TRANSCRIPT:

Dr Martin Jr.: Hello, my name is Dr. Tony Martin, Jr. 

Dr Martin Sr: And I'm Dr. Martin, Sr. 

Dr Martin Jr.: And this is the Doctor is In Podcast and this is episode 105. And on today's episode we're going to talk about something that, quite frankly is something that we hear absolutely every day in our clinic or by email, or by just all the different ways, on our Facebook page, all the different ways that people can get ahold of us. We hear about [00:00:30] this absolutely every day, and so we're actually excited to do this episode 'cause we're going to try to answer one of the big questions surrounding the thyroid, so this episode is all about the thyroid. Now, I'll just read ... This is an email that comes in, something like this, almost every day. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah. Very typical, right? 

Dr Martin Jr.: Yeah, without even ... That's not even exaggerating. We hear this kind of stuff absolutely every day. I'm just going to read you what somebody is sending [00:01:00] in. Six years ago, they haven't felt well since six years ago, "But my thyroid tests always seem to be within range. I've gained weight and I continue to gain even though I starve myself. My memory is very poor. I have severely dry skin. I'm not sleeping and my hair is thinning." You could sense the frustration just even in the email, and [00:01:30] it's amazing that they're essentially reading off the dictionary of symptoms for thyroid, yet their tests are within range. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah. How often, again, do we ... As a matter of fact, it's every day, every day, every day in the office, and this is so typical of women. And you always ... Your expression, I've used it in the office all the time, that the thyroid [00:02:00] doesn't act independently and .... 

Dr Martin Jr.: Yeah, and we'll talk about that. 

Dr Martin Sr: This is the real, real [crosstalk 00:02:07] the thyroid. 

Dr Martin Jr.: We'll talk about that and we'll go into why this is something that's happening. But essentially there are three things that we hear very common about the thyroid. The first one is very similar to this lady that emailed us recently saying that, "Hey, listen, I got all these symptoms. When I look them up it says thyroid, but my thyroid tests are within range." So that's one group of people [00:02:30] that we hear from very consistently. Another group is "Hey listen, I had a lot of symptoms of thyroid, so I went and saw my family doctor. I had blood tests done. Tests came back I had sluggish thyroid. So they jumped on medication, usually Synthroid, and the symptoms didn't really improve, but when I went back and got my blood tests again, the levels were normal." And that's very common as well. So they [00:03:00] had ... Their blood levels were low. They had it tested. They took meds, blood levels went back up. 

 Dr Martin Sr: But they still don't feel good. 

Dr Martin Jr.: No, they still don't feel well. Then ... We also hear this a lot as well, very similar situation. They have every symptom of thyroid. They go get it tested. Sure enough it turns out low. Then they get on medication. They're feeling better. [00:03:30] Then they go get tested, everything's normal. Then, all of a sudden they're not feeling good anymore. So they go back, levels are low. They up their medication, they're feeling better; rinse and repeat, over and over again. And they're constantly having to adjust their medication upwards. They're taking more and more and more. And at one point you have to ask yourself the question, "When is something else going on?" 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, yeah. 

Dr Martin Jr.: And that's what you just [00:04:00] mentioned is that the thyroid rarely acts alone, and that's just from years of clinical experience. You talk with this all the time. The thyroid may be the thing that's giving them the symptoms, but there's something deeper going on and that's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, and we've put this really too, in a course, right? In our Metabolic Storm, but that's what we want to just skim over today. We go into great detail [00:04:30] online. But let me just give you perhaps a few symptoms that might be ... 

Dr Martin Jr.: And that's what I was gonna suggest that we might go through. I'm gonna read you some of the symptoms and you can give some of them as well, and I thought I would ask you how they present themself, and specifically what do the patients coming in with these symptoms, how do they describe them, because sometimes ... For example, fatigue. That's usually a very common symptom of [00:05:00] thyroid issues is fatigue. 

Dr Martin Sr: Your thyroid, just to remind people, your thyroid is your gas pedal in your car. It really does ... And again, just understand that men are 100% different. Their thyroid, even though we got the same organ, we don't have ... I had a patient come in the other day and said something that I really found ... I just like the way [00:05:30] they said it, so I said, "I like that," and she said, "Well women, we have a lot of moving parts." And yeah, women are more complicated because they're endocrine system is so interdependent on each of the organs that are there. If you look at the thyroid, you look at the ovaries, you look at the adrenals, all ... Obviously men don't have ovaries but we have adrenal glands and we have the thyroid [00:06:00] gland, and yet ours are completely independent. The adrenals in a man had no effect on the thyroid, and the thyroid has no effect on the adrenals, but in women it's all part of the Metabolic Storm. If things go off and they're not balanced in their hormones, they're gonna start getting symptoms, and this is how they ... This is what we'll go over, how they present themselves. Let me answer the first one, fatigue. Again, the body's [00:06:30] screaming. If someone is tired, and they're constantly tired, and it's the first question that we ask in the clinic. Okay, I say I'm 10 out of 10. 

Dr Martin Jr.: Yeah, you're 65, and you've got tremendous energy. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, I feel good. I gotta get to bed and I gotta get my sleep and blah-blah-blah, but I get up in the morning and ... 

Dr Martin Jr.: You're ready to go. You feel good. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, ready to go, right? 

Dr Martin Jr.: I'm 44 and I have no energy issues at all. I couldn't go in [00:07:00] and tell somebody that I have low energy, 'cause I don't. I got enough energy ... 

Dr Martin Sr: But clue number one, that your body ... 

Dr Martin Jr.: And we can't stress this one enough. 

Dr Martin Sr: No. It's clue number one, your body, there's something ... 

Dr Martin Jr.: Yeah, if your energy level dips, your body is telling you that something is going on. So a big symptom with thyroid is low energy. As you mentioned, the thyroid is like the gas pedal, so it's normal that when the thyroid starts to get sluggish their energy [00:07:30] levels dip as well. Now some of the ways ... What's one of the most common ways you hear fatigue described? 

Dr Martin Sr: Well, again, they give me number. I try and get a number. And women especially ... 

Dr Martin Jr.: So is there a number for thyroid that they always fall around? 

Dr Martin Sr: Well, they're under five. 

 Dr Martin Jr.: Under five, okay. 

Dr Martin Sr: So I'm 10 out of 10. They say, "Well you ... " I'm looking right at the patient, "Give me something subjective, [00:08:00] put a number to it." "Well Doc, I'm not even five." "Okay. Well that's pretty tired." And some of them ... You wouldn't believe how many times I hear one, "I'm one out of 10." Or I hear, "I'm minus two." 

 Dr Martin Jr.: And I'll tell you, fatigue is one of those symptoms that is extremely frustrating for people, because you put yourself in their shoes, and they may look okay. Yeah, they may look tired, but it's hard to [00:08:30] get across to somebody, to a spouse or a friend or a family member, how tired they are. So the people living with them may say, "Yeah, they're tired," but it's really hard to gather. If you're out shopping or you're out doing something, if I twist my ankle and I have a ... I put a cast on it or I tape it up or I get crutches, people will see me walking and they'll say, "Oh, look at, that guy's got an injury." hen you're tired, you just don't get that sympathy. You don't get that empathy and people ... [00:09:00] How often do you hear patients coming in complaining of low energy, who somewhere, somewhere along the line, family doctor, friend said, "You're depressed. It's depression"? Well I'd be depressed too if I had no energy all the time. 

 Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. 

Dr Martin Jr.: Aright, so fatigue's a big one, that's a big one. And here's ... I'll read some of these off quickly, and if there's any that you want to expand on just let me know. So obviously a big one as well is, [00:09:30] increased sensitivity to cold. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, yeah. And again, it's your gas pedal in your car. Your thyroid is your furnace. It's your thermostat. And again, women; cold hands, cold feet. They're cold all the time. And if they have ... For example, they come into menopause, a lot of them are perimenopausal, now they can't turn the furnace off, because now they're sweating all the time and they got hot flashes [00:10:00] and whatever. And again, that's the thyroid, but that's because of the estrogen progesterone being out of balance, so it's different. But people that are cold, and you'll get this, they're cold, they're cold all the time. They're freezing, they gotta put a sweater on, even on a warm day. Yeah, that's how they'll present themselves. And I'll often, just because I have them in the office, I'll touch the end of their nose, and [00:10:30] you could make a Popsicle there. 

Dr Martin Jr.: So here's another one, constipation, for the very same reason you described. When everything slows down so does digestion. That's another one. Dry skin. 

Dr Martin Sr: Very dry skin. And you see it ... You see, I'm very observant. I've been around a long time, so if somebody comes in, in the office, and sometimes, I walk in, I'll have a look at them, look at their skin, and look at their hair. I look at [00:11:00] their eyebrows and all this and that, and things are thinning out and that an you go "Well ... " Right in my head right away I know it's the thyroid. 

Dr Martin Jr.: And here's another one as well, unexplained weight gain, and we hear this a lot of different ways. I read that email at the beginning, she's saying, "Listen, even if I'm not eating anything I'm gaining weight." 

Dr Martin Sr: Well look at, I tell women a lot of times, once we've pinpointed that their hormonally out of whack, I say, "You can literally [00:11:30] tape your mouth shut, and I'll feed you with a straw so that we'll keep you alive, but you're gonna gain weight. 

Dr Martin Jr.: And it's frustrating, 'cause you have ... 

Dr Martin Sr: Oh, man. 

Dr Martin Jr.: How many women come in and say they're eating around 1,000 calories and they're doing all this cardio, and they're not losing any weight, in fact they're usually gaining weight, which is a tremendous indication again that there's something deeper going on. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, their metabolism's not working right. 

Dr Martin Jr.: Yeah, and we'll talk about the different reasons why in a few minutes here. But another one that's common as well is their voice [00:12:00] gets horse. 

Dr Martin Sr: Voice changes. I've had women come in and say, "You know, I used to be able to sing," and they can't sing anymore. Their voices are changing. They get a little bit of swelling around their neck oftentimes. We'll do a little palpation around the neck, and you'll feel, "Oh yeah, you know what?" 

Dr Martin Jr.: Yeah, so puffy face, puffy neck. That's another common one. Muscle weakness. Muscle aches and pain is another something that we ... a lot of people will tell us that they're getting a lot of different pain, a lot of different aches. Swelling in the joints [00:12:30] is another big one. Thinning hair. 

Dr Martin Sr: Thinning hair, yeah. 

Dr Martin Jr.: And that's a big complaint. And you can't blame them 'cause they're ... How often do you hear people saying that they're just losing their hair, or it's thinning right out? 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah. And a lot of times women, they're able to hide it, but ... Because I'll say, "I can't see it." And then they'll move their hair a little bit say, "So you see the patch there?" "Oh yeah, I can see that." They said, "Well, I'm hiding [00:13:00] that." But they know. I never argue with a woman about her hair because they know their hair. One thing they do, they know, and their hairdresser knows too. If they're getting their hair cut and the hairdresser say, "Hey, you're thinning out." And so, this is so common, and that's the thyroid. Hair is thyroid. If your thyroid's not working properly, your hair's not gonna be right. 

 Dr Martin Jr.: No, and that's why it's so common, and that's why it's so frustrating, 'cause they'll have all [00:13:30] these symptoms, and they can't get anything to show up on blood tests, so usually a lot of time the doctor's like, "There's nothing wrong with you. You're fine." But how can a person feel fine when they have no energy, their hair is thinning. 

Dr Martin Sr: Eyebrows, they should look in the mirror ... 

Dr Martin Jr.: Yeah, their eyebrows ... 

Dr Martin Sr: They see those edges there, they're starting to thin out. And again, those are just markers in the body, that you know what? The thyroid's not up to snuff. It's not working properly. 

Dr Martin Jr.: Now what about the brain. What kind of symptoms do you see in [00:14:00] people coming in with thyroid issues? What kind of brain ... 

Dr Martin Sr: Well again, if you look at the metabolism's slowing down. The cognitive, the function, the brain fog, is very, very common. They just don't feel good. They're often= They're searching for words and they ... It's just a common lethargic feeling that they get, and they never [00:14:30] seem ... One of the expressions they use is, "I don't seem to have enough oxygen going up to the brain. But again, if your metabolism is slowed down, the gas pedal isn't functioning at a high level, these symptoms are common. 

Dr Martin Jr.: So, what we see with this are frustrated women. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, yeah. It rarely happens in a man. It can happen in a man. Dr Martin Jr.: It can happen, but it's ... 

Dr Martin Sr: It's a rare, rare occurrence in male. 

Dr Martin Jr.: In the clinic alone, what is it, 100 to one? 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, Oh, for [00:15:00] sure. Yeah, I tell our staff, I said, "Think about it, if we see five men in a year... We see thousands of patients every year, if we see five men with a thyroid condition." They say, "Yeah, it's so true. It's so rare." How many women do we see where we've diagnosed, "Hey you got a ... Your thyroid's not up to snuff." And you know what I like, because patients are very smart. People that are smart today, it's amazing to me, because [00:15:30] people ... And oftentimes I have patients tell me, "Doc, I knew it. I knew it, I knew that I wasn't right, and I kept insisting that my thyroid wasn't working properly, and finally you got it." Like that you said, "Yeah, it's ... " Because they're not doing the exhaust of tests. You have to look at everything. You can't just look at the thyroid [00:16:00] independently, you have to look at the adrenal glands. You have to look at the amount of estrogen a woman is producing. How much progesterone are they producing? 

Dr Martin Jr.: And let's talk about that. Let's go through a few things. First of all, one of the things that we say a lot of times in our newsletters, or you say a lot in the clinic, and we talk about in the Metabolic Storm course is that thyroid does not act alone. The thyroid is essentially a puppet. So if you look at how a thyroid works, and we're not gonna go [00:16:30] into too much detail, but it all starts in the brain. You have the hypothalamus, that basically tells the pituitary to tell the thyroid to do something. So, you got a CEO in the hypothalamus. You got middle management in the pituitary, and then you have the thyroid who's the worker, and already you can see that, that creates a little bit of an issue. There could be an issue between the hypothalamus [00:17:00] and the perpetuity, and you can have a normal functioning thyroid, but if the signals aren't getting there properly you can have thyroid issues. So, you can have normal blood testing, 'cause the thyroid levels are normal in a sense. 

Dr Martin Sr: They're circulating. Your THS is there. It's in the blood, so it's circulating. But so what, if it's not getting into the cells, if it's not [00:17:30] doing what it's meant to do at the cellular level, then it's not working properly. 

Dr Martin Jr.: So the hypothalamus will tell the pituitary, which will get the thyroid to basically to secrete a bunch of hormones, and then the thyroid, what it does is it makes the T4, T3, T2, T1. Dr Martin Sr: T1, yeah. 

Dr Martin Jr.: And a little bit of calcitonin, and that's what the thyroid does. Now, T3 is the octave form. That's what you need, that's what [00:18:00] the cells need. So ... Well, listen, almost 90% of the hormones that are made by the thyroid come in the form of T4, but it has to be converted into T3, and that conversion takes place in the liver. So you make this T4. It's converted in the liver. Again, you can already see some of the issues. If you have an issue with your liver, if you have insulin resistance, fatty liver. 

Dr Martin Sr: Fatty liver. And isn't that common. 

Dr Martin Jr.: So, 90% of the hormone is T4, [00:18:30] has to be converted into T3, and that can cause problems. If you have too much estrogen it can block all these things from happening. It can block the conversion of T4 to T3. It can effect the production itself of T3. So you could see the thyroid is a very complicated ... And as that one patient mentioned, there's a lot of moving parts in the thyroid. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, yeah. It is that. 

Dr Martin Jr.: Which makes it extremely frustrating. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah. And you know what? Think about this too, because you and I have talked about this [00:19:00] ad nauseum, is the importance of having, in the liver, enough cholesterol being produced, 'cause doctors are trying to lower your cholesterol, and you need cholesterol to transport your hormones. You ain't transporting, even your T3 is not being transported properly, 'cause you're not making enough cholesterol, and people are trying to lower their cholesterol. Women trying to lower their cholesterol's the worst thing [00:19:30] you can do. 

Dr Martin Jr.: Well and that's the thing, one of the biggest causes of thyroid issues has to do with the fact that somebody is insulin resistant because they cannot ... It effects the conversion of T4 to T3, also it does some stuff with estrogen dominance, which will then block some more stuff from being made, so there's a much deeper issue going on. So let's end off this podcast by talking about the deeper issue, and let me just say this right off the top, [00:20:00] if somebody has every thyroid symptom, they go to their doctor and they end up getting on Synthroid or some thyroid medication and then they feel better, then that's awesome. You had a true thyroid problem, and that thyroid problem was resolved. However, if you're like most people, or most women that will be listening to this, and you go to your doctor and your levels are normal and you have every symptom, [00:20:30] or you're constantly having to adjust your thyroid levels, this is what we're gonna talk about now, which is the Metabolic Storm. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, you gotta get this fixed, because you won't feel good. 

Dr Martin Jr.: What is the Metabolic Storm? 

Dr Martin Sr: Well, we love that term, because it really is a complete ... Metabolic Storm is specifically ... It's not that it's impossible [00:21:00] to happen to a man, but generally we're talking to women. The Metabolic Storm happens when your hormones are out of balance. 

Dr Martin Jr.: Yeah, and specifically it's a combination, or we call it a Metabolic Storm or a perfect storm of thyroid, adrenals and ovaries. And those three things are messed up so a person has an estrogen issue. They have a cortisol [00:21:30] issue, and then they also have a thyroid issue, and the combination of those three things creates this perfect storm, and for a lot of people they'll experience every thyroid symptom in the book, yet their thyroid by all testing is coming out normal. There's a deeper issue going on. There's metabolic storm going on. There's a problem with the adrenals, the ovaries. Now, we get this a lot of times too, "I don't have my ovaries." Well that means you are definitely in the metabolic storm because there's a definite [00:22:00] estrogen issue going on as well. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yeah, absolutely. And your body, even if you had a complete hysterectomy, a woman is still a woman. God's given you plan B. You're still going to be secreting, not at the level you used to. And a lot of women, with their ovaries, they go into a menopause and their estrogen sinks like the Titanic, but that can affect the thyroid big time. It can affect the adrenal [00:22:30] glands. And all of these things ... That's why I love our biomarker testing, because we look for this. We think outside the box. We understand the endocrinology, the what happens in a woman's body, and you have to think of all of that. Like you said, the Metabolic Storm is you gotta look at, wholistically the whole thing. And then this is where the results come.  

Dr Martin Jr.: And that's why, [00:23:00] for example, when a woman is in the Metabolic Storm, they can have thyroid symptoms, but the thyroid is a victim of the other stuff that's going on deeper down. So what ends up happening is they attempt to treat the thyroid by itself, or they try to isolate the thyroid and treat it and they don't feel any better, which is why a lot of times if their levels are low, and they get on medication, they don't feel any better, or they constantly have to get more medication, 'cause the thyroid might ramp [00:23:30] up a bit, but then it slows down again, and the reason for that again has to do with the fact that the underlying problem, which we've coined the Metabolic Storm, has to be fixed. And that's what we really talk about in our Metabolic Storm program, we give you our ... Pretty much exact system that you would use in the clinic to help women fix the Metabolic Storm is in that program. But, we... 

Dr Martin Sr: We got it figured out. That's the nice thing, is [00:24:00] we know what to look for and we know how to fix it too. That's the key. It's nice to be able ... 

Dr Martin Jr.: Well the results that people get are encouraging. This program was put together because of all the emails that we were getting for people who couldn't come to the clinic to see you. Your clinic's up in Northern Ontario, and they just couldn't physically come to the clinic so we put this program out there. But [00:24:30] anyways, we're out of time here. So just want to encourage you that if you're going through those symptoms where you can't get any answers, you're having every symptom but blood tests are coming back normal all the time, or you're constantly adjusting your medication, we just want to let you know that there ... Dr Martin Sr: There's help. Dr Martin Jr.: There's help. 

Dr Martin Sr: You're gaining weight, there's help. 

Dr Martin Jr.: There's a solution out there, and your family doctor may not know about it, or whatever healthcare practitioner you're going to may not know [00:25:00] about it, but there is help out there. And again, we feel for you, 'cause this is something we see so often, we feel for you. So we want to thank you for listening to this episode. If you have any questions you can, just email us. We have tremendous staff. We got health coaches. We're there to answer your questions, so you can email us at info@martinclinic.com, if you're not a newsletter subscriber we write about a lot of these things a couple times a week. [00:25:30] We give a lot of information so just go to our website, sign up for our newsletters, or just follow us on Facebook. You do a Facebook Live every Thursday morning. 

Dr Martin Sr: Yep, 8:30 in the morning, live [crosstalk 00:25:41] 

Dr Martin Jr.: Answer all the questions. People come on, they ask you whatever question. You answer all their questions. It's awesome, people love it. So, go to our Facebook page, follow us on Facebook. You'll get notified when you're out there doing all these Facebook Lives. So again, we want to thank you for listening and have a great day.