Transcript: Christine Garvin 0:02
Hey everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of hormone Lee speaking. This week we are talking about really two of my favorite things because they are essentially the underlying components of our hormonal system when we think about, you know, hormones and everybody wants to jump into the sex hormones like estrogen and progesterone, but really, we can’t get there and really help those hormones unless we really support our adrenals and our thyroid. So we’re gonna be talking about both of those today with my guest expert Dr. As there is, like I do every time I’ll edit that out with Dr. Isabella Wentz, who is a compassionate innovative solution focused integrative pharmacist dedicated to finding the root causes of chronic health conditions. Her passion stems from her own diagnosis with Hashimotos thyroiditis in 2009. Following a decade of debilitating symptoms. As an accomplished author, Dr. Wentz has written several best selling books including The New York Times bestseller Hashimotos thyroiditis, lifestyle intervention interventions for finding and treating the root cause the protocol based number one New York Times bestseller Hashimotos protocol, a 90 day plan for reversing thyroid symptoms and getting your life back and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Hashimotos a food pharmacology, nutrition protocols and healing recipes to take charge of your thyroid health. Her latest book adrenal transformation protocol is set to be released on April 18 2023. The book focuses on resetting the body’s stress response to targeted safety signals and features a four week program that has already helped over 3500 individuals. The program has an impressive success rate with over 80% of participants improving their brain fog fatigue, anxiety, irritability, sleep issues and libido. Welcome Dr. Wentz. Dr. Wentz. 1:58
Thank you so much for having me, Christina, it’s such a pleasure to be here with you. Christine Garvin 2:02
Oh, my goodness, I’m so excited to talk. I mean about everything but your new book, and this focus on adrenal health because I know it’s been talked about more now. But I think a lot of people still don’t quite understand exactly what the adrenals do, and how they impact our sex hormones, and also how to really make themselves better from we don’t call it adrenal fatigue anymore, but maybe adrenal dysregulation other than maybe you know, taking some adaptogenic herbs. So let’s just start with some basics, like what the adrenals do in the body and then go from there. Dr. Wentz. 2:42
Sure, that’s a great question. The adrenal glands, we don’t hear about them too often do we, but they’re actually critical to and the hormones they produce are actually critical to our survival. So adrenal glands produce a whole host of stress hormones, the most widely known about one is cortisol. People typically think cortisol, you hear it and it’s like, isn’t that the hormone that like, makes you store fat? And yes, that’s part of the situation. But it’s also an incredibly helpful anti inflammatory hormone. And it gets released in times when we experience stress. So if you’re being chased by there, you want cortisol on your side, right? So the adrenal glands HELP US release this beautiful cortisol, and it helps us survive, right so helps us have a little bit more energy a little bit more oomph in our step. And so we can get away from that they’re very, very quickly. And then under, you know, optimal situations, we’re supposed to reset and then get back to normal levels of cortisol secretion of cortisol also plays an important role throughout our day to day health. In the morning, we release a little bit of cortisol that kind of gets us going in the morning. And then throughout the day, we drop our levels of cortisol gradually, in healthy circumstances when we’re feeling our best to the point where we have very little cortisol throughout the day at the end of the day, so we can produce more melatonin and get to sleep. And then cortisol is kind of there for us when we’re under stress. We’re feeling some deadlines, we need to get through something and gives us a little bit of spike a little bit of that extra energy. You know, you’re maybe you get a dog park and you see like, a big dog charging on your little dog and you intervene and, and you know, you have superpowers, all of a sudden you’re like really sharp, you’re on it, and you grab the big dog away, and that’s cortisol helping you survive. Now, where it gets tricky, and where we start thinking about adrenal dysfunction is where that cortisol release gets dysregulated where we produce too much of it all day, we don’t produce enough of it in the morning or we produce too much at night or we have these cortisol roller coasters throughout the day and that’s known as adrenal dysfunction and that results from being under chronic stress for for prolonged time. Christine Garvin 5:00
And, you know, I know some of so many of the clients that come to me that is, what you just said is exactly what’s going on for them is that their cortisol is too low in the morning. So they may struggle to get out of bed get moving. And then of course, it’s too high at night, which means it’s hard for them to either, it’s interesting, because sometimes that cortisol will be high. So you know, if we do a Dutch test, and we can see, it’ll be high at night, and they’re still able to go to sleep, but then they wake up, you know, usually that two to 3am time of the morning. And so this is where I’m always like, okay, comes back again and again, to your circadian rhythm, right? To be able to really just kind of reset and rebalance and flip the script on what’s currently going on. So what are some of the best ways for people to really get their circadian rhythm back in balance, Dr. Wentz. 5:56
there’s a few things that I recommend doing with my clients. And one of them is very, very simple, but it’s just stepping outside first thing in the morning. So having a little bit of sunshine in your eyes and your retinas, that’s going to let your body know that it’s not time to produce melatonin, and it’s going to help your body produce more of that cortisol. Another thing that I might recommend, for people who have trouble waking up in the morning and struggle with morning fatigue is getting up. Something I like to call the adrenal kickstart. And this is going to be a little drink that people can make very quickly in their kitchen, half a cup of orange juice to boost our glucose levels. Glucose and cortisol are oftentimes connected. So when one low was low, the other one’s going to be low. And mix that up with a little bit of protein powder, perhaps some coconut milk and electrolytes. And that’s going to support having healthy cortisol, healthy blood pressure, healthy blood sugar levels early in the morning, to give you a little a bit of a morning kickstart. And then waiting a little bit if you’re somebody that is dependent on caffeine, and many people with adrenal dysfunction. Some some doctors might say like, Oh, you have this problem, because you drink too much caffeine, what I’ve actually found it’s like people self medicate with caffeine. Yeah, but yeah, we get a little bit or a little bit later, that’s going to allow your body to produce its cortisol naturally, because if, if you’re drinking a cup of coffee, as soon as you wake up, you know, you’re, you’re still kind of in bed and you’re having that coffee, while you’re still in bed, then your body’s not going to be able to like produce its own cortisol because cortisol and the brain and our adrenals it’s, it’s a beautiful feedback loop and off caffeine gives us a bit of cortisol, and then our brains gonna say, hey, we don’t need to produce cortisol in the morning when she’s got it. She’s given us some cortisol right there, right? Christine Garvin 7:52
Yeah, yeah. Well, and and I feel like this is something that’s just starting to be talked about a little bit more recently, what you’re talking about, you know, giving it an hour and a half to two hours before you bring in the caffeine. Because how does that cortisol rise in the morning? Because it’s not? It’s not as high as peak right away? Right? It takes a little while to get there. Dr. Wentz. 8:16
Yes, absolutely. So it depends on the person. And there’s people that might have like a delayed delayed rise in cortisol, but it starts to rise up in the early, the wee morning hours, right. And then we kind of wake up and for most people naturally should be between seven and perhaps 9am, where they feel energetic, and they have that, that that great feeling when they wake up and they feel alive and amazing and ready to take on the day. People with you know, the delayed cortisol patterns, they might actually start that off later on. And they’ll wake up at nine or 10. And then they wake up confused, not knowing where they are, they are what’s going on. And so So part of part of my work and really important key to healing and setting ourselves up for success is making sure that we’re aligned with the daylight, right, so you have good energy throughout the day, and then you should be tired at night so you could get your restful and regenerative sleep for your brain and for your body. Christine Garvin 9:23
Absolutely. And it’s it’s so simple yet so hard to do for some of us, right? So I’m so glad that you talked about that drink first thing in the morning because I do think a lot of people need something right that they you know, depending even if they wake up on the earlier end that they still feel that like sluggishness and so to have this sort of supportive tear adrenals drink first thing, right and then obviously we probably want to get some good protein at breakfast in order to help you know stabilize your blood sugar and your cortisol. What happens when people really start to see A that sort of downward, you know, slope maybe too much in the afternoon what’s going on with that? Dr. Wentz. 10:08
Right. So some people might get on what I call a, a roller coaster, like a cortisol roller coaster where perhaps, you know, ideally we want high cortisol in the morning isn’t just like a gradual slope. So think of going down like a slide, right, and it’s, it doesn’t have too many bumps. But if we have too many bumps, it might feel like, it might feel like irritability, it might feel like a 3pm slump, it might feel like oh my gosh, it’s like 3pm, my brain is just not working, you might find that you tend to be just very short tempered. And that’s, that’s, that’s actually a really good sign that you might need just a little bit of protein at that time I, I do recommend for people, you know, we eat like, usually we’ll have lunch, and then we have wait until dinner, and it’s right around six o’clock. But if you have that 3pm slump, doing something like a 2pm 230, Mickey, maybe just having a little snack with protein. And you can, you can even do like a protein shake, if if you don’t have enough time and just do a little bit of a protein powder, perhaps some coconut milk or avocado, something where it gives you just a little bit of an ability to carry over and not get into that. That cortisol slump, blood sugar slump, and it just can be a really big game changer for people just adding a little bit of a snack that’s healthy, and that has healthy amounts of protein and fat. Christine Garvin 11:32
Absolutely. So on the subject of protein. Everybody has their take these days around, you know how much protein we should be getting in? What do you recommend in a day for most people in terms of grams protein? Dr. Wentz. 11:46
Well, that’s a really good question, then, of course, there’s issues like people with kidney disease that have to have to mind their protein intake. But generally, I do recommend that people follow a more aggressive protein intake when when they are a bit older, or when they have chronic health conditions. So you know, what the recommendations are for one gram of protein per kilogram to one gram of protein per pound a day. And I would say, for most people, somewhere in between that is going to be about right, and I have a I have a little section in my book that that goes over, like, if you’re a bodybuilder, you probably eat more. And if you are like a couch potato, you know, a little bit less, somewhere right around that I kind of give people some guidelines to get to know their bodies and to feel into what what feels best for them. And of course, there’s always medical conditions that might require less or more. Christine Garvin 12:49
Absolutely. And I think that’s an important note that you just made that, you know, a lot of times out there right now, you’ll just see, okay, you know, this is how much protein you should eat that, you know, and just like anything, the how much movement we have going on our lives, how much you know, we have to be sitting in a desk at work, all these things are part of the situation of what is going to really be best for your body. And so that just, you know, one to one thing isn’t going to work for everybody. Right? And, and also, it’s like recognizing and really paying attention to your body. Right? I I find so often with my clients when they do start to consume more protein than they notice less of the sort of ups and downs from that blood sugar regulation. But then in some cases, you know, the protein maybe makes them feel too sluggish if they’re getting too much. And that’s why it comes back to bio individuality right again and again. And so that’s awesome that you have in your book, some guide guidelines around that to help people kind of figure out what’s going on for them and what’s best for them. Dr. Wentz. 13:56
Absolutely. And I will say like I would say most people probably are not getting enough protein right? Present. Christine Garvin 14:01
Yeah. Pretty the biggest thing when clients come to me for sure is they think that they’re getting a lot more protein than they actually are. And so I always recommend, and this is people can do this on their own, just do a three day diet log, you know, it’s not about counting calories or anything, it’s really just seeing what your macros are breaking down to particularly that protein. Because most people are getting less protein than they think they are and getting less carbs than they think they are on excuse me less protein. They’re eating less protein and they should be getting much more carbs than they necessarily should be, you know, so it’s just such a helpful tool to really see what’s going on in their lives. Dr. Wentz. 14:42
Yeah, absolutely. And what people don’t realize and I didn’t realize until I started really researching health and healing is that people with chronic health conditions and chronic illness and older people actually tend to need more protein right and really help their bodies build themselves back up is We know that protein gets broken down into amino acids and amino acids are what help us repair and rebuild our body. Christine Garvin 15:06
Absolutely 100%. And as we get, you know, further along in perimenopause and menopause, you’re particularly in menopause when our estrogen drops. And so our insulin becomes a little bit more rocky, it is so helpful to get that protein and to really help the blood sugar stabilization, you know, and so, I see sometimes women going into menopause and kind of going the other way going, you know, maybe pulling back on their protein going more just plant based. And, you know, I just kind of implore them to continue to get enough protein, whatever way that they’re getting protein in, you know, to make sure that that’s going to help them for the long term with their bone health and, and lots of other things, too. Dr. Wentz. 15:49
I think that’s such an important point. And women, I know, we get so many messages about all of these different hacks out there, like intermittent fasting and breakfast. And that can work really well for some people, but not for others. Like if breakfast was like a big source of protein for you. And you’re finding that like going intermittent fasting or skipping breakfast, you end up having night wakings or not having an throughout the day, that could be a sign that something is out of line with your body. So you always want one of my biggest hopes is to teach people how to listen to the signals that they’re sending them know, like, Okay, well, maybe we need a little bit more of this and how to how do I tune in? How do I dial in and give my body what it needs? Right? Yeah, absolutely. Christine Garvin 16:35
So going back to nighttime or getting into the evening, what do you recommend in terms of people sort of starting to dial down so that their cortisol continues to go down and that melatonin starts to rise? Dr. Wentz. 16:50
A few a few things, one of the things that I might recommend for people, most people I’ll say, like, maybe lower carbs in the morning. But if you’re somebody that finds carbohydrates are a little bit, you don’t have enough carbohydrates, sometimes some people might have trouble falling asleep, or they might wake up throughout the night. So maybe doing a little bit more carbs, heavier carbs in the evening, that might be a consideration for some people. Other things I might recommend would be wine down drinks. So perhaps doing like a camera meal tea can be incredibly helpful. Some some more intensive things would be cutting out caffeine and intake before 3pm. For most people, I know if I have caffeine after 4pm. It’s like, oh, I’m ready to party like 11 o’clock. And you know, I’m lying in bed wide awake. Yeah. Having limiting your exposure to blue lights and bright lights. I know that’s hard for people because there’s like, five movies to watch and fun things to do in the evenings, right. And a lot of times a lot of us have our relaxing time or downtime are our neighbors on our Street Northwest as like the red light house. So what we do is we have these lights that turn red when the sun goes down to to kind of set the circadian rhythm for, for ourselves to let our body know that our bodies know that it’s time to wind down. But people can’t do that with blue blocking lights. And there’s different settings on phones and TVs, eating with, you know, dinner with candlelight. And then like that. So many different ways to do it. And then one of my my all time favorite, like non negotiable is to take like an Epsom salt bath in the evening. And so having that hot water with the magnesium rich epson salts, salts is gonna put your body in a very relaxing state, then having a little bit of time to cool off right after you know, you get out of the hot, the hot bath, and then you get out into the cold that actually sends her body a signal to relax and sleep more and getting into a really fabulous sleep environment. So that might be you know, making sure your bedroom is is you know, clear of clutter, if possible. It’s not always possible. But having having a perfectly dark and full bedroom, where I will go around and I’ll cover up like little blue lights and then in the bedroom that makes a big difference for waking up throughout the night. And I’ll try to set the temperature for most people 65 to 78 degrees is going to be a comfortable temperature. If it’s too warm, we’re going to have trouble falling asleep, we’re going to have trouble. We might have nightmares throughout the night. And that is going to be something that when I think about how our genes evolved, it’s like we were in our caves right as cavemen women and it was like dark and so trying to set up a cave like setting so this is kind of the kind of the lifestyle factors and I also have a lot of things and recommendations that I focus on to help people sleep sleep like blood sugar her balance helps with that. magnesium supplements. Myo inositol is really helpful for promoting sleep and blood sugar balance. And we, you know, I go from like very foundational things to like if you’re really having trouble, here’s some potential causes. And let’s figure out what is causing your, your sleep issues. Right? Christine Garvin 20:21
Yeah, that’s so important because, first of all, most of us aren’t completely dialed in on the foundations. Right. And we may need to relook at the foundations, as you mentioned, and you know, like one of my clients realized for her, one of the biggest things was unplugging her Wi Fi at night, like that made a huge difference in her sleep, you know, and so sometimes I think, you know, people understand, Okay, I’m not supposed to have my technology in my room or be using it before bed, but they don’t necessarily think about even the Wi Fi can be impacting their sleep, you know. So there’s, there’s these little things that you have to kind of, like you said, we didn’t evolve to have as part of our nightly ritual at all right? It wasn’t part of what what our bodies were used to. And so it can absolutely get in the way. And then there’s also definitely clients who have come to me, I’d say sleep is the biggest issue probably right. And they say, Okay, I do this, this, this, this is like all the recommendations that I got from them. They’re like, Yeah, I do all that stuff. And I’m like, okay, and then it’s like, okay, well, we get, we got to get to that next level of certain supplements and things like that. And then obviously, for women that are in their, you know, early to mid 40s. And on, sometimes it may just come down to you need some progesterone. Dr. Wentz. 21:38
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And it’s, it’s, I, when I was in my 20s, and 30s, right, I used to think like, Oh, my goodness, yes. Like, people can’t sleep, they just need to sleep for like, if it was very, very straightforward. You just need to drink less caffeine sleep in a dark room. But then the more you work with clients, and the more you get to know the the unique aspects of what might be going on within their bodies, the more the more tools you end up having and being able to help more people, I used to have like a maybe a 50% success rate for helping people sleep. And now it’s closer to like, 80 90%, just because of my clients and my husband and I had a young son with with like, that didn’t sleep. So I had to do. Christine Garvin 22:20
Like, I’m gonna figure this out. Dr. Wentz. 22:21
Like, I need to figure this out. Like that needs to happen, right? Yeah, Christine Garvin 22:25
no doubt. So what do you think the biggest issue that you see is when people wake up at that? 3am? Yes, three to 4am and often struggle to get back to sleep. Let’s put it that way. Dr. Wentz. 22:39
I think blood sugar in my experience. And so one of the one of the things that people can one of the things that happens when you wake up at that time, you could be becoming hypoglycemic, and your body does you a favor by trying to compensate to give you more blood, glucose and by to do that it needs to release some cortisol. And cortisol is like your wake up hormone. So it’s like, oh, you’re like, Why do I feel hungry? It’s like 3am. And like, go back to sleep and you feel wired. And you know, it’s like, you’re tired, but you’re wired. And so that acute moment, I usually recommend for people to like, eat a banana to help them go back to sleep, maybe take some GABA or glycine, if they have that on hand to help them fall back asleep. And thinking about what, how to set up your next day. So it doesn’t happen. Sometimes it’s like, make sure you have enough protein at breakfast, it could go back as far as like, you didn’t get enough protein throughout the day. You didn’t eat enough calories throughout the day. Maybe you had too many carbs. Did you happen to drink a bottle of wine? Definitely. Not that might have been the issue. Yeah. And so figuring out what you have set up your daily routine. So that doesn’t happen for for much of what I recommend. And I typically take people on a four week journey where we do some foundational things. It’s going to be things like my Oh, and also tall eating blood sugar balance, making sure you’re eating enough protein and fat throughout the day. All of these things work really, really well and really beautifully. For some people, it might be going deeper, like hey, you know, sometimes chromium deficiency can cause you to be in the middle of the night if you don’t eat enough calories. And this can be tough for people trying to lose weight, right? Because they’re like, oh, I need to I need to cut back. There might be other things like ammonia toxicity within your body. So there might be things like sacrifices boulardii or ornithine or figuring out which gut infections you have that are causing you to wake up at night or yeast overgrowth, mold toxicity, these things can really mess with your blood sugar. So there’s an I tried to get you know, I tried to focus on just like foundational over the core four weeks, with my people in the program and then what’s going on Sleep that I have a whole section in the book that talks about how to tailor the protocol. And so yes, if you have, if you have perimenopause and menopause and you’re like, I can’t sleep, I don’t have a libido. Everybody is kind of, you know, annoying me then it’s like, Oh, my goodness, there’s this. There’s little tiny hormone you may want to look into and progesterone, and that could be life changing. Yeah. During our lives, right? Christine Garvin 25:25
Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking about, as you mentioned, the banana to you know, another thing that just from personal experience, so I had a surgery that went wrong. And then I had multiple surgeries after that, right, so I had a fibroid removed, they unknowingly burned me in three places in my intestines during the fibroid surgery. So I ended up having sepsis and a temporary ostomy for about six and a half months. And so of course, while I was in the hospital for about three weeks, sleep was like, nothing, pretty much for those three weeks, I could not sleep. And then you know, I’m an ostomy bag. So I was having to wake up at night, anyway, and go to the bathroom and dump the bag, but also eat because food would just go right through me, right. And then it took. I mean, once I had the reversal, it probably took a year for my body to reregulate. And one of the things I really realized was how much PTSD impacts sleep to write. And I had gotten in this, I think my body was just almost in that protection mode, right. And this is where the cortisol was probably too high for me too much of the time, right? Because it was like in this, like, we want to protect you from anything like this happening again. So you need to be awake and aware, you know, but the banana was like my Savior. I remember that at like three or four in the morning, when I would wake up and I just be like, Okay, I’m not going back to sleep at all, you know, the banana was like, my jam, you know, and, and like you said to, it’s so interesting, because I really did figure out for me that, you know, not having as high protein meal at night, and having a higher carb meal at night, and getting the majority of my protein earlier in the day was so much more helpful for my body, you know, and that certainly, at this point, I’m able to go my 12 hours without eating, but for a long time, I couldn’t. And that’s okay, right. So if people need to eat something, you know, it a is not going to necessarily be like that forever. And it doesn’t have to be an entire meal. It’s just like a little snack that can be supportive. Dr. Wentz. 27:31
Yeah, and I really appreciate you sharing your story. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry that you went through that. But I feel like women, a lot of times they hear like, they need to do this, like they need to fast or they need to do this kind of exercise. And and I’m all about like, let’s figure out where you are right now? And what are the things that we can do that feel the most nourishing supportive to your body and that the things that are going to put your body in a safety zone, right? So a lot of us get like danger signals from you know, traumatic stress and having inflammation in the body having surgery, having sleep deprivation, all these are stressors on the body. And so what messages can we send to your body to make it feel safe? And part of that is nourishment, right? And so if you were if you weren’t going to famine, yeah, that’s gonna be you know, you can’t, you’re hungry, but you can’t eat. Yeah. And so when you’re hungry, and you’re not eating, whether that’s at 3am, or early in the morning, people were trying to die it that’s sending your body a sign that you’re in a famine, right? And so, initially, a lot of times, I will recommend, you know, eat more food, eat more frequently for a lot of women than they’re used to doing and end up being like, oh, my gosh, I actually lost weight, right? Sometimes they’ll say, like, maybe you should do less cardio, right? And they’re like, no, no, no, I’m like trying to lose weight. And they’re like, Oh, now my body feels safe, and it doesn’t feel like it’s in a famine, and my metabolism actually sped up and instead of being slowed down, right, because stress puts our metabolism slows down our metabolism. Christine Garvin 29:05
Hmm, absolutely. I mean, all of that is so important. And particularly I do think so many women have some, you know, history of disordered eating, because it’s hard to be in our culture and not have some level of that at some point, right. And that includes often not having any as many calories as we actually need and so to you know, reregulate in the body and make it feel safe. It’s like it has to have enough calories to feel safe, especially as a woman’s body, because I was watching the show called limitless. It’s like Chris Hemsworth. It’s on Disney plus, and it’s all about him doing these like extreme things, but for like, not just anti aging, but to live longer, right. And one of the episodes was about fasting, and I was just watching it and it’s amazing, right, but I was thinking this does not work for women’s bodies. You know, they put these things out there, and it’s, the studies are done then the, you know, trials are done on men, they’re showing us a man doing this, and it’s just a completely different story, you know, a woman’s body is gonna act react very differently. And that’s not every single woman’s bodies because of course, we’re individuals to, but in general, while we are cycling people, yeah, it’s gonna be very different. Right. And so when you’re in menopause, it’s also a different story than when you’re cycling. So, you know, you have to be open to those changes that happen over time, too. Dr. Wentz. 30:32
Yeah, it is. It’s so interesting, because like you said, a lot of the studies are designed for men, and then men typically have more muscle mass and lower body fat, and many times they’re taller, and, you know, and and heavier than us. And not to mention, like, the minor detail of having different hormones, right. And anatomy, like, yeah, just all of these factors can play a role in how we respond to things. Christine Garvin 30:57
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about a few other things that you recommend in terms of lifestyle factors, that you, you know, people may need to shift or change a little bit in order to support their adrenals. Dr. Wentz. 31:11
A lot of it is focused on self care and finding that time for yourself. And I give women a permission slip or a prescription that says do more of the things that you enjoy. One of the one of the like, life changing things. And it’s so simple that I have everybody that goes through my programs. And I talk about this in my book, because I have take a piece of paper and divided in half on one side right about what makes me feel better. And on the other side, right? What makes me feel worse, right? So like, it’s really that simple for a lot of times for people just to develop their own healing protocol. And I mean, everybody’s a little bit different for a lot of women I hear sleep deprivation makes me feel worse. So okay, so get more sleep, right? Yeah, do a little bit more that connecting with friends, going for a walk with a friend always makes me feel better. Go for a walk with that friend, you know, routine, don’t like, don’t get so busy with everything else. Right, right. Seeing over scheduled makes me feel worse. Okay, let’s let’s think about maybe won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen in a week. But let’s think about how we can decommit some things and I say, I recommend people create space for healing. And I talk about various strategies of things that we can do to perhaps get rid of some of the things that are not necessary or, or automate some of the other things that are that are automatable. Right. Not everything is, yeah. But also like, just doing pleasurable activities, whenever we do things that bring us pleasure, and that we enjoy, and we just do them for the sake of doing them. That is a tremendous safety signal to our bodies. And whether that’s like creating art for a lot of people that is very pleasurable and fun. Unless you’re like, you know, a professional art designer. Christine Garvin 33:02
not fun anymore. Dr. Wentz. 33:05
I used to write for fun, right? Like, I used to write poetry and do short stories. Now I’m a professional writer. Like, this is not super fun for me when I have tons of deadlines. So just finding an outlet of something that you do just for fun. Yeah. And just for your enjoyment. Yeah, that is such a big difference in in how we feel and our capability and our ability to heal. Christine Garvin 33:28
Yeah. And I’m so glad that we’re finally seemingly getting past that side hustle thing that was so big pre COVID, right. For women, it was like, Oh, get your side hustle on, like, take the things that you enjoy and start to make money out of it. And it really does suck the joy out of those things. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever monetize any you know, things that you’re doing like if that’s the path you want to go on, but having like you said something that is just for the simple fact of yourself and your enjoyment and your connection and all of that. That’s it’s a completely different impact on the body. Right then if you have to do it, because you have to get it out to Dr. Wentz. 34:06
the world. Absolutely. I I’m not particularly good at art. So that’s kind of what I do. Because I know like, I’m not gonna be I love like adult coloring books. So I have, I have a son that’s turning five soon. And so that’s something that we can do together like doing him and we do little, little fun projects and stuff. And you know, I’m never going to sell them or turn them into a side hustle like you said, but it’s fine. Christine Garvin 34:34
Yeah, yeah, exactly. One thing I was thinking about, too, that I wanted to ask your opinion on, you know, there is obviously been a thing for a while that has been almost like pushing women to drink more wine, but it’s business like wine o’clock and all these kinds of things and like you deserve a glass of wine at the end of the day that we know. Unfortunately the alcohol does impact our sleep and it does to impact our blood sugar and and our adrenals. What do you think about some of these non alcoholic drinks that are coming out now to have those at night instead? Because I hear a lot of women say, Well, I want something that kind of helped me with that transitional period like coming home from work and getting into my evening. Dr. Wentz. 35:21
I love that idea of having, having these wine wine tails and just these virgin cocktails. My team and I have had a whole guide for people going into the holidays, alternative drinks, and I will do things like a Reishi or I have like a virgin Mojito and things like that, to give people something, something to look forward to. Right. I think a lot a lot of times people self medicate with wine. When we think about what wine does, it helps us produce more GABA, right. So our GABA is kind of our relaxing on winding hormone and I actually talked about how, how caffeine and like, we have uppers in the morning, so we have our coffee, and then we have downers that night and that’s our that’s our wine and that that’s often a way for us to self medicate. Yeah, our adrenal dysfunction. And so, there’s other ways to boost GABA in your body, like definitely feeling perimenopause, progesterone will help you do that. You could take a GABA supplement, but also something simple like magnesium, magnesium supplement and having an Epsom salt bath that’s going to help you produce more GABA in your body. And I love doing like sparkling sparkling water and putting some flavors in it or electrolytes. I actually have a whole section in the book about like evening drinks. Some people don’t have like, a meal tea or, or I really love the Reishi cacao. Christine Garvin 36:47
Mm hmm. Yeah, Dr. Wentz. 36:49
that’s very relaxing, and can help promote GABA and relaxation and good sleep. So there’s definitely rituals that you can take on that can feel as good as having a glass of wine without some of the other. Some of the other not so pleasant side effects. I know. I did a continuous glucose monitor and a couple of years ago, and I was like, let’s see what happens if I do. Like I was like a self experiment. Yeah, yeah. What’s gonna happen if you do Rosae all day? And it’s like, Oh, my goodness, my sleep was horrific. Like, I was hypoglycemic. And then I was hyperglycemic here and holy cow. Where did that chin hair come from? Right. Christine Garvin 37:29
All the things? Yeah. What? So would you see what your blood sugar went to? After you like had a glass of wine? Would you check it then? I’m just curious how high it would go? Dr. Wentz. 37:40
Well, I actually tended to have low blood sugar. Okay, fine in the evenings. It’s still didn’t elevate. And I think a lot of people may not realize this, but the blood sugar drops might be the first thing that happens as you’re starting to dis regulate your blood sugar, right. And then eventually, the blood sugar swings will follow so so that that is, you know, like an early sign that many people, they don’t know why they’re waking up at night, and they don’t know why they’re so irritable, or tired or whatnot. And, and sometimes it could be like too many carbohydrates, or maybe too much wine in the evening. Say, Christine Garvin 38:16
Yeah, that’ll do it. Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely for me in my 20s. I was vegan. And I was really bad hypoglycemic. It took me a while to figure that out. Right? But it was so interesting, right? Because I was just learning at that time, like, you go hypo, before you go to hyper, essentially, you know, so and that’s the thing. People are always like, oh, low blood sugar is good. And it’s like now, you know, I mean, obviously, most people know it’s not good to go really low. But in general, yeah. If you’re hitting low a lot, then eventually it’s gonna go high. That’s what your body’s gonna do. Dr. Wentz. 38:51
Yeah, and, you know, to your point, people say, like, oh, having low blood sugar is good, and having low blood pressure is good. And that’s like a big point of frustration for me, because I know I was in my 20s. And I had low blood pressure, low blood sugar, and kind of the renal dysfunction and you would go to the doctor, you’re like, I can’t get out of bed in the morning. I’m so tired all the time. I’m anxious, you know, I have all these things going on. And they’re like, your blood sugar is great. Christine Garvin 39:17
You’re fantastic. This is not a problem. You’re like, okay, yeah. But um, Dr. Wentz. 39:25
that’s one of the things that I really want to spread awareness about is like when you have that low blood sugar when you have that low blood pressure, and you can have low cortisol as well. This is a sign of adrenal dysfunction and you might actually be in a stage of chronic stress and really need to work on your stress and I don’t mean just like you know, meditate while though that’s a great way to do it. But looking at your metabolic stress, looking at the your gut health, stress, mental stress, your sleep, all of these things that our body can perceive as stress er’s can impact how our body functions and adapts in the world. Christine Garvin 40:04
Yes, absolutely. That’s so key. And and I’m glad that you brought up. You know, I think I’ve seen this happen with other women, too, that are younger, and have all of those sorts of the low end, including low cholesterol to write, which I also dealt with, too. And it’s this idea. I mean, it’s so frustrating in our culture, how what is perceived to be healthy, and what is not perceived to be healthy. And if you’re, you know, a skinny white woman walking into a doctor, they’re gonna be like, Oh, you’re fine. without looking at anything. You know, Dr. Wentz. 40:37
your head, it’s in your head when I had Hashimotos. But I was thin. And I, I was extremely fatigued, and I had low cortisol and I had low blood pressure, and I had low blood sugar. And in those cases, we do need to work to get that into the optimal range. So we can thrive instead of being in survival mode, right? Christine Garvin 40:57
Absolutely. Well, speaking of Hashimotos, because you are the Hashimotos expert. Let’s talk a little bit about that. What it is for those that don’t know and actually your experience with figuring out that you have it and I’d love to hear that too. Dr. Wentz. 41:10
Hashimotos it sounds like an exotic condition. Right? It sounds like it’s super rare, like an exotic Japanese swordfighter. I’ve heard all these different things from people, but it’s super common, as many as one in five women might have it at some point in their lifetime. So pregnancy, puberty, perimenopause are some of the peak times where a person might get a diagnosis and what it is, is an autoimmune attack against the thyroid gland. In the early stages, people will have quote, unquote, normal thyroid function, their thyroid gland won’t be able to compensate. But they might have symptoms like the anxiety and a lot of this adrenal dysfunction that we talked about in the fatigue, they might have fertility issues, they might have miscarriages, their children might have developmental issues, a whole host of various symptoms. Typically, a woman will go in and get her TSH tested in the early stages. Everything looks normal. Christine Garvin 42:08
It’ll be like five, and they’re like everything was normal. Dr. Wentz. 42:12
Exactly, exactly. It takes about 10 years to really develop into hypothyroidism or an underactive thyroid, and that’s when most women are diagnosed and they’re given a prescription like Synthroid levothyroxine, to bring up their thyroid hormone levels. And it’s thyroid man that the thyroid does so many things for us, right? It runs our metabolism, it gives us pretty hair, it makes our brain work, it helps us have helps us have shiny hair and non achy joints helps us to stay fit, calm, all of these different things that are just, you know, critical for us. And so the symptoms are can be all over the place. And lots of times people get misdiagnosed, but we, my my passion around that started in my 20s when I was just going had chronic fatigue, I had acid reflux, I had irritable bowel syndrome, carpal tunnel, I was losing my hair, I was sleeping 12 hours a night waking up tired. I had cold intolerance, like I was wearing two jackets in Southern California, right? Like, are you putting on extra weight, like I was eating the same diet and all of a sudden my sweatpants were like, too tight. And these are these are some of the classical symptoms, right, if hypothyroidism, also anxiety and panic attacks are are some other not so fun symptoms that people experience and took a while to get a diagnosis. Finally, when I got a diagnosis, being a pharmacist, I’m like, Yes, medications helped a little bit. And so I’m grateful for that. But they didn’t like they didn’t help me with like 95% of the symptoms, right? I still had panic attacks, I still had the carpal tunnel, I still was losing hair, I still was overweight, all of all of these things were off and the acid reflux in the IBS. So I just became a Hashimotos expert slash human guinea pig to like, heal my own body, reduce the inflammation in my body reduced the autoimmune attack against my thyroid glands. And then I wrote a book about it. And it was over. It was almost a decade ago that I got myself into remission, and just shared the message with the world on how to get into remission from Hashimotos. So that you don’t have to deal with the symptoms. Because I read meds, they can be helpful, but for most people, most people that I see I can’t say for for every single person in the world because I haven’t seen but for most people, they do help a little bit but then they’re still over with the root cause of why they got an autoimmune condition in the first place in the first place, and there’s a lot of broken systems in the body, and I focus on repairing them. Right, Christine Garvin 44:56
right, right. Well, so often women will just get put on T four to start. Right. And that’s going to be somewhat helpful for some people but in general, right, one of the huge I mean, I have, I’ve always had or dealt with subclinical hypothyroidism, I’m, I’m shocked. I don’t haven’t had Hashimotos yet, but I’m always, you know, checking my thyroid antibodies consistently. But, you know, the, my big issue is conversion from T four to T three. Right. And I think that that is true for a lot of people. So they’re on Synthroid and things like that, and they’re not converting that t 423. So that’s not going to help. But also, as you mentioned, it’s just so many other aspects to having Hashimotos. And so do you essentially get diagnosed just off of the antibodies showing up? Or are there other ways to diagnose it to Dr. Wentz. 45:51
generally people, it’s a little bit backwards, and I am really trying to spread awareness about that. But generally, most doctors, a little brown, a TSH Test, which is a thyroid stimulating hormone, and it essentially will become elevated when the body senses that you need more thyroid hormone on board right? happen usually like five to 10 years, sometimes 1520 years after you the markers of Hashimotos. And after the inflammation and your thyroid gland is already present. And so I say it’s like an excellent test for like, really advanced cases of how you’re trying to, you know, like, at the point where I was diagnosed, I already had damage to my thyroid gland where it couldn’t compensate. And it’s so much easier to catch Hashimotos earlier. And so you can reduce your thyroid antibodies and reduce that inflammation may be completely eliminated. And then you don’t you know, you’re not going to be dependent on a medication. Right, right. Yeah, provide you with external hormones. And I, you know, a pharmacist, I think medications have their time in place, they’re wonderful. Ideally, I would love for people to if you’re having any symptoms, anxiety, trouble conceiving obsessive compulsive disorder, hair loss, like fatigue, cold intolerance, loss of your eyebrows, talk to your doctor and say, request thyroid antibody testing. So TPO antibodies and TG antibodies are the two tests to ask for, and they can be elevated like, on average about a decade before you actually have a change in your TSH. So you’ve got all this time for these amazing lifestyle interventions that you teach about, and I teach about to help reduce the inflammation and optimize your hormones before you get into a hypothyroid state. The other thing that is a consideration too, for some people is doing a thyroid ultrasound. There’s a condition known as seronegative Hashimotos, where people don’t actually have Hashimoto with a two Hashimotos antibodies, but they might have inflammation in their thyroid gland already. And you could see that on an ultrasound. And the interesting thing is like looking at the research, there’s like, at least eight different Hashimotos antibodies or eight different types of antibodies against the thyroid gland. So some of them testing them, all. Right, they’re only available for researchers, right? And so there might be other ones that we’re not aware of. But sometimes doing an ultrasound can also be a way to find if you have a lot of these symptoms that this could be related that you might have that inflammation in your thyroid. Christine Garvin 48:27
Interesting. Yeah, I didn’t know about doing the ultrasound for that. That’s really, that’s really a good thing to know. So we don’t have a lot of time, but I just wanted to ask what are your favorite lifestyle and dietary approaches in dealing with Hashimotos Dr. Wentz. 48:43
I really love the Paleo diet as a as a good place for most people. Some people might need sometimes the autoimmune paleo diet, some people might only need to go gluten free and dairy free. So it’s kind of the Paleo diet I feel like that’s, that’s a bit in the middle. And that’s really reasonable for a lot of people because it’s so well known these days that it’s almost like easy to do it or easy or it’s easier. Christine Garvin 49:09
Easy for everybody but easier. Yeah, Dr. Wentz. 49:14
the resources on it but definitely going gluten free and dairy free. Like so many more Christine Garvin 49:19
options around those these days than there even was five years ago. So yeah, Dr. Wentz. 49:25
absolutely. And then also eating blood sugar balance, having plenty of protein and fat. That’s the kind of mistake that I did being a rookie in. When I first started going gluten free is I was like, oh gluten free cookies. Christine Garvin 49:41
Oh, yeah. Dr. Wentz. 49:43
And then I was eating like a gluten free junk food diet and some things did get better acid reflux went away because that was like a dairy sensitivity for me and IBS. But I ended up with like more anxiety and more thyroid antibodies and hair loss because the blood sugar swings from all These like gluten free cookies and things, right? A lot of Christine Garvin 50:03
times they have even more sugar, you know, in order to balance out yeah, not having the gluten in there. Dr. Wentz. 50:10
So the blood sugar balance is key. I know I was eating like, I was like, Okay, I used to do way smoothies for breakfast, which are good if you’re not sensitive to weigh, right, but I was. And so I was like, What am I going to have for breakfast and I ended up with like, rice cereal and Reich’s milk, and then I’d have like a panic attack. Hours after breakfast. I was like, Oh, my gosh, I’m good. Making sure that you’re fighting, you know, really gluten free dairy free protein sources, because about 80% of people tend to be sensitive to gluten and about 80 tend to be sensitive to dairy with ashy. Yeah. Christine Garvin 50:47
Wow. Do you like collagen powder is an option. Dr. Wentz. 50:51
I love collagen, I will say I like marine collagen probably the most because I’ve had some people that are very sensitive to dairy, that even though collagen is supposed to be dairy free, they’ve stuck to it. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. And some people say it’s fine. But I’ve just had too many people saying like, you know, I get the same reaction from from collagen. And so I’m like, you know, let’s let’s, let’s think about marine collagen, just to be safe. Yeah, Christine Garvin 51:18
I have read a little bit about, you know, collagen not having tryptophan in it. And so for some people, it can exacerbate their anxiety from it not being a complete protein. But I haven’t necessarily seen that in practice. I’ve just read about that, you know. So I guess my my other just main thing that has kind of come out recently is is understanding heavy metals being unfortunately in different powders, you know, and there’s actually I share it on my website. I think it’s the Organic Consumers Association did a test of a bunch of different colleges. And so they have the top three collagen powders that had the lowest heavy metals on there. So that’s another important thing, certainly to think about right with with thyroid, and really everything in our body. Dr. Wentz. 52:07
So important. Thank you so much for for putting that together. I’m excited to share more about that. Christine Garvin 52:12
Yeah, yeah. So okay, so then quickly what other lifestyle factors should come into play with Hashimotos? Dr. Wentz. 52:19
In Hashimotos, there is, again, a lot of that self care and creating that space for healing is going to be super, super important. So that’s, that’s a big part of that. I oftentimes will recommend various nutrients and supplements to to help bring some balance in the body. One of them is sarcomatous is boulardii. It’s a beneficial yeast. And when I first started working with people with Hashimotos, I was like, doing all the lab tests and just really doing deep dives with functional medicine and specific, very specific protocols. And sometimes that got to be very expensive and very time consuming for people. So as I started kind of working with more clients, and I got more demand, I was like, Well, what like what are the stats? What can we do that will help like 80% of people. And so I noticed about 30% of people have Blastocystis hominess, which is a parasitic protozoa that can cause Hashimotos, IBS and hives. And then some of them might have H Pylori, which can be a trigger for Hashimotos. Some of them might have fungal overgrowth, Candida, some of them might have mold exposure. And then a lot of them have something low levels of something called Secretory IgA, which is a beneficial immunoglobulin, it’s it’s in our gut, and it helps us protect our gut lining. When we don’t have enough of it. We’re more susceptible to chronic infections, we don’t overcome infections as well as we could. And we also can have various food sensitivities. And so I’m like, Okay, can I just give people one supplement that like helps with all of these things, and saccharomyces boulardii helps to raise Secretory IgA helps to clear out mold and Candida from the body, it helps to clear out Blastocystis hominis from the body and it can also help with suppression of H. Pylori, as well as other types of this biotic bacteria. So I’m like, Okay, this is also one of the things that I recommend as part of my adrenal transformation protocol. Stress can deplete us of the secretory IgA and so when we utilize like just very targeted supplements, people will say like, Okay, I’m feeling better my gut function has improved, I don’t have this diarrhea, and I’m actually sitting better with with this probiotic, what’s going on, and it’s just because it’s doing a little bit of cleanup work in their gut. So I really like to focus on like, you know, I look at like what or I used to work in outcomes research so I look at like, Okay, what what is going on with all of my clients and their lab tests and, and I’ll like, analyze, like, what are the patterns and try to figure out like, is there one thing I could give people rather than giving them? You know, seven different things? Yeah, seven different, you know, potential causes? Christine Garvin 55:08
Yeah, I had no idea that s boulardii impacted all of those areas. You know, I knew some of those. That’s really cool that it has such a huge overriding impact. I’ll have to have to use that more often. I only usually bring it in with like Candida and things like that. So that’s, that’s really impressive. Dr. Wentz. 55:26
Yeah, it’s got quite a profile. So I love I love finding little gems like that, that are like, Oh, my gosh, this does so many fabulous things. And, and of course, everybody, it’s not for everybody. There’s some people who have like immune suppression that shouldn’t take it because it can take up residence in the gut. But for most people, it works really, really well. Christine Garvin 55:47
Very cool. Wow. I mean, I could ask you a million more questions, because you have so much good stuff and so much information. But let everybody know where they can contact you, you know, how, where they can get the book where they can get all of your books and what else is going on. Dr. Wentz. 56:06
Thank you so much. Um, so my website is thyroid pharmacist.com. And if people go to thyroid pharmacist.com/abc, I have a guide. And it’s like the ABCs of a Trina’s that goes over how to use various adaptogens that and nutrients that get depleted when we’re under a lot of stress, which are like B vitamins, vitamin C, and magnesium, so people can get that quick, quick guide, just to get themselves started. I’m also on Instagram under Isabella Wentz farm D. So please check me out there. I’ll do lives and answer questions there every now and then. And I have my books are available wherever fine books are sold. So like Barnes and Noble, and I’m an Amazon girl. So I get like my Amazon packages, you can definitely get all of my books there the see if I can grab this new book, this is the best show to us adrenal transformation protocol, going from surviving to thriving in four weeks. This really does work in three to four weeks, which is you’re like such a Christine Garvin 57:09
vixen on the cover too. Dr. Wentz. 57:13
Funny thing about this is I didn’t have my last photo shoot was when I was pregnant. And so I had a big belly. And I was like, Oh, I don’t have a reason photo when I can I give you guys this one and my publishers. Sure. All right. It’s great. So we um, so that’s available now. April 18 Is the publication date. And so it’s going to be shipping worldwide. If if people are interested in getting Christine Garvin 57:40
book on preorder, I’m assuming if they get on Amazon and everything Yeah, yeah. I’m not sure what day this is coming out. But it’ll be probably around them anyway. So and then obviously local bookstores too, if they you know, if you have a local bookstore that you can go to and grab Yeah, one of your books. You know, I definitely know that I’ve really enjoyed some of your thyroid books. And so I’m excited to read this adrenal book. And thank you so much for sharing all of this information today about the adrenals. And you know, one of the things to just wrap up, I just, and I know, we didn’t have a lot of time to talk about it, but the connection between the adrenals and the thyroid is really just so important. And really everything that you said for the adrenals is going to help the thyroid to Dr. Wentz. 58:24
absolutely, yeah, absolutely. With our thyroid glands. Whenever we’re under stressed our body, our thyroid is gonna get the message that we need to slow down metabolism like stress, our ancient body perceives this as Oh, my goodness, there’s there’s a famine going on, right. And so we need to store food instead of burning our food. And what happens is that more reverse T three is produced when we’re under a lot of stress, reverse T three blocks thyroid hormones, instead of activating them. So we our thyroid function could be perfect, or we could be even taking thyroid medications like levothyroxine. But when our adrenals are dysfunctional, and in our body sensing that stress, we’re going to be blocking our thyroid receptors and not getting the benefits we could do from from having a normally functioning thyroid gland or from taking thyroid medication. Christine Garvin 59:15
Interesting. Yeah, thank you for sharing that little little piece of information there at the end. So everybody will have the links in the show notes so that you can go directly and grab your great offering and figure out where you can get your books and thanks again for being here with us today. Dr. Wentz. 59:33
Thank you so much for having me, Christiane. It’s been such a pleasure. Christine Garvin 59:35
Absolutely. Are you guys I will see you next week. Transcribed by https://otter.ai |
