Who, Why, HOW to Test for Hormones/Thyroid, etc. per Gary King, RPh

This is very helpful, Gary.  

Typically, patients unfortunately haven't had very thorough labs done, nor do the providers really understand how to get at this type of hormone replacement and supplementation.  Could you talk a little more about testing? I'm really thinking as much for the people who might have gained some weight, aren't feeling as well as they'd like but might not be aware of what that 'means' related to the hormone system; I feel people often make a mistake and think that because something happens to LOTS of people it is 'NORMAL', or if it happened to others in their family it is 'just generic', or 'part of getting older'.  Sadly, what happens to the majority of people in the United States (and beyond) in many regards is not 'normal' for humans who are provided what they need for nutrition, exercise, rest, relaxation and essentially the nourishment of the body, mind and spirit.  

Sometimes people who have not been along for the journey with me very long do not realize why I am so committed to helping them and all others who are in a precarious way; those who have digressed to be in a 'worse way' appreciate it, and they might not always agree or accept the treatment philosophy we present at Lumigrate, but they know the costs, they know the hardship and the devastation.

And while I naturally work to have information to get those people out of the drain, as I have come back up out of it in the past through the things presented here, it makes infinite sense to have everyone who knows the difficulties on the lookout for people they can intervene with where they are and hope to get them on board a new path so they don't end up with the mess that comes from not addressing things earlier rather than later.  

I know, too well, the expenses (direct and indirect) that this costs and how RELATIVELY inexpensively it can be treated IF done effectively and proficiently, and I believe the providers I have here on Lumigrate are able to provide solutions to many.  And I want the best for people.  Thanks for your response, in advance, Gary. 

  ~~ Mardy

 Mardy, 

In  2010, I was able to pay to produce some podcasts, and I recruited Gary King of ITC Pharmacy around the same time, to be a content provider at Lumigrate.  We got underway, ITC had their IT guy add the things to the co-presidents work stations to be able to Skype in.  I'd go in person and be in the podcast studio -- we were off to a good start!   

Adam Cochran of TalkingDigital in the podcasting studio, photo by Mardy.

It was, I guess you'd say, a good phase we went through -- again, being on the cutting edge of things.  

I've edited this on 18March, 2022 to remove the links taking people to where the podcasts were, but kept this as a souvenier, you might say.  Someday, maybe we'll have essentially a do-over, or pick up where we left off, and get back to doing what we were on the path to accomplish and sustain, way back when......

Link to a topic by Dr Spurlock setting up a 5-10 minute video by Kent Holtorf, a recognized leader in the US in thyroid issues

www.lumigrate.com/forum/thyroid-disorders-video-dr-kent-holtorf-abc

NEW in 2013, Marc Spurlock, MD created a series about chronic illness recovery and 'chronic wellness prevention' information -- several of the topics have information about thyroid hormones so I'm going to give you the link to the forum at Lumigrate.com.  www.lumigrate.com/forums/health-issuesdis-eases/fibromyalgia-chronic-pain-and-chronic-fatigueexhaustion/fibromyalgia/f  

The readers of Lumigrate.com have varied wellness and illness concerns so pick which of the topics at that link fit best / appeal most to YOU, and if you're feeling exhausted and fatigued, PLEASE READ the one on chronic fatigue syndrome even if you have not identified yourself as 'having that', and don't expect your physician or medical provider to identify you with it either, it is frequently missed-diagnosed just like thyroid functioning issues are missed, and there's a connection there....

..... so KEEP LEARNING so YOU can either find other providers or see if those you have will do some additional learning of information. (We're hoping our information at Lumigrate 'appeals' to them in their off-time if they take the initiative to come and see what we have to offer.) 

If it helps to read about my personal history and learning experiences that lead in part to my having the desire to start Lumigrate.com so others might have an easier time with their health and get the right information and treatment sooner/ASAP, here's a link to the topic in this forum: www.lumigrate.com/forum/me-and-being-youpatient-missed-and-then-found-thyroid-problem-my-story

I want to also give credit to the time-tested efficiency of ITC Pharmacy, they over and over again amaze me with their having things on hand and quickly getting them out the door to UPS of USPS or they get them made within a short period of time and out the door. On one occasion when I refilled online and ordered supplements there was something that got bobbled a bit but I called to check and it was straightened out before my package shipped. Again, their website is www.itcpharmacy.com, and they can help direct you to Becca Walters whose office is separate from theirs but nearby, if you're interested in a resource who can work remotely related to hormone and supplementing to support the hormone system. 

~~ Mardy

Doctors need to order 6 tests for a full evaluation of thyroid hormones: TSH, Free T3, Free T4, Reverse T3, Thyroglobulin Antibodies, and Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies. Don't just get a "TSH Screening".

But in order for these disorders to be treated properly, just getting the right tests is not enough. You must have a qualified physician who can interpret all these lab values and come up with an appropriate diagnosis. It is critical to get the right treatment to have a good outcome.

Nothing is simple, but the results are worth the work! I encourage you to pursue finding a qualified provider. 

Here is a resource online that I recommend people, whether providers or consumers/patients go to:

www.drrind.com/therapies/thyroid-scale

 "America's Pharmacist", Suzy Cohen, RPh has a great video on YouTube about the anatomy and how it all works, using her usual sense of humor, which I suggest watching. I noticed that people ask questions which are answered, above, by Dr Spurlock, which is to find a doctor who can interpret the results and treat, and as you can see, there is a website suggested to find that type of provider. To me, this underscores how many of the pharmacists out there are leading the trend to better thyroid knowledge and treatment.  

 www.youtube.com/watch

I've provided a new topic, at the link, below, on "Load Theory" and many disorders, which are often interrelated with thyroid and hypothyroidism, obviously.

I invite you to go and read it at: www.lumigrate.com/forum/are-you-loaded-what-i-see-causing-illnesses-soar-children-through-elderly 

I would also suggest people read my topic and the others from the other Lumigrate invited experts, related to fluoride and it's negative impact on thyroid function. That link is: www.lumigrate.com/forum/fluoride-really-safe

Time to move on with this thread and find experts which I currently believe to be cutting edge plus with extremely high standards about quality, who address things from a functional medicine perspective.  When I heard this podcast from Dr Ben Lynch, a Bastyr-trained N.D. who lives with his Russian-born wife and three sons outside of Seattle, Washington (USA), I immediately thought of the day we created this topic at Lumigrate in 2011! 

I'd been at a continuing medical education seminar at the regional allopathic/ organized medicine center, which graciously allows other allopathic providers who need CMEs/CEUs to attend, for free, their weekly 'grand rounds'. The topic that day was about hypothyroidism in primary care, and the presenter was out of the CU Medical Center in Denver, Colorado.  So naturally I wanted to see what he was teaching the doctors (and others) in ALL the places he goes to teach around our region of the United States. 

I was shaken when he literally said that it's a waste of money (and implied irresponsible of the provider) to order more than a TSH test on 'walking talking patients' .... if someone's so unfortunate to be so unwell they're in a hospital bed and not talking, then you order and analyze the testing that was being asked about by one of the physicians in the room.  

That physician educator was answering a question from a physician in the audience who had just referred at the start of his question to Lumigrate's initial MD expert when he said "I don't know about any of the other physicians in the room (and he looked to the room's audience at that point and turned back to the educator from CUMC), but there's a physician in town who is ordering (the various other tests that thyroid-helping providers know to order if they're competent) --- and then these are patients who we also see as their primary care physicians and they're wanting us to do this type of testing --- what about these tests such as this other physician is doing?"  

So when I heard the response, knowing that functional medicine providers all order these other tests and countless people that I have seen in just a handfull of years were helped by it -- myself included -- I was DISGUSTED with organized medicine in that moment. That was 2011, I did not study how The System of the World (and who's running it) works enough -- until 2013. In 2011 I was still naieve a bit about who, what, where, when, why it doesn't add up what comes out of insurance-based, conventional, 'Western' medicine of the allopathic medicine model, which has been our typical (i.e. conventional) medical system for the last many generations. I now call it 'organized medicine', which I started seeing somewhere and felt it was a perfect 'fit'.  Yes, it reminds us of 'organized crime'.  

Dr Ben Lynch recorded this 25 minute podcast which has this information with it:

Hypothyroidism and Gluten: Understanding the Connection

Gluten is a major problem for countless diseases and symptoms. Hypothyroidism is no exception, especially when one experiences Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Grave's disease, although a hyperthyroid state, is also affected by gluten. Eliminate gluten and watch your antibody levels drop and your TSH improve. Of course, other things are needed as well to support a healthy thyroid; however, eliminating gluten is an important step. Learn why.

 

Please find the link below --  after my overview and partial transcription of the podcast for those who want to see what's at a podcast before investing the time of listening)(or it might help them to have the visual information too) on a day when he had just gotten an email from another person being mangled by mangling organized medicine. The tone of his voice at the start when he says "I just got this email from a woman who has been told her thyroid is functioning fine because they did the one test that is typically done" despite she has the clinical symptoms of hypothyroidism.  (I paraphrased).  He had just started out saying this was goign to be a quick podcast because he was about to go play soccer with his boys as the weather was beautiful.... so what does THAT tell you about how the email FIRED HIM UP, same as I felt back in 2011! 

So I wanted to add this resource on here and suggest that you take the time to follow to SeekingHealth dot com and take advantage of the free or reasonably priced educational information (he aims the things for the physicians he is going out to educate with a charge, and he does not require purchasers / learners to be providers. He does as I have ALWAYS done at Lumigrate, which not all of the experts on this thread have agreed with me about --- take information to your providers and ask them to become educated on topics they cannot help you on so far ... help them know where they're lacking in their abilities as a provider.  And then go to someone else if they're without the expertise to help you. His work now is almost exclusively consulting and educating with providers and developing, marketing, and distributing supplements.  

Dr Lynch has talked in the many podcasts I've now reviewed, or videos, or written information about his standards and expectations for those who make the supplements for him and even honestly shared how he had to learn about some things about quality of source of ingredients and have a change in manufacturer. When it comes to supplements for those who are interested about folic acid versus folate, which is what lead me to finding Dr Lynch when researching about the MTHFR gene mutation, I got to looking at the supplements I've suggested on Lumigrate over the years to our YOUsers and feel that Dr Lynch is now where 'the bar is set' in terms of what his formulas consist of and the quality he expresses as his 'bar'.  And the prices are very reasonable. I compared the D3 drops that he distributes compared to what ITC distributed and it's the exact same price and a similar product.  (I will always be grateful for ITC having educated me about why you want to have some of your D3 supplementation through drops, in their opinion. I followed their advise and it helped a lot, and I'd been following the previous experts on Lumigrate's advise. Again, that was 2008-10 that we had our original batch of providers, which dovetailed with the second batch who you see on this thread, that began in late 2009 or 2010 and early 2011. So here we are, almost 2015 and I'm bringing in some new layer. Someone has said it's like phylo dough. 

He begins with introducing himself as Dr Ben from Seeking health dot come and Healthy Kids dot com. He explains it is a lovely Saturday and he's about to head out and play soccer with his boys but just received an email from another one of America's pathetic health care system victims, unfortunately. And rather than just answering by email, because it's such a common situation, he wanted to record the podcast. 

Situation: A mid 40s woman with hypothyroidism symptoms -- weight gain, cold hands and feet, dry skin, thinning hair, with ordered hypothyroid tests "normal". The doctors have recommended to stop eating fat and exercise. She also reported having tinea versa color, which is a very common fungal infection on the skin.  

His response -- why would you exercise when you have the symptoms of hypothyroidism, which inclues fatigue. And you're barefly functioning -- this just makes no sense as a recommendation to him.  To make it worse she has the tinea versa color. 

What to do in this sitution: 1. Find another doctor. Find a physician who understands 'functional medicine' or 'identifying the cause', and looking at you as an individual and not a bag of symptoms and then addressing the symptoms with a surgical procedure or a tablet of a medication or vitamin.  So if you go to a naturopathic physician and they set you up to take a bunch of supplements without addressing anythign to do with lifestyle, then to me, I think they're just as guilty a standard medical doctor. It's extremely important to change diet and other lifestyle factors. So you can find these types of providers at

Naturopathic dot org

Functional medicine dot org

Orthomolecular Institute

American Association of Environmental Medicine

American Holistic Association -- he's not sure about them as he is with the others, he just hasn't looked into it as he has the others. They could be good too. 

Recommendations and opinions he'd suggestion here. 

If thyoid is "normal", and his pet peeves is how hypothyroidism is treated in organized/ standard medicine....

You need to get proper blood testing, which is not just TSH and not just free T4 and free T3 (I presume her email had that detail and she had those three things run, which is more than most people get, it's typical to hear someone only getting TSH).  It's also anti TPO and anti TG -- antibodies against the thyroid to tease out Hashimoto's or Grave's if they're elevated.

With the symptoms this woman has outlined, she likely has Hashimoto's. Women are more likely to have autoimmune conditions.  Since the woman lives in the US she likely consumes a lot of wheat, which has a lot of gluten.  Gluten's structure looks very similar to the cells of the thyroid to the immune system, so once the gluten starts to destroy your intestines and  pokes holes in the intestines, the gluten escapes the barrier of your intestine and gets into your tissues. The   immune system marks it as foreign and starts to attack it.  Your immune system starts reproducing like crazy and building up, and what's normally a healthy response becomes an unhealthy response because  you keep eating the gluten. Then your immune system keeps escalating and since the gluten strains look similar to your thyoid to the immune system, it attacks the thyroid. 

So what do you do? YOU STOP EATING WHEAT. 

Our society needs to get rid of wheat.  So first thing for restoring wellness/ reversing symptoms --  stop eating wheat.  Is that difficult? Yes. Do you have to do it? Yes. Can you do it gradually? Yes.  The less and less wheat you eat the better you will feel but you have to cut it out COMPLETELY in order to get well.

He was talking to a colleague, Will Englehart, who is in Thailand where they have no wheat, so our society just needs to get rid of it.  

He uses the analogy of an empty swimming pool. Then fill it with a bunch of mouse traps -- they are your immune cells -- they're ready to pounce and get whatever hits it. Then throw a ping pong ball into this 12 foot deep and 35 foot long, so probably 10,000 mousetrap in the pit. Throw the ONE ball into the middle and what happens .. the mouse traps start going off. The ball respresents ONE piece of gluten. That's all it takes to spring your immune system.  (He gets rather animated at this point).... 

Then his frustration shows up next in this timeframe after the mental exercise he just described got him fired up --- at what I presume is the overall advisees and followers he teaches to and consults with who communicate with him about their progress or symptoms when he says "Don't tell me that you cut out gluten completely and you still feel like shit .. excuse me... but... "  Cut it out completely, you have to do it. It's a total pain in the butt and a life change, but his family's been doing it for over five years at the time of the podcast and his wife's RA -- gone. His son's stomach pains and attention problems, gone.  His  spaceyness  and over(heating or eating I'm not sure which he said), and itchiness --- gone. They all responded well but they are totally gluten free always.  

It will take six months to a year to gradually shift off of it, perhaps, but it needs to happen.  Don't stress out about doing this overnight, he does not want to stress overeating (which I didn't understand why he said that).  He said that Rob Wolf and Lauren Cordain have good books (who pushes a paleolithic diet / lifestyle of a caveperson).  Rob's Book is A Paleo Solution, and he's funny and takes the complicated bioscience and makes it understandable.  

He hates 'diet' books, he said.  I wish people would just think of diet as what it means -- what you consume. The four letter word 'diet' was abducted and many think of it as restrictive, difficult thing you do usually for a short time for short time benefits such as losing weight the way all the many have made so much money in the past, only to not having given people the REAL information about what leads to wellness through diet and other lifestyle factors. So that's my response to his rant at this point about 'diet'. 

Paleolithic people didn't have farms, they ate fruits, vegetables, seeds, and wild game and what they had to drink was water -- fresh water.  They weren't planting wheat, they were grazers.  This is something I was hoping to find with Dr Lynch, as I believe that the paleo diet is the best one for people to be subscribing to, and I believe that it's also in some ways the easiest to learn. Would you have had this if you were a caveman or cavewoman? Yes, it's something to consider consuming and likely good for you. No, then don't. (Except some people have to study up a bit on what paleo people had available to them but that's way easier than a lot of diets for learning what's okay and not and how to cook it and eat it -- this is really a very simple diet aside from the fact that it's not what is out there if you go out to eat or eat with other random people who are not following the same path to wellness you are) 

Then you need a probiotic.  You need a really good one to start with. What he recommends is one of his that is called Probiotic 12 Powder.  It's dairy free, there's no garbage in it, it has 12 strains and packs a whopping 200 billion beneficial bacteria in each 1/2 a teaspoon serving that you take in.  He reports he was unhappy with the potency of the ones he recommended in the past, or they were grown in milk and were not okay for the dairy-free he believes is important for most people. They didn't have the strains he wanted, and weren't potent enough. So he created his own. 

I get the sense at this point in this talk by him that he is frustrated or at least aware that his message about recommending things that he then makes money off of has gotten in the way of people taking his advise.  I understand this and have probably had a conversation with every expert on Lumigrate about that over the years. Tons -- thousands -- of people have gotten into the supplements 'game'. 

He says to take it after dinner because bacteria is normally on our foods and today we don't have bacteria on our foods so it's the right time.  I had learned to take probiotic at bedtime (not dinner) from Alan Jolly at ITC, who is also a ND but not from the same type of program Dr Lynch is from, he added that onto his being a RPh (pharmacist) due to the type of advising he does with people via ITC Natural Wellness Pharmacy. I learned from Dr Spurlock that the pryor's patches do their restoration in the gut when a person sleeps.  So this is a little different but it makes sense in the reasoning Dr Lynch says and I think would then also have that very much into the intestines when the person was sleeping later. 

Take one bottle of the powder which you can control the dose and start with a small amout and get up to 1/2 teaspooon, and then a person can opt to switch to the capsules (which are more convenient and cost less per bottle but more generally). His brand's probiotic is called Probiotic 12....  "and take those for the rest of your life". 

Start eating protein every two hours.  If you wake up and are not hungry, this is what he recommends to kick in your digestive system: 

1/2 cup of filtered water, 2 t of ACV (apple cider vinegar), lemon wedge squeezed into it. Sip this for about five minutes and get your day going and it might stimulate you to have a bowel movement becasue it stimulates the paristalsis of the intestines. Definitely he recommends not using commercial products for constipation at this point in the podcast.

I want to add here that the half a cup of HOT/warm water with a half a lemon squeezed in is what Fat Flush author recommends and it gets the liver to dump when you drink it, allegedly.  I had good results with that and then got away from that as I started taking a detox tea product that required first thing in the morning in hot water and sipping. But I thought I'd mention that. (Anna Louise Gettleman I believe is the name of the author of Fat Flush, I think I have that name almost right here if not right.) 

He recommends to have a protein smoothie using frozen fruit (I wonder about that because as I understand it, you want at least 51% of your fruits and vegetables to be fresh as the enzymes in them are destroyed in freezing or cooking).   He's ad libbing this and I think we all know how it is when you've not peformed something or written it down and reviewed it after you've presented it, how you see things you'd say differently... that might be the case with this podcast's information.

OR maybe he knows different information than what I learned from another provider (a PhD who owns a supplements company and also has developed a lot of products based on his high standards but with a focus with the foundational product being enzymes. He does the same thing though as Dr Ben and gives you the lifestyle advise so you wouldn't need the product, but recognizes that in reality we like to take products rather than doing all the work that's involved sometimes in the way to prepare and consume foods that are 'ideal' for our wellness. Hence we 'supplement'. 

He talks about adding in chia seeds (which I notice he sells at his website, but I know they are also a very popular item to be added to people's diet and have tremendous health benefits) and blend it up with other things and drink it.  It's quick.  Or have eggs, quinoa, fresh fruit with some nuts and seeds -- you have to have protein with fruit.  

Hypothyroid symptoms mean you have to stabilize your blood sugar, because if your blood sugar tanks, your adrenals secrete a hormone which causes your liver to break down glycogen, which is stored sugar in your liver. What that does is provides sugar to your body.  Then if you continue not to eat, your adrenals are continuing to secrete the hormone that's continuing to deplete the liver of stored glycogen, and in time you're going to totally crash, as the liver will be totally depleted of glycogen. You'll get cold and sweaty and that wierd 'low blood sugar feeling', you know how that is. So eating every two hours is important. 

He goes on .. If your adrenals are fatigued, your thyroid is fatigued. So I would recommend to a person with this type of symptom taking 2 grams of pantothenic acid twice a day with the symptoms expressed in the email. It is quite inexpensive. The Seeking Health pantothenic acid is 500 mg capsules, and I'd take 2 capsules in the morning and you can take two capsules in the afternoon. He does not recommend taking it anytime after 3 pm because it can be stimulating and preventing sleep. (He'd just recently researched it -- it's vitamin D5 in the form of ()... ).  

Sleep. 8 hours a night with a protein snack before bed. 

Take fish oil in the morning for the dry skin. 

Take vitamin D3, at least 2,000 units. I'd add that he's said elsewhere and we've always said it at Lumigrate, that this is one that really needs to be tested, your D3 level. Because things that tax the system, such as bacterial infections (Lyme being one very common one), and the biofilm that accompanies it and many other things 'drain' the body of D3, and so it varies how much a person uses.  Then it varies how much a person makes from sun exposure. Then it varies how much someone is in the sun. And what they get from diet.

I'd taken a lot of D3 in bone builder supplements, and was in the sun the recommended amount and was still low once I took it upon myself to have the D3 tested.  This was after I'd gone to the providers who educated about testing but for whatever reason did not recommend to me that I be tested, I guess because at that time (2007-9) I was doing relatively well, very much improving with symptoms.  

So in 2010 I had it tested and found I basically need to supplement in the summer what most take in the winter, and in the winter I double that -- or if I'm not outside in the sun as was the case the summer of 2013 when I had learned about geoengineering and was not educated enough yet to put it all together and know what I thought was safest and best for me in terms of being outdoors in the chems 'n' EMs as I affectionately call it to simplify what geoegineering boils down to. For more about that just search on keywords here at Lumigrate if you wish to see what I prepared after more study.

But once I was supplementing with D3 drops after having the testing and finding out I needed way more than I'd suspected, I either fought off every cold and flu that came around (with some help from Umcka if I had symptoms), or in 2012/13's winter, never even felt like I had anything I was fighting off! In addition, I should add, I'd been eating increasingly organic / non GMO, had shifted off of delivered artesian water that was filtered by Deep Rock to be a mix of minerals they thought was good and onto distilled or reverse osmosis I'd fill up in bottles at the store.

AND, I  had been back on probiotics at night. In 2009 for an interview with the Denver Post, my then-ND had stated that people didn't need to take probiotics ongoing necessarily and for some reason I thought that pertained to me, not realizing that once you've had the gut dysbiosis I've had you never can ever fully recover it to the way it was before you had antibiotics and things got messed up (and I was on tons and tons from age 17 to 47).  I so wanted to 'just be normal' that I took information that was meant for the average well person out there and applied it to me, as I thought I was well (which I was then, relatively speaking for my life).  So we all are works in progress!

Take a multivitamin, he highly recommends Seeking Health's Optimal Multivitamin. It has 8 capsules as a recommended serving per day. Ideally break that into three doses over the day but if that's too hard to comply with, take it in two.  He suggests taking the last 2 at about 2 (or 3 he says on another podcast) pm with a snack so they will not interfere with sleep due to what's in them that can be stimulating. At midafternoon, that's a time most people are wanting a little boost too.  He's sure to say in other places and not here, unfortunately, that the folate should be methylfolate and not folic acid or just listed as folate... and I recommend everyone find the details about why he says this at his website or what I've covered about him on Lumigrate on the comment that is about MTHFR pathway issues.  That can be found on a thread that is about pyroluria or pyrole disorder. (Search words for you to use at our search bar if you're interested in pursuing that information.) 

If people with these types of issues do the things he recommends, he says the weight gain will go down ... Dry skin will go away ... Cold hands and feet will go away, because the sympathetic nervous system from not eating constricts the blood vessels in hands and feet. Brittle thinning hair will reduce and you'll feel better.

In terms of other lifestyle things --  use a shower head filter. One reason is that chlorine is a gas in a hot shower and you inhale it (not good for the lungs) and you get it on your skin and it dehydrates the skin, and that then makes the body oils decrease.

But if you don't have healthy oils in your body, your skin will become damaged.  (Elsewhere he talks about healthy oils to be consuming, and one is coconut oil and the other is a type of oil that he has a product out now that he raved about so I'm surprised he had not elaborated more here about oil, but look around for that elsewhere at his website or where I've covered it at Lumigrate here in the forums). 

The probiotics will help because in the intestines the probiotics will produce biotin and biotin produces melanin. And when you have tinea versacolor, the myelin -- which.. you get the white spots because the fungus actually ________ (I need to go over this part again and fill in, apologies, check back for these few holes to be fixed)    and biotin helps restore the melanin.  

If you take a probiotic you're also restoring the production of biotin. If you want to speed that up  you might want to take Seeking Health's Biotin 5, because biotin also stops the reproductive cycle of candida yeast (which he says he did not know until recently, and I did not know that until now!) 

It makes sense -- beneficial bacteria are naturally in your gut and they produce biotin .. so what is that going to do? Maintain a specific pH and they coat the intestinal wall which keeps yeast from binding. If you take an antibiotic, all that gets killed off, and then the yeast is left. So if you take probiotic and it helps produce biotin, it then coats the intestines and pushes the yeast out of the picture and then .....           

..........it helps with the melanin production, and then your white spots on your skin go away -- the tinea versacolor will go away.  His company has been developing a product now that is on it's way ... Tinea Clear. You apply that 2x a day to the skin, before a shower and let it dry and then wipe it off with a cloth or take a shower.  He cautions those with tinea versacolor to not go in the sun until you've used Tinea Clear for about 14 days because you don't have protective melanin in the skin in those areas and it can further damage your skin. But after 14 days you can slowly get in the sun again.  

At this podcast I found at his website that was recorded after the one about this woman with the hypothyroid and tinea versicolor, he elaborates more and says it will take a couple of months for the skin to repair with the melanin production.  www.seekinghealth.com/natural-health-podcasts/tinea-versicolor-treatment-causes-prevention.html 

He also discusses more about how to keep it from developing -- it likes humidity since it's a fungus so getting out of sweaty or wet clothes, using wicking fabric and not cotton, etc.  I really like to underscore how much, in his information, he is suggesting things that come to his mind that have nothing to do with his products that generate revenue for him. 

And the other factors that will help are discussed in the podcast (which I am encouraging you to listen to and not putting it ALL in this readable format). 

The woman's email apparently also asked "Is iodine a necessary element?" His answer --  Yes, if you take enough and often there's enough in a multivitamin. It's needed, he had to think about it and said he needed to get it right as he often says it incorrectly ---- iodine's needed to convert the inactive T3 to active T4, and  you need selenium, magnesium and zinc as well.  People think they need iodine for their thyroid but people also should know they need these other things.  

Non medical people, he says, should not feel badly if they did not know this, that's excusable and understandable but medical providers should know this -- and they often do not. He then says that medical schools call his type of program 'naturopathic quack school', and he seems frustrated and upset at some level about that his type of medical program teaches that you've got selenium as a cofactor for instance but other programs that slam his program do not (that's what I interpreted him to be saying at least). 

So why is it those physicians from the other types of programs just prescribe Levothyroxide and that's it?  They studied biochemistry just as he did, they studied physiologogy just like he did .. and what happens the last 2 or 3 years in medical school?  "I don't know, they just forget all their biology and physiology and it becomes drug rep after drug rep after drug rep.. hammering them ... 'low thyroid -- Levothyroxide .... cance--  chemo, surgery ..... depression -- Prozac ..... anxiety  --- "I don't know what they do for anxiety anymore there are so many .... Paxil, Lexapro, ... .all these SSRIs. .. It's a bunch of propaganda and I need to be careful .... anyway, I get fired up.  But I really want to get outside so I'm going to wrap it up."  

Any comments, he invites people to post below once his website has things posted properly with the podcast where people can comment on the podcast page. Or go to the Seeking Health Facebook page and you can ask your questions there.  He's very inviting. This was interesting as I had gotten the impression from his website that you could find him on Twitter but not FB. 

This took 25 minutes of your time, he concludes with. "I think if you apply these things it will be a lifetime of benefit for you." Literally. I'd listen to it again and again until it sinks in, he advises. YES.. this is what I say over and over at Lumigrate -- YOU need to take this on as studying for a class -- you're studying for your well-being and what is more important than that... or for someone you are responsible for or offering to help because they are having a difficult time in learning.  It's a catch 22. These things affect the brain and thinking and then people are trying to learn what to do about it. 

It's taken him 4 years pre med, 5 years at Bastyr, 5-6 years of experience after school to finally wrap this all together and be able to present it in 25 minutes. So you've got 15 years of study in 25 minutes -- that cost him $250,000 or more, and you get it for free! (Again, I sense he's been taking 'hits' about selling information (I was badtalked in 2009 when Lumigrate launched and we sold hour long videos for $20), and products (which Lumigrate was headed in that direction via the integrative center we were a part of in their upstart and initial phase before the original plan was not adhered to and everyone but the founder left, leaving them to have a successful clinic but of a different kind than what I think we'd ALL hoped for initially.

I think Dr Ben's frustrations showing in this impromptu podcast speak volumes for how difficult it is to be outside the box and reaching people with what you believe is the information and products and services that are going to benefit them.

He signs off with "Take care, until next time"... AND here's the link to the podcast at the website, where I encourage you to navigate around and GO LEARN MORE!  We have other topics at Lumigrate that lead to Dr Ben's website(s) here in the forums as well, so I hope that people seeking information on the 'search words' that vary depending upon what each person's concerns are end up catching all our YOUsers into the path of finding Dr Ben Lynch's resources for education and product consumption.  www.seekinghealth.com/natural-health-podcasts/hypothyroidism-and-gluten-understanding-the-connection.html

The form of folate that a person consumes in their supplement is a detail of big importance. Carol Savage is a late bloomer of an MD, becoming one in midlife. She later realized she had Lyme disease, and MTHFR gene mutation study then was something she got into and thankfully created a group on Facebook for studying with others and teaching those who could learn from what she knew so far. 

Here's something she posted on 11/22/14 that I thought was a good synopsis -- she's really gifted at taking it all in and breaking it down: 

Folate is a generic term for all folates.

1. Folic ACID... SYNTHETIC and the only one that gets STUCK in the BBB [FRa] receptor sites and ends up blocking the entry of L-Methyl Folate into the brain.
2. Dihydrofolate [DHF]....natural
3. Tetrahydrofolate [THF]...natural
4. 5-10-MethyleneTHF...natural
5. L-Methyl Folate [5-MTHF]....this is the one you want...natural
The Methyltetrahydrofolate Reductase [MTHFR] C677T gene mutation [SNP] interferes with the enzyme’s ability to properly produce L-Methyl Folate [5-MTHF].

Insufficient L-Methyl Folate [5-MTHF] often leads to the elevation of
Homocysteine. Elevated HOMOCYSTEINE increases the risk for forming clots. But, there are also other reasons why a person may have an elevated homocysteine level.

---

 

And on Memorial Day 2015, this is an analogy she gave about how to take supplements if sensitive or not. 

 

SENSITIVITY TO METHYL GROUPS…an analogy

People who are sensitive to methyl donors have to supplement in small dosages and they must alternate supplements and take a few days off every now and then to give their internal biochemistry a chance to adjust and catch up. Too much all at once is not possible for them.
…………………………

MY BEST ANALOGY (by Carol Savage) ...

People who are SENSITIVE to Methyl donors are like... "Parched, hard packed western [Wyoming] dry lands." [“Red snot”…that is what they call their red clay like soil in Wyoming]

People who are not sensitive to methyl donors are like... "Moist eastern forest land [New Hampshire] with lots of trees, undergrowth, ferns and moss."

If the same THUNDER STORM dumped water [methyl groups] onto the eastern moist soil it would easily soak right in and there would be no problem.

If the same thunder storm dumped water [methyl groups] onto the western dry, parched and hard packed soil the water would run right off and cause all kinds of damage.

SO...the person who is sensitive to methyl donors must gradually and gently moisten their soil little by little...eventually their internal environment softens up, adjusts and can eventually accept more methyl groups over time.

PICTURE: Western Thunder Storm…Zion National Park, Utah

I noticed she now has over 13,000 people in her MTHFR Gene Mutation group on Facebook. All in good hands with her.  

I encourage people using Lumigrate to go to the search bar and look for information I've provided in 2015 on a protocol that's been developed by a hillbilly researcher, of sorts, someone who also was ill same as Dr Savage, who rolled up sleeves and used their talents, abilities and tools (such as a microscope) and ended up creating a group on Facebook which had about 1,750 people actively learning about something very cutting edge, which goes a level beyond where the MTHFR information is, and is actually simpler, doesn't require any testing or anything and has a protocol that is DIY for under $50/month, with as enthusiastic a following as I've seen yet in chronic illness interested circles on Facebook.  You can go to the blog tab and my topic from Mother's Day which is titled about what I want all mothers and others to know leads people from there.  

Or look at information about cleaning, laundry. Water is a key concept in Steve Beddingfield's research and protocol, also keywords you can use at Lumigrate to find the information I suggest people seek. People who have trialed his protocol have used various diet strategies and essentially they were finding and promoting the same information I'd found from an addictions (one of the ways chronic conditions manifest) / nutrition-based expert I have suggested people learn of and take advise from. Her name is Pam Killeen.

I spoke with Pam by phone and mentioned MTHFR followers and she and many others feel that there's a 'market' created for people to have business surrounding advise and products relative to methylation and the gene mutations and it's not where the focus is best put on learning.  I tend to agree, and it seemed to me the simplest thing for people to do was become familiar and glean information, but then also go on to what appears to be the 'root cause' not just the layers of the onion that represent various problems to get under in functional medicine. 

I was able to advise the mother of a young adult with addiction to many things, including electronics, who had thought they could solve everything with diet and no supplements. They were too deficient for too long to do that, they needed short-term boosting of key things with supplements. Then they went on to begin the protocol that addresses the bacteria such as cyanobacteria and giant sulphur bacteria, ultimately interplaying in the environment and being the underlying cause of illnesses from A to Z, including addictions as part of the A list. They had similarly spectacular results at the start of that new 'page', which was when I last saw them.  I hope they continue to reverse the symptoms they experience and a ripple effect happens in those around them who see the results, learn new things, and perhaps wish to 'get on the health and well-being bandwagon' such as the information at Lumigrate (and I) provide/provides.

Thanks to the people back East on the coast like Carol Savage and Steve Beddingfield; your efforts are making a substantial difference on Lumigrate in what I can provide, and I see it with those I am fortunate to connect with in person to lead as a health information concierge.

Live and learn. Learn and live better! Mardy

 

 

This is an AMAZING graphic about thyroid, once again, seeing it on Facebook.  The page that had it out there where I saw it was Thyroid Change, so shout out to them -- they were promoting awareness and education about fluoride and a study out of England showing 30% higher than expected hypothyroidism there, and then connecting that to the fluoride story/debate.  I didn't look into that aspect BUT then I looked to see WHO CREATED THIS GRAPHIC and saw that it was The Institute for Functional Medicine. 

Here's the link to their website: www.functionalmedicine.org/  See information, below, from their 'about' information at a very robust website.  I suggest taking the trip on the link to see what's there!

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