923: Thyroid Update: Hashimoto’s Gone… What I Did That Worked! (Solo Episode)

Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I’m Katie from wellness mama.com, and this short solo episode is going to be about a much requested topic and a deeply personal one, which is a thyroid update and a walk through my personal journey of recovery and healing from Hashimoto’s and restoring my thyroid function naturally.

And I share this in storytelling format so that if you have also been through similar journey, that it might inspire hope, and know that healing is possible. And as always, of course, this is never for comparison or advice. This is just sharing my story for inspiration and information and perhaps as a point of inspiration for you on your own journey.

I will delve into the details of this, but the short version is that my latest lab results show no detectable thyroid antibodies whatsoever, which means that my Hashimoto’s is in remission medically, and I would say completely resolved as there are no traces of those antibodies in my body. And I have not been on medication for over two years now, so this is entirely natural restored function.

All lab ranges were not just in normal range, but in optimal range with no detectable antibodies. And I will link to it in the show notes. I used the function health panel for this because it tests over a hundred markers and I found it’s a really deep and powerful insight into health, and it’s also much less expensive than most places I’ve gotten lab testing in the past. They also do biological age. So as a little bit of a sidebar, I found out that my biological age is 21, which is substantially younger than my chronological age. And I will do another episode and also some posts on Instagram about the factors that I think contributed most to that as well.

But my labs show a much different picture than they did 7 to 10 years ago when I was in the thick of my experience with Hashimoto’s. And I wanted to just dive deep into these and as an example of what can be possible over the long term and some uncommon factors that I think were actually big levers for me personally.

So in this short episode, I will break down what I did, specifically, why I think it worked, and some detail on my current labs and what I will be doing next. Now before I get into things like food and supplements, I know there’s always a, it can be a tendency to wanna start there. The things that actually made the difference, and I’ve talked about before, were actually addressing deeper root causes.

And for me, this was the things that were keeping my body in a state of stress and inflammation. No matter how much I was trying to support my body nutritionally or with supplements, until I addressed these factors, I was seemingly in sympathetic dominance and which was fight or flight, and I wasn’t able to properly even utilize all the things I was doing.

So for me, a big part of this was being willing to look at my trauma and consider nervous system regulation as a big piece of the puzzle. And I’ve shared this before, but I believe that actually this was my missing piece that let all the other things I was doing actually have the maximal impact that they could.

And there’s biological reasons for this as well. We know that chronic stress increases cortisol, and there’s a thyroid connection here because, cortisol out of balance: cortisol is not a bad thing, but when it’s out of balance, it can suppress thyroid function. A 2018 study found that high stress correlates with worsened thyroid function, especially in Hashimoto’s patients.

So this was my big piece. What worked for me, it was a, a long and winding journey, but I focused on nervous system regulation, breath work, deep emotional healing work, somatic therapies, I even did hypnosis. I kind of tried everything to bring my body out of fight or flight mode and to sort of entrain my nervous system to be able to access parasympathetic, which is our rest and digest and heal state.

And I really think I never, or almost never accessed that state for well over a decade. And this took a while to learn how to even enter parasympathetic, and this is still very much a journey I’m on. I’m now very aware of the nervous system piece. I think this is a very powerful piece for many people and it’s one I’m by no means perfect at, but the journey has been incredibly helpful so far.

It’s also important to know, and for me this was true, that stress isn’t just emotional when we’re talking about nervous system health and physiological stress. It is not just our perceived feelings of stress, it’s also physical. So the body can perceive stress from things like undereating, which was also a big factor for me and one that I resisted kicking and screaming in addressing for a long time. Over exercising or not getting enough movement, there’s a spectrum there. Or things like lack of sleep, environmental toxin exposure, not getting enough nutrients in the diet. I did an episode all about that, my protein and micro nutrient theory of health.

I think there’s a lot of things our body can perceive as stress, even if mentally we wouldn’t say we are stressed. An uncommon thing that at least correlated for me and that I feel like is not commonly talked about when it comes to thyroid health was the power of voice work. And I think there was a physiological and physical component to this as well as a metaphorical and deeply personal resonant aspect of this.

So the thyroid, of course, sits in the throat and there’s a strong connection between vocal expression and thyroid connection. I learned about this from a podcast guest a few years ago, and it was a light bulb moment for me because our thyroid sits very close to our vocal cords. When we use our vocal cords, we vibrate and bring blood flow and movement to that tissue.

And studies show that things like humming, singing and chanting have a positive effect on vagal tone. They can help reduce inflammation and they can help regulate the nervous system, which are all key  for thyroid health. This isn’t something I had considered before, and I’ve shared a little bit in the past about my journey with voice and how I was always very soft spoken.

I had trouble having hard conversations. I often just did what anyone else wanted to keep the peace. And so I was, I’ve been on a very beautiful inner journey and outer journey with taking voice lessons, and this seemed to correlate with a lot of my thyroid recovery. I don’t think by any means this was the only factor at all.

But I did find it interesting that thyroid shifts correlated with when I started taking voice lessons and I was belting, I was singing in the shower more. I think all these other things are factors as well, but that is an uncommon one, so I wanted to mention it. There was also the mindset shifts. I’ve talked before about these, about moving away from language, like my body is attacking itself with autoimmune disease, which I realized my body was always on my side and its symptoms were messages to me, and it was certainly not attacking itself.

It was working in my best interest. I had to learn how to speak the language of my body and also the mindset of, I’ll be happy when. I realized so many places I had that story in my life that were actually keeping me stuck or keeping me from moving forward. I used to think things like, if only I had X amount of money, I would feel safe.

If only I lost X amount of weight, then I would be comfortable in my body or happy. If only I had less stress, then I would be happy. And I realized I could flip that script and I could cultivate happiness and peace and contentment in my current experience without making it dependent on an outcome. And Naval says that desire is a contract we make with ourself to be unhappy until some time in the future.

And I did a lot of work around the inner experience of that. Ironically, when I learned how to move into more grace, ease, and joy, and more happiness in the present moment, all of those things as outcomes that I thought would lead to happiness, they ended up happening as byproducts in a much less stressful way, and I realized that I had the script backwards for all those years.

The body doesn’t wait for circumstances to be perfect to heal. It responds to safety signals, and so the more I focused on joy and gratitude and rest and listening to my body, the more it healed. And also as a byproduct, the calmer and more present I felt internally. Now, part of this I’ve talked much more about in the past, in my writing and on this podcast.

Is the diet and nutrition side of what I think worked for me. And again, to reiterate, the reason I talked about trauma work and nervous system first is I actually think that was the more impactful piece for me. And I think it was able to be effective once I got those pieces in line because of the years of diet and lifestyle stuff I had been trying to do also.

But I had done years of the spreadsheets and the supplements and the perfect diet and all those things with minimal to no change. So I think it is very much a both and when it comes to the inner work into nervous system and that in isolation, the diet and lifestyle might not fully resolve things, but in combination across the board, I think that can be very powerful.

So once I handled stress, I doubled down and really dialed in my nutrition and supplementation, and I’ve talked about before I was on an autoimmune protocol for a while. And then now I’m on no form of restrictive diet at all. I think it is important to remember anytime that we’re using a restrictive diet, that it can be a very valuable tool, but that the goal is not to feel good and to thrive in a very limited range of inputs with a very restrictive diet and a laundry list of lifestyle factors we need to do every day.

The goal long term is to be resilient and adaptable, and even if we still choose healthy inputs to be able to have leeway and for our body to handle without stress any inputs we give it. So all of these things worked together better, the diet and lifestyle things, once I addressed the nervous system stuff.

I was doing a lot of the things I’m about to talk about for years and it wasn’t until I addressed that side that I noticed a difference. So one part of this for me was what I talked about in my micronutrient and protein theory of health was a very high protein and especially high micronutrient, anti-inflammatory real food diet. And I still try to incorporate a lot of these foods because I feel my best when I do.

But I now can eat if I want to gluten, dairy, any other food and not have a reaction. Hashimoto’s is an inflammatory autoimmune condition, and many people with Hashimoto’s also have markers of gut inflammation or leaky gut, which can make the healing cycle more difficult. So this is an important area. to address. I definitely gave my gut rest.

I’ve talked about how I’ve done extended fasting, which is a gut reset before. I have reliably been on the Just Thrive probiotic for years, and that’s the only one I’ve ever felt a difference from. A 2021 study found that an anti-inflammatory whole food diet significantly reduced thyroid antibodies and improved symptoms.

So for me, in the short term, this was essentially eating a lot of single ingredient foods, meats, fruits, fermented vegetables, broth, soups, very gentle things, and avoiding inflammatory foods. Now, I do not have inflammation, even from eating gluten and dairy. In fact, I have eaten quite, quite a bit of gluten and dairy and other foods I wouldn’t eat as much leading up to my labs because I wanted to see if there was any effect from those. I focused especially on high quality protein because the thyroid needs amino acids to produce hormones, and this process can be interrupted. So on most days, every meal I eat, I have some form of really clean quality sourced animal protein or something like oysters or fatty fish or sardines are a daily staple for me.

And I’ve just developed a routine with this  and I notice a difference in my energy levels when I don’t eat that way, but I’m adaptable enough that I still have energy and can move back to normal very, very quickly, even after an evening out at a restaurant. I also took Aminos from Kion, which I’ll link to in the show notes, several types of enzymes and I mentioned Just Thrive probiotics for the gut.

In the short term, when I knew my gut wasn’t functioning optimally, the extra support seemed really helpful, and the aminos are highly bioavailable. So even when I was having trouble digesting and getting as much nutrients out of protein as possible, that was really helpful. I do also think there’s a time and a place for supplements, and this is not medical advice because I think this part is very personalized, but I’m gonna briefly share some of the ones that helped me the most. Which were magnesium… I’ve written about this, I’ve talked about this so much. I think most of us need a lot more, more magnesium, but for thyroid specifically, it helps with the conversion of T4 to active T3, and so therefore might have a positive impact on hormone function specific to the thyroid. So this is one I still get regularly.

I feel like it’s very much helpful. We know it is used for over 600 reactions within the body, and the modern diet is typically very low in magnesium.

I also took selenium and I learned about this from Dr. Isabella Wentz and Dr. Allen Christensen. But selenium helps regulate thyroid peroxidase or TPO, which is key for hormone production. And interestingly, a 2017 study showed that selenium lowers thyroid antibodies in Hashimoto’s patients. So this is something I regularly cycle in and out of my diet or supplementation protocol.

As well as zinc, which is essential for thyroid hormone conversion, immune support, and actually other hormones as well, including a potential link with testosterone, and it’s one that’s also typically low in the modern diet. I’ve also talked before about choline. This one is genetically specific to me, though many people seem to benefit.

It’s difficult  to get enough choline from dietary sources. I had to avoid eggs for a while, and so I certainly wasn’t getting dietary choline. And supplementing with choline I noticed a massive difference in my energy levels when I first started. And I find that with my genetics, I tend to do well when I cycle choline in and out regularly.

But choline in particular helps with liver health and liver detox, which the liver’s an important piece of the thyroid equation as well. And then beyond that, I daily cycle, lots of different other trace minerals, full spectrum minerals, Beam minerals, I’m very much team minerals. And the thyroid seems to benefit as well.

The other pillar of this for me was lifestyle and environmental support. And this is another area that I feel like isn’t talked as much about, but can be very impactful. So beyond food, I focused on daily habits that supported my body’s natural rhythms and I learned to get very in tune with what my body was requesting.

You might be tired of hearing me talk about this piece by now, but I do feel like this is a vital piece that people ignore because it is so simple and that has so much potential to transform your life, which is really dialing in sunshine exposure and circadian rhythm support. I’ve talked, I’ve done a whole episode about morning sunlight and how it regulates cortisol, and it’s a byproduct also of thyroid function.

A 2021 study found that disrupted circadian rhythms alone can lead to thyroid hormone imbalances. We also know that vitamin D deficiency is linked to many issues, but among them, Hashimoto’s and research shows that supplementing with vitamin D lowers thyroid antibodies. Personally, I prefer to get vitamin D from the sun whenever possible. And I’m grateful I live in a place where that is possible for most of the year. On my most recent labs, mine was 86 without any oral supplementation of Vitamin D. And I had been chronically low in that my entire life. For most of my adult life, that level was in the twenties, even if I was taking vitamin D. And so to me that is a marker of hormone and inflammatory things going on within the body.

And so having that now in an optimal range, naturally without supplementation, to me, was a really good sign. As another lifestyle factor, I think it is important to curate our environment to be as low stress as possible, and that includes physical and physiological stress, like things like toxins in our environment that our body perceives as stress even if we don’t feel stressed.

So that was a process I’ve written extensively about, but detoxing my home, switching to natural products whenever possible, simply just simplifying my routine. Using less products, wearing less makeup, using less toxic household products. It also meant learning to really honor my body’s need for rest and joy.

I had always been very type A, almost compulsively driven, and I would feel guilty if I rested or wasn’t working, and I had to unpack those scripts about  why I felt the compulsive need to do all that work and realize slowly that I actually was more productive in the tracking sense of the word when I was more in tune with my body and created enough space for true good sleep and also rest and joy and nervous system rest. So in especially the intensive phase of my healing journey, I built in a lot more time for sleep. I moved much differently. Instead of over exercising, I focused on movements that felt good, like walking and stretching and strength training.

But for two years I did not do any high intensity exercise or heavy strength training. I just did gentle exercises like walking and swimming, and I waited to add in the more high intensity once until my nervous system capacity was there. I also prioritized sleep. I think if you change nothing else, get morning sunlight and get good sleep and you’ll notice a positive impact on your health.

And those things are free, especially once you create them as habits.

Now to break down my recent labs a little bit, and I’m happy to share these if you guys are curious. Because for much of my adult life, I’ve had a lot of things out of range on my labs, and now everything was in range except for a couple of things. Like I can even get my omegas a little higher. But I think all these factors I’ve talked about contributed to that.

The things that stood out to me thyroid specific were, I had no detectable thyroid antibodies whatsoever. Meaning medically, my Hashimoto’s is in remission. I’ve also done an ultrasound. I have no nodules on my thyroid and all of my other thyroid markers that were measured, and they did a full panel, were not just in normal range, but within optimal range, so TSH, free T3, free T4 were all optimal, showing my thyroid was functioning well. And I’m not on medication, which means my body is fully maintaining thyroid function on its own.

Even after being on medication for years while I was in the healing process. So I say that to illustrate that this is possible. I know often we’re told that it’s not. That the thyroid can’t heal once it’s already been medicated or once it’s already has Hashimoto’s or once it has nodules, or that this is a lifelong condition and that all we can do is manage symptoms. Again, this is not medical advice, I’m just sharing my personal experience, but none of those things turned out to be true for me.

I think the body has infinite potential to heal and it’s communicating with us constantly. I was a slow learner, but over time, learning to listen to my body and learning to implement some of these simple steps, not anything complicated or crazy biohacks, but just the simple foundational things and dealing with that nervous system piece made a drastic difference.

And I share this in this episode today because I think this is not just about my numbers or my story.  I share it from that perspective. I feel like this also is an example that the body can heal when given the right tools and that it’s always on our side. And that just like we can create a negative feedback loop when it gets too many things it doesn’t need or is overloaded, we can also create a positive feedback loop and move toward more resilience, more peace, more healing when we support the body. I also feel like this speaks to treating the root causes, including the inner work that is often ignored and not just treating symptoms. Because when I was taking medication that was helping with symptoms, that was helping with lab levels, but it wasn’t addressing the underlying reason that I was having those things in the first place.

And that journey was, like I said, a long one, a very rewarding one, and I feel like illustrates just how capable the body is of healing. So as in summary, some final thoughts and key takeaways if you are also in the experience of any kind of thyroid issue as inspiration. I feel like I just wanna reiterate that healing is not just about food or supplements.

It is about signaling safety to the body in which those can be a tool, but it’s often more nuanced than just a medication, a supplement, a diet. It’s very much a both and, and it’s listening to the body and creating an environment where the body feels safe to heal. Our bodies are always on our side.

They’re always working toward our best interest, and so it’s learning how to give them, give our bodies the tools they need to move into the direction we wanna go. I also just share this story to illustrate ’cause I was told by the medical profession that I would have this for my whole life, that there was nothing I could do about it, that I would always be on medication and those things were not true for me.

And so I share that story hopefully to just be an example of hope for anybody else who might be on the same path. I do feel like every journey is, of course, unique, but that there are some key principles like real food, like stress reduction and nervous system support, and minerals and sleep and sunlight that can make a tremendous difference. Especially when we understand how they support our body. And I wanted to share just how profoundly they worked for me. I would love any questions that you have. I’m happy to share more. I’m happy to share my lab results and to answer any follow up questions in another episode.

But wanted to just give that quick update for today since several of you have asked. And again, happy to elaborate on anything I’ve talked about. As always, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to send me a DM or leave a comment if you have experienced anything similar. If you are currently in the journey of working through thyroid healing or any other kind of healing, or if you want to dive deeper into any of these topics. I read every rating and review that is left.

I’m deeply grateful when you spend a moment writing a review or leaving a rating as that helps other people find this podcast and become part of the community. And as always, I am incredibly grateful that you are here, that you choose to share your time, your energy and your attention with me that you’ve been on this journey with me, and I would love to hear from you.

So please DM me on Instagram or leave a comment and let me know what you’d like me to talk about in future episodes. For today, thank you so much for listening. I hope you’ll join me again on the next episode.