Buy his book: From Fatigued to Fantastic here
Also mentioned: Recovery Factors (supplement)
⭐️ NEW Become a monthly supporter from $3/month
If you get value from the Let's Talk Thyroid podcast, I'd love to invite you to become a monthly supporter from US$3/month. This will help me enormously to cover the costs of producing the podcast and making the content available freely.
Buy his book: From Fatigued to Fantastic here
Also mentioned: Recovery Factors (supplement)
⭐️ NEW Become a monthly supporter from $3/month
If you get value from the Let's Talk Thyroid podcast, I'd love to invite you to become a monthly supporter from US$3/month. This will help me enormously to cover the costs of producing the podcast and making the content available freely.
If you have had pain and or fatigue as part of your thyroid story or continue to a bit like I do, then you're going to want to stick around for the rest of this episode. It's episode 104 of the let's Talk Thyroid podcast. I'm talking with Dr Jacob Tidalbaum all about pain. He is actually a chronic fatigue fibromyalgia expert from America. He is a certified internist. He's known nationally for that specialty in chronic fatigue. Fibromyalgia ME connects in with thyroid health. He's written lots of books. I don't know about 10. I think I have read his very popular book called From Fatigued to Fantastic and we talk about that in this interview, along with his Shine Protocol. So stick around to have a listen, don't forget at the end I will do it. I'll pose a couple of questions, some kiss thyroid coaching questions, so just to help you to sit back and relax to reflect on what you're just about to listen to and what you will have heard at the end of the episode. So enjoy this conversation with Dr Tidalbaum.
Speaker 1:Welcome to let's Talk Thyroid. I'm your host, annabel Bateman. This podcast is here to offer you hope and strategies for your own thyroid health. I'm a thyroid coach, author and patient. I've had Hashimoto's for well over 25 years and I'm very much on this thyroid friendly lifestyle journey with you. For more information, go to Let'sTalkThyroidcom. All right well, welcome Dr Jacob Tidalbaum to the let's Talk Thyroid podcast. All the way from Hawaii. You're my first Hawaiian guest on the show, so that's pretty exciting.
Speaker 2:Welcome Aloha and welcome everybody. For those of you who continue to have fatigue, continue to have pain, what they're going to do today is teach you why and how to make it go away. Your doctor is likely a very nice, caring person, but if they've been trained, as most physicians have been, they have no clue what they're doing when treating thyroid fatigue or pain. So we're going to help you become your own expert so you can feel great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent. I'm looking forward to this because I'm one of those people that does get pain from, I would say. There's always some part of my body that's hurting. So I think I said in my nights to you I have a vested interest in this podcast so too, and I have had a well, I wouldn't say a solid, solid read, but I've had a good read of your book that I can see behind you, from Fatigue to Fantastic. That will dive into some of that, I'm sure. And so for those that are listening and if you're dealing with fatigue or pain, which is probably a lot of us, most of us that are listening to this podcast, the book is very, very specific. It's what I've really liked about what I've read of it is it's you provide so much, so much information, so many protocols and detail of take this supplement at this dose, and so obviously you've been dealing with this for a very long period of time 50 years, 50 years Wow.
Speaker 2:When I first came down with the conditions myself. It was 1975 and I first started medicine in 1972. So it's been a while and I'm a science geek, an animal. They called me the Phantom in Med School because two, three in the morning I'd be in the hospital in the medical library just going through the stacks of studies and going through the journals. And I know that God in the universe loves me because the most beautiful girl in the world married me said, I think, for science geeks, and I was like thank God, it was going through the scientific literature.
Speaker 2:Even in medical school it was a shock to me to realize that what I was being taught was not what the medical literature showed. What I was being taught is what the pharmaceutical industry PR department they're all sweethearts. I've never met anybody in this industry who's not allowed but they are selling their drugs and it just was a shock to me. And then I came down with chronic fatigue syndrome myself, 50 miles to ME, basically a post-thyral, and it knocked me out of medical school, left me homeless. And this is what inspired me to really look at the medical profession where it shines, where it doesn't. There's some things that's brilliant in that and there's some things like treating thyroid pain and fatigue issues. Where they that's a medical word they good and well suck. They don't know what they're doing and they don't know that they don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think from a patient perspective we get so frustrated and I've been saying to people because I think I've had it even just in the last couple of years really better understanding that really the problem is with the medical education. It's not the individual doctors are really just doing what they've been trained to do, which is you've got thyroid function problem. Let's just give you.
Speaker 2:Treat the TSH yeah.
Speaker 1:The TSH will give you some thyroid meds, off you go, there's nothing more you can do. You know, and I was told that 27 years ago but people are still being told that today and it and I think, yeah, it's the training, isn't it? It's that education, as you say, yes, the medical education. So thank goodness there are people like you, doctors, that really kind of are keen on the science and have a vested interest because you've got your own health condition to have to manage. That seems to be the ones that have to dig a bit deeper.
Speaker 2:And my job is just go ahead and give you the understanding you need not in high science. I'm very good at science. I'm also quite good at putting it into English. So what we're going to do today is help you understand number one why are the blood tests wrong? Why are the treatments they're giving not optimal? When are other things coexisting with the low thyroid, such as you may have Hashimoto's, but then that's a common trigger for fibromyalgia and me. And how do you tell what's going on? How do you treat the whole thing? So we're going to make you your own expert today, so you can go ahead and get your life back. Thank you, Perfect.
Speaker 1:So where would you like to start then, Jacob? But with that you start. You're the expert. Tell me, where do you want to start with that connection with the thyroid health part, Then we can go from there.
Speaker 2:So, number one if you're listening and you feel fantastic and everything is great, don't waste your time. Go do something else that's fun. If you're having specific problems like fatigue, like brain fog, like pain or a host of other things, let's go ahead and dissect each of those and just take it and step by thing. So, annabelle, what I'd like to do, I'm sure that the listeners you've educated them what are the main thyroid conditions, what is Hashimoto's and Graves and what are the different things that are going on. So you guys already know that. So let's start with number one, testing, because the main test we're taught in medical school, one most doctors wish that you would just stay home and just send the test result. We are taught so much to not trust the art of medicine, our own abilities with the art of medicine. We want something written down on a piece of paper that is either yes or no and that we can do. This and get on to the next person could be six minutes or so per case and then on the next. So they're well-meaning, but they're not allowed to listen to you. They won't get paid for the time. So why is the testing not reliable? Several reasons. One the machines are not reliable.
Speaker 2:I remember when I first started in internal medicine that's my specialty each new patient I would get a general chemistry and I would get a cholesterol panel Back in the days when I thought cholesterol was meaningful, as you know, for treatment, and I would get both of those. Each of those panels had a cholesterol level and my patients were coming from all over the country, so it wasn't a single lab that had a problem. These are major labs around the country. Routinely. The cholesterol level of the two panels were 20 to 160 points apart On the same person, same blood drawn. But because it was in black and red we thought, oh, this must be so.
Speaker 2:And for the main, there are two main national labs in the United States. I called the pathologist one of the main labs and I said you guys have a problem. I took the next 20 people. I said these are not even close on the same tube of blood. They immediately, immediately, solved that problem. It never happened again because whenever I ordered two panels they deleted one of the results. Okay. So number one the testing. This isn't that reliable. Number two most doctors have no clue what the normal range means. When I came out of medical school I had the impression that the normal range on a test. What you had was a group of gray old elders with beards down to here the most knowledgeable experts in the field.
Speaker 2:They sit around the table and go well, I think. I think for that TSH says yes, literature is very clear that if it's within if it's within this range, there's no problem and that's. There's no panel. You know of experts with them. Usually, if there is, they are bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. This is what the research shows. We actually look at the data. Most panels that put together the medical recommendations that are standard of practice correlate. Who's on the committee correlates exactly with which companies gave the most money to that brother. It's the endocrine society, cardiac or whatever it is, and their people are on the committees and they happen to recommend the most expensive drugs that company makes. It's not the science, it's all well meaning, but this is where it is.
Speaker 2:So where does the normal range actually come from? You know, one dad said what the heck who makes these things up? And I looked into it and it was a shock to me to realize that it's. You know, I looked at the Bureau of Lab Standards for the National Bureau, and where the lab names has come from is they take 100 people and they apply what's called two standard deviations. Put it to English the 95 in the middle are defined as a normal range and the high, high and low to 2% are defined as abnormal. That's it. So, even though the units will vary a bit. The shoe size in the United States any shoe size from size 5.5 to 11 is 5.5 to 13 is normal. So I wear a size 12 shoe If I walk into the office wearing a size 7, that's normally, even though I have a size 12 foot. That's the normal range, there's no problem. An income of $8,000 a year in the US is what it takes to fall outside of the normal range. $8,100 a year is normal. Poverty is $16,000 a year, so the normal range is based on that. You're not in the higher solos. 2% of the population period, two standard deviations has very little to do with health and I always have to have 4,500 doctors at a time and I love asking that question where does the normal range come from? And it's like looking at 400,. You know, in fears. You know, have you ever seen a deer in the headlights? You know I ask that question. I have no idea. The doctor doesn't know.
Speaker 2:And then the TSH test, which they should be using the free T4 and the TSH and ignoring those if you continue to have symptoms and treat you directly. But the TSH test depends on the hypothalamic pituitary control centers almond-sized control centers right back in the brain there working properly. If they are not working properly, the TSH test is meaningless. When I lectured the International Conference of Fibromyalgia the year that they had an Italy, I was lecturing with Professor Gunther Nieke, who's the world's leading expert on thyroid issues in people with fibromyalgia, hypothalamic dysfunction, and I asked him point blank Professor Nieke and Gunther, is the TSH test reliable in people with fibromyalgia? He said absolutely not. His research has shown us it's meaningless. But yet that's what many doctors are using to steer and you're going to find, especially now post-COVID, where we have another 10% of people came down with tripping that hypocentral center, the hypothalamic circuit breaker. We call it long COVID here in the US or past or any of the different names.
Speaker 2:But if you have the combination of can't sleep despite being exhausted and widespread pain and it doesn't all go away with your thyroid dose, you likely have a secondary fibromyalgia or ME or CFS or Alphabet Super. It's all the same thing. And even though I understand those reviews, I mean you say no, it's not. I'm not that crazy person with CFS. If you take 100 people with this condition, that's 100 different processes and it's a very real disease for all of them. And I apologize for medical idiots who say I don't know what's wrong with you, so you're crazy. That is abusive but it's not acceptable. Whatever name you care to use is fine, but that combination, when you trip that circuit breaker, the hypothalamus, you've got this process. You know it's there because you can't sleep while even though you're exhausted. This is the sleep center, as well as the hormone control center.
Speaker 1:And so you're saying so that's hypothyroid, as well as those things.
Speaker 2:But do you? Both are going out.
Speaker 1:Or are they overlapping? They're?
Speaker 2:overlapping. You know there is that. You'll find that many hormonal disorders trip the circuit breaker many inflammatory conditions, one third of people with autoimmune conditions Hashimoto's is an autoimmune condition but lupus, your mitolarythritis, multiple sclerosis or immune conditions routinely. One third of those will trip that circuit breaker and have an associated fibromyalgia or MB going with it.
Speaker 1:So what? To maybe just explain what ME is for In the UK, australia it tends to.
Speaker 2:In the US we use chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. In the UK, europe, australia, myalgic encephalomyelitis. People realized early on that calling people with this disease chronic fatigue syndrome was like taking diabetics and calling them chronic fatty, fat person syndrome or some some idiotic name that belittles the person. And chronic fatigue syndrome comes nowhere near describing the horrificness of this disease. And it's used to belittle people for doctors to say I don't have the time to mess with you, I don't know what's wrong with you. The insurance companies certainly won't pay me for taking the time to figure it out. So you must be crazy. So to avoid that stigma of chronic fatigue syndrome, the name myalgic encephalomyelitis, which is not accurate. It's not inflammatory brain disease, that's called encephalomyelitis. So you have different names, none of which are really very good and better to just understand what the condition is, you tripped a circuit breaker called the hypothalamus that controls sleep hormones, blood pressure, pulse and is that?
Speaker 1:does that then cause pain Like is that what's it? Can you explain that connection, then, with the pain element?
Speaker 2:So you've taken, we've taken a look and any any kind of severe stress, anything causes energy crisis, whether it's long COVID, whether it's low thyroid, whether it's that can cause you to trip a circuit breaker, because this area uses the most energy for its size of any area in the body. So energy levels go down, that circuit breaker trips and now you've got a full blown energy crisis. So there's seven key types of pain, but let's take a look at the main two that we see in this process. Number one is inflammatory pain, which is most of you don't have that.
Speaker 2:If you have pain, mostly just around your joints, the joints of the finger and the red and swollen, that's probably inflammatory pain. But what most of you, with five or more miles, you have is you have pain along the muscles. You have the pains in the back, sometimes along the chest wall, along the thighs. There's no red, swollen joints. If that, the vast majority of the pain is muscle, is muscle pain and you can tell, because if you push over a bony area and you can reproduce the pain, you know where you have the pain. You push and you feel a tight knot, it's muscle pain.
Speaker 2:That's a bunched up muscle. What causes muscle pain? Okay, here's a key take-home point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, this is the million dollar question.
Speaker 2:Low and muscles are like a spring. It takes more energy to stretch the muscle than for it to contract. That's why, when and that's counterintuitive you think it will take more energy to stretch that muscle, but if you have a heavy workout, you don't come home and say, honey, my muscles are all loose and limp. You say they're all tight. It takes more energy to relax the muscle than to contract it. It's like a spring. It snaps shut and gets locked in the shortened position when you don't have enough energy, and after a couple hours, weeks or years in that position it hurts like hell.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think I was reading in. That was something that stood out to me when in your book about this was it takes more energy for the muscle to relax and if you've got low thyroid then you don't have the energy. The muscle doesn't have the energy to relax. Is that the real pain?
Speaker 2:That's what causes thyroid pain. There's pain, not thyroid pain over here, but pain in your body. The vast majority in thyroid is the muscles don't have energy and they get locked in a shortened position. It may happen all over your body, which is fibromyalgia, or it may just be that if you carry a person on their shoulder or you have bad ergonomics by your workstation or anything that stresses a specific muscle, that muscle is prone to getting locked in a shortened position and hurting. Most of you have the experience.
Speaker 2:You then go and you know you'd go to a chiropractor or you'd go to a massage therapist. You know, while you still have the money to afford that before you got destitute from this disease and they went and they put energy in the muscle by pushing on it. That's a form of energy that they're putting in the muscle. Or you're taking infrared lamp and you put it on, and that's a form of energy. Or you put a heating pad that's a form of energy. Or you go into a hot bath with epsom salts that's a form of energy. Or you put an acupuncture needle in and turn it, creating a current, which is a form of energy. Anything that puts energy into the muscle helps the muscle to release, and then the pain goes away for a little while, until the low energy makes the spring get locked in a shortened positioning.
Speaker 1:That's such a helpful explanation, I think, because it's taken me years to. I mean I think I have heard that before but I'd forgotten, and so when I was reading that the other day, I thought, yeah, that makes so much, just makes so much sense really.
Speaker 2:But then there's no money in it. It's ignored by doctors because there's no money in it and it's very time-intensive. It takes a lot of training to learn how to do a muscle exam. Chiropractors know so the doctors said well, they must be crazy.
Speaker 1:We can't have another modality Beep-bee.
Speaker 2:Not often, not if it's not controlled by the MDs.
Speaker 1:So is this solution just increase your thyroid function or Increase?
Speaker 2:energy, increase energy. So there's all kinds of ways to put energy in the body and I call it the shine protocol. It's an easy way to organize it. So S is sleep. Make the time for sleep, do what you need to get yourself asleep. There's heather, melatonins, you've got all kind of herbal mixes and essential oils. There are all kinds of things that can help you sleep. Now for those of you out there saying there is no way I can get more than four hours or six hours sleep at night, I can't fall asleep, I can't stay asleep and I wake up as if I'd never slept. You have fibromyalgia, then you have ME. You've got this process. Do the entire shine protocols I talk about in the book. If you think that I'm just in it for the money, I will send the 80 cents I make per book to charity. Let me know the charity.
Speaker 1:I was talking to my husband this morning because I wrote a book last year. It's in my little back corner too and I'm like, yeah, you definitely don't make money selling books. There's no money in books. If you've ever tried to make, if you think you're making money out of a book, you've never written a book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could be shoveling snow in Hawaii here and make more money. So it's like it's. The book will teach you how you can email me. My email address is fatiguefatigiecom Doc. Doc.
Speaker 2:Like doctor at gmailcom you can ask me for the free fatigue or fibromyalgia information sheets. Those will do with fibromyalgia. You might find it get racing pulse when you stand up. After you've been up for 30, 40 minutes you may go brain foggy because this controls blood pressure, people's impulse. That circuit controls autonomic function. When you stand up for a while, the blood gravity sends it to your legs and it stays there and then you don't get the blood flow to your brain.
Speaker 2:You get foggy. It's just one of several reasons. But there's simple tests you can do at home. It's a good pulse for 10 minutes. So you email me and ask me for the blood pressure information sheets. I'll send all of that to you for free, and then it's not hard. You can increase salt intake, increase water intake, you can take care of these things. But first you got to know what's there. So you send if you can't sleep, even though you're exhausted. You've got the ME. I'll send you the information sheets, and that because I know otherwise it's just me earning my college nickname of rambling Jack. But it's all kind of laid out and you don't have to pay for the book. We have more information.
Speaker 1:It's all laid out in the book too, by the way. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's very laid out. I can you know, actually, I mean I'll do the plug for your book, because what I liked about it was, you know, I like that you've got summaries.
Speaker 1:Be if, if, very friendly, friendly, friendly friendly, friendly, friendly at the beginning of each chapter. You know you say at the beginning if you're dealing with this issue, go to chapter one and three, or you know, like you're very, very specific and there's clear protocols. So some of the brands of supplements and things, I don't know if they will apply here.
Speaker 2:It'll be harder to get there, but you can get them yeah, but you get the juice yeah.
Speaker 2:And even for them, like through high posts, you can find it there. It's going to be a different company or whatever, but you can find it. There's a supplement. There's two studies out of the four studies we've done in the last two years looking at post-viral chronic fatigue and also phobomyalgia. There's a supplement you can get there that you can't get in the United States. It's available everywhere in the world and it's called recovery factors. Write this one down for those of you who feel really cruddy. Overall. Recoveryfacporscom is a website, so recoveryfactorscom. Follow the directions on the website for how to take it and the results were quite remarkable. I mean, we had over 100 people in the one study and all of those had at least a 50% loss of energy. They're crippled with a fatigue and the energy it helps 60% of cases and energy about 60%. On average. Stamina went up about 80% or quite remarkable. One bottle was enough to tell. So that's, you can't get that in the US but you can get in Australia. So that gives you one stuff.
Speaker 2:I have for everybody says why can't they get all that stuff in the US? We can't get anywhere here. Okay, you have that, but shine sleep hormones again. Optimized thyroid. The way you do that is, you realize, number one the TSH is going to be low if you're getting a proper amount of thyroid and fibromyalgia. It's supposed to be like point two, point three, to not use that as a main guide.
Speaker 2:I adjust thyroid dose based on Are you still tired, achy, weight gain, cold and tolerant to have symptoms of low thyroid, and I will continue to adjust the dose upward to where, as long as you're not feeling over thought, over simulated, I'm not going to do it as as long as a free T4 is not in the upper part of the normal range. So I don't know what numbers I'll use for the units in Australia. Here it's point seven to one point five roughly for free T4 and as long as it's one point three or less. Most of you are finding you're in the bottom five percent of normal rates. You're not lucky enough to be in the lowest two percent for your abnormal. You're in the lowest four percent, but all the time, and I could go through explaining why it is. But those four percent, yeah, so your shoe size is six and your income's $8,100 a year. That's normal, no problem. Oh, you're crippled, not my problem, you know that's.
Speaker 2:I Apologize for the medical profession for doing that. For idiots it's not acceptable. The thyroid dose should be adjusted to what feels the best. Keeping the free T4 from going Too high can go low. If you're using desiccated thyroid, like armor thyroid, the mix of then the TSH is meaningless. The T4 is meaningless as long as they're not going high. It may go low At the optimal dose. To put it in a very simple language, the thyroid form and dose is adjusted what feels best to the person, making sure that the free T4 is not going elevated for safety.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a you sort of like that Armour thyroid, the desiccated thyroid. That's your sort of starting point medication.
Speaker 2:It's a starting point. But then some people only they don't tolerate any T3 so they can't do something, need just the T4. Other people body makes the equivalent of about 25 to 35 micrograms of T3 daily. Is how much a body makes. There's a large chunk of people with receptor resistance. They need 120 micrograms of T3 a day To have normal thyroid function and you won't tell from the tests. But you need a holistic doctor that's trained in doing that and you adjust it what feels best. Everybody's different. The book goes through each of the different kinds of Protocols for different types of thyroid and the rest, but the bottom line is that the form and dose of the thyroid Should be adjusted to what leaves you feeling the best, without symptoms of an overactive thyroid. The blood tests are secondary.
Speaker 1:It's complicated, isn't it? You know, like it does take a while to find what works, and it can vary over time as well.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's so important to find a doctor that knows what they're doing yes, and you may have to try on a number of pairs of shoes so you find what fits, but, but that's the best way. You see what feels the best to you. That will tell you better than any test. So you'll need to find a complimentary doctor who is willing to treat you, a holistic doctor and not only treatable. At this and, anibal, you're far better at guiding people that were to start looking for that in Australia. As an, I am yeah, yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1:We've talked about that and before on the show too. So, and that bell, look, I think it's just as hard here as it is there. Like I just think that's what I've noticed from this podcast and talk Connecting with thyroid patients all around the world. The problem is the same whether you're in UK you know Europe Can't you know Canada, us, australia, where it's the same problem.
Speaker 2:You only need to find one.
Speaker 1:It's not easy.
Speaker 2:You only need to find one. Australia is a big, beautiful place. I've had the pleasure of visiting, but if you find somebody within a hundred, two hundred miles of you, it doesn't matter. Ninety nine point nine percent of the doctors have no clue. You find one who knows to treat you, and not just a blood test. That's all you're gonna, but don't let the idiots get down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I mean I drive a hundred, not quite a hundred kilometers, but I drive about an hour to see my, to find mine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some and I stopped for a little while to find a closer one, and it was disaster, and Once you've had the initial visit, as long as you go in once a year, you know or even not that Many of them will be happy to teach you by phone.
Speaker 1:So shine. So we've done sleep hormones.
Speaker 2:So also often accompanying the low thyroid is low adrenal. That's just yeah. Hormone like cortisol. The blood test again will miss the vast majority of people who need it.
Speaker 2:How do you tell if you get irritable when angry? If you get these when you get hungry, everybody goes hide in the closet because they're like a monster as well. You know Simple when you get irritable, ask your significant others and your family and your home Just feed me. In fact, red, do a little card that says when I get hungry, feed me. Don't comfort me, don't try to hug me, I'll clear eyes out. Just feed me. And if you find that after about five, ten minutes of irritability Settles right down, that's low adrenal. If you're in marriage counseling Good probability or divorce court, that's a good chance that you have low adrenals, because what happens is your blood sugar drops and it's like you know and the the moods are all over the place and again I've had it myself. I had this illness. So I understand and my wife knows if I get irritable, the first she takes the person in this oh, it's just hungry. Okay, good, eat them Okay.
Speaker 1:That's an easy. I should have thought I used to be working family law and I should have suggested that you really need to be here. Do you just need to go deal with your adrenal?
Speaker 2:Just eat when you're hungry and you're gonna want sugar. That will make the problem better for about a half hour. And then put your any emotional roller coaster Protein. If you want one teaspoon of sugar, if you want like a couple grams, four grams of sugar, you can put it under your tongue. It'll break the attack quickly Without being enough to shoot. You're too high and too low and put the any emotional roller coaster. But protein, high protein diet. And when you have low adrenal you need more salt. In most cases, unless you have heart failure, high blood pressure not much affects. Salt is minimal effect on that. That's a medical myth and people with this just regular salt.
Speaker 2:But I whatever salt you have available.
Speaker 1:I was talking to someone about adrenals a couple of months ago and she was suggested putting a little like little pinch of salt in your water.
Speaker 2:Oh gross, yeah, yeah, if you want to drink salt water doesn't taste so great I would do. Just get some, some, some salt crystals like any from salt grinder and Just carry them with you, pop a couple under your tongue. But the main thing is just, you're gonna find you crave salt, use salt shaker. So even if the people are saying, are you putting snow caps on top of your food? Well, yes, I am, thank you. Yeah, because that's what your body's needing, it'll tell you, and not, please, don't think, salt water.
Speaker 1:I've got some electrolytes at the moment, actually that I've got a little bit of Salt in it. That's got like a slight salty taste. They're quite tasty actually, but that's not the same as the salt in the water. I thought what I don't really like? The taste of that.
Speaker 2:If it's tasting good, it's fine. Well, if you have to gag to get it down, don't do that. So so the thing too there's. Also you can probably find the number of them the of supplements they need the adrenal glandular Licorice, vitamin C and vitamin B5. Those are the big four things that you'll find in a good adrenal supplement. They'll usually smooth things right out, but so in look for one of those there. I I don't know what the regulations are for, what they allow, what they know, but most countries will have that. So salt you can just use your own move be realized. You see, salt won't have the iodine. Be sure you take a multivitamin that has at least 150 micrograms of iodine a day. I don't even hire them, even up to the six thousand two hundred fifty micrograms. Six point two, five milligrams.
Speaker 1:You don't want to see, you know you're not worried about the two much iodine triggering as long as they're going.
Speaker 2:I said six and a quarter milligram or less, I'm okay. I don't like to 12.5 because you may suppress, but don't start with six thousand two hundred fifty micrograms may flare your hashimoto's. In the beginning you start with 150 micrograms. That's in a good multivitamin. You give your body two months, then it's, the shift happens slowly. Then you can start raising it because some people, if you go from being iodine deficient to 100 times the RDA, some of you with hashimoto's, are gonna flare your symptoms. You don't want to. Don't do that.
Speaker 1:I think that's why I'd in such a controversial issue in the thyroid space. He's into it.
Speaker 2:He's into it. Listen to your body. Okay, use common sense.
Speaker 1:Yep, okay. Yeah, I think there's that fear of like, oh, maybe I just won't have it at all because I don't want it to trigger. But your body will tell you recommend testing to see if you are.
Speaker 2:If you look at the book, I don't. I know the guy who wrote a friend of mine and he talks about doing the skin testing without myself. Have you ever seen a negative test? And he said no, everybody's positive. I say then why do you do it? And he says I don't just treat him. Take it, see how it feels to you. Start with 150 micrograms of iodine or even a little less. Ease into it when you're finding well, that feels fine, then you can go up and then do the six and a quarter milligrams, six thousand micrograms, and do that for three months once you've worked your way up, and that will fill the tank, flush out things of block iodine. The other, how lies? Blah, blah, blah, and Do that for three to six months and then the multivitaminable, 100 fish micrograms a day and you're good.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's no really isn't rocket science. Yeah, but you've still got to know, and I suppose it's the monitoring, it, and if you're doing, my tendency is to do too much at once and then I don't know what's working or what's made the difference, and so I think each individual thing isn't necessarily rocket science, but when you try to, kind of, when you're trying to manage it all, the book organizers for people. Yeah, yeah, that's right, exactly because I think we do need guidance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't just, yeah, you can't just sort of as you go through the brain frog friendly summaries. We could go through the whole book and probably an hour, and by going through the summaries and getting keynotes You're gonna find the certain things like a blah blah, certain things. Your psyche hones in on that. That's me Good. Then to the deeper dive, to the rest of that chapter. Let's start with those things. But shine Sleep hormones. We talked about thyroid, adrenal, reproductive. If your symptoms started in your mid-40s and your symptoms are worse around your menses not PMS, but insomnia, headache, brain fog, fatigue are worse around your menses you need estrogen and digestive, not the poison synthetic. You need the bioidentical. The synthetics are made because they're patentable and profitable and they're poisonous. The bioidenticals, they couldn't patent so they're cheap and that's why the medical profession slammed them. But you can try it. Find a good holistic doctor. One way to find a holistic doctor is do we have compounding pharmacies there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do.
Speaker 2:Ask the compounders who's good. Don't expect them to badmouth anybody. They've got to work with those people in the community. But say well, I've got this and this problem. If this was your daughter, who would you be recommending them to in this area? Oh well, and when you'll see they can't. It's hard for them to give the names of some people and not the others because they have to live in that community, like I said. But when you're talking to the person and they say, oh, dr Smith, he's.
Speaker 2:And then Dr, Jones, you know you can tell. And same with the health food stores. They'll know who's good. But the compounders will know who can also prescribe and that's the big plus. So the health food stores I could be looking for people who think that anybody, anything prescription is poison. So you know each has their benefits that they give you Use all of them. You'll start and then talk to people, see who, their eyes laid up when they talk about their name, and that's how you know Things quickly go through I and E.
Speaker 2:So I would be infections. There are dozens of infections because your immune system goes down in this disease. The tests are unreliable. For the infections you have to go based on the symptoms. The book will say if you have nasal congestion, post-nasal drip, that's not allergic. Seasonal, chronic sinusitis, irritable bowel syndrome, gas-ploting, diarrhea, constipation, you need to be treated for candida overgrowth. There is no test I would give a nickel for. There are dozens of tests. They're all, in my humble opinion, useless. Do you have chronic sinusitis, do you have irritable bowel syndrome? Then you take the flu count as all for six weeks. If it gets better, okay, you know. And no, it's not this horrible poison deadly thing. It's a lot safer than I've been proven by far. Okay, so number two, viral infections. You have chronic flu-like symptoms. You have long COVID. You have this after COVID.
Speaker 2:The book will go through and the information sheet will go through that. But there's a mix of two medications that are antivirals. There's, and just doing the other things can help and it is nutrition. You need a good multivitamin. You should have at least 25 milligrams of each of the B vitamins, at least 150 of B12. There's clinical essentials, but again, that's United States one that I like to use. But you can find a good multivitamin, but you want high levels of B vitamins, not the RDAs, not the ridiculous dietary allowances. You want high levels of the Bs, at least 150 milligrams of magnesium, at least 15 milligrams of zinc and just a good solid multiamper and an animal. You probably have brands and stuff that you can that are available in Australia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's lots of good ones. I mean there's a lot of. I always say often the naturopaths here I mean they'll they often recommend good brands because they're the practitioner quality ones. I know I saw you mention a few of the doTERRA essential laws. I take the doTERRA lifelong vitality multivitamins. That is feels like a good buffer, like good sort of base level for me, and I take a few extra specific extras. But I think there's different ones around us. I often take either one naturopath, if you you know what the good ones.
Speaker 2:High amounts of B vitamins, at least 150 of magnesium, at least 15 of zinc. If they're doing that, then the rest is probably going to be good. And then the ribose coenzyme Q10, 200 milligrams a day with food. The ribose 10 grams to 15 grams of the powder. Don't get capsules, as stupid. You're taking 50 pills a day. Why do that? That looks and tastes like sugar. You can get a five grams scoop and put it in your coffee twice a day or tea or cereal or whatever you're having, and then the recovery factors.
Speaker 2:Like I said, it's brilliant. I wish we could get it here in the United States. It's just, we've seen so many people go from crippled to oh my God, I got my life back. But they can't. The United States, God bless America. I mean they kick out all the idiots or behold, and to all the different companies and so that they can serve the public instead. We don't have a representative government anymore. In this I'm wrong. It represents industry, not the public. Sorry, but anyway. No, it's all right.
Speaker 1:We, that's a whole big, not the conversation, isn't it?
Speaker 2:And God bless them. They're all nice people. Just the different topic what you're hearing from the experts. Understand that most experts these days are being paid off by industry. They're nice people, they're good people and most of what they're hearing around the news and otherwise is propaganda. I'm sorry I don't come out sounding like a loony, but as a scientist, this is what we see. I'm quoted in the media day in and day out. For some reason they like me, even though I keep telling everybody that it's just making the stuff up. If they're quoting me You're doing.
Speaker 1:well, then you haven't been canceled. Is that what you're saying? You're doing something wrong.
Speaker 2:You're doing something wrong, though, isn't it? You'll see me day in and day out about you know, about 20% of the time I'm quoted accurately. A lot of times I'm going out of the supermarket checkout. It's not like I'll pull one of the magazine, national magazines, I'll leave through to see what they're talking about. I read these things. I say I read these things. What asshole said that? And I says Dr Jacob Tidalback, you know, it's just sometimes I just make stuff up, right, and so keep your words about you, the stuff that I'm telling you. If it feels good to you and you've got instinct, that makes sense, I want to do that, then do it. If you've got instinct, no, don't do it. Okay, I mean and again, these are all good people. It's just dynamics out there, and so you know the basics we talked about today, and E is for exercise as able.
Speaker 2:But if you find that you, you know you walk out to the postal box and you're sitting there in your bedridden for three days after you have fibromyalgia, you know the ME that's supposed to exert normal days, so you don't push through that. It's not going to harm you, but you're going to feel like death, warmed over. You're going to feel bedridden for days. That's not good. Don't do that. But see how much you can do to maintain conditioning. But after about eight to 10 weeks on this protocol, energy level skyrockets. Now you can start conditioning. So it's just a common sense kind of thing. You can do things that you enjoy, simple walks, really good way.
Speaker 2:But some of you you can't walk. Some of you are bedridden. And those of you who are bedridden it's not your thyroid. Unless you have a severe T3 receptor resistance, you'd likely have the secondary fibromyalgia. You have that blood pressure issue that we call the hypothalamic autonomic dysfunction. Blah, blah, blah. When you ask for the blood pressure information sheet, I'll send you that. You'll do the testing at home in little teleguards. But pre-test you do at home and then I'll say here's what you do as simple as increasing salt. I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but this myth of people who sort of avoid salt horrible misinformation. Avoid sugar, not salt. That doesn't mean your salt should be like you know a cup of soup which is 80% salt or something. But you know common sense. But use your salt taker as much as your body wants. Your body and in these illnesses often needs more salt than water, are you saying? I drink like a fish? Yes, but you pee like a racehorse. The hormone that holds onto water is also low. You're like a bucket with holes in it.
Speaker 1:So pain. So in terms of the pain, I think that's a real. I mean, I liked that shine. It's always good when we've got something simple that we can hold onto, so you know that. But if we just come back for a minute before we wrap up to pain and I mean other than so, increasing energy, you know and obviously the shine protocol is all around that longer term increasing energy we want to make sure we're getting adequate thyroid hormones. I mean some of those things that you mentioned, like acupuncture, chiropractic massage, heat therapy.
Speaker 2:They help short term, because they don't they will stretch anything, it stretches the muscle, ease the pain until the muscle contracts back down again.
Speaker 1:So all those things that. So it's a bit of short term and long term together. Like the shine protocol is the longer term solution, but in the short term if you can afford it.
Speaker 2:Go to your massage therapist, go for the chiropractic, go for the rest. If not, do the shine protocol. Build your energy levels up and then go and have your muscles released by the massage therapist, the chiropractor, because then it'll persist longer and longer. Otherwise you're going to get feel better for three days to a week. It becomes unaffordable for many, for most people. But once you've addressed the biochemistry, once you've built energy level with shine, now these other treatments that stretch the muscles will hold, even just sitting in a hot bath with two cups of epsom salt remarkably effective at releasing the muscles and as about 15 cents and it helps you unwind generally.
Speaker 1:What about pain medication? I mean, if you are in pain, should you do it, should you not?
Speaker 2:The pain medication has its toxicities and the rest, but the pain is far more toxic than the medication. So let's go through this, the one. It's like if you have your car and you have the flashing warning light on the dashboard, so the oil light is going off, and you go to the doctor. The doctor says well, no problem, we'll just smash that light cover it to the band-aid, cut it out and then your motor burns out and pain is kind of like the warning lights on a dashboard. If you put oil in the car, the oil light goes out. If you give your body what it needs with shine, the pain goes away. If it's muscle pain, most of it is, and if it's inflammatory pain, curcumin, baswalia, even omega-3 fish oils these are very, very good. The problem with curcumin is it's purely absorbed. You can't really get enough from the diet unless you're eating an Indian diet to make the effect. But anabola if you know any highly absorbed curcumens products in the country, those can be good. So for the inflammation, curcumin baswalia would be a good start. If you can order something called curamin C-U-R-A-M-I-N, they may even import that there. I don't know, it's made by a company called Teri. Naturally that's brilliant for inflammatory pain and that's very safe In terms of medications the ibuprofen 50,000 USFs a year but it's still safer than the pain.
Speaker 2:So if it helps, use it. Acetaminophen is much more is much, much safer, so start with the acetaminophen. The problem with acetaminophen is it will deplete antioxidants like glutathione. So you may, if you're using don't go over 4,000 milligrams, or preferably over 2,000 milligrams a day total. You can lose your liver if you do that. But if you're doing the acetaminophen or paracetamolicus with any chronic long-term use, get an acetyl cysteine at the health food store, an AC 500 milligrams a day, and that will protect your body so you can use it safely. Most of the medications like gabapentin are very reasonable to use and the book talks about the whole list of medications and again you'll find that a low dose of several things for sleep or several things for pain works better than a high dose of warm.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because your body will handle the low dose and then you let it build up over time. In terms of the question of, should I take narcotics for pain? Well, preferably not if you can get rid of the source of the pain by putting oil in the car. So basically, oil it goes out, but the pain is much more toxic than the narcotic. So if somebody is not getting good relief without narcotic, then I think it's reasonable from beyond the narcotic. As long as they're not escalating doses, you can find a stable dose. And here's a funny thing About 5% of you with fibromyalgia will find that if you take a narcotic your brain and your energy comes back, you'll feel not high, you'll feel like I feel like a normal, healthy human being for eight hours after a dose. And that's because it's an endorphin deficiency in a person, of people, and not as long as the dose is not escalating. So the bottom line the pain is much more toxic than the medications.
Speaker 1:What do you mean by that? When you say pain is more toxic? What?
Speaker 2:I think that chronic pain let's see what effect, besides making people miserable, it will cause brain inflammation, called microglial activation. It increases brain age an average of eight years increases risk of senility, increases risk of suicide. It's how pain is toxic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you don't have to be suffering. I think that's the point you don't suffer.
Speaker 2:No, no, don't think.
Speaker 2:Because you're really going to be If you think that you're being strong, putting up for the pain, like you're going to go to heaven and they're going to say I was 15. 50 years of pain and I didn't take a single pill. You're not going to get any pats on the back. That's like, well, we sent all these things. You wouldn't have to be in pain. Why didn't you not take it? I'm teasing, but it's just. It's okay to use what you need. The book will go through each kind of pain and how to make it go away. There's a list of really good medications and these are fine, and even ones that you doctors will be more willing to like the pregabalin, the Simbalta or Duloxetine. It's not about pain medicine. I'm not saying they purposely made it impossible to wean off of, although I think they did.
Speaker 1:This is this like the oxy.
Speaker 2:The, not oxycombin.
Speaker 1:What.
Speaker 2:No, no, duloxetine is a non-narcotic. But they make it in a sustained release pill with their big things that say do not break or cut the pill, and you can't stop it suddenly. You can't go from 20 to zero. You go through withdrawal from hell, just like it was from the Prozac, the antidepressants. You need to go from 15 to 10 and then a couple of months later to five, but they don't make it to less than 20 and you can't break them.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, there's a trick for how to come off of it the book talks about you know you can. You can't break the pill but you can cut it open. There's little beads inside and you can wean down. But there's countless natural and prescription things to get pain free. And my 50 years, like I mentioned, the medicine is retired from seeing patients last November I can count on my fingers how many of the thousands of people I've not been able to get good, solid pain relief for.
Speaker 2:And an important thing is called if you're not on narcotics, there's a treatment called low dose nail truck zone Very, very helpful. But you have to give it two months and it has to be less than five milligrams a day. You won't do anything until two months, but then the magic happens on. The pain often goes away for most any chronic kind of pain. Those of you who have CRPS but hopefully none of you have it's now treatable. Ask me for the CRPS information sheet if you have that. You can ask me for the low dose nail truck zone information sheet when you do, if you email me or something like that too, but if you find a whole list, I know people do use the low dose nail truck zone, I think, sometimes to reduce thyroid antibodies and general inflammation.
Speaker 2:And autoimmune or chronic pain in general, five of my house in specific. It's wonderful. If it was patentable it would be $25,000 a year. Every doctor would be prescribed and get to everybody All right?
Speaker 1:Well, look, I think, gosh, there's so much information that we've just covered in. You know, it's still a we could talk for ages. I've got lots of. You know, there's lots and lots of things we could talk about. Of course, not Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, the thing is that you know I can't go through your individual case and emails or my Facebook thing, but I do do short questions if they're like you know a few sentences that I bought sometimes as I can get to them. I will note again. Email me for the information sheets at fatigue doccom and for the fatigue of the thyroid or the pain information sheets. I don't have the specific thyroid, we'll talk about the fibromyalgia. If you think you have that low blood pressure racing pulse, we'll send both of those together. Anyway, if you have infertility, which is not uncommon for the low thyroid, ask for the infertility information sheets.
Speaker 2:If you have the CRPS ask for that information sheet, but these will give you a really good start. In the email I'll send you back, I will also let you know my old office educator, once I retired, does her own consulting thing and she can do that with Zoom or online and Seagwone Prescribes. She's not an MD but she's better than most physician experts. She's incredibly knowledgeable. She worked with me for about 30 years as my right-hand educator and she consults with people bus bargain, you're going to find anyone. She's on vacation for about six weeks now, but then you know, because she's also retired a little bit with Mesa, she's taken a little time to decompress and that's her be back. She's a very good place to begin if you're looking for somebody who can go through your case and let you know for your specific case, to tell her. Here's what you need. Here are the natural things you can do and here's the things to discuss with your physician if you have a holistic doctor.
Speaker 1:So I'll put all of those links in, you know, in the description, you know, once this podcast is released too. But I think it's very, very generous to give your you know your email and take the time to respond to people's emails.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, me again when I came down with this illness and left me homeless. It's funny. It's as if I thought my life was over. I was had a job out of med school and I was sleeping in parks, and it's as if the universe put a holistic homeless medical school side of my parkments. I've never heard of match your pants. I hadn't noticed such a thing. You want to be a healer? You got to MD and herbalists came by, energy workers came by. All these different people came by and taught me bits and pieces of what I needed to learn to recover, and I was able to recover.
Speaker 2:Go back to med school, get my honors in medicine, and my passion has, for the last 50 years it's about has been making effective treatment available for everybody in a system that just doesn't support that. It's by educating you, empowering you with the information you need to get your life back and people go. Oh, my God, what a sacrifice you made. I've made no sacrifice. I'm doing the most fun thing in the world for me. So I'm going to finish on this.
Speaker 2:You use this information. We're giving you that Annabelle and I are giving you today. You get your life back. You feel better. Use that health and energy to do things you love. Don't go back to what made you sick in the first place, or your body will blow your fuse again. Don't let your brain tell you, because it doesn't know. See how things feel to you. Find those things that feel the best to you to make your heart sing, that make your soul sing, make whatever you want to call it, that make you smile when you think about it. Do that, use your energy for that. Your body will support you in staying healthy and it will have made everything I do worthwhile. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. I think that's a perfect way to wrap up. I love that office. Get well so you can just get on with being you and the gift that you are to the world. So I think that's absolutely perfect. Well, thank you very much for your time and your expertise and your generosity. So I want to say, on behalf of everyone that's listening, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Thank you, annabelle. Everybody what you have is treatable, and if your doctor says I'm sorry, I can't help you, tell them. Thank you for being honest. Go find somebody else to look at, okay.
Speaker 1:This is the Kiss Thyroid Coaching segment, where I'm just going to ask you a couple of questions to help you to reflect on what you've just heard and to see whether there's any action steps you need to take as a result of what you have learnt. So I don't know about you. There was a lot of information in there. I can tell you that his book's about 400 pages has really does have a lot of specific detail in it. So if this sort of sounds like something that you want to dig into a bit further, maybe grabbing a copy of his book from Fatigue to Fantastic is a good idea. So I don't know, do you need to do that? The other thing I would say is he has generously offered a number of different free information sheets, so I've made a note of them as I've gone back on to listen to this episode. So there's on Fatigue, fibromyalgia, blood Pressure, infatility, crps and Low Dose Nel Trekzone, and his email address is FatigueDoc, so F-A-T-I-G-U-E-Doc-D-O-C at gmailcom, and so you can just send him an email and he'll get back to you. So do you need to request any of those information sheets? Do you need to grab a copy of his book? Or, you know, is it one of those particular shine aspects of shine that you need to focus on. So sleepy, getting enough sleep and good quality sleep. The hormones are they optimized? Particularly I guess for those of you listening here particularly your thyroid hormones and your adrenals. What was the eye was infections. Are there any infections? You need to deal with Nutrition, so you need a good multivitamin nutritional supplement.
Speaker 1:Now, that actually reminds me because he said it. One of the things I remember him saying was Annabel, do you know of any good turmeric supplements? And I do. Actually, doterra do a really great turmeric supplement called turmeric duo caps. It's actually a combination of both the curcumin so that's the dried turmeric and also turmeric essential oil. They call it a duo cap because it's got both the essential oil and the curcumin Really bioavailable, so you could give that a go. It was sort of on a flow so I didn't want to interrupt you when you mentioned that, but I do know that is a good supplement and the E was exercise as able.
Speaker 1:So are there any of those different shine aspects that you need to have a focus in on? As a reminder, I move the view that it's very difficult to do everything all at once in a way that's sustainable. So which one of those do you want to tackle first would be my question for you today. Have a great fortnight. I will see you in another fortnight. I've got a couple of great interviews lined up. I'm talking about gallbladder health. I'm talking about genetics. They're the next two that I have lined up, so stay tuned for those over the next couple next month or so, and I'll see you in the let's Talk Thyroid Facebook group. Bye.