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Transcript
- 03:15 About Dr. Izabella Wentz
- 07:43 Prevalence of Hashimoto’s
- 10:11 Testing for Hashimoto’s
- 12:43 Symptoms
- 16:30 Lifetime medications
- 18:57 Underlying root causes
- 23:02 Ideal diet for Hashimoto’s and/or thyroid issues
- 26:20 Hashimoto’s and leaky gut
- 29:09 Supplements
- 34:09 Unconventional triggers for Hashimoto’s
- 41:18 Putting Hashimoto’s into remission
- 42:43 The Hashimoto’s Protocol
- 46:34 The Thyroid Secret docuseries
- 49:11 Where to find Dr. Wentz
Wendy Myers: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Live to 110 Podcast. My name is Wendy Myers. And you can find me on myersdetox.com and MineralPower.com (that’s my detox program).
Today, we’re going to be talking to Izabella Wentz. She has an amazing new book coming out called Hashimoto’s Protocol. And she also has a docuseries, a nine part docuseries coming out called The Thyroid Secret. And I have the picture of it right here if you’re watching the video. This is a fantastic docuseries. I was in it. I talked about how mercury fills up your thyroid and your hypothalamus and pituitary and interferes in thyroid hormone production in signaling.
She’s just done such an amazing job at getting the message out on thyroid disease and Hashimoto’s (which is autoimmune thyroid disease) and how to address it naturally. Nothing makes me more mad than to hear my clients coming to me, and their doctors just tell them, “Oh, you have to be on thyroid medication for life” and that’s really all you can do just because they’re not educated themselves on how to actually address the underlying root cause of thyroid issues.
So, that’s why we have people like Izabella Wentz in the world to tell us exactly how to do that. And she’s going to talk about that today on the podcast, how to address your thyroid issues and Hashimoto’s naturally to put it into remission.
Please keep in mind that this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. The Live to 110 Podcast is educational in nature, so please consult your healthcare practitioner before engaging in anything that we suggest today on this show.
I have my own book coming out on Amazon. It is called Limitless Energy: How to Detox the Toxic Metals to End Exhaustion and Chronic Fatigue. I know a lot of you guys out there are tired and you’re exhausted. And there’s a lot of different underlying root causes of that. But many times, it is toxic metals that interfere in your mitochondria’s ability to produce energy.
Your mitochondria are your little powerhouses in your cells that make your body’s energy. And a lot of different toxic metals can interfere in that production. So, I talk about that in my new book and how to detox those simply at home.
And if you want, you can do my more advanced Mineral Power programs because some of the metals are not easy to remove. You need some pretty powerful stuff that you can only get a practitioner or even a medical doctor.
So, please check out my book. It’s going to be released April 29th on Amazon. But it’s available right now for preorder. Go check it out, Limitless Energy, on Amazon.com.
Wendy Myers: Our guest today is Izabella Wentz. She’s an internationally acclaimed thyroid specialist and licensed pharmacist who has dedicated her career to addressing the root causes of autoimmune thyroid disease after being diagnosed with it herself in 2009.
Dr. Wentz is the author of the New York Times bestselling patient guide, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis: Lifestyle Intervention for Finding & Treating the root Cause and the recently released protocol- based book, Hashimoto’s Protocol: A 90-Day Plan for reversing Thyroid Symptoms and Getting Your Life Back. As a patient advocate, researcher, clinician and educator, Dr. Wentz is committed to raising awareness on how to overcome autoimmune thyroid disease through The Thyroid Secrets Documentary Series, the Hashimoto’s Institute Practitioner Training and her international consulting and speaking services offered to both patients and healthcare professionals.
You can learn more about her at ThyroidPharmacist.com. Izabella, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Dr. Izabella Wentz: Thank you so much for having me, Wendy. It’s so nice to see you again.
Wendy Myers: So, why don’t you tell the listeners about yourself and how you became interested in the thyroid?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: So, in full disclosure, I was never interested in the thyroid gland during pharmacy school. I just thought that thyroid disease was something people got as they got older, and I really didn’t understand why people kept complaining when they came to the pharmacy about still struggling because they were already taking thyroid medications. I was like, “What more do you want me to do? You’re already on medications.”
I was not interested in alternative medicine and lifestyle medicine—none of that—during pharmacy school and after I graduated. And it wasn’t until I was diagnosed myself with a thyroid condition, with Hashimoto’s, in 2009 and hypothyroidism. That’s when I became a human guinea pig/Hashimoto’s expert because I really had to do something to take back my health.
Wendy, I had been struggling with fatigue, with panic attacks, with anxiety. You name it, I had it for almost a decade before I got my diagnosis. And even once I got my diagnosis, things weren’t as peachy. I actually went on to develop new things after I was diagnosed and got on hormones.
I ended up with Carpal Tunnel. It just felt like my world was getting smaller and smaller. So, I
started with fatigue, sleeping for 12 to 14 hours. Then I got Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I had to run out of class in pharmacy school to go into the bathroom or pull over while driving on the side of the road because I had to go to the bathroom.
And then that kind of progressed with panic attacks, acid reflux, then having palpitations, then
having hair loss, then having basically allergies and multiple chemical sensitivities… and eventually with carpal tunnel.
I was living in Los Angeles at the time, which you and I both love. I love that you still are there I can visit some time. I was in my twenties, and I’m like, “I’m going to go and do fun things in Hollywood and meet new friends and go dancing.” And my life was waking up, going to work, coming home from work, making some food, sitting on the coach, watching TV, and then falling asleep by like 8 or 9 p.m. every night just to do it all again. And then, on the weekends, I clean the house, and that was all that I had energy for.
So now, I’m just really, really passionate about helping people recover their health from thyroid
disease because I’ve been well now for about four years. I’m considered in remission. I don’t have all the symptoms I used to have.
I’m not perfect. Every now and then, I get cranky or I get a headache or something like that. But now, I’m able to follow my dreams and live the life that I want to live. And I want to give other people that same opportunity, to follow their goals, ambitions and dreams.
I was like this ambitious person in a lazy person’s body. It was so hard for me. And yeah, now I guess I’m kind of making up for lost time a little bit.
Wendy Myers: So, how common is Hashimoto’s?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: Not many people know this, that it’s actually a very common condition. So, when I was first diagnosed, I remember telling my husband I have this condition called Hashimoto’s. And he’s like, “Wow! That sounds like a Japanese sword fighter.” And then, whenever I tell people that I specialize about Hashimoto’s, I write books about Hashimoto’s and I have a blog on Hashimoto’s, and I only work with people with Hashimoto, they’re like, “Wow! That’s wonderful. So you have like five people that you work with and 10 readers, right?”
It’s actually a very common condition. Twenty-seven percent of our general population within the united States has Hashimoto’s if you do the right tests for it. The problem is that most people are not diagnosed until the later stages of Hashimoto’s because the conventional medical tests are going to uncover stage 4 of Hashimoto’s or stage 5 of Hashimoto’s.
Now, we start having symptoms at stage 2. And there’s usually a lag time, anywhere from 5 to 10 to 15 years between stage 2 and stage 4.
And so, we have a person who gets their “thyroid tested” and they suffer from anxiety, fatigue, mood disorders, they have a hard time losing weight or they’re gaining more weight.
I remember when I was living in Los Angeles on a beach, all of a sudden, my sweatpants were getting tighter and tighter. I was like, “What’s going on here? I haven’t changed my diet. I’m still doing everything exactly the same.”
And the thing is that, during that time, the only kinds of tests that would reveal that you have a thyroid condition are thyroid antibody tests.
Now, these are not done by conventional doctors until your TSH is elevated. But here’s the deal… the thyroid antibodies will be elevated first sometimes for up to 10, 15 to 20 years before your TSH is elevated.
So, it’s kind of like, “Wouldn’t it be more obvious to do the antibodies first?” But doctors are told to save money and not to test for thyroid antibodies. And they’re also told that there’s nothing you can do about those thyroid antibodies.
Of course, you and I both know different because we know that if you can address the antibodies in that early stages, you can prevent decades of symptoms and you can also prevent the progression of the condition—and in some cases, you can prevent the need for thyroid hormones or even reverse some of the damage that’s occurred.
Wendy Myers: Yeah! And I work with a lot of clients, they come to me, and they’ve already had some medical tests, and their conventional doctor only tests the TSH when you ask the doctor, “Can you test my thyroid?” That’s usually their one thing that they test. rarely do I see the antibodies also.
So, what you need to do is obviously you need to ask your doctor or press your doctor to do the right test. What testing should people be doing if they want to check if they have thyroid disease? Dr. Izabella Wentz: Definitely they want to do thyroid peroxidase antibody. So their TPO antibodies, these are going to be elevated in about 50% to 80% of people with Hashimoto’s;
Thyroglobulin antibodies (you can just write them down as TG antibodies), another anywhere from 40% to 80% might have these elevated; And then, we’re looking at doing free T3 and free T4.
You can also do the TSH. But another key thing is you need to interpret it correctly.
Back in the day when scientists first determined their reference range, they had people with
thyroid disease in the pool of blood of “healthy people.” And so this reference range is very lax. They used to say unless you have a TSH of 10, we’re not going to treat you. We don’t consider you to have thyroid disease.
To give you some perspective, mine, I tried to keep between 0.5 and 2.0 to feel my best. When it was at a 4.5, I was a sloth. So, I was like mapping all the time, and I was forgetting things. I couldn’t remember simple words. And so these are the tests that you need to do.
Here’s the tricky part though. For some people, they might not actually have thyroid antibodies even when they have Hashimoto’s. There’s something known as “serum negative” Hashimoto’s where the person will still have the autoimmune attack on the thyroid gland, but they won’t have the antibodies.
And so thyroid ultrasounds (which I recommend for everybody to get at least once, every single woman in our world), and then also if you have a nodule in your thyroid gland and if you happened to get a biopsy out of the nodule, the doctors and the pathologists can actually look at the cells and see if there are Hashimoto’s in there.
So, using these more advanced diagnostic methods like thyroid antibodies, ultrasounds and then
biopsy, we find Hashimoto’s much more frequently than we just do the TSH tests. And we uncover early stages where we can really talk about prevention and we can really talk about reversing a
lifetime of symptoms.
Wendy Myers: What are some of the symptoms? I know a lot of people, they start to get tired, they get cranky and just start gaining weight. They just kind of don’t know what’s wrong, and they go to their doctor.
So, what are some of the symptoms people need to be looking out for that are signs they might have low thyroid function or Hashimoto’s?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: The most common symptom is going to be fatigue for people. I was called “lazy” for quite some time because people were like, “Why are you not awake at the normal time when everybody else is?” My friends have to call me after noon on the weekends because if they called me before that, I would yell at them. You’re somebody that needs a lot of naps. You’re somebody that is, basically, just day-to-day things make you tired. So, that’s like thyroid tired, that’s like beyond regular tired.
Then the other second most common symptom that people report is going to be weight gain or an inability to lose weight. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from women who are like, “It’s not your thyroid. It’s foot-and-mouth disease. Your thyroid is normal,” and lo, and behold, they actually had a thyroid condition, it just wasn’t detected.
Sure enough, when their thyroid was supported, they were able to resume their normal activities, and they lost weight.
And then, the other common symptom is going to be mental issues, like brain issues. We’re talking about brain fog, trouble finding words, forgetting things, locking into rooms, forgetting why you got there.
Brain fog, and then the other ones are going to be depression or apathy. So if you’re somebody that kind of stops caring about things, that’s a potential thyroid symptom. We also see anxiety.
The other symptoms that we often find are going to be cold intolerance. If you’re the woman in your office that’s wearing two sweaters and everybody else is wearing a t-shirt, that’s a potential sign that your thyroid is off. Hair loss, a loss of the upper third eyebrow.
And then, another big one that just really devastates me and is just very devastating is infertility and frequent miscarriages. This is something that I just get very, very passionate about because women will be told that they are infertile or they’ll have multiple miscarriages because their thyroid function was off and nobody thought to check it.
So, these are the most common symptoms. We also see pain.
And really, when you think about what the thyroid gland does, it regulates our metabolism and it regulates our energy. There are thyroid hormone receptors in every single cell. And so any time you have an alteration of thyroid function, you’re going to see effects on the entire body.
This could be things like I had carpal tunnel. You could have acid reflux or irritable bowel syndrome, hair loss.
I know there’s one fabulous blogger out there, Hypothyroid Mom, and I think she put together close to a thousand symptoms of thyroid disease.
Wendy Myers: Yeah! And all those symptoms you mentioned are very common. They could be mistaken for another issue. Women get prescribed antidepressants and other types of things. And thyroid issues and Hashimoto’s disease are so common that you really want to rule that out first when you’re going to your doctor.
Sometimes, you have to come armed with what you want at the doctor’s office because they won’t test the things that need to be tested like your thyroid to make sure your symptoms are being caused by thyroid issues.
Wendy Myers: One thing that really annoys me is that, like you said, 27% of the people can have Hashimoto’s disease and the conventional medical approach is they’re given thyroid medication, but all the while—yes, they need thyroid medication, but all the while, their body’s immune system is destroying their thyroid tissue, and they continue to get worse and worse over time and need more and more and more thyroid medication.
And so can you talk to us about the issues with that and what your protocol is to help heal the thyroid naturally, so it doesn’t continue to be destroyed by our immune system?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: Yeah, of course! And like you said, as a pharmacist, I certainly appreciate that there are thyroid hormones that we could take as medications, and that can be really helpful for people’s symptoms especially if they use natural desiccated thyroid hormones that are close to the hormones that we produce ourselves than the synthetic versions.
But at the same time, when you just take thyroid hormone—and I’ve seen this time and time again unfortunately. Women are being good girls, they’re following directions, they’re doing everything their doctor is saying, Hashimoto’s is actually progressive.
And so, stage 5 of autoimmune thyroid disease is progression to other types of autoimmune condition. unfortunately, people develop lupus, develop rheumatoid arthritis. They develop a whole host of other types of autoimmune conditions. And their world just keeps getting smaller and smaller.
I don’t share this often, but I had premature ovarian failure as well at one point because my Hashimoto’s was getting progressive and I was on meds. Now, I was able to reverse those things, and you can actually reverse your autoimmunity and you could reverse the attack against various issues.
The beauty of it is you start feeling better. And that’s one of the most important things, for you to feel better and recover your health.
Wendy Myers: Yeah! And that’s why I love that you wrote this book called Hashimoto’s Protocol that talks about how you can address the underlying root causes of Hashimoto’s and stop this progression and stop perhaps progression to developing other autoimmune disorders or diseases.
Wendy Myers: So, what are some of the things that you talk about in our new book, The Hashimoto’s Protocol that are some of the underlying root causes of Hashimoto’s?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: So, some of the underlying root causes are going to be food sensitivities, nutrient depletions, toxins, intestinal permeability, chronic infections as well as an altered stress response.
Now, for one person, gluten might be their root cause. They get off of gluten, and that’s it! For another person, they might have a few in each of those six categories, various root causes that they need to address before they can get into remission and before they can actually stop the progression of the condition.
The good thing is we can actually help people from a symptom perspective in a relatively short amount of time. My new book, Hashimoto’s Protocol, has a liver support protocol that’s done within the course of two weeks.
When you really look for all the potential root causes, it may take three months to two years (sometimes, even longer) to address and eradicate all of those root causes, right? And so with my liver support protocol, what I found is that a lot of people with Hashimoto’s actually have a backlog of toxins.
And I know that you appreciate this very much with the work that you’re doing, the role of toxins within our environment. When a person has so many toxins they’re exposed to on a day-to-day basis, essentially, their body is no longer able to keep up. And then, we end up with this toxic backlog.
I like to think of it like an overworked government worker. It would take five minutes to process your application for, I don’t know, a driver’s license. But they have these stacks of papers on their desk, and they’re just not getting through it fast enough. And so you end up coming in, and you’re like, “Hey, can you help me with this thing?” and then they flip out on you. They’re like, “I’m so busy!” You’re like, “But it’s only going to take five minutes.”
And that’s sort of what happens when we have a person who’s overloaded with toxins, and they’re not clearing them up properly. They end up with backlog. And what happens, a lot of times, in Hashimoto’s is people will have allergies to their environment. They’ll have multiple chemical sensitivities.
And I was on the verge of that. I had allergies to everything you and I both have. Pomeranians, I was allergic to my little Pomeranian. I was allergic to every tree and shrub in Southern California. And I was allergic to everything inside of my house at one point. The key is if you can start moving out some of these toxins, you can start feeling better.
We didn’t talk about this symptom, but a common symptom of hypothyroidism is lack of sweating or just a lessened amount of sweating. And we know that sweating is one excellent way to get rid of toxins.
Now, this is an issue for most people with Hashimoto’s—they’re not sweating. Most of them don’t complain about it. They’re never like, “Oh, wow! I hate that I can’t sweat.” Most people won’t mind. But that’s a really important first step, get your body sweating.
And so, like you, I love infrared sauna. I’ll recommend hot baths with some essential oils, doing hot yoga if you can tolerate it and just giving some opportunity to start clearing out toxins through your body.
And then, we can dive deeper into some of the protocols if you want, but they really focus on removing things on your foods that are toxic, removing things from your environment that are toxic, giving yourself supportive foods, and then giving yourself supportive supplements to help your liver out, give your liver some love, so that it could do its job.
Imagine somebody coming into that office, if 10 people just got in and took a little bit of a pile of paper here and there, that office worker will be much happier and much more efficient. And that’s what we’re doing for your liver with the liver protocol.
Wendy Myers: I love that you talk about toxins in your book because that’s a big focus of mine. We know our poor livers are so overworked—so many chemicals and toxins. Mercury is a huge cause of thyroid dysfunction. So that’s so, so important. I love it that you have that on your book.
You also talk about a diet in your book. What is the ideal diet for someone that’s dealing with Hashimoto’s or thyroid issues?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: I always have people start off with where they feel most comfortable.
The first foods that I always have most people get off of are going to be gluten, dairy and soy. I did a survey of over 2000 of my readers in 2015. Eighty-eight percent of them felt better gluten- free where only 3.5% had Celiac disease which is typical in Hashimoto’s. We’re going to see anywhere from 1% to 15%.
And then, dairy, 80% of people felt better off dairy.
And soy was up there. What’s interesting is that people don’t often feel that soy affects them in the same way that gluten and dairy does. Gluten and dairy are quite obvious. With soy, it’s actually more subtle where they might not have the gut symptoms, they might not have the breakouts. But sure enough, they’ll have anxiety.
When we test their thyroid antibodies before and after going off of soy, we see a big reduction in thyroid antibodies which indicate how aggressive the condition is. So, if you can get those antibodies lower, that means your condition is going to be slower progressing and less aggressive—and in many cases, it brings fewer symptoms.
But those are the three foods I start off with for everybody across the board. I’ve had some people go into complete remission—it’s been amazing. Some people need to dig a little deeper. They may need to identify what foods are triggers for them.
A wonderful protocol that I have in my book is the Autoimmune Paleo Protocol that talks about removing the most common reactive foods. So, we’re talking about gluten, dairy and soy, as well as eggs, nightshades, seeds and grains. This can be very, very helpful for people as well.
For my people that are really sensitive to everything, I also do something called the root Cause rotation Diet where we go through and we put them on a 4-day rotation schedule for a time period, so that they don’t keep losing more and more foods.
The book has a way for you to tailor your diet to your own needs because one person might be sensitive to a random thing like pineapples whereas another person may not be. And so I have information about that.
For example, if somebody has the CBS mutation, they might be reactive to foods that are high in sulfur like broccoli which is normally really, really good. I have information how to modify those kinds of things throughout the book.
But not to give you TMI, generally, I want to start people off with gluten, dairy and soy-free. But if you’re already on that, just know that there’s hope, that there are other protocol that can help you recover. It’s not just that. If you didn’t get better with that, that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get better.
Wendy Myers: That’s so important because I heard Dr. Ariso Vojdani talk about if you have an autoimmune disease, you also are going to have leaky gut as a precursor to that. And if you have leaky gut, then you’re going to have food sensitivities most likely.
And when the dairy or the gluten proteins leak out into your body, those proteins match your thyroid. Your body is trying to attack the gluten and dairy, but then it attacks your thyroid. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: Yeah, there is a concept known as molecular mimicry. And basically, it’s sort of a mistake of the immune system where there’s something within your body that’s causing you inflammation. And it could be a pathogen like a virus or a bacteria. It could be a toxin. And it could even be a food particle if you have leaky gut.
And so, what’s happening is this foreign substance gets into your bloodstream. Now when we
have leaky gut, everything that we’re eating might get into our bloodstream. And we’re at risk for having food sensitivities to whatever we’re eating—that’s why the rotation diet can help.
And the thing is… the immune system begins to attack these foreign substances and anything that looks like them.
And so, for people with Hashimoto’s, a lot of times, they’ll see that there are certain foods that trigger their Hashimoto’s. People talk about food allergies and how these are the real and true thing. But in fact, food sensitivities are something that’s very, very relevant in autoimmune disease, especially Hashimoto’s.
There’s something known as the type 4 delayed hypersensitivity reaction that utilizes the IgG pathway of the immune system. This is how food sensitivities happen. And this is also how Hashimoto’s happen. So, Hashimoto’s is a type 4 delayed hypersensitivity reaction.
When we have a person who stops challenging their IgG system with all the foods that are causing it to inflame, we start seeing that their thyroid antibodies and their thyroid symptoms decrease.
I think it’s pretty nerdy. I have a lot of nerdy stuff in my book. And I have a lot of really practical things as well.
Wendy Myers: No, we love our super nerds here on the podcast.
But it’s so important. You really have to get down to the nitty-gritty and these details to help people make those distinctions. For me, I love to ask questions. I love to know the why. “Why do I have to get rid of gluten and dairy?” It’s hard for a lot of people, but it’s so important to put Hashimoto’s into remission.
Wendy Myers: And so, what are some of the supplements that you recommend that people take if they have Hashimoto’s?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: One of the most helpful supplements is selenium. Selenium deficiency has been noted as one of the main triggers of Hashimoto’s. I kind of consider it as one of those “miracle nutrients.” Two hundred micrograms per day has been shown to reduce thyroid antibodies by about half over the course of three months. This is quite impressive.
We also see a reduction in anxiety and palpitations. It’s helpful for Hashimoto’s. It’s helpful for
Grave’s disease. And women who take selenium during their pregnancy are less likely to have post- partum thyroid issues which is really, really exciting, that that can be prevented.
That’s what I have people starting off. A lot of times, people will say, “You need to test for
nutrients. Never take them.” With selenium, that’s not really the case. So, even people who have not been found to have a deficiency will benefit from a selenium supplement from the studies.
The other supplements that are really important are going to be a vitamin D. Vitamin D is very often deficient in people with Hashimoto’s. With my ladies that go into remission, we get their vitamin D levels somewhere between 60 and 80. And unfortunately, unless your full-time job is a lifeguard on a beautiful beach somewhere, you’re not going to have enough vitamin D. And so you oftentimes need to supplement. And you need to supplement more than what you might get in a multivitamin.
So, I might have my clients take anywhere from 1000 to 5000 Ius per day. And we always do
testing for that one because vitamin D can actually build up in the body, so you can get too much of it. So, that’s a big distinction between that.
The other common nutrient depletion that I see that not many people are aware of is thiamine. Thiamine is B1.
When I was in pharmacy school, I was told that thiamine deficiency was very rare. And it only
happened in people who were like alcoholics and who had been drinking for a very, very long time. And the symptoms were pretty extreme.
Now, people with autoimmune disease—people with Crohn’s disease, it had been studied with; people with Hashimoto’s have been studied as well as a few other conditions—they might have a subclinical deficiency in thiamine. And this is something that you might not be able to find on a lab test.
What’s really, really amazing and fantastic is that people can recover from many symptoms within just three days of taking a thiamine supplement. Six hundred milligrams per day is the dose that you need. You’ll be able to see within three days if it’s working for you or not.
The reason you might suspect the thiamine deficiency would be if you’re having low blood pressure, if you’re having adrenal fatigue that you just can’t resolve even with adrenal supplements, if you’re having blood sugar imbalances, if you’re having brain fog, if you’re having fatigue… and if you’re on a gluten-free diet.
So, one of the sources of thiamine in our food supply is actually grains and gluten. So a lot of times, I’ve seen people who they come to me and they’re like, “I’m Paleo. I don’t know what to do. I feel horrible. My adrenals are tanked” and people will say, “Whoa! Paleo is not good for the adrenals.” It’s like, “Well, actually, if you take a thiamine supplement…” It’s just a matter of balancing out your body.
So, that’s a really big thing I recommend. I also recommend testing for B12 and ferritin levels, and then really looking at getting your B vitamins dialed in, and then vitamin C. That’s kind of a starting point for most people. And of course, magnesium.
So, I have a big love for magnesium. It’s amazing what happens when people start on magnesium. All kinds of symptoms disappear. I’ve had clients with horrific menstrual cramps for most of their lives. They start taking magnesium, and they’re like, “Wow! I got my period this month, and I didn’t even realize that it came.” So, it’s for things like cramps.
Migraines have completely disappeared with magnesium—insomnia, anxiety. It’s amazing what can happen with just adjusting the nutrients. We have all kinds of little tweaks like that that we can do for people to give them back their life.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, that’s so important. I give every client magnesium, B complex and selenium because I’ve done thousands of tests on hair mineral analysis (and other kinds of tests), and almost everyone is deficient in selenium. Everyone pretty much needs—except the people living in Hawaii. They get a lot of selenium there for some reason.
Dr. Izabella Wentz: Oh, interesting.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, yeah. But everyone is deficient in magnesium. It’s so, so important.
Wendy Myers: And so what are some unconventional triggers for Hashimoto’s that no one else is talking about, certainly not the conventional medical doctors?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: There’s a lot of different ones potentially. People could be on a clean diet, and they’re doing all the right things, and then they’re still struggling. These are the types of people that I work with because we have so much fantastic information out there.
I feel like people can start off with gluten-free, dairy-free on their own and start off with the nutrients on their own by reading books and blogs. But the thing is that people who continue to struggle are going to have some of these imbalances. usually, they’re either toxins or infections that are going to be a pretty big deal for them.
One of the big infections that can be present in people with Hashimoto’s is blastocystis hominis. It’s a protozoan parasite that lives outside the gut. You can’t see it. You would never know it was there except that it causes leaky gut, it could cause irritable bowel syndrome, it could cause hives, and it can trigger Hashimoto’s or it can be asymptomatic.
So, especially people who are grain sensitive will have this parasite. And once we eradicate the parasite, we’ll start seeing that they have the ability to get into remission, drop their thyroid antibodies, return more foods, hives go away, irritable bowel syndrome goes away.
Now, whenever I see a person who keeps losing foods where they’ve gone gluten-free and diary- free, and that helped, but all of a sudden, they’re reacting to rice or they’re reacting to whatever they’re eating, I’m immediately thinking this person has a gut infection like a parasite or something else going on that we wouldn’t normally think of would be present in the conventional world.
Another type of root cause that not many people are aware of is actually breast implant. And this is something that can trigger an autoimmune response within the body. And when you think about it, it’s a foreign substance within our bodies, and our bodies detox systems are going to become overburdened.
When I started working with Hashimoto’s clients, I always have them do a timeline of what was going on in their life before they got sick and really from pre-birth, if possible. We go through what kinds of infections have you had, what kinds of surgeries have you had, have you been in accidents, traumas. We kind of go through that with them.
And there’s quite a few people where I was like, “Hmmm… you know, you were doing really well before you got your breast implants. Is that when things changed?” Of course, to ask somebody to have her breast implants removed is a much bigger commitment than going gluten-free, right?
But I have had some clients who have explanted, and they have gone through remission. And I’ve had some readers that have submitted their stories as well that I’ll be publishing on my blog. And I also have more information about that in my book.
But yeah, this is something that I feel like is not on anybody’s radar, but it’s a potentially devastating root cause because it can take your life away from you.
Wendy Myers: I a hundred percent agree because if your body can react to blueberries or cucumbers or other things that people see on food sensitivity tests, you better bet your body can react to breast implants, and the plastic and the silicon that can leak out and the chemicals that are on those plastics.
I actually had my breast implants removed last year. I got them when I was 19. I did not need them. And I always wondered in the back of my mind, “Did this contribute to the health issues that I had?” I won’t know. I don’t know. But I know there are tens of thousands of women out there that have health issues and thyroid issues and adrenal issues and all other types of issues and autoimmune disease and you have to stop and think, “Is that a potential root cause for some women?”
Dr. Izabella Wentz: For some people, it can absolutely be the root cause. It can be very relevant. For some people, it might be molds. So they might be eating the perfect diet, but they might have mold growing in their bathrooms somewhere. And that can be causing their immune system to flare up. It’s anything that your body recognizes as a foreign invader.
When you think about women, our bodies are so tuned into our environment because we carry the primary responsibility of bringing new life into this world. And so our bodies are tuned in to determine whether it’s a safe time to reproduce or if we’re better off going back within our caves and taking a nap until there’s a better time.
And so, this is why I think women are at greater risk for thyroid disease. We see five to eight women for every man diagnosed. And we get this happening where a person, a woman, basically, is going to be more sensitive to her environment.
Things like mold within the home which may not affect her husband may affect her. Things like people yelling or having a history of trauma, all of these things can actually put a person into a mode of feeling unsafe.
And for some people, really getting a thyroid condition can be almost like a personal growth journal that enables them to really explore what is in their life that’s led them to develop this condition.
In a sense, the thyroid gland, conventional medicine will say, “You have to cut it out, medicate it, suppress it or irradiate it,” and I think patients are, oftentimes, not any better; they want to be thyroid warriors. They want to beat thyroid disease.
Well, the thyroid gland is actually trying to help you, so it’s like, “Hey, there’s not enough food around. And I’m sensing, because of these nutrient deficiencies you have, that there’s not enough food around. So I’m going to help you out, and I’m going to help you hold on to your weight. I’m going to slow down your metabolism. You’re welcome.”
And so, in a sense, the thyroid gland is actually trying to protect us. And when we think about it from that perspective, we can really start thinking about, “What do I need to do to start healing? And what are the elements that I could put in place to send those safety signals?”
It’s going to be through feeding your body nourishing foods, to getting rid of the toxins in your environment, whether they’re within you or somewhere else like in your home.
Obviously, we can’t get rid of the pollution out there, but we can definitely support our liver in
clearing toxins. We have a lot of choices for what we can do to help our ancient bodies survive in this modern world.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I love that you said your thyroid disease or dysfunctional can be kind of a personal growth journey because that’s exactly what happened to me—and that’s why we are talking right now today.
It’s because my thyroid slowed down from all the abuse and nutrient deficiencies and all that stuff. That sent me on this journey of how to heal my thyroid and my body and the other health issues that I was having at the time. And that just culminated into a health website and us talking. So, I love that!
Wendy Myers: And so, let’s talk about is it possible to put Hashimoto’s into remission.
Dr. Izabella Wentz: Absolutely, I see it every day. We start seeing elimination of symptoms and a reduction of thyroid antibodies. Doctors will say that once you test antibodies, you never need to test them again.
That’s not true. They’re actually an indication of how aggressive the attack is on your thyroid
gland. This is an important marker to monitor, along with, of course, how you feel and other types of blood work.
I love that you do hair mineral analysis testing because that’s, a lot of times, more accurate than what you would get through a conventional doctor.
Wendy Myers: And it just makes me so mad when I hear my clients coming to me or other people and the doctors who have said, “Once you have low thyroid function or you get on thyroid medication or you get Hashimoto’s, there’s nothing you can do. You have to be on thyroid medication for life.” It just makes me so angry.
And there are certain people, yeah, they need to be on thyroid medication for life. There are just some people that have had too much tissue destruction. Some people, they’re going to have that. But a lot of people, they can. Yourself, you’re in remission. There is hope out there. You can heal your body.
I love that you came out with that book, The Hashimoto’s Protocol, to give people the step-by- step guide that they need, that they are not going to get from their conventional medical doctors.
Wendy Myers: So, can you talk a little about your book? When is it coming out?
Dr. Izabella Wentz: So, Hashimoto’s Protocol comes out on March 28th. And it has the fundamental protocols that everybody with Hashimoto’s needs to do regardless of their root cause.
And so, that’s the first half of the book. We go through a liver support protocol. That’s two weeks long. Sixty-five percent of the people that were in my group program and of my clients—I’m a big outcomes research nerd—they start improving within just this two weeks.
The next protocol is the 4-week adrenal protocol. The following protocol is the 6-week gut protocol. And these are things that are going to be safe and effective for most people with Hashimoto’s.
The second half of the book goes into some of those advanced protocols. These are for health nerds, and for advanced health seekers, and people who maybe had a plateau with their health or maybe they’ve recovered their symptoms with the beginning protocols, but they really are truly interested in getting into remission and potentially weaning off of thyroid hormones. That’s not for everybody, but I have the information in there on how to do that.
So, we’re looking at the advanced protocols for figuring out if you have an infection. I give assessments to figure out which are the imbalances that you still have.
I used to give my clients 800-question assessments, and then my publisher is like, “Can you make this 80 questions?” So, I thought about it really hard, and then I tested that with some people,
and it actually works.
So, it helps you, gives you direction into where you need to focus on next.
And we go through advanced protocols. We go through advanced infection protocols, how to figure out what infection you have, and what you can do about it.
And I have herbal protocols. I have medication protocols and food protocols that you can use to overcome the infection. The blasto infection that I talked about, taking saccharomyces boulardii has been found to eradicate it in about 80% of the time. And the standard treatments for it actually don’t work. So, we go through that in the infections protocol. We go through all the most common infections, how to test for them, and how to treat them.
And then, we go through the Hormone Balance Protocol where we go through and talk about various options for hormone optimization. And this might be through taking thyroid hormones. I also talk about low level laser therapy which is a new therapy that’s been shown to help people wean off of thyroid hormone.
So, in this study that was done—there’s actually three studies that have been done now in a clinic in Brazil—we’ve had 50% of people with Hashimoto’s being able to get off of their medications completely, and the other half have seen a reduction in thyroid antibodies and reduction of the dose of medication.
So, before, back in the day, obviously, it was much easier to prevent the damage to your thyroid gland. And people who have had it for years, there was lower chances. And for some people, even when we eradicated their trigger, they would still need thyroid hormones. But now, with low level laser therapy, we have the option and the amazing opportunity to help heal and regenerate thyroid tissue which wasn’t possible before.
And I go through all the latest and greatest things, and some really natural things, and the advanced technology. I’m a firm believer in using everything we possibly can to help ourselves to recover.
And so it’s very much a comprehensive and integrative approach. I’m really, really excited to share it with the world. My hope is to create 10,000 success stories. When people recover their health, they can go after those passions. I really can’t wait to see what’s going to happen when people read this book and what kinds of amazing things they’re going to do in the world.
Wendy Myers: And you created a docuseries also called The Thyroid Secret. And if you’re watching the video, I’m holding it right here. It’s really amazing! I mean, such a job well done. You created nine videos that are about an hour and a half long each. It’s just a wealth of information. You had so many experts. I talked on it about some of the mercury that fills the thyroid. You want to detox that.
And so, talk to us a little bit about the series and when can we watch it? And I’ll put the links in the shownotes.
Dr. Izabella Wentz: So, the documentary series, it was definitely a huge passion project. I invited all of my friends and favorite experts—including yourself—to come and speak about your genius and your expertise and how you help people recover from thyroid disease. We also had about 50 patients who have had various levels of success through different types of interventions on their journey. And we came together and created this beautiful, empowering series that will take you through all the elements of taking back your health.
So, we start off with getting the right diagnosis. Then we move into some of the symptoms, what they might mean. And we talk about toxins. We talk about medications. We talk about the personal growth aspect of thyroid disease. We talk about adrenals and the gut.
And we share success stories which are really my favorite part. It’s to see the many people that can be transformed through the protocols that we use in getting people’s health back.
That, the documentary series is free to watch online for nine days. And then, we make it available for people if they wanted to buy the DVD’s. So obviously, we’ve had production costs. And I’d love to send everybody a free DVD, but I’m not AOL.com.
Wendy Myers: Yeah! I just love that. Like I said, it makes me mad when people, they go to their conventional doctor, and they’re like, “Oh, there’s nothing you can do” and they’re just given a thyroid prescription.
If your doctor is saying that… ruN!!! run for the hills. There’s so much that you can do. You have so much control over your health issues and Hashimoto’s. There’s so many things and there’s so much information at our fingertips.
So, I definitely recommend checking out Izabella’s book, The Hashimoto’s Protocol and The Thyroid Secret DocuSeries.
Wendy Myers: Izabella, thank you so much for coming on the show. Tell us a little bit more about where we can find you and learn more about you.
Dr. Izabella Wentz: Thank you so much for having me, Wendy. ThyroidPharmacist.com is a really great place to come and check me out. I have some starting resources for you—recipes as well as a Diet Quickstart Diet and some more information on the nutrient depletions that are really, really important for taking back your health.
Wendy Myers: Again, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Dr. Izabella Wentz: Thank you so much for having me.
Wendy Myers: And everyone, if you want to learn more about me, you can go to myersdetox.com. You can check out my detox program, MineralPower.com. We’re going to get that mercury out of your thyroid. Thank you so much for listening to the Live to 110 Podcast.
