will change that. I, too, walk my dog every morning and I have my earphones in and I'm answering emails and I'm getting work done, and you're so right. I mean, what I preach to people is don't do that and be with your dog, be in your environment, be in nature, and and so you just kind of slapped me upside the head with that one. So I'll change it. I'll change it Right.

Sandy Kruse: 2:03:08

You see people jog Like I, I'm, I will. Okay, I'm like I've turned into this. Such the geek, I'll go for my walks and then I'll be like, oh, and I'll be my dog's name's Gracie. I'll be like Gracie. Look at that Cardinal. It's like right there in front of us. And then somebody will go jogging by with headphones on. They have no idea what's going on around them and I'm like you're missing it, you're missing this, you know yeah.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 2:03:35

I know it's true, it's so true. Yeah, oh my gosh, sandy, this has been such an amazing two hour long conversation. I absolutely love it. We jive on so many things we do. I mean we could probably keep going, but we both have to wrap it up and get on with our day. So for my audience, can you tell them where they can find you? And we're also going to put in you had mentioned this earlier about the. I'm trying to find it here. Wait, where did it go? The Essential Thyroid Guide? Yeah, it's on Amazon. So we're going to put that link into the show notes for both the United States and Canada. I love that you wrote this. I love that you wrote an Essential Thyroid Guide. So many people need it. So can you tell people where they can find you, and then we'll put that link in the show notes as well.

Sandy Kruse: 2:04:25

Yes, it's just Sandy K nutrition everywhere. Anywhere you do social media, just look for Sandy K nutrition. I'm on Tik TOK, facebook, instagram, um rumble, youtube. I'm. I'm trying a sub stack as well, but I'm finding that it's taking away from what I really want to do, which is finish my book and the Essential Thyroid Guide. The reason I wrote it is because when I started to do my research, I didn't really want this 250-page clinical book. I wanted the Kohl's Notes to get me started, which is why I wrote this, because it gives you the Coles notes. It's not going deep in a clinical sense on things that some people don't want. If you want that, get a clinical book and learn about it. The Essential Thyroid Guide is just simply what do I need to know as the basics, because people don't even realize, like what we're talking about, that toxins could be a major factor in thyroid health. So that's why I wrote that. But yes, I'm, I'm Sandy K nutrition everywhere.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 2:05:37

That makes it so easy, beautiful, oh easy, so easy, yeah, yeah. And then for your people to kind of close out your podcast. So, since this is a joint podcast, oh, yes, yes, yes.

Sandy Kruse: 2:05:51

And where can we find you? And where?

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 2:05:52

can we find you? So I am. I couldn't get Dr Amy everywhere. That's actually what I wanted. So Instagram is at Dr Amy Horniman, and then Facebook. We have a Facebook group called Girl Fix your Thyroid. Anybody can join it and in there you can post your questions, you can post your labs. I'm in there answering For the people that are like this is what I'm on and these are my labs and I feel like garbage. What should I do? Or I haven't been diagnosed yet. These are my labs. What should I do? Do I have a problem? I don't know. My doctors keep telling me I'm normal. So we do have that Facebook group and that's where I like to shuttle people, because that's a great place to kind of get to know me and then I can help you free of charge in that group and then you can figure out what your next step is. So definitely Instagram, facebook, you know YouTube and then the thyroid fixer podcast. Of course that you are on that. We are joint recording right now.

Sandy Kruse: 2:06:51

Yes, Okay, Perfect. Thank you so much. I loved chatting with you. You know what we need to do. We need to do a second parter on thyroid and longevity. I don't know. I've been digging deep on the research on that and man like it might not be sexy as a topic for longevity and health span, but I think we can make it sexy.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 2:07:14

It's important. It's important because I would love to hear your research on thyroid and longevity and how that is connected. I mean regenerative longevity, and those are the buzzwords these days, so people are interested for sure.

Sandy Kruse: 2:07:27

So let's do that, we will, we will All right. Thank you so much, amy.

Dr. Amie Hornaman: 2:07:32

And thank you, sandy, I love this this has been so much fun.

Sandy Kruse: 2:07:36

Yeah, thanks. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to share it with someone you know might benefit, with someone you know might benefit, and always remember when you rate, review, subscribe, you help to support my content and help me to keep going and bringing these conversations to you each and every week. Join me next week for a new topic, new guest, new exciting conversations to help you live your best life.