It’s always a pleasure to connect with Elle Russ—we’ve been podcasting together for years, and we’re hitting it hard in today’s show because we have some important topics to discuss.

We start with a refresher on the importance of thyroid function and the confusion and controversy surrounding prescribing medication for it, especially in light of things I have been reflecting on recently, such as the Energy Balance concept and striving for maximum cellular energy status at all times, as opposed to playing around with restrictive diets that could contribute to an overly stressful lifestyle overall. Knowing how sensitive the thyroid is, it’s crucial to understand the ways that you can optimize thyroid function without adding any unnecessary extra stress to your body, and thankfully Elle, the author of The Paleo Thyroid Solution, is an expert on this topic and is here to share all her knowledge in this episode so you can learn how you can take full control of your thyroid health!

To keep up with Elle, follow her on Instagram, subscribe to her YouTube channel, visit her website, and listen to her podcast, The Elle Russ show.

TIMESTAMPS:

Sixty percent of people who have thyroid issues are undiagnosed. [02:35]

The thyroid gland is in charge of sex hormones, heart rate, body temperature and other things. [04:28]

Women need to make sure they are correctly diagnosed if they have a thyroid problem.  There can be many gynecological issues. [07:37]

If anyone is suffering from thyroid issues for many years, it is because either the doctor is uninformed or you are uninformed and you can’t help. [09:15]

What causes the thyroid to malfunction? [13:51]

Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune form of hypothyroidism. [16:37]

Diet has a lot to do with repairing a thyroid problem. [18:00]

Grave’s disease effects hyperthyroidism. [21:29]

It is not a good idea to just take a pill that is prescribed without your understanding what it is doing.  If you have been diagnosed with a disease, you’d better learn all about it. [24:41]

The best books on thyroid are written by patients. [26:49]

It is safer to be hypo than to be hyper. {28:58]

What is the scenario when someone has undiagnosed or subclinical sluggish thyroid? [30:48]

Stress can cause a thyroid problem even if you are eating right. [33:16]

Be specific in asking for a thorough blood screening, including all thyroid hormones.  [35:09]

When you are hypo and you’re sluggish and slow, you don’t have enough thyroid hormones to produce energy for your brain. Adrenal fatigue is horrible! [38:57]

Take your temperature every day. [40:34]

You could have some favorable numbers on that important six panel, but then be coming in with complaints of cold hands, cold feet, cold body, brain fog, poor recovery. And you could have a problem even with normal numbers. [48:06]

We don’t know what our level is right now and our potential because we have nothing to compare it to. [50:58]

If one takes Elle’s course, what will they learn? [01:00:44]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• Ultimate Thyroid Course
• Paleo Thyroid Solution
• Elle Russ Podcast

LISTEN: 

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B.Rad Podcast

Brad (00:00:00):
I’m author and athlete, Brad Kearns. Welcome to the B.rad podcast where we explore ways to pursue peak performance with passion throughout life. Visit bradkearns.com for great resources on healthy eating, exercise and

Brad (00:02:35):
Elle Russ, what a pleasure to connect with you on podcast. Our favorite mediums. We’ve had some great shows both on the Elle Russ show, on the B.rad podcast and on previous podcasts to that. We’ve been doing this for years and we are gonna hit it hard cuz we have some important topics to discuss. And I would particularly like to get another refresher on the importance of thyroid function. All the confusion and controversy around the medication of thyroid, and especially all the things I’ve been reflecting on recently with, uh, these ideas about energy balance and striving for, uh, maximum cellular energy status at all times, as opposed to playing around with restrictive diets that could contribute to, uh, an overly stressful lifestyle overall and how sensitive the thyroid is and how important it is. So here comes the expert. I know you have a wonderful online course that you just launched, so this is exciting news and we’ll talk about that in the course of our discussion about thyroid health and optimal health overall.

Elle (00:03:40):
Yeah, so I mean, just, just for starters, 200 plus million people in the world have thyroid issues. 25 plus million Americans, and 60% are undiagnosed. Now, if 60% are undiagnosed. There’s probably a lot more that are actually on thyroid hormone replacement and not optimized, not being treated right. You can actually be on thyroid hormone replacement from a doctor who has somehow engaged a thyroid problem, but misgaged it enough to where they’re giving you a little bit of treatment and it’s not the right one. So there are still people suffering even though they’re like, well, my doctor said it’s not my thyroid because I’m on thyroid hormone. Nope, you can be hypothyroid. So I guess I would just start off by, you know, giving everyone a little bit of a rundown. I always talk about the thyroid being the master gland, and that’s not me, that’s not my opinion.

Elle (00:04:28):
That is just biology. And so why is it the master gland? Well, first of all, for everyone that doesn’t know, for men, your thyroid gland is below your Adams apple. And for people watching, now you can see me pointing to the base of my neck. That’s where your thyroid gland is. And it’s a little butterfly shaped gland. It is the master gland because it is in charge of, number one, the production and regulation of all of your sex hormones. Okay? Number two, your heart rate. Number three, your body temperature. All of these things are completely necessary to live a proper life, have methylation processes occur, uh, responses to infections, things like this. So those are just some of the things. Those are some of the main things that the thyroid is responsible for. So let’s give one scenario. A 25 year old came to me a few years ago, 25 year old male, and he had low testosterone.

Elle (00:05:19):
And now if it were me, I would say, okay, hold on. What 25 year old boy doesn’t have high testosterone? Let’s look at the thyroid first. Right? We always gotta look at the master gland first to rule it out, but a lot of doctors don’t do that. So instead, the doctor did the classic western patchwork operation, which was, well, let’s give this kid testosterone, but it didn’t help. And so finally he came to me, we got his blood tested, it turns out he had a horrible thyroid problem. And what was the solution there? Put him on thyroid hormone replacement and then get you off the testosterone. And then his natural levels will come back because it is supported by having the right level of thyroid hormones. So back to, to how important the thyroid gland is, it’s very rare that someone is born without a thyroid gland at all.

Elle (00:06:02):
That is extremely rare. However, when that happens, if it is not caught right away, mental disability will completely come in and or death immediately because it is responsible for the development of our brains and everything else. So if you can’t live without a thyroid gland, AKA thyroid hormones. What do you think life’s gonna be like when you have subpar golf reference for you, uh, subpar levels of thyroid hormones? It’s like a slow death. That’s how it feels. And that’s what it’s like. It’s this accelerated aging. And then all these things start to happen to you. You fall apart. And that’s why there’s 30, 40 symptoms that I list in my book, of which I had 30. And so then you start to fall apart and then you go, oh, oh, uh, the doctor test your hormones. Oh, you, you, you know, you got hormone problems, but then they’re not looking at the thyroids, so they’re giving you, and then you become like a fricking quilt with like patched work stuff and you never got to the root.

Elle (00:06:54):
One of the biggest examples is when I, uh, so with women, it often manifests itself in gynecological issues like miscarriages, infertility, polycystical ovarian syndrome and endometriosis, uh, abnormal bleeding, uh, early menopause, all these kind of things. Anything gynecological. And in men, same thing too. It would be related to low testosterones. So it would be lack of erections, it would be, uh, lack of recovery from exercise, disrupted sleep. So one of the things that happened to me is I was bleeding all the time when this happened. And I was 30 years old and I just kept having my period all the time, which is not normal. And the doctor did the patchwork by just giving me the birth control pill. They were testing my thyroid incorrectly and were like it’s not your thyroid. And just kept giving me pills. And I kept bleeding through them.

Elle (00:07:37):
They didn’t work again cuz no one was getting to the root. Then I went to another gynecologist and they diagnosed me with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Now, most people would say, well, how could a dumb doctor like do that? No, no, no. If you and I looked at the ultrasound and looked at the textbook in medical, we would’ve absolutely concluded that mm-hmm. <affirmative>. The question should have been, why, why is a healthy 30 year old with great gynecological history suddenly having this problem? So instead that doctor wanted to put me on metformin, um, and all I needed to do was correct my thyroid and I have never had a gynecological issue since. So this is so important for women, especially if you’re trying to get pregnant. You do not wanna have unnecessary miscarriages. You wanna have healthy pregnancy. It’s important to rule out before that. And then also important to rule out before doing any type of sexual hormone replacement.

Elle (00:08:27):
Now I’m in my forties, I’m going through perimenopause, yes, testosterone, progesterone, these things are applicable, but not really when you’re 30. There’s very few, like it’s a rare case that you would need that. And often it’s just thyroid related. So these are the kind of mistakes that happen when people are doctoring and not realizing that they’ve gotta rule the thyroid out. Here’s the problem. They’re not taking the right tests. And then even if they take some of the right tests, they don’t know how to to interpret them. And even if they take the right tests and they interpret ’em properly, then they’re not treating it properly. So there’s like all of these levels where a doctor who’s uninformed can fail. And so I have people who come to me over all these years. I have coached people in Saudi Arabia, Brazil. It doesn’t literally doesn’t matter, Sweden, it doesn’t matter the country.

Elle (00:09:15):
It’s all the same stuff. And I’ve heard people be like, I have been suffering. I’ve been trying, I’ve had dealing with thyroid issues for 10 years. Now, when someone says that to me, and I’m just gonna tell everyone listening here, the only reason anyone suffers for years and years is because of one or both of the following reasons. Number one, you are dealing with an uninformed doctor that has no clue how to deal with this. Number two, you are uninformed and you can’t help your doctor help you. You can’t help your doctor practice medicine with you. And so it’s usually the case where the patient is ignorant, you know, not their fault. We expect doctors to be the experts in this, right? I have a philosophy degree. I did not expect to become a thyroid expert. You know, so, so that is really, these are all of the issues that happen.

Elle (00:10:01):
And there’s more along the way where an an uninformed doctor can fail. But that’s sort of the gist of it. And so this is essential to human health. It’s essential to anti-aging, it’s essential to our hormonal makeup. And we have more receptors in our brain for the biologically active thyroid hormone than anywhere else. So what happens is, is one of the symptoms is brain fog or cognitive issues. You start to speak like a dyslexic, you can’t find the words. You’re slurring words. You can’t think, you can’t remember. You’re reading a paragraph 50 times. You’re starting to think to yourself, oh, I’m getting dumb. Something’s wrong with my brain. You know? And it’s a very, that’s a very scary one to kind of admit because you just feel like, oh, maybe I’m aging or something’s wrong with me. It also fosters depression, not just because your body’s falling apart.

Elle (00:10:49):
Yeah, that sucks. It’s literally depression. You just can’t, you can treat depression with thyroid hormone if you wanted to. So again, someone’s depressed, check the thyroid because the Prozac will last two, three months. Mm-hmm. And then it’s not gonna work cuz you never got to the root of it. And honestly, I’ve taught <laugh> in LA I spoke with the head of a very famous psychiatric ward of a major hospital and I asked him, do you test these following things before you put someone on like an SSRI? Nope. He’s testing the 1973 outdated thyroid test that no informed doctors use. So how many people are, I’m not saying there’s never a use form. How many people are on these things and then they’re not working because the doctor says, not your thyroid. It’s fine. I also had a doctor tell me when I was bloated, fat, hair falling out, acne bleeding, he said, well, it’s not your thyroid.

Elle (00:11:42):
And then he hit my gym shoe,s in the office and said, just use these more. And I, and I wanted to jump off a bridge because Brad, at that time, I was exercising two hours a day. I was doing everything I could to get ahead of this insidious weight gain. So that is like one of the number one symptoms. Now, some people don’t have weight gain. But most people do. And that’s a, that’s the first sign. It’s like either a gynecological issue or a a male, you know, issue there. And or you’re cold all the time. Your brain, you’re exhausted. But then it usually is like the inability to lose weight. And so then what do people do? They go to keto, they do all this stuff, they’re trying to, and that’s not gonna get you there either. Or it works for a few months and they feel good and then it crashes.

Elle (00:12:26):
Cuz again, they never got to the heart of it. And frankly, on the keto note, if you were seriously hypothyroid and it is not a result of being type two diabetic. So let me explain that. If you’re edge towards type two diabetes, which your audience knows is what you give to yourself, unbeknownst to you, it’s not an autoimmune form of diabetes type one, it’s what you kind of eat yourself into it. And when you get into that, yes, you can become insulin resistant and that could cause a thyroid problem. But short of having that be a thyroid induced thing, let’s just a normal person in this world, you’re gaining weight. You weren’t overweight before, you didn’t have type two, suddenly you’re gaining weight. Now you’re gonna try to go do keto and do all these things. Well, you’re gonna get fatter because you really don’t have any of the fat burning T3 to support this high fat diet. And not only that, it’s really gonna mess up your lipid panel. So what happened, mine was messed up too when I was hypothyroid. So the doctor will give you a statin, right? Or you have high blood pressure, they’ll give you a blood pressure pill. Again, this goes back to the testosterone. It’s all of the things related to the thyroid, the master gland, and they spend time patchwork the symptoms that come from it versus addressing it. And I will stop there cuz you know, I can go on <laugh> forever. I’m very passionate about this.

Brad (00:13:41):
Yeah, I mean it’s, you, you’re, you’re sounding kind of harsh toward the doctors, however, the doctors are trained to treat disease, right? And so we shouldn’t confuse the, the medical profession when we go there with an illness and, and we need proper care. And so if you need your, your thyroid removed, which I know people, uh, do that by mistake a lot. But, um, when you need, when you need surgery and, and whatever else, that’s great. Uh, and it is, um, you know, I, I appreciate your, your, your candor and the pain and suffering that you’ve gone through and want to help other people avoid, but I think that needs to be stated too, is that, um, we’re not going after root cause and no one has been trained or, or reflective of the root cause. And so I love how you do that two-pronged approach where, gee, I’m so sorry that your doctor’s not perfect and is completely up on all the functional aspects of medicine as well as the allopathic.

Brad (00:14:42):
But secondly, why don’t you yourself grab a book, educate yourself, listen to some outside ideas of just going and blindly uh, consuming prescription medication to address. And you’re talking about thyroid exclusively in that beautiful rant. But this also, uh, takes place across the body, right? And so we’re, we’re treating the symptoms routinely. Now, uh, the thyroid is the, the, the, the upstream, uh, cause of many health conditions as you express, especially the sex hormone function, which is always treated with, you know, a band-aid approach. Now, um, what about the root causes of the thyroid not functioning optimally? And where do we go from there? If we do identify, hey, um, sounds like your thyroid sluggish, you got a problem? What’s that caused by?

Elle (00:15:35):
So several things, and I’ll, I’ll go into all parts of this. So hypothyroidism, underactive is the most, the most popular <laugh> no, but it really is the, the main one. It’s

Brad (00:15:46):
The hottest new health craze,

Elle (00:15:47):
Hypothyroid, new health tragedy. Um, so hypo, it’s most, more often than not, it’s hypothyroidism is the problem. That’s really the, the, the bulk of it. There’s also hyperthyroidism, overactive. Now that is extra dangerous cuz you could get a heart attack. Again, it’s in charge of your heart rate. So when you have an excess of this energy hormone T3, you might have to go to the hospital and get some beta blockers, like it’s very dangerous. So in that situation, uh, and that’s usually related to Graves disease. Graves disease is an autoimmune condition that makes your thyroid overactive. And that’s extremely dangerous. And there’s, I won’t get into that too much right now cuz it’s, it’s rarer. So hypo is low, slow, sluggish. That’s why you get weight gain exhaustion. Uh, the, you’re freezing cold, uh, you can’t poop all this kind of stuff. All right, so you, I have standard, I have hypothyroidism, um, but I do not have Hashimotos.

Elle (00:16:37):
And Hashimotos is the autoimmune form of hypothyroidism. So let me explain that. So I’m sure people listening realize, like when you have an autoimmune disease, what happens is your immune system makes a mistake. It makes a mistake, and starts attacking a part of your body. So when you have MS, your immune system makes a mistake and starts attacking the myelin sheaths that are on your nerves. And that’s why people with MS feel like they’re plugged into a light socket all day long, or these awful symptoms, uh, you know, type one diabetes, right? The autoimmune form your immune system makes a mistakes, starts attacking the pancreas like an enemy. And now your pancreas gives up, stops producing insulin, and now you gotta go on insulin. So with Hashimotos, what happens is your immune system makes a mistake and starts to try to murder the thyroid gland <laugh>. And so that’s how that happens.

Elle (00:17:20):
And it, you know, creates antibodies again, just like rheumatoid arthritis, ms or any of these other autoimmune conditions. So that is one cause of it. Now, when we’re talking about like autoimmune hypothyroidism, that can be actually kind of caught quickly and it’s totally related to diet, it’s comp. One of the things we know for sure a thousand percent is that gluten will ignite the ha if you ingest gluten, the Hashimoto’s antibodies will increase. Why is that? That there’s molecular mimicry going on there where there’s a component of gluten that kind of matches thyroid tissue to the mistaken immune system. And it’ll start attacking, it’ll start going into fight or flight and, and doing an attack mode.

Elle (00:18:00):
So for example, we have w i, I won’t say her name, but we have a former colleague from Primal who, uh, was not on thyroid hormone replacement, but she was starting to feel exhausted and depressed and all this kind of stuff. And I, she came to me and I said, okay, well you know what? Let’s get your thyroid checked. We checked her thyroid and she was positive for the Hashimoto’s antibodies. Now, let me explain this. Let’s say one of the antibodies, the level is zero to 34, hers was only 14. Now some people with that might not even feel it, but she did. And because she had a positive number, I said to her, Hey, this is indicative of an, you know, cuz if I take that test, it kind of says less than six, or not applicable because I don’t have Hashimotos. But when you’re positive at all, ooh, red flag. And I asked her, I said, Hey, look, just be honest. Have you been eating a lot of gluten by any chance? And she said, oh my God, I have been eating so much pizza and bread and in the past couple months.

Elle (00:18:51):
I said, look, change course right now, because if you keep going in this direction, you will have to go on thyroid hormone replacement. So in order to avoid it, cut it out right now, stop the train and let’s see what happens. Three weeks later called me, oh my God, my brain is lit up. I feel fricking amazing. Hi, welcome to Paleo, welcome to gluten free being the move for that. So she just saved herself an entire lifetime of possibly having to go on thyroid hormone replacement. Now here’s another scenario. Someone has Hashimotos. They are on thyroid hormone replacement because they have to be, but they don’t feel the antibodies in the background because they’re on thyroid hormone replacement. Mm-hmm. So they actually don’t feel these antibodies. That’s also a problem because that’s a silent killer in the background. So whether you’re on thyroid hormone or not, or or what, and if you are in something’s indicated that you have Hashimotos, you really gotta go gluten-free.

Elle (00:19:47):
Sometimes you have to go autoimmune paleo, uh, autoimmune protocol. It just depends and people can look into that. But there’s just been a trend where people have noticed that some foods, and even seasonings like paprika and things like that, can really affect people with autoimmune disorders. I interviewed Shamus Mullin, famous chef, cured himself of rheumatoid arthritis. One of the things he said in in the interview was, yeah, I can never eat Shezwan food. And I said, oh, is that because of like the spices or something like that, or the oils or like, what is that? He goes, no, it’s because when you cook those peppers at a high heat, it releases a level of lectins that will give, will affect my rheumatoid arthritis. He was on 12 medications and a complete mess for seven years. And it only took him one year to get off all the medications because he adjusted his diet.

Elle (00:20:31):
He was a chef, figured it out. And now he’s riding bikes. He is been pain free and rheumatoid arrest, right? Three for years you would test his blood. Now no antibodies. So your goal if you’re out there and you have any autoimmune disorder, is to get antibodies down to the lowest levels possible or undetectable. And sometimes that’s achievable. Now, sometimes people need other methods and other modes of getting these antibodies down and there are modalities for that. So that is a form of hypothyroidism that’s autoimmune inspired. And often if caught early in the teen years or whatever, can, can stave you off of further problems. Then there’s just hypothyroidism that happens for seemingly unknown reasons, like me.

Brad (00:21:11):
So is that autoimmune? Hypothyroidism is the Hashimotos and then there’s

Elle (00:21:16):
That’s right. A disease and the autoimmune and the autoimmune hyper overactive is Graves. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But again, setting that aside cuz it’s really much more rare. So yeah, Hashimotos is the autoimmune form of hypothyroidism.

Brad (00:21:26):
What do you call the other one you’re about to talk about?

Elle (00:21:29):
Grave’s disease is the one that affects hyperthyroidism.

Brad (00:21:33):
No, no. The one, uh, that’s not autoimmune, but hypo thyroid.

Elle (00:21:37):
It’s just we don’t know bad. So for example, bad luck. Yeah, exactly. Um, well couple things. So we know certain things contribute to this, all right? Iodine is an important nutrient. So is selenium. So if you are deficient in these things, so for example, the Midwest used to be called the goiter belt. What is a goiter? It is an, it’s an, it’s an enlarged thyroid gland. Like, you know, looks like it could be like size of a basketball or whatever, tennis ball, but it’s enlarged thyroid ground. Back in, back in the day, a lot of people around the Midwest, the Great Lakes had hypothyroidism. They decided to iodide salt and somehow that fixed it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, why is it the case that that would happen? Well, um, we don’t maybe have a lot of iodine in our soil because we’re not near a sea. That’s one speculation.

Elle (00:22:22):
So sometimes even being from the Midwest possibly could, could affect that. But there’s people with hypothyroidism all over the world. So deficiencies, um mm-hmm. <affirmative> over exercising and underworking out. So if like you’re anorexic, we call that, that’s probably what happened to me. You’re not totally sure. Again, I we can’t go back in time. Was it that I was a cigarette smoker many years ago and that suppressed something? Was it the overworking out and, and not satiating myself? That’s called youth Thyroid six syndrome. And what that is essentially starvation. Because when you’re overworking out and you’re starving yourself, the thyroid feedback loop dials itself back because the primal perspective of it is uhoh, she’s starving, she’s running from danger. We don’t wanna give her any more of this fat burning T3. So until she’s out of danger. Do you know what I mean? Or, you know, it almost reminds me of like, we’ve talked about this before.

Elle (00:23:10):
What happened with you when you were going through the keto experiment and you were also playing a lot of speed golf. But maybe your level of calories that you were assuming cuz you were so satiated with keto was not matching the level of activity and your testosterone dropped. You’ve fixed that through switching your nutrition up and, and realizing, oh, maybe I need more to support my speed golf, uh, habit. By the way, uh, Brad holds the Guinness Book of World’s records, right? <laugh>, don’t you, um, shout out to you. Um, so, so it really depends. But essentially anyone can, you can sort of over exercise yourself into hypothyroidism, not be satiated enough. It just could be be a deficiency in iron. Let’s say you’re a vegan or vegetarian and you’ve gone too long and not looked at some of the things you might need to supplement with.

Elle (00:23:52):
Iron storage is very important. Um, because if your own thyroid hormones are working correctly and being pumped out in the right amounts, they kind of can’t get to where they need to go. So sometimes this is a small fix. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, Sometimes I have helped fix a person because it was just an iron situation. Wow, that’s great. A $10 bottle at the store. Just fix them. But, you know, sometimes it’s, you can do all the nutrient levels, you can do everything, and somehow it’s still there. You could look at heavy metals which affect mitochondrial function and affect, uh, thyroid. And you could clean that up and maybe it still doesn’t work. I mean, sometimes there are things where you just can’t explain it and you don’t know either way. Hypothyroidism, every thyroid issue, by the way, is completely 100% fixable. And if you’re struggling, it’s because of those teen things I mentioned.

Elle (00:24:42):
Um, and back to what you said about that, this whole concept of, I, I speak with a lot of people who were on thyroid hormone replacement and they’re not doing well. So when they’re coaching with me, they’ll say something like, I, I’ll ask them, I’ll say, do you know what the T4 you’re taking does? Do you know how the thyroid, they have no clue. So they’ve taken a pill from the doctor because they just blindly trusted it. This is my big message. If you’ve gotten diagnosed with a disease, you better learn all about it. That you can, you’ve got to, you have to become your own expert in this because nobody cares more about you mm-hmm. <affirmative> than you. We know this. Nobody, I, I not even my own mother who loves me to death. You are right. So you have this power within you, you should learn about whatever it is that’s sailing you.

Elle (00:25:26):
Look, type two diabetes is the same thing. Every commercial is for a glucose controlling drug, type two diabetes is outta control. But if you go to the doctor down the street for your insurance, that’s your regular whatever Western doctor, and they see that your H B A one C is elevated, they’ll just go, here, take this pill and we’ll check it in. They don’t say, oh my God, switch your diet now because that could fix it literally within a few weeks. But they don’t know. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they’re just there, like you said, pill or surgery. So the person walks away and goes, okay, uh, I know now if anyone ever diagnosed me with anything ever again, God forbid, knock on wood, I’m gonna become an expert in it. You, you almost have to be in this day and age. And I know it’s hard to hear because we really want these experts.

Brad (00:26:08):
I don’t wanna be an expert.

Elle (00:26:10):
I know. I don’t either want it to be easy. Exactly. <laugh>. And it’s also like, no, I just wanna find someone to help me. And it turns out that’s why everyone comes to me eventually at the end of the day because they’ve realized they’ve gone through 10, 15 doctors. Mm-hmm. And you know, they now know, okay, I think I have to learn this <laugh>. And then once they do, they get better. And also, even if I’m help helping guide them, they have a real, like, good primal base understanding of how this all works. So that, you know, look, I mean, I, I did the, the ultimate Thyroid course to just put that legacy out there forever. But, you know, know if I die tomorrow, great, that’s out there. But you know, if you’re a great doctor who’s been treating your thyroid, uh, retires tomorrow, guess what?

Elle (00:26:49):
You’re shut outta luck. And, and unless you’d like to go to 15 more doctors as a crapshoot, you really need to know about this because I saved myself. The only reason I’m feeling good today, and I’m not hypothyroid, granted I take thyroid hormone replacement every day to not be the only reason that’s the case is because I did it myself. I shouldn’t have had to. Yeah, but I did. So I am the perfect example. And so are the other two thyroid authors that I trust. Janie A. Bowthorpe and Paul Robinson. I always like to mention their names cuz they both helped me, help me save my own wise. And that’s why the best selling thyroid books are written by patients because we know, you know.

Brad (00:27:27):
Wow. Uh, so in general, for a big picture insight, we have this Hashimoto’s autoimmune, uh, prompting a sluggish thyroid. And that can largely be, uh, righted or experimented with, uh, dietary modification. And then the second one, it sounds like because the thyroid is the control tower regulating all manner of energy production, metabolic function, that if something’s wrong with the system, the thyroid is going to turn down the flame kind of to protect you. If you’re getting mild, heavy metal toxicity every day, or you’re over exercising, like you describe in your example, the doctor’s pointing to the, the shoes and wanting you to exercise more. But the body has, uh, magnificent ways to protect ourselves, uh, fight or flight instincts, uh, by, um, toning down, uh, our ability to, um, produce energy because we’re overdoing it.

Elle (00:28:26):
Absolutely, and this is what happens, by the way, with, just to touch on Grave’s disease, the autoimmune form that causes hyper overactive hypothyroidism. I like to bring up Missy Elliot, you know, the famous rapper. So she’s, she’s been an, she’s been a rapper for a very long time. But back in the day, Missy Elliot was very overweight, but she had Graves disease and hyperthyroidism. Now most people think of hyperthyroidism as skinny inability to gain weight, uh, pooping all the time. You know, sweaty clammy or

Brad (00:28:56):
Jittery, talking fast,

Elle (00:28:58):
<laugh>, whatever. Well, actually, not necessarily, although people would say if people would think that it would equal that, but what it is, is it’s hypermetabolic and increases your appetite. It screws up your blood glucose. So eventually you may be skinny for a while and it seems like, oh, wouldn’t that be great to be hyper? No, it’s the worst. And not only that, but it backfires on you ultimately. And you can become very bloated and inflamed, which then she would be like the perfect example of that. Now, in a, just to touch on Graves for a second, if it can’t be controlled through diet and some medicine, usually the answer is, is that they radioactive iodine your thyroid to kind of kill it, to make it dead, to shut it up from overproducing. And then what happens there is everything I would teach and talk about in my course and books would apply because now you’re hypo, but it’s safer to be hypo than hyper.

Elle (00:29:45):
So that’s the philosophy there. Now, there are people that do have their thyroids unnecessary. If you have thyroid cancer, best kind of cancer to have, because if it doesn’t spread, it’s right there. You take it out, you take half of it out. But now you’re in the same position. So now you need to understand what I do about being able to be treated on thyroid hormone replacement, because you cannot live a good life without these thyroid hormones. So if we’re a bunch of us are all stranded on an island and someone is missing a thyroid gland for whatever reason, and they take thyroid hormones, or they wouldn’t even be alive to be on the island without it, they’re gonna die first. They’re gonna die first because the, they have no thyroid gland. There’s no medication. Ah, there’s nothing there. It, they’re, they’re out. So if you can die without a gland, AKA the thyroid hormones, again, what is life like when you have dripping subpar levels? Hmm. It’s a slow death. It may not be the stranded island quick one, but it’s gonna happen. And then every step along the way, you keep getting riddled with problems.

Brad (00:30:48):
So I think we have a good understanding of, um, the, you could call it the severe difficulties with thyroid function, but I think when you reference those millions, hundreds of millions of people around the world, what is the scenario like when someone has certainly undiagnosed or even subclinical sluggish thyroid? And we’ll get into the blood work and where you depart from the, the template of what we’re looking for and even what we should test for. Uh, but yeah, let’s talk about someone who may be just performing slightly subpar and has a little bit of brain fog once in a while, or takes a little bit longer to recover from workouts than they used to. Uh, what’s going on there and how do we even, uh, pay attention to something like that that’s underneath the, it’s not severe, like not running off to the doctor and getting diagnosed with P C O S or whatever.

Elle (00:31:41):
You know, sometimes it is just a little bit under functioning and they can be dismissed becauseof this So for example, let’s just say a free T3 test range is 2.0 to 4.0 and most people are at 3.1. But if someone’s at 2.7 or 2.8, the doctor would be like, ah, you’re fine. But here’s the key. Do they have symptoms? What are their attempts? Because those things are going to show you that they’ve got an issue. Now, in that case, that’s a call for someone just needing a sprinkle of thyroid hormone replacement. Maybe you would exhaust natural things first, right? You would do, hey, do a thyroid support complex, right? You know, get the, get the food in order, uh, you know, get all that stuff and get, give that eight to 16 weeks. If things aren’t better by then, okay, your decision, maybe you need to go on thyroid hormone replacement.

Elle (00:32:28):
And in that case it would just be a sprinkle, it would be a leg up. It wouldn’t be overhauling the entire feedback loop and giving full thyroid hormone replacement. It would just be a little dabbers. Sometimes that’s the case. I know people that just need to take like five micrograms a day of some that’s possible. Uh, more often than not, people need a full thyroid hormone replacement dose to overhaul the system. So again, paleo thyroid solution, and my chorus is not about like, uh, hey, jump on thyroid hormone the moment you suspect a thyroid problem. In fact, I don’t suggest that all the time. If someone has not tried some natural means first or some other modalities, there’s people that, you know, it happens to, first of all, this is disproportionately affects women. And so, you know, let’s say a woman has a baby, sometimes they can go hyper hypo after that their hormones are screwed up, things are happening and trying to rebalance, and sometimes it’s just diet.

Elle (00:33:16):
But sometimes it’s sort of a, like a life event. Stress, stress can cause a thyroid problem even if you’re eating right. Again, it’s this, it’s like we talk about in paleo primal. It’s not just about a food list, right? It’s about the way that you’re moving, sleeping, sun, life, right? It’s a lifestyle. And so, lifestyle issues can affect the thyroid. So if you’re stressed out, you’re not sleeping, you’re going through a divorce, that can cause a reverse T3 problem. We won’t get into the weeds on that right now, but that can cause a thyroid problem. Just stress. Because again, the body is like, uh oh. Uh, oh problem. So again, what messages are we sending not only in the form of food, right? But what are we sending in the form of sleep, light, mental, you know, emotional response to things like for example, I mean, I don’t know how you are, but based on all the things that we’ve learned, like if I’m driving in the car and someone cuts me off, and you know how like, you know, your heart jumps in your stomach and you have that moment of like, oh my God.

Elle (00:34:18):
Like, oh, I know in that moment that my body has received a false threat and I know that my cortisol is gonna be surging until I <laugh> kind of get myself to a different. So in that, in that case, instead of for the next five minutes or calling someone and being, ah, this, I comment, you know, I I literally go hold. I talk to myself like, Hey, it’s okay. You’re good, everything’s fine. You know, because I know what’s happening and I know that that’s really unhealthy and an unhealthy surge of cortisol that I don’t need to give myself. So that’s also part of the problem too. We’re living in this modern, stressful, uh, looking at the phone, everything’s distracting us, multitasking universe that is very unaligned with how our hunter gatherer ancestors would’ve lived. And so, yeah, uh, rest, stress things like that can also affect a thyroid problem. I mean, your thyroid.

Brad (00:35:09):
So we are perhaps getting just routine annual blood screening or maybe we’re wanna go a little deeper and um, we, we run some extra reports or get with one of the consultants like Merick Health and go deep into it and get, get these numbers back.. I’m guessing that on the routine annual screening, they’re only testing, scratching the surface of the many thyroid hormones we can test. So maybe we should tell listeners, when you’re out there getting your tests, either paying it for it yourself, going on the internet, cause it’s inexpensive these days, it’s wonderful. You don’t have to go through the medical system or if you are going through the medical system, insist with your primary physician that you want these numbers tested. And then what are we looking for? Uh, compare and contrast to what is widely regarded as normal and then what’s really optimal.

Elle (00:36:04):
So one of the things I wanna say first about this is, this is a scenario that happens often, which is why I’m bringing it up. You ask your doctor, hi, can you take these tests? And you shut them a list and they go, mm-hmm <affirmative>, you get to the lab, you get the blood drawn and then you’re crying because they did not take those tests and they never freaking told you. They never said, no, I disagree with this list. They just went ahead and didn’t test it. You have to check your doctor’s lab work. Don’t let yourself get pricked twice in a couple of weeks in the vein if you don’t, I mean, I know I hate getting my blood done, so I definitely don’t wanna do that. This happens all the time, doctors, just look at your list. It doesn’t matter what the list is.

Elle (00:36:42):
You can be like, hi, I wanna be tested for STDs. I’m getting, I’m dating someone, we’re doing this and that. And you give them a list and they go, ah, you only need these. It they, they just don’t even care about what your opinion is. And they don’t call you to go, Hey, I disagree. So you need to really be adamant by saying, I need every single one of these tested and I’m going to check the lab slip before I even go in there. Please, I need to hear you say that you are going to check all of these. If you have a problem with that, then let’s talk about it now. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So that happens. And that really is defeating and also takes you a couple weeks out of solving the problem because you missed an important test. So I’ll go through some of the tests, but I do wanna say I have a two hour free thyroid masterclass on my website.

Elle (00:37:19):
It’s two hour videos of me explaining what’s good lab work, what’s optimal, what’s not. Comes with a free thyroid guide with a list of tests and how to find a doctor, how to all the stuff. But I will just rattle off the main six tests that you need to get. And you always get tested before 9:30 in the morning or a few hours after waking up if you’re unlike the graveyard shift or something. And you can have black tea, black coffee, water, just don’t do any hormones or anything until after the test. And what you get are these six tests, TSH, Free T3,3, Free T4, Reverse T3. And then you always wanna rule out is this Hashimotos related? And so there’s two antibodies tests for that and most doctors only test one. You could be positive for one not the other or both.

Elle (00:38:06):
So it’s important that you get both tested. One is called TPO antibody that stands for thyroid peroxidase. The other is TG antibody and that stands for thyroglobulin. So when I say free T3 and free T4, a doctor will be like, oh, I’ll do total T3, T3 uptake. Nope, not talking about that stuff. This list is the list exactly this. So T S H, free t3, free T4, reverse T3, T P O antibody and TG antibody. Now there are some peripherals that I think would be good to add, but if you are like, you know, struggling with money and you can up then just get this first six and go, is there a problem? But if you can add some on there, I would add a iron comprehensive panel that is for test, it’s like percentage of saturation ferritin, T I B C, which is total iron binding capacity and total iron or iron.

Elle (00:38:57):
So, and that’s usually a $50 test if you get tested on your own. Um, that’s very related to thyroid. And then also always get the vitamin D tested, maybe some b12. So again, there’s some of the, if you fear your insulin resistant, which you might be because hypothyroidism will make someone insulin resistant when they otherwise wouldn’t be, then yeah you can get the H hemoglobin a1c H B A1C test. The other thing that’s so the other fight or flight thing that happens I wanna mention is when you’re hypo and you’re sluggish and slow and you don’t have enough thyroid hormones to produce this energy for your brain, your body, your adrenal glands take over to try to save you too. And so then they overshoot cuz they’re like, well we need to get her outta bed. And so they’re overproducing cortisol and then you get fatter around the middle and then you know, you have all sorts of adrenal issues.

Elle (00:39:42):
So often people who are undiagnosed or who have been mistreated for a while, they will have adrenal fatigue. I’ve had it twice. It’s horrible because you are extremely sensitive to light ,sound, and smells like you cannot handle almost anything. You become that annoying person to be around cuz you’re like can’t deal with someone’s aftershave in the room or it any sound is just, it’s a very strange place to be. Um, and it’s also a sense of being completely overwhelmed. Like if you had two things to do that day, you would break down crying cuz it just seems so overwhelming where when you, when you have perfect health, you’re like I can do 50 things today and it’s not a problem. Right? So these are um, and again there’s like if you go to my website and you look there, there are all of the 40 50 symptoms of hypothyroidism listed and it goes on and on other than the ones we’ve talked about.

Elle (00:40:34):
But those are kind of the main ones. Also assessing body temperature at home. Let’s say you have no money and you’re like, I can’t afford blood tests. Great, take your temperature every day for five days. Take your basal , which is right when you get up, what does that mean? The thermometer is next to your bed. You do not get out of bed in the morning to pee. You don’t even sit up in bed. You just pull that thermometer over, stick it under your mouth. That is your basal body temperature. That should be between 97.7 and 98.2. That’s your basal. Okay? Now in the then you would do an afternoon temp around 3, 3 30. And of course I’m talking about people who are waking up and doing the normal like right? So you’d have to adjust these times if you were graveyard shift and then around 3, 3 30 when you haven’t walked up a flight of steps, uh, you know, had a drink or a hot shower, you know, you’ve just been chilling for about 30 minutes, just been sitting there another time to take your temp.

Elle (00:41:22):
That should be 98.6. Look, if it’s 98.4, does that mean you have a problem? No. How you feeling? You know, temperature’s still a little bit adjusted, but that’s why we are, we’re Goldilocks as humans and it’s related to thyroid. We are not too hot and not too cold, right? So that’s why there’s these averages. So when I was severely hypothyroid, my temperature never got above 96 degrees the entire day. So then a fever for someone who’s severely hypothyroid would be 99 degrees and it would be discounted by a doctor because they’d be like, it’s 99 degrees, that’s not a fever. And you’re like, no, no, but for me it is a fever. This is a problem. Um, as a result of this crappy temperature, you get colds and flus and issues more often. Your immune system is really often compromised by thyroid. Um, so yeah, so you could just take temps at home and do that five days in a row and that could tell you a lot if your basal and your afternoon temps don’t match up.

Elle (00:42:17):
And also you would know because often, um, you’re freezing all the time. Mm-hmm <affirmative> now most of the time people have a little bit colder hands and feet. I’m not talking about that. No one should have hot hands and feet. That would probably be an issue. But it’s this internal chill and you know who you are because you’re the person that’s always cold when no one else is. You know? Um, when I was 96 degrees all the time I was freezing in summer I had to wear socks to bed. I mean it was a nightmare. I literally, nothing I did increased my body temperature and um, again, low, slow, sluggish hypo. So constipated laxative and laxatives in a series of colonics wouldn’t even fix it. I mean everything gets effect your, your gut, your digestion. This is why hypothyroid patients are often very deficient in iron. Even if they’re meat eaters and they’re eating liver every day, it’s your body kind of can’t hold onto these nutrients. Mm-hmm <affirmative> because when you’re chewing food, you’re producing less hydrochloric acid, it’s not breaking things down, then you get to the compromised gut, it’s not being absorbed well. So that’s why those peripheral tests I mentioned go hand in hand because often people are deficient in iron, iron storage particularly and or vitamin D. Um, and some other things like B12 cuz your body’s just not holding onto these things even if you’re eating like raw liver.

Brad (00:43:35):
So if someone has a routine, slightly cold hands or feet, could that be from other reasons? I don’t know. You know, it

Elle (00:43:47):
Could be normal for them. It would, you’d have to take the temperature. You just have to take the temperatures, the

Brad (00:43:51):
Body temperature.

Elle (00:43:52):
Yeah. Sometimes people would feel like, Ooh, I’m chilled and you’re like, take your temp because are you maybe have a fever and that’s why you’re chilled. Do you think you’re cold or do you, you know, people misgauge this in their head. So again, that’s why we go to the diagnostics of temps and or pulse too pulses. You know, listen, if you’re not an athlete and you’ve got a pulse of 40 resting pulse of 40, um, I would like to see your lab work cuz it’s probably gonna be a disaster and I’m gonna be like, how are you alive? Because that happens. The other thing too is you can have, um, your heart needs T3 to function. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So you can have even an elevated heart rate cuz your heart’s working faster in the absence of it. So you can have some wonky stuff. The important thing is if you wanted to do some hum diagnostics, it’s really the temps.

Elle (00:44:34):
And if you have like a wristwatch that you know, and again people’s resting pulse, it differs. There’s, there’s ways to look at it but you kind of get to know you. And so I would do all sorts of experiments with thyroid hormone and looking at my pulse and I would know that I was on too much via temps and my pulse and I would know I’m on too little. And also symptoms, you know, this is the one thing that has to be factored in. So you are a perfect example. So is Ben Greenfield, a lot of you badass athletes, super fit, low body fat guys. You need less T3 two function than other people. So someone might look at your labs and go, oh no Brad’s free T3 is 2.7 in the middle of the, it should be 3.1 for the average human being. Ben Greenfield has, I think last time I looked at his test he has an even lower one.

Elle (00:45:22):
But that makes sense to me. Cuz then you go, well do I have symptoms? How are my temps? How am I feeling? And if those things are all good, then you’re just what I call T3 efficient. Mm. Do you know what I’m saying? So a doctor might go, oh you need more thyroid hormone if you’re on thyroid hormone. Or a doctor might say, well it did say he did say that to um, Mark. What happens is, I think this happened to you too, a lot of people like you dudes will get up and you’ll fast and you’ll go to the gym and then you go get your blood work done. And if the doctor sees the the 1973 test, we do not use a alone to judge anyone’s thyroid. But then uninformed doctors do that TSH, which is a brain signal called thyroid simulating hormone might be a little elevated because you just worked out.

Elle (00:46:05):
So the brain is going, oh hey Brad needs some thyroid hormone. I’m sending this TSH signal to the thyroid to do its job and it’s captured in that moment. And the doctor goes, oh no, it’s elevated. And you’re like, yeah but you’re not taking all of the other tests. And so, so many people have been given a pill of thyroid hormone when they do not need it at all. So you always have to ask the question. And I’ve asked it too, I’ve seen people who are on thyroid hormone replacement and I go, well here’s the thing, you’ve got room to grow here, but how are you feeling? How are your temps? Maybe you’re just T3 efficient. And usually those are the people that have lower body fat that are super fit.

Brad (00:46:43):
Right? And uh, would long-term insulin levels influence those numbers where if you’re low insulin like a ketogenic eater or low carb eater?

Elle (00:46:54):
Yeah, you would probably, again have lower T3 because you would be more efficient at producing it cuz you need less to function because you don’t really need as much to burn all of these calories and things that you’re eating. You’re just metabolically calorically efficient. Again, if you don’t have symptoms, you have no symptoms. Um, you know, it’s very rare that someone who says like, I don’t have any symptoms and somehow their thyroid is all screwed up on the labs. Usually people are, you ask enough questions and you can tell that they’re doing great and if they’re not, they’ll tell you. They’ll be like, well I have to take a nap every afternoon. Okay, here you go. That’s one symptom. You know what I mean? Or, oh well I’m not getting erections. Like, okay, well hey there’s another, now maybe we do need to really take a look at it. But in the absence of symptoms or, or again, you know, heart rate or or temperature, a number doesn’t mean anything. So you can be discounted with a lower number, uh, a little bit lower and they go, ah, it’s too close to the, the normal range. But you can also be like shot into a problem that you don’t have because someone just looks at the test. So if you’re an informed doctor, you never solely rely on the blood work. Mm-hmm <affirmative> it’s blood work plus talking to the patients symptoms and diagnostics like temps.

Brad (00:48:06):
So you could have some favorable numbers on that important six panel, but then becoming with complaints of cold hands, cold feet, cold body, brain fog, poor recovery. And you could have a problem even with normal numbers, you’re saying that’s possible

Elle (00:48:24):
100%. Now also too, this is what I’ve also seen a few times, the there are people that aren’t on any thyroid hormone replacement. They don’t have hyperthyroidism per se, right? It’s not, they technically don’t test for it. They don’t have Grave’s disease, but their free T3 is higher than most normal people. Now what I have noticed in these people is they do have issues with sleep and anxiety. Cuz again, they’re just somehow getting a little bit more of this energy hormone than some other people. And so I’ve noticed a little bit of a trend with those and they often also have a better metabolism because again, they have more of the fat burning T=3, but then they have kind of anxiety or issues sleeping. So, which is a symptom of hyperthyroidism. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> sometimes even though it can over exhaust you too. Um, so that might be like, sometimes I see that it’s rare, but usually when I do see that it, the person is also complaining about the things I just told you. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So does that mean they have hyperthyroidism and needs to be treated? Not necessarily, but just means like, hey, they’re, they run a little bit high and it can be a little bit uncomfortable. Um, and

Brad (00:49:25):
Then maybe some` meditation, that’s right. Slow walks instead of brisk, uh, tempo runs and and so forth could kind of regulate their entire meta or

Elle (00:49:35):
Even a micro micro dose Yeah. Or even a little Scotia beta blocker, if they’re having issues for anxiety versus the xanaxes and things like that, that can help because again, heart rate to high hyperthyroidism, and you could just kind of d tone it down a bit. But again, you talk to your doctor about all of these sort of options, but sometimes I’ve noticed that. But in general, usually symptoms show up. Like one time I was, uh, sometimes I talk with parents and their children because the parent will have a child who’s, you know, 10, 11 or something who needs help with their thyroid. And, uh, one of, I was talking to a, a mom and a daughter, and the, the, the woman goes, well, you, you, you do have energy issues. And the daughter’s like, no, I don’t. I just like to sleep.

Elle (00:50:17):
Bingo. There you go. Yeah, you like to sleep. Okay. Yeah, you’re tired. All the fricking time. You’re sleeping all the time. I know what that’s like because that is hypothyroidism where you can nap anywhere. You can sleep anywhere. You just can’t wait to go to bed. Like you’re, you’re tired. And, and, and when you’re, and when you do take a nap, it doesn’t energize you if you know it doesn’t really work. And so this girl was like, no, I just like to sleep. Mm. Yeah, no, the labs and, and the sleeping all the time match that. But in her head it was just like, I don’t, I just, I like to sleep. Well, no, you’re hypothyroid. So, you know, uh, so sometimes it just, it’s funny because people don’t even think that they have an issue until you go through some of the symptoms and then they’re like, actually, yeah, I am really constipated

Brad (00:50:58):
<laugh>. I mean, this brings up a hugely important point, which is we don’t know what our level is right now and our potential because we have nothing to compare it to. And so, you know, I want to go from level seven to level eight or or level nine to level 10, but I don’t even know if I am at level four and have tremendous additional potential. And it’s really difficult to compare to other people because, um, there’s, there’s so many different variables and, um, you know, yes, I, I need more sleep than other people. Is that a problem? Am I insecure about it? I do feel kind of funny sometimes, like, why the heck, you know, do I need eight and a half to nine and a half hours every night? I’m supposed to be healthy, uh, a picture of health and fitness and I got my diet optimized, my exercise.

Brad (00:51:43):
And it just sort of, whatever it might be a genetic particular, or maybe there is some hidden, uh, optimization that I can still uncover. And that’s why I am doing podcasts and listening to podcasts nonstop and, and writing and working and researching. Cuz I’m always believing that we can, we can strive for better, especially in context of today’s world when speaking of blood tests, you know, like, uh, testosterone or, or one of those where you’re in the normal range, but like, wait a second, what’s the normal range? It’s the most pathetic sample of population in the history of humanity with, uh, Absolutely the global rise in, uh, metabolic syndrome, obesity and so forth. It, it’s not even worth looking at the range. It’s, it’s kind of like, take, take your own hormonal profile over years and decades. And that’s what you can be measuring off.

Elle (00:52:32):
And that’s what we see. So with all of the people that are optimized and doing well in thyroid hormone replacement, the level that Kara needs to be at with her free T3 for her to be on hypothyroid is completely different than Joe, Jack, and Bob. So you never tar, we’re not trying to target a number. We see a trend and we can go, Hey, we kind of know that people who are optimized on this combination of hormones usually do well when their levels are here. But again, it’s, I always impress upon anyone I’m dealing with, which is we’re not targeting a number. We’re targeting what’s optimal for you that gets rid of all of the symptoms for you. And so that might be a 3.4 for you, but Kara might need to be at the top of the range for her entire life with free T three for her to be on hypothyroid.

Elle (00:53:15):
And that’s okay. And so the doctors that are too hard and fast about where things should be, and endocrinologists who are actually the most uninformed on this topic and the most indoctrinated, their association wants everyone’s to be in the middle of the range. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But that’s like a normal person average, not the best sample that you’re talking about. Range of humans everywhere that they’re gauging these ranges on. And so again, if something’s within range, is it optimal? And that’s where functional medicine comes in, right? We’re looking at what’s optimal. So, I mean, I had ferritin one time that was like 10, and maybe the range was 15 to one. Oh no, sorry, it was like 10. And the range was 10 to 150. I got complete because there wasn’t an L or an H next to it. The doctor didn’t even look at it.

Elle (00:53:58):
But that is horrible. I had restless legs. I, it really affects thyroid. I mean, I, you know, by the way, for everyone, ferritin ranges are usually 10 to one 50, but in general, you’re shooting for about 65, um, as being a solid number. So anything that drops below 40 is suspicious. And when you get 30 and below, you’re gonna have probably some issues. So, um, yeah. So again, if it’s not, if it, there’s not an L or an H next to it, or even worse, we’re dealing with these ranges. And if you’re dealing with an informed doctor or someone like me who’s helping you with your doctor, like if you took my thyroid labs right now, a doctor would be concerned because they would be like, oh, there’s numbers next to it. Like the dumb doctor would, she doesn’t understand thyroid would be concerned, but you’re like, yeah, but now I’d have to give you a whole book and you have to take my course for you to understand this cause you didn’t get trained in and you don’t get it.

Elle (00:54:47):
And you shouldn’t be worried that this is low, you know, because some things always get low when you’re on thyroid hormone replacement. Mm-hmm. Like ts h depending on the thyroid hormone combination. And, uh, that’s not a concern. So again, it goes both ways. They either aren’t catching something because it’s not a L R H or they are afraid of something because it’s an L R H. I mean, we know about this with like, um, lipid panels, right before they started doing ratios and things like that, people were like, oh my god, you need a statin. Like, that was the standard response. When they’re not looking at all of the nuances and the ratios between things or understanding that actually a higher L D L is very protective and amazing where a doctor might freak out and send you to go on a statin.

Elle (00:55:30):
Now, just on that note, anyone listening, and you’ve probably heard this from Brad before, no one should ever go on a statin unless you’ve taken a CAD screening. And if your CAD score is like zero, you are good. You don’t need to, this is just the most unnecessarily prescribed thing that we see. I had a, I saved a friend who accidentally heard a podcast with me talking about this with a doctor. And they had the STA prescription in their car, like threw out the window <laugh> because they heard this. They went and got a CAD screening for 14 years. They had this story in their head about, you’ve got a saturated fat problem, you’ve gotta watch your fat intake, duh duh. And they dipped around and thought, oh no, I’m gonna, and they never had a problem to begin with. The doctor was always looking at their labs incorrectly in an outdated way. And by the way, that friend’s doctor went to Harvard. Doesn’t matter. I don’t care where you go to school. I’ve met the dumb dumbs who went to Yale. It doesn’t matter. You could be uneducated in something and have an an Ivy League degree. So just because you’re doctors from Harvard University, you think you’ve got the best. Turns out he was unnecessarily prescribed as statin several times in his life until he heard a podcast with me talking to a doctor about it.

Brad (00:56:34):
Yeah, it’s a tough one. And, um, I think there is a battle to fight, not only against just the, the, the narrow focus of mainstream western medicine, but of course the, the food marketing and the manufacturing and the, uh, the, the culture in general that’s, uh, promoting all manner of unhealthy living. But again, we’re, we’re talking about, um, one area of expertise, and you go and seek out that expert. But when I go to get my car fixed, I’m not asking them for financial investment advice. <laugh>, um, you, you even laugh when I said it, but it’s, it’s completely, uh, applicable to yes. Um, you know, trying to go see a physician for a wellness, you know, objective.

Elle (00:57:17):
I had a doctor years and years ago when I was first struggling and I was trying to figure out stuff and I said, can you test my B12? And he laughed at me patronizingly like, you idiot, like laughed at me. And I actually was such an emotional hypothyroid wreck at the time. I started crying. I’m like, are you making fun of me for asking you about this test? Well, guess what? Turns out I was B12 deficient f that guy. You know what I’m saying? That happens all the time. And he was the one that said, your thyroid’s fine. Keep working out. Keep taking the birth control pill. And it was like years later, I ran into him at a C V S, I saw him, he didn’t see me, and I lost it, Brad, because I was looking at the guy who kept me sick for several years, not testing my thyroid, right?

Elle (00:57:57):
And again, he learned what he learned, da, da, da. I didn’t know, okay, it was his job. I bolted out of that CVS and I was just bawling in my eyes in my car, you know, I just, I like lost it because this freaking guy who patronized me about a B12 thing, even testing it, just even testing it laughed at me. And I had a B12 deficiency and I was hypothyroid and all of it was wrong. And you know, I mean, what do you do in that situation? You almost wanna write them a long letter and go, Hey, your borderline malpractice buddy. This is way they’re not gonna listen to you. I walked into, I walked into my doctor, you know, we all have, like, I have my functional medicine doctor, Dr. Forsman, the doctor on my book who, you know, you pay out of pocket for, and then I have my dummy down the street doctor, right? Who you’re gonna just go get the lab work from and you go to if you need an antibiotic or something, right? So she’s obese, by the way. Just wanna throw that out there, <laugh>. And, um, so when I went into to see her for the first time, I brought in my book and I said, Hey, I just wanna be very honest with you. Uh, I wrote a book about uninformed doctors regarding thyroid.

Brad (00:58:58):
You’re on the back cover, <laugh>.

Elle (00:58:59):
Yeah, right? Like the photo view is on a you’re watch out lady. And I said, um, now listen, I said, I deal with a functional medicine doctor who I go out of pocket for, and that is who I usually deal with, no offense to you and what you do here. And then I handed her a list from Dr. Forsman of all the blood tests to get, and I said, I’d really appreciate it if you could just take these tests for me. Is that cool? And she was very cool. She looked at them and then she says, well, sure, I have no problem taking these tests. I just don’t know what some of them mean now. That’s fine. At least she admitted that. But Brad, you and I both know, she did not go look at that later to learn what the things were that she didn’t know.

Elle (00:59:41):
She didn’t, because then I had a thyroid test a couple years later and she contacted me over the email thing and was like, I’m concerned and I wanna be like, did you not read my book? You just like, oh, I’m still dealing with an uninformed doctor down the street. Ooh. You know what I mean? And so you, I just look anyone within the insurance system, they are literally practicing medicine based off the fear of being sued. Number one, they are not looking, like you said, for root causes and, and functional sort of approach. They’re looking to, they have 15 minutes. They’re looking to give you a pill or surgery. They’re not gonna look elsewhere. They’re not gonna geek out in their own time and do their own research. You know what I mean? This is just not who they are. This is why doctors of osteopathic medicine DOs, integrative physicians, functional medicine doctors, they’re not all worth their weight. Sometimes people just hang the integrative shingle on their, on their, you know, doctor office, but they’re anti-aging doctors. They’re more likely going to be up on this kind of stuff.

Brad (01:00:44):
Whew. And the smoke is clearing, and now it’s part, uh, it, it’s time for the part two objective of the story, which is to educate yourself. So I think, yes. Um, tell us what one student will learn when they participate in your course.

Elle (01:01:00):
Well, first of all, it is the most comprehensive thyroid course on the planet. There really isn’t anything like that. Go ahead and research it. I dare you to find one. It’s not, it’s not available. Um, it’s everything I know. Not only 10 years of coaching people all over the world. It’s everything I know for myself, all the personal and equals one experiments I’ve done. Even, um, Brad Kearns has a great hour and like 20 minute, wonderful, exclusive paleo, primal keto, sort of all of the, just explaining what all of it is so that you not only have a free copy of my book with the course, but that you can hear Brad explain it. We’ve got four hours of Dr. Forsman, uh, two hours on digestion, an hour on detox, an hour on thyroid. We’ve got Palmer Kippola. She beat autoimmune. She beat Ms. Cured herself of MS and wrote a book about it.

Elle (01:01:45):
And she talks all about that from an autoimmune perspective and autoimmune diseases in general. It is 23 original hours and 29 hours total. It’s about a semester’s of college worth of information. And, uh, there’s also some other great, you know, there’s, there’s some other peripheral podcasts and information that I threw in there that are extras, sort of just to get the full picture. But what’s really great about it is it’s me on video, uh, in, in a couple modules. One is going through 25 plus examples of all different kinds of blood work and showing you how you would look at these things, how to look at this, what might be the answer, what are the options, because sometimes there’s no right or wrong on these things. Sometimes it’s like, well, they could try that first and they could do that second. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then it’s also me going in depth talking about, I couldn’t cover this in the book because the book would’ve been 5,000 pages, right?

Elle (01:02:34):
So in the thyroid course, it, it’s me also going through detailed dosing protocol modules that you can speak to your doctor about all the varieties of dosing, whether it’s a T4, T3 combo, also natural desiccated, thyroid T3 only, which no one ever discuss discusses. Um, it’s, it’s all the information you need to get educated and it’s lifetime access. And so again, you might have a thyroid problem now maybe you fix it naturally, maybe it comes back now you need the course again. Maybe you get on thyroid hormone replacement and oh, maybe some of it backfires on you and you gotta reverse t through your problem. Now you gotta go back to the course and li listen to that module. So it’s all encompassing. Really in-depth course. It’s the ultimate thyroid course. You can go to Elle Russ.com. Use colde BRAD for 15% off.

Elle (01:03:25):
And it’s, look, it’s 597. It’s also the cheap, it’s one of the cheapest courses out there. So many people were like, you could charge so much more. And I’m like, yeah, but I also know what it’s like to be broke, having spent tons of money on doctors that don’t help you feeling defeated, and, and I’d rather have people have the information, you know what I mean? So that they can learn this stuff. So you also, now my thyroid coaching, um, except for clients that have already coached with me, now it’s a prerequisite to take the course. Mm-hmm. But you do get access to thyroid, discounted thyroid coaching sessions with me. If you do take the course, and again, this is because I want you to have a, a decent knowledge of things before you talk to me or have that ability to go back and learn that. I’ve repeated myself a thousand in one times, right. With the same information and it’s like, gosh, it’s, so I put it into a course so that you can learn this stuff and it’s really important. Like we talked about. You have a disease, whether it’s temporary or not, and it might be there’s people that have been on thyroid hormone and you can get off it. It’s absolutely not a life sentence. There are all sorts of aerials, but everything you need to correct this thing is in this course.

Brad (01:04:33):
Would you consider giving a professional discount for an uninformed physician who wanna get up to speed on their thyroid

Elle (01:04:40):
<laugh> for them? Absolutely not. <laugh>. No, no,

Brad (01:04:43):
No. I’m kidding. Absolutely

Elle (01:04:44):
Not. Charge more. I’ll charge ’em more. Yeah. Well, you know, it’s

Brad (01:04:46):
Funny, I, you know what, physicians can use the Brad coupon for 10% off. That’s right. You’re welcome to participate. Yeah.

Elle (01:04:53):
Well, you know, it’s funny, a couple physicians have bought it. In fact, I got a a an email from an MD the other day and it was, look, it’s, it’s very flattering, but it’s also like, I’d rather not get the compliment because I wish they all just knew what they should know, right? So this MD emails me and he says, you know, I’ve watched all your interviews and I’ve taken notes, I’ve watched it. And she goes, I tell everyone to get your book. And I tell them, Hey, she isn’t a doctor, but she knows more than most doctors, including myself. Okay, by the way, that’s a doctor you’d would wanna see. They admit that they don’t know everything. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that’s the kind of doctor you want. They’re not entrenched in ego, they’re not indoctrinated. Right? They’re willing to learn, they’re willing to geek out. The guy watched 10 interviews of me and took notes.

Elle (01:05:32):
Love him. That’s a doctor worth talking to, right? That’s who my doctor Dr. Forsman is, right? You could go to Dr. Forsman and go, Hey, can you look into this? I’m not so sure he’ll geek out on it. Cuz he’s still in that wonderful world of what they were like in medical school. And then these doctors get in part of these practices with these insurance companies and they just lose all of the, they don’t have any, they don’t go above and beyond what they learned. So while I appreciate that compliment, I wish I didn’t get it, it still hurts me when I hear a doctor say that to me because it shouldn’t be the case. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right. It is. And so, oh, well here we are, <laugh>.

Brad (01:06:10):
Yeah, you’re doing your best. What a great contribution to put this course out there. I strongly encourage anyone listening who even has a hint of, uh, thyroid dysfunction to jump in there and take the course. It, it affects all in all aspects of our life. And I know from talking to you over the years and you generously reading my own blood works and giving me incredible commentary back that I save and archive and, um, you know, I’m, I’m a minor enthusiast, but boy, I had these cold hands and feet for a long time and I thought it was just Brad Kearns having cold hands and feet and, um, you know, it’s gone now, uh, because I cared enough to, uh, you know, go a little deeper. So that’s what it’s all about@lrus.com people. And we should also plug your fantastic podcasts and the, the great interviews you do. So that’s the Elle Russ podcast. It’s all there at her website. Thanks for, thanks for sharing. It’s tons of free information, especially the two hour mini course that’s gonna convince you to go deep, but at least it’s out there for free. So what do you have to lose to at least start and, and dabble in that, people?

Elle (01:07:11):
Yeah, at the very minimum, take the free thyroid masterclass because you could watch a hundred interviews of me online, but this is just me two hours and I really get into almost everything you could probably piecemeal from other interviews. Plus it has the free thyroid guide and a healing meditation. And in that guide is the list of tests and everything you need. So whether it’s the free masterclass and or, you know, buy the course, look the stuff’s out there for you because look, I, yeah, we’re all about selling books and courses and that’s all nice, but at the end of the day, I just want this suffering to end <laugh>. Like it’s really a horrible life to be hypothyroid and um, you know, I used to cry multiple times a day. I was practically a hermit. I was fat and bloated. I was a mess. Um, when you have gynecological issues as a female, it’s very demoralizing, I’m sure as it is with a 30 year old that wakes up with no erections, right? So these are really sad things and it also makes you depressed. And so I know what it’s like and um, I don’t want anyone to go through that and certainly not suffer for, not suffer with that longer than like a couple of months, you know what I mean? You don’t need to go through a 10, 15 year old deal. Like a lot of these people.

Brad (01:08:15):
Elle Russ, everybody bring in the heat. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you. Da da da da. Thank you for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support. Please email podcast brad ventures.com with feedback, suggestions, and questions for the Q and A shows. Subscribe to our email list at brad kearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful bimonthly newsletter edition with informative articles and practical tips for all aspects of healthy living. You can also download several awesome free eBooks when you subscribe to the email list. And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen to the shows, that would be super incredibly awesome. It helps raise the profile of the B.rad podcast and attract new listeners. And did you know that you can share a show with a friend or loved one by just hitting a few buttons in your player and firing off a text message? My awesome podcast player called Overcast allows you to actually record a soundbite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember, b rad.

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