Transcript

Kylie: [00:00:00] Hello. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Hormone Hub. Today I am very excited to introduce one of my very good friends, Tara Nelson. Tara and I have known each other oh, for a long time now, and Tara is a very experienced naturopath and her area of specialty is the thyroid, which I know is a big, a big, big thing for women going through, well, women in general, women going through perimenopause, menopause, you know, our thyroid, as you know, and as you’ve heard me talk about many, many times, all of our hormones work together and the thyroid is a big player.

So we’re gonna jump in today to all things thyroid. So welcome, Tara. It’s great to have you here.. 

Tara: Thanks for having me, Kylie. It’s great to be here. Yes. 

Kylie: Today’s gonna be fun. Yes, I think it’ll be, we were chatting away and we had to remember to hit record before we, 

Tara: we’ve already recorded a [00:01:00] whole podcast. 

Kylie: Oh. So Tara, you know, your specialty ever since I’ve known you, as a naturopath has been the thyroid and, you know, you and I have both had sort of thyroid, personal thyroid histories. And I think that’s, you know, I think as practitioners that sort of naturally leads us down the pathway to sort of work with the things that, you know, we experience personally.

So it, it’s really good and I’m so excited for you to be here to share your expertise as well. Yeah. Great. Yeah. So tell us a bit about you and tell us, you know, you live in a beautiful part of the world as well. 

Tara: I do. I’m down in Yallingup, which is about three hours south of Perth in Western Australia.

It is a beautiful part of the world and Kylie’s visited here. Yeah, so I’ve been a naturopath like probably about 28 years now, close to 30 years, and yeah, probably around about sort of, you know, maybe about close to 10 years ago or a little bit less, [00:02:00] I was, you know, doing lots of normal one-to-one consultations and wanting to just change the way I was practicing, you know, do things a bit differently.

 And it’s like, you know, that old sort of thing when you think about, you know, what, what do I wanna change? You put it out to the universe and then usually you get hit with a hammer. And that’s pretty much what happened to me with the thyroid. And I started to see lots of thyroid, uh, presentations in clinic when I hadn’t previously.

You know, it was very uncommon for me to see it. And I, you know, I’m not sure at the time there was an increase in thyroid presentations or definitely was in my clinic. And I was looking at very complex presentations and, you know, symptoms weren’t matching up to pathology and pathology wouldn’t match up to symptoms.

And I was seeing very sort of, you know, I was looking at like what the thyroid was meant to sort of be happening or display, it just wasn’t adding up. So I actually sort of threw myself back into that, into research and really learning all I could because my naturopathic protocols were, were just, you know, not covering it.

What I learned back in, you know, uni and college, wasn’t covering it. And then along the way, I discovered [00:03:00] that, you know, just through getting the right testing, I discovered that I actually had hashimotos myself, which was, was mind blowing. Uh, and the more sort of presentations that I saw in clinic with my patients, it really made sense of where mine actually started, which I think was, you know, postpartum.

 You know, three kids in four years, three cesarean. You know, renovating the house and crashing down, you know, ram earth walls and lots of stress and, you know, breastfeeding for how many years? It’s kids not sleeping. You know, all of those, that perfect storm. My hair all snapped off, you know, above my ears, you know, all of the things.

But at the time, you know, I didn’t get the right testing. I was too busy to have tests, so I, you know, I had three little kids and it was so crazy busy. It just felt like I was underwater all the time, just getting through each day to day. And then when, you know, 15 years later, when I got that diagnosis, first of all, it was a subclinical hypothyroidism.

My TSH was seven. Then I tested my antibodies. I, it was just like, whoa. And, but it made so much sense. It really [00:04:00] started to, you know, clarify how I’d been feeling for so many years, just really not living. So tired, so exhausted. Yeah. You know, all of the things. Uh, and so that began my own personal journey with healing myself, using what I was learning, what I was, you know, what I was researching, what I was studying, I was really putting into practice not only for my patients, but myself, and here I am, probably five years into remission of my Hashimotos. My antibodies are below the level, you know, I’m constantly getting, you know, tests to make sure that everything’s good. But yeah, I’m living really well with my, my autoimmune thyroid diagnosis, and that’s what I really helped to do with anyone that comes to see me with a thyroid condition.

Yeah. 

Kylie: Yeah. And that’s the crazy thing because I think, I remember reading somewhere that the average diagnosis for a thyroid autoimmune condition was something like seven or eight years, you know, and that’s a long time to not feel a hundred percent. And. And I, [00:05:00] and you’re right, there’s such, so many crossover things like is it that time of life?

And you know, we know as practitioners that, you know, pregnancy and that postpartum period, you know, can trigger a lot of thyroid issues. And certainly it was pregnancy that triggered mine. So I ended up with a, you know, a benign tumor that had to be removed, resulting in half my thyroid being removed after the birth of one of my kids.

So it was sort of, and at the time, yeah, I didn’t really understand what it was either. And was I just tired because I had a baby and a toddler, like , you know, to realize that your body’s working against you as well, you know, at the same time it’s, you know, you, and I think, you know, what I see with a lot of clients that I work with is we’re now sort of in this perimenopause sort of zone, you know, heading into menopause where again, you know, life is really busy.

We’ve got young, young adult or teenage kids who need us just as much as almost not [00:06:00] if not more than the babies did. 

Tara: Oh, a hundred percent. 

Kylie: Yeah. Our parents are getting older, you know, we’re still busy with work and you know, partners, you know, the whole thing. So we’ve got so much going on. So what, what are, you know, some of the signs and symptoms that something might be up with your thyroid?

 That perhaps are a little bit different or a little bit further than, you know, perimenopause, menopause symptoms. 

Tara: Yeah, sure. Yeah, and I think just, just to clarify, I think the reason why, I mean obviously we’ve talked about testing, but you know, I think a lot of reasons why thyroid doesn’t get tested is obviously the wrong testing and waiting for something very obvious to stand out before that diagnosis where things can be going on for many, many years, causing a lot of problems, before it’s actually, oh, well, you actually have Hashimotos. And once, you know, once you see those high antibodies, that doesn’t, that doesn’t happen overnight. It can happen in a, in a thyroiditis type situation, postviral, postpartum. But when you are seeing high antibodies, those [00:07:00] antibodies have been causing cell destruction, thyroid cell destruction for many, many years.

Until it causes a permanent hypothyroidism in the gland. So, you know, and, but you know, doctors don’t test antibodies, right. So, yeah. We’ll, we’ll probably jumping the gun there. But that’s, and, and also the other sort of thing to consider is that, because the thyroid, uh, thyroid hormones are needed in pretty much every single cell tissue in the body, so many other things get diagnosed instead of the thyroid because number one, the doctors are just, just testing TSH. So there can be that underlying thyroid pathology before it’s really picked up. So it can be misdiagnosis. Depression, you know, I’ve seen that so many times over the years. Low mood.

That’s, that’s a big one. You know, low mood, anxiety, depression, because the brain is a huge reservoir of thyroid hormones. Brain fog is another one, a really common one. But, you know, you can’t, you go and see your doctor, and you’re like, oh, I’ve just, I’ve got low mood. I’m depressed. I can’t think, I’ve got poor memory.

Oh, well yes, you’re going through perimenopause, menopause, or you’ve just had a [00:08:00] baby or you know, you are pregnant. All of those things. The other thing I think, you know, is yes, uh, the adrenals and the thyroid work very closely together and many of the signs of, and symptoms of thyroid are also the signs of like, stress and, you know, busy and, and adrenal fatigue.

So there’s many systems that overlap with the thyroid, the hormones, the adrenals, the, you know, the mood, signs and symptoms. And I think that’s why they’ll go, oh, well, you’re depressed here, have an antidepressant. Oh, well you are, you’re going through perimenopause, have some progesterone or estrogen instead of really looking at the thyroid.

And I think the thyroid, like physiology underpins all of those conditions. You have to have healthy thyroid function for all of those things to work well. And it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation, right? Because is it the hormones causing the thyroid or is it the thyroid causing the, the hormone dysregulation?

And I think a lot of the time, it is the thyroid blamed when it’s actually an obvious, uh, condition. But a lot of the time the thyroid is just trying to [00:09:00] fix what and support. It’s a homeostatic little gland. It’s trying to fix what’s going on. So getting to your original question, uh, for my big long-winded blurb there, you have to keep me on track cause I go off on tangents on the thyroid. 

 So definitely, yeah. That low mood, a consistently low mood, low motivation, you know, combined with absolute fatigue and exhaustion. I think when you’re in that real throes of, of Hashimotos or hypothyroidism, you are flat as a tack. You know, you just can’t be bothered, you know, you know, you should get up and do that exercise, you know that you should be doing this and that, but you just, the motivation, combined with that low mood and fatigue is really, really detrimental for so many women I see, I’ve just got to the point where it’s, I can’t be bothered. Yeah. I know what I should be doing, but it’s just I don’t have that energy and that motivation. So fatigue and exhaustion’s a big one. Like depression, low mood, you know, brain fog, just can’t, inability to think clearly, and losing things and forgetting things and, [00:10:00] and then, you know, I think especially for women, we go down that track of, god, what is wrong with me? I just can’t remember. I can’t, I’m, I’m not feeling great. And then there’s that, all the other things that come with that. 

Kylie: Yeah. 

Women say all the time, you know, it’s just not who I am. No. 

Tara: Yeah, I know. It’s just knowing that you’re not your best. You, you know, you’ve gone from being this person that was doing all of the things and all of a sudden you’re just this.

Yeah. It’s, it’s struggle. It’s a struggle every day to try and do things. So we are definitely talking about, you know, hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s here, which is that under functioning. You know, in underactive thyroid, you know, and there is similarities with the other arm of the thyroid being, you know, hyper and graves disease.

Some of those symptoms definitely go hand in hand in both conditions, but there are some differences. So other things we look for, you know, look out for is, you know, an inability to lose weight. I mean, many women, but not all with Hashimotos. Some can be, you know, thin whippets as I call them. They don’t need a lot of whip to for their metabolism to work.

They’ve got that good genetic metabolism. They’ll have sort of different sort of [00:11:00] symptoms, you know, dry hair, dryness all around. So dry brittle hair that breaks easily or, you know, dry skin, and a really interesting one, but quite common is something called parathesia. So sort of like tingling in the, in the extremity.

So, in the joints, and that extends to also sore muscles. That’s a really common one. Yeah. So it’s anything that, you know, when we are not getting those really good, adequate thyroid hormones out to wherever it’s needed, you know, it can be anything. Anything can be a trigger to low, you know, under functioning thyroid or low thyroid hormones in the body.

Kylie: It’s, it’s an all over body experience really. 

Tara: Yeah. And everyone is different. Everyone experienced different symptoms. Yes. There’s some connect, the three sort of top ones would be fatigue, weight gain, or inability to lose weight. You just can’t lose, you can’t budge that weight no matter how hard you try.

Whatever you do. And brain fog is definitely another one. Also just, just is digestive issues. So when you have an underactive thyroid, again, everything slows down. So we often see [00:12:00] constipation or SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth cause everything is just slow. The transit time slows down. But yeah, it’s a very individual thing I’ll have, I’ll have hashimotos when with, with lots of gut dysbiosis and they have loose stools, so it’s very much a, you know, what’s going on for you. 

Kylie: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the thing, and I think it’s just that overall feeling of, you know, sluggishness and, yeah.

Nothing that you are doing. You know, like we all know what eating well looks like. We all know that we should exercise. We all know that. It’s when, you know, these things just aren’t kicking into place, that there’s something that’s going on underneath. And I see it, you know, all the time. And we’ll sort of like go into a bit, into blood testing.

 And you know, that’s where I will refer a woman on for further testing. And generally we have to do it privately because, we’ll chat about why we can’t get proper thyroid testing, which is, you know, like a big frustration for us as practitioners, because what we tend to [00:13:00] test for is TSH, which, you know, and Tara, I’ll get you to sort of explain, you know, TSH, t4, t3, what we’re looking for as practitioners to see if that thyroid, I mean, I always look at whatever we can get. So generally, you know, I look at iron as well because that is to, to what’s going on with the thyroid. So I’ll let you explain. You know, what we are looking for as practitioners. 

Tara: Yeah, sure. So, yeah, we, you know, if you, if you’ve got some symptoms and you think it’s, you know, if you’ve read a little bit about your thyroid, you wanna go and have a full thyroid panel, we can, it’s definitely, you know, the symptoms are one piece of your thyroid puzzle.

The testing’s another, you know, if you have, you know, I always like look at it an ultrasound as well. So it, it is lots of different things we can put genetics, you know, put together to create, you know, to see your thyroid drivers and triggers, all those things. But with the testing, you know, I believe the biggest, the biggest thing I wanna see is the thyroid hormones.

Okay. So the thyroid gland makes out predominantly about 97% of t4. And then that’s gotta be converted to [00:14:00] t3, but the thyroid only makes around about sort of three to 4% of t3. So, and the T3 is actually the active thyroid hormone that gives you a really good metabolism. It gives you energy. 

Kylie: That’s what you want to have a look at because that’s how your metabolism’s working.

Yes, yes. 

Tara: And then TSH. So the TSH. So really what happens in thyroid physiology is a thyroid gland, you know, in response to low thyroid hormones. So, you know, you, you walked into a cold room and there’s like, we need more temperature control. The thyroid should make some more hormones to sort of go out to, to sort of sort that problem out.

So the thyroid gland predominantly makes a lot of t4. And then that needs to be converted to t3, and then that needs to get into the cell, and then it’ll send a message back to the brain that, you know, we’re all good. So TSH is, you know, responding, the level of TSH on a blood test responds to the amount of thyroid hormones in the bloodstream in your cell.

Okay? So the lower that your thyroid hormones are, so I can see that on paper, you know, on your pathology. So if you’ve [00:15:00] got low T4 and t3, that, you know, we should see a higher TSH because that’s sending a message back to the brain, ‘hey, she needs more thyroid hormones’. TSH is like the little messenger that knocks on the thyroid door going, come on. She needs more. Make more. Make more. Yeah. So, but sometimes if you have, you know, hypothyroidism or if you have Hashimotos, the thyroid gland has an inability to make those thyroid hormones, so we’re gonna constantly see a higher TSH in that respect. So TSH is part of that picture, but a lot of the time the doctors just test TSH. Now why?

God knows, it’s an old school paradigm, you know, medical paradigm that hasn’t been, uh, updated in many, many years. I had a, I had a GP once that I was trying to get, you know, all full thyroid testing for, for my clients, and he sent me, you know, their actual paradigm of what the doctors do. You know, they test TSH and with, if that’s within a big range, they won’t test anything else until that goes out of range.

Either too low or too high. 

Kylie: I love, [00:16:00] we’ll wait, it’s a bit low or it’s a bit high. We’ll wait and see. 

Tara: Yes, we’ll wait and see yes until something really big happens. But what can happen, and what I see, a lot of it, I’m sure you do as well, is that you can have positive antibodies. So you can have Hashimotos, your immune system making antibodies to just actually destroy your thyroid tissue.

Which causes an more of an inability for the gland to make thyroid hormones and the TSH can stay normal. So we call that early stage autoimmunity. So thyroid, the antibody, the immune system, gonna be making these antibodies against, you know, actually kills off our and, our thyroid tissue for a long time before actually hypothyroidism sets in.

So, Hashimotos is the number one biggest driver and cause of hypothyroidism. Yes. And that can be going on a long time before TSH really hits the roof or goes really low. So that’s why so many conditions aren’t diagnosed enough. And then the more that goes on, the more you have that autoimmune attack on your gland.

All of a sudden [00:17:00] one day you’ll kind of wake up. You’ve got kind of chronic stage Hashimotos and your gland is pretty much, a lot of that tissue’s been destroyed. Yeah. Then you’re gonna need medication, then you’re diagnosed because you’re gonna, your symptoms are gonna be really, really, you know, aggressive.

You’ll go to the doctor, they’ll perhaps do, they’ll see that high TSH now you’ll be put on medication told to take, take that for the rest of your life. Yeah. But what we do know that medication is not the be all end all. And, and even T4 medications we’re finding out now is not the best thing for many, many people.

Kylie: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, and what I, you know, and that’s the, the beauty, so, and I think part of the, the GP constraints and I think this is worldwide cause I work with a lot of clients in New Zealand, in the States, and I think it, it’s, it’s worldwide that they just test for that TSH. 

Tara: It is, it is, you’re right. 

Kylie: In Australia, you know, I know, you know, GPs are also bound by Medicare constraints and things like that, but, the testing [00:18:00] is available privately, and that is something that as natural health practitioners, you know, we can, you know, refer our clients on for that.

So there is an out-of-pocket expense for that. But certainly I know with, with clients that I work with, you know, if I, if I’ve got a client who’s not res, if we don’t have the full bloods and I’ve got a client who’s not responding the way I would expect to that we’ve got together, you know, I will refer that client on for additional testing.

And you know, it’s scary how many times those antibodies come back in those tests. 

Tara: Mm, I know. Yeah. Or another thing that I’m seeing quite a lot of is that, you know, there may have been antibodies picked up at some stage. So I get these clients, you know, oh, I’ve been referred by another practitioner to, to see you Tara, cause you, you specialize in thyroid, or, you know, I’ve had these results and I look back and I just look at them.

I said, oh, you know, you’ve, so, you’ve got Hashimotos. Oh, do I? Because that practitioner didn’t actually know I had [00:19:00] Hashimoto. No one’s actually told me I have Hashimotos, and I said, yes. I can see on your results back in 2018 when your antibodies were tested, you have Hashimotos. And I have to be really careful because, you know, I, I’m sort of like kind of excited for them that now they know.

But it’s a real big shock for many of these, these people, especially women that go, oh my gosh, I was never told. I’m like, yeah, you’ve had it for many years. It hasn’t been picked up. Well, it has actually been picked up, but no one’s actually gone, yes, you have Hashimotos and if there’s any presence of antibodies, that is Hashimotos, you have, you know, we’re not, now we know that we don’t look at what level they are.

If it’s over in the red, it’s above the reference range. Your immune system is making those antibodies to attack your thyroid gland. Yeah, and even if it’s in the early stages, there’s a lot we can do to halt that process or modulate that immune system before it gets to that very chronic stage. But it’s, it’s, I’ve been seeing a lot of clients lately that just, you know, say, Do I have, you know, I’m like, you’ve got Hashimotos.

Really? Oh my goodness. [00:20:00] And then they have to really sort of, wow. And now I have, I know I’ve got a thyroid autoimmune condition and it just, it’s, you know, I have to kind of do a little bit of counseling around that to say, it’s okay, you know, you’ve got your diagnosis, now we know what we can really work, you know, work towards That’s a shock.

Can be a shock for many people. 

Kylie: Yeah, definitely. And I think that’s the, the thing, and it’s, it’s frustrating for us as practitioners because we can kind of pull the pieces together, but it’s, you know, the earlier that we can identify what’s going on and the earlier we can start to treat that, you know, the better the outcome, you know, to the client every single time.

Definitely. Yes. Now, when you are sort of given a diagnosis of Hashimotos and the beautiful thing is, you know, like Tara, you are in remission with your Hashimotos. You know, I’ve worked with several clients who are also in remission, so it’s not a, it is a life sentence insofar as you need to manage it.

You need to be on top of it. You need to take care of yourself. Yes. So it stays in control. So, but the beauty [00:21:00] is, you know, it doesn’t need to, it, it, it doesn’t mean you’ve got a lifelong debilitating condition. So, yeah. What are some of the things that we can do to sort of support our thyroid, support our body, to keep our thyroid as healthy as we can?

Tara: Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, and that’s what I’m, I talked to a lot in my programs about to my clients, my thyroid recovery programs is that it’s all about living well and embracing, you know, your condition cause it’s not going anywhere. Once you’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, no matter what it is, yes, if remission is possible or getting it into the best place as possible, you’ve always got it.

The immune system, once switched on, never forgets. So it could be a virus, you know, some sort of mental, physical trauma. So you, people can have flares, you know, quite often that’s, uh, one thing I do work with clients is, is managing their autoimmune flares. But, if you’ve got all those things we’re gonna talk about now, you know, in hand, those flares are minor and, you know, they don’t, you know, [00:22:00] flare as big as they used to because that, that can be a big thing too. When I, when I talk to clients, I can just see how they’re having these little flares. They’ll go and they’re the sort of people that go from feeling okay one day to like, you know, three days later actually falling in a heap, and then they’re in a heap for a few days and then they come up again.

It’s this up and down kind of rollercoaster with autoimmunity, that, you know what, what, what we actually specialize in, in downgrading that immune response. So, you know, I, and I always talk in the programs too, or every client is that, your thyroid condition, when we, when we diagnose, particularly the autoimmune hashimotos or graves disease, we do have to come in with a lot of like nutraceuticals, some herbs and nutrients to really support what’s going on and get it into that really good place.

But at the end of the day, it’s what you do consistently in your diet and lifestyle 80% of the time is how you live well with Hashimotos or Graves disease. Right? So, you know, if you have an autoimmune condition, definitely it’s a gluten-free, you know, you’ve got a be gluten-free because gluten will activate that immune system[00:23:00] all the time.

Any sort of slight, uh, gluten exposure can set you up for a flare, can affect your gut. And we know that a lot of where that autoimmunity comes from is the gut, leaky gut, intestinal permeability, gluten can flare that you know up and it can yeah, ramp up that immune system attack. So working with diet, you know, my clients have definitely be gluten-free, dairy-free, food intolerances, or I may even put them on an autoimmune protocol for about three or four months to really heal the gut, that has to be done, you know, very closely with the practitioner so we can manage that. Cause it’s a very restrictive diet, but it can be quite amazing, particularly for people that have very high antibodies, poor gut health or, and or have, you know, two or more, uh, autoimmune conditions.

Because getting that immunity or that autoimmunity under control is, is super important, number one, because the TPO antibody specific in hashimotos actually cause cell death in your thyroid. They kill off your cells and then your thyroid has an inability to make thyroid hormones, right? So you’re gonna rely on more and [00:24:00] more on medication.

Now, the other sort of important one is to modulate the immune system, is that once you have an autoimmune condition and that immune system is acting that very dysregulated fashion, like a, you know, making antibodies against our own tissue, you are at risk of developing another autoimmune condition. So, Finding that you’ve got, you know, if you’ve got those thyroid symptoms and you’ve never had your antibodies tested, then go and see a practitioner and get the right testing to get the full thyroid panel and the antibodies tested to rule that out, because that just doesn’t go away.

Once you’ve got it, you need to be working on it through the diet and the lifestyle. Yeah. So you don’t develop another condition. 

Kylie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, if you’ve got a family member, a close family member with autoimmune conditions, you’re fully within your rights to ask for a full thyroid panel.

Tara: Absolutely. Yeah, I do try. I’ll, I’ll just say, look, I do try, I do believe I’m a little bit of a staunch, you know, staunch about this is that, you know, I feel like we [00:25:00] pay our taxes and we pay Medicare levies and we should have access to these Medicare tests. So I, depending on whether I’m working with a client, you know, mostly in Australia with Medicare, that, you know, I’d see a lot of clients online as well, and it’s like, go back to your GP and just say to them, I’d like this testing.

And, you know, yes, pull the family history. I have mother, grandmother, whatever with autoimmune, autoimmune condition and by rights in that medical paradigm that actually says that you are entitled to those tests, and then you just, and if you have that GP that really just does not like it, you, and, and don’t say you’ve come for your naturopath, cause that can really get their backs up.

Just say, look, I’ve got these symptoms. I’ve read a lot about thyroid. I try and empower my patients to get the right testing for free if they can first. So, I would like these tests because I’m having these symptoms and I would like the antibodies and I would like all this other stuff, we can talk, you know, other things tested.

What can you give me under Medicare? Yeah. And if not, I will pay for the others. So I really try and empower my clients to get as much [00:26:00] as they can under Medicare. And then I will, if they just refuse then, then I’ll do that functional testing that they have to pay for. Yeah, there’s always options. We can always get the test, but I kind of feel like, you know what?

Give it a red hot go because you just might get that good GP that does it all for you, and you’ve saved a lot of out-of-pocket expense so you can put to, you know, eating healthy, buying gluten-free bread or whatever it is, you know. 

Kylie: Yeah, definitely, definitely. And that’s the thing, you know, like we’re entitled to answers when it comes to our own health.

Yes. So, you know, yeah. 

Tara: I think we just need to empower people to say, look, I’m entitled to this. I pay my taxes and, you know, and, and look, we do have to give the poor GPs a break. They are, they, they are under a medical paradigm that they have to follow. Also too, just recently, I think it was last year, Medicare, you know, have put a lot more pressure on the back of Yeah, GPs and that included thyroid testing that included antibodies that basically included all the things that we want. Right, Kylie? All the things that [00:27:00] we test. 

Kylie: Basically all of the tests that would identify, you know, and help an exhausted woman who comes into clinic, so it is, yes. Impacted Iron Studies. It impacted vitamin D. 

Yes. All of the things. 

All of the things that, you know, give us information about why you are feeling so tired and why you are feeling exhausted. You know? Because once we know like what the root cause is of that exhaustion, you know, we know the best way we can support you to sort of turn that around. 

Tara: And yeah, it’s super frustrating.

You know, it is. But you know, I do kind of just say, look, and a lot of patients will say, oh yeah, my GP is, is not too bad. I say, well give it a red hot go. Don’t come in there guns blazing. But just say, you know, and I tell them the wording to, you know, to approach. If someone says, oh God no, then I say, find another gp.

There are others out there. Try someone else. If you really think you’ve got an old school that you know is good. Yeah, that’s kind of my sort of, I try and get as much as I can first, but. 

Kylie: Yeah, definitely. So what I’ll do in the show notes is [00:28:00] I’ll put, you know, sort of a list of, you know, thyroids markers that will help you.

Yes. Right. So you can have a conversation with your GP about that. So Tara, you have a 12 week ultimate VIP thyroid recovery program. So tell us a bit about that. 

Tara: Yeah, so well, I realize like I have been doing one-to-one consulting for, I said like 28 years. Uh, and particularly with thyroid, because thyroid is complex.

You know, you need to look at all the drivers and triggers. You need to look at the diet, the lifestyle, the, how hormones can influence the thyroid, how stress can influence the thyroid, how heavy metals can in, toxins in the environment. So I found when I was doing my one-to-one, uh, consulting is that, you know, it, it is very time limited, even though I do spend 75 minutes in the first consult and, you know, 40 minutes in the second, really we’re managing, micromanaging test results, just getting on the prescription. There’s, so I found there was so many things that [00:29:00] I didn’t get to discuss to really set people up to managing and living well with a thyroid condition moving forward. And as I said, once you get those, you know, you are over that initial treatment and things come into range, uh, then, then what, what you do 90 or 80% of the time in your diet and lifestyle is everything.

But you know, the, the time in a consult just didn’t allow that. So it, uh, that’s why I put together the 12 week program where we go through step by step foundational what you need to do. I mean, we spend pretty much the first four, five weeks just on diet and lifestyle because that is huge. And then we look at causes, drivers, and triggers.

You know, the thyroid nutrients you need to have on board, hormones, you know, metaphysically what does a thyroid mean? You know, from a, from a metaphysical point of view. There’s so many, yeah. Lots of different things we add to the program to really, you know, so you’ve got all the information. Yeah, I mean, one-to-one consults work well, but I just feel there’s so much missing and you can really just get all that information from a program.

Kylie: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think it’s [00:30:00] just having that, that support, that accountability, that guidance and, you know, and the education to empower you to make choices about your health. 

Tara: Yes. Yeah. And then again, yes, we have that support group alongside where we meet, where I’m posting, where you can post, where you can connect with other people in the same situation.

And yeah, at the moment we’ve got so many different types of thyroid presentations in, uh, it’s so cool to see what everyone’s going through and watching everyone, you know, you know, cheering each other on and being accountable and having someone there through 12 weeks, I always find, so when, you know, we go back to even talking about testing.

Once I’ve got those initial tests and I start treatment, I don’t like to do any testing for three months, particularly if you have hypo hashies, because hypo is particularly hashimotos. It’s a chronic condition. It’s long term. If you have high antibody, they’ve been there for years. They don’t just develop overnight.

Yeah. So it takes time to really shift. And when your immune system is in that dysfunctional state of making those antibodies against your thyroid tissue, [00:31:00] it takes time. You kind of gotta have all your ducks in the row to really help that condition, you know, back off. You can’t just do the duct, you know, support the gut and that’s it.

If you’ve got stress going on or you are not sleeping, you’ve gotta have those ducks in a row. And that takes time to implement all those changes uh, and doing that on your own. Wow. That’s just, you know, that’s hard work. So, having the group, having the platform, having those other people doing it alongside you can really help with other things going on.

Kylie: Yeah, yeah. No, that’s right. Alright, Tara, so anyone who would like to find out more about Tara’s VIP Thyroid Recovery Program, I will put the details in the show notes, but you can find out more at taranelson.com au. And yeah, we’ll have the blood test. We’ll have Tara’s details and program details in the show notes.

And thank you Tara so much for, you know, sharing your knowledge today. And, you know, certainly, for myself as a practitioner, Tara is [00:32:00] my go-to, you know, if I’ve got, you know, any sort of like, you know, curly thyroid questions, Tara absolutely knows this inside out. So yeah, appreciate your help Tara.

And yeah, thank you so much for being on the show. 

Tara: Oh, you’re welcome. It’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

Kylie: Okay everyone. I will see you in the next episode of the Hormone Hub.