Ep 571: Hidden Triggers Wrecking Your Thyroid Health with Dr. Eric Osanksy

In this episode of the Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause interviews Dr. Eric Osansky on the complexities of thyroid health, particularly focusing on autoimmune conditions like Graves’ disease and Hashimoto’s.  Dr. Osansky is a chiropractor, clinical nutritionist, and a certified functional medicine practitioner who has been helping people with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions since 2009. He is the author of the books “Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves’ Disease”, “The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet”, and “Hashimoto’s Triggers”, is the host of the Save My Thyroid podcast, and the creator of the “Healthy Gut Healthy Thyroid” newsletter. Dr. Osansky was personally diagnosed with Graves’ disease, and after seeing how well a natural treatment approach helped with his condition, he began helping others with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions.

In this episode Dr. Osansky shares his personal journey with Graves’ disease, emphasizing the role of stress and environmental factors in the rise of autoimmune conditions. The conversation delves into the overlap between Graves’ and Hashimoto’s, the importance of dietary considerations, and the ongoing debate surrounding iodine supplementation. Dr. Osansky also highlights the significance of addressing foundational health issues before resorting to supplements or medications, providing listeners with valuable insights into managing thyroid health naturally.

Resources From The Show:

• Dr. Eric Osanky’s website – https://savemythyroid.com/
• Dr. Eric’s Books – https://savemythyroid.com/book/
• Save My Thyroid Podcast

Podcast Transcript

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Thyroid Conditions
01:57 The Rise of Autoimmune Thyroid Disorders
04:54 Personal Journey with Graves’ Disease
11:36 Understanding Adrenal Health and Testing
18:37 The Overlap Between Graves and Hashimoto’s
23:47 Addressing Autoimmunity Without Extreme Measures
27:12 Understanding Autoimmune Triggers
30:13 The Role of Stress and Trauma
33:51 Infections and Environmental Toxins
36:08 Minerals and Thyroid Health
44:03 The Caution with Glandulars and Supplements
47:49 Returning to Basics for Healing

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Jannine Krause (00:01.326)
Dr. Eric Osansky, welcome to the Health Fix Podcast.

Dr. Eric Osansky (00:05.838)
Thank you so much, Dr. Janine. Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Jannine Krause (00:10.98)
Well, I could not turn down someone to talk to about thyroid conditions in general, and of course, grapes, because we have not dove into any of that on this podcast. And so of course, I wanted to bring that on. And gosh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but it seems like every single day I am getting someone coming in and we are finding autoimmune antibodies and talking through what to do about the thyroid in general. So.

probably gonna hear that from you quite a bit. And of course, since it’s your specialty, you probably do get that. do you feel like things have been on the rise in the last decade or so? Because I know you’ve been practicing for a while.

Dr. Eric Osansky (00:48.856)
Yeah, yeah, I definitely do feel like there are more more cases of Graves and Hashimoto’s, which is what I deal with. So I imagine other autoimmune conditions, that’s the case as well. But yeah, definitely I’ve seen a rise over the years.

Jannine Krause (01:05.306)
It’s just, and in one of your books, of course, and we’ll get to those books there, guys, you know, he’s got a website, savemythyroid.com forward slash book. You can check that out. We’ll put it in the podcast notes. But in particular Graves, and I saw the big toxicity sign there. And I think for a lot of people, you know, we’ve now woken up to like, okay, universe is a little toxic, our food’s a little toxic. And I say little, I’ll totally pun intended, with little.

And it seems that with the rise in the toxicity, a lot of people are getting sick, but it’s also like, why do some, why not others? What’s this thing? And for most of the people listening to my podcast that may have autoimmune types of conditions, I know the biggest question I got when I said, I’ve got someone coming on on thyroid, they were like, okay, tell us how to fix it, how to prevent it, how to prevent our children from having issues.

and the whole nine. So we’ve got a lot of questions for you today, Dr. Eric. But first and foremost, now you came to specializing in thyroid conditions because you had Graves yourself. And of course, because it’s heavily tied to toxicity, how do you feel it came about for you? What’s your thought process in terms of how it showed up for you?

Dr. Eric Osansky (02:25.976)
Yeah, great question. I mean, I definitely think stress was a big factor and not to say it was the only factor, but prior to my Graves’s diagnosis, I was, I mean, most people deal with stress. If not everybody deals with stress, but I was also over-training. I was over-training. I was restricting calories. Yeah. So I was doing a lot of things I should know better with my background, but still, especially the over-training. I just wasn’t listening to my body.

And even when I was diagnosed, it took an adrenal saliva test to really convince me that my adrenals were in as bad shape as they were. mean…

You know, I because I knew stress was a factor. I just thought I was doing a good job of handling at least emotional stress. Again, I still ignored the overtraining until again when I saw that, especially when I saw the adrenals and I like what really was just evaluating my situation and realized I need to stop the overtraining, you know, eat. I mean, I needed to make some changes with the diet and then, yeah, the emotional stressors. It’s always that’s always a work in progress.

Jannine Krause (03:36.346)
Oh man, think that is one of the hardest things for a lot of folks, myself included. And I think we also live in a society where at least a lot of us who are in our late 30s, 40s and beyond, I think we’ve been kind of primed to be like, just suck it up, just keep going, just keep doing it. It bites us in the end, it bites us in the end. So in terms of your overtraining, because I think a lot of folks are gonna be like, what were you training for? What were you doing? What were you up to?

Dr. Eric Osansky (04:07.137)
Yeah, and it wasn’t like where I was running marathons or doing triathlons. It wasn’t that extreme. It was just really going to the gym and working out longer than I should, more intense than I should have, just doing high intensity interval training without the intervals. So just really high intensity nonstop and just going to the gym really for an hour.

doing too much cardio, not focusing enough on resistance exercise. And so that was probably the biggest, biggest factor as far as the overturing. Like I said, I wasn’t running marathons or doing anything crazy. I mean, I’ve had patients that have done that where they see me and they’re doing triathlons and I’m like, okay, yeah, maybe we need to at least take a break from that while healing. But with me, like I said, it was just really just the, it was the cardio, but

just going to the gym and just not listen to my body.

Jannine Krause (05:06.51)
I think that’s common for a lot of folks. And you also mentioned that you padded it with the restricted calories. And I think for women in midlife, that’s one of our things, know, we’re like, my gosh, you know, I’m gaining weight, I gotta cut calories, and I gotta speed up and get more, you know, cardio in. And so I’m sure a lot of people are hearing this going like, Now, another big question I have, you know, about it, in terms of the cardio side of things, that’s someone’s like stress management tool too. Was it your stress management?

like main stress management tool back in those days to train hard and then you felt better in terms of just getting some of the cortisol at that time out of the system.

Dr. Eric Osansky (05:42.988)
Yeah, without question. mean, even today, obviously now I’m not overdoing it, but still it’s when I go to the gym and I work out and I do some cardio, definitely more resistance exercise, more weightlifting. And yeah, I mean, definitely back then.

It was a form of stress management, know, getting, yeah, like you said, the increasing cortisol and epinephrine. So yeah, it definitely felt that high. But I mean, pretty much after the workout, I was wiped out. So during the workout, felt like it was, I felt that high afterwards. Like I said, was, the signs were there. just, you know, wasn’t paying attention and…

But, but yeah, I mean, exercise, you’re right. Cause a lot of people think about exercise as a form of stress management, but it’s a little bit different because you’re in a more of a sympathetic state compared to that parasympathetic rest and digest. So I think it’s of course important for people to be active and exercise. But, and again, if you do it the right way, can certainly still be a form of stress management, but obviously it’s a little bit different than blocking out time to incorporate mind, body medicine techniques.

Jannine Krause (06:59.812)
Yeah, I wanted you to just kind of share it with us because I think that is one of the big areas where a lot of people will end up kind of running themselves into the ground, know, trying to find the right balance between getting their dopamine hits with their workouts, but also trying to get the weight down, trying to keep the body healthy. And then it just compounds on them. So you mentioned the cortisol testing, saliva cortisol testing. Of course, we talk a lot about testing on the podcast here.

What’s your favorite go-to for that? I mean, are you still doing those kind of tests now with your clients? And what did you see on yours? What did it show up as?

Dr. Eric Osansky (07:38.136)
Yeah, great question. So yeah, I still, so to answer, was a few questions there. So I definitely still look at adrenals, look at the circadian rhythm of cortisol. I don’t exclusively use saliva test. I still do a lot of saliva testing. I like the company Diagnost-Tex and…

Jannine Krause (07:56.986)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eric Osansky (07:59.35)
I also use some Dutch testing, dried urine testing, which looks of course not only at adrenals, but also looks at sex hormones and how you metabolizing the hormones. So it really depends on the situation. But when I dealt with when I dealt with Graves and I did the adrenal stress index test from diagnostics, I had low, my first two cortisol levels were in the tank. They were like a six and four and which is which is pretty low. And

My DHEA was a 2, which I’ve seen worse DHEAs. You could have a 1. I think that’s like the lowest on the… I mean, it’s not as big of a scale. It’s like, think 3 to 10 is the range and 3 is borderline low. So ideally you want like at least a 4. So I was a 2. then it looks at 17-hydroxyprogesterone, which was also low. I forgot the number. I think in the… Maybe like 20 or something like that. And then…

It looks at secretory IgA, which as you know, lines to mucosal services, the body included in the gastrointestinal tract and, that was like undetectable. so, yeah, so it was so pretty much everything was, was low. Everything was depleted.

Jannine Krause (09:14.58)
my goodness. And so, you know, for a lot of folks listening, they might be thinking like, man, you know, this is a possibility, but you were still functional. And then I think for a lot of us, we’ll think, our cortisol is that tanked, we may not be functional. We may be, you know, really fatigued. Most of conventional medicine, of course, is going to say, it’s either, you know, Addison’s or not, kind of extreme. And you’re proof that there are some…

degrees along the way of how the adrenals become insufficient and fatigued of sorts. What’s your terminology in that case? Because I know a lot of kind of balance, or delicate balance around how they say this because we don’t want folks to be thinking that the adrenals are dead because obviously we would not be alive.

Dr. Eric Osansky (10:03.659)
Yeah, I mean, I’m open minded. mean, if someone wants to the term adrenal fatigue, I mean, I tend to use your HPE axis dysregulation. I use that more, but not everybody’s familiar with that. So you got to give a little bit of an explanation about how the hypothalamus communicates with the pituitary and the pituitary communicates with adrenals. And of course the pituitary also communicates with the thyroid gland. So you could have

dysregulation of the HP hypothalamic pituitary adrenal access, just like you get dysfunction of the hypothalamic pituitary thyroid axis. so yeah, I, like I said, if someone, I’m having conversation on a podcast and someone brings up adrenal fatigue, I’ll go with the flow. yeah, that’s, I don’t want to say it’s outdated cause still a lot of proxies should use it. but yeah, I mean, I will say, yeah, you’re right though. Like

Jannine Krause (10:43.064)
you

Dr. Eric Osansky (10:57.567)
Everybody’s different because with that pattern you would expect fatigue and I definitely did not experience fatigue and part of that might be because of the hyperthorism like hyperthorism increases And a lot of people energy and not everybody some it also puts a lot of stress in a mitochondria Which could lower energies, but again, that’s why you just never know I’ll consult what people would with hyperthorism and their adrenals look like mine and they’re definitely fatigued and then there are other people where

their adrenals are, you know, again, looking like mine and they’re not fatigued. And then there are people with high cortisol and they’re fatigued. And you would say, well, you know, they shouldn’t be fatigued because they’re enough, that’s still that fight or flight stage. But again, there could be other factors as we know, other than adrenals that can cause fatigue. Yeah.

Jannine Krause (11:46.17)
Absolutely, absolutely. I’m so glad you gave that break down there because that is kind of the crux at which a lot of folks come to us because their symptoms are all over the place. Maybe they’re not following a particular pattern or just in the autoimmune realm because there’s so much overlap. And so of course we’re gonna talk about the, know, overlap between Graves and Hashimoto’s here in a second. So of course my biggest question next though on you and the reason I wanna go through this just for folks who are listening like, why are you drilling them so much?

I want to see your trajectory of how things unfolded because for a lot of people, it sometimes takes a while to get a Graves diagnosis unless we’ve got the obvious eyes bulging, like really kind of crisis situation. So you had the adrenal testing done before or after you looked at the antibodies for the thyroid. How did that play out in terms of your investigation on your health?

Dr. Eric Osansky (12:38.541)
Yeah, well, yeah, that took place after. I mean, once I, what would happen is again, so I was overtrading, under eating, and I was losing weight, not realizing, I mean, I’m sure some of the weight loss was due to my overtraining and under eating, but one day I was walking around a retail store and they had one of those automated blood pressure machines and I took my blood pressure, which was normal, but my heart rate was 90 and

I was like, well, I was walking around, maybe that’s it. It wasn’t like truly resting. So the next few days I just manually took my heart rate, my pulse rate, and it was anywhere between 90 and 110 beats per minute. And that’s when I realized something was up. So I went to a regular doctor, like a primary care doctor, and he didn’t test the antibodies. He just tested, I think it was TSH and T4, which confirmed hyperthyroidism.

And then it took a few months before I saw an endocrinologist who did the antibodies. Again, of course, knowing what I know now, I mean, back, and even back then, not knowing what I knew, I still, probably could have just tested my own antibodies, but I was just, again, just to, you know, just follow the recommendations of the doctor. So I went to the endocrinologist and got the official diagnosis with the antibodies for Graves and…

And then, yeah, that’s when after that I started doing the testing. So, you in between that I was kind of feeling sorry for myself and just like, just wallowing in my misery and just, because you know, it’s different. mean, again, it’s a shock to anybody, but especially, you know, when you have a natural healthcare background, you know, whether it’s chiropractic or naturopath, you know, you feel like you’re doing a lot of the right things.

Even though again, I wasn’t doing the right things, but you feel like hey, know, you know more than you know the average person because you went through the schooling and it just again another lesson that really anybody could develop these conditions no matter what your background

Jannine Krause (14:41.338)
Absolutely, absolutely. I appreciate you being real on that, because you know, a lot of times folks will think that, yeah, because you’re healthy, because you have the background, you that, you know, you have a leg up and anybody, these things can happen to anybody. It’s just kind of like the perfect storm and things that happen and blind spots too. So one of the biggest things that I would love you to kind of dive into and one of the things I wanted to dive into for folks is really.

looking at the overlap between Graves and Hashimoto’s and so the hyper and the hypothyroid conditions that are autoimmune because a lot of folks, you know, will ask me, can I have Graves and then go to Hashimoto’s? And can I have like a thyroiditis condition where the thyroid gets inflamed and then can I end up in a Hashimoto’s state? Because I’ve heard stories where people have kind of had the hyper picture and then the thyroid crashed out on them. So kind of give us your story on what you’ve seen with the overlap between the two and if you experienced it yourself or…

how things play out for a lot of your clients.

Dr. Eric Osansky (15:40.504)
Yeah, so again, obviously both Graves and Hashimoto’s are more autoimmune conditions than thyroid conditions and I will say that, I mean, in my case, I just had the antibodies for Graves. You know, there’s three, I guess for those who are unfamiliar with like the antibodies, so there’s three main antibodies. There’s the most common antibody, thyroid, or most common thyroid antibody are…

Jannine Krause (15:57.07)
Yeah.

Dr. Eric Osansky (16:07.127)
thyroid peroxidase antibodies, are also known as TPO antibodies. And those a little bit more closely associate with Hashimoto’s, although a lot of people with Graves also have TPO antibodies, but they’re more, they’re still more close, TPO, thyroid peroxidase is an enzyme that’s important in the production of thyroid hormone. And so if you have that antibody, you know, that is more, you’re more likely to have.

damage to thyroid gland, like lower over time. mean, not everybody with TPO antibodies has hypothyroidism, but again, more likely to have hypo than hyper. Then there’s second antibody is thiroglobulin antibodies. Those are definitely more specific for Hashimoto’s and with thiroglobulin is again, a part, it’s a protein of the thyroid gland. So when you have thiroglobulin antibodies, that could indicate that your immune system is damaging that part of the thyroid gland.

And again, over time, that’s more likely to result in hypothyroidism. And then we got thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins, the third type of thyroid antibodies. So those are more specific to Graves. They stimulate the TSH receptors of the thyroid, which is what leads to hyperthyroidism. it’s, like I said, in my case, I just had the TSI, the thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins.

But a lot of people have two or three of those antibodies. It’s not uncommon for people to have the antibodies for both Graves and Hashimoto’s. And so that kind of relates that overlap. Now, when they’re seeing me, usually they’re predominantly one or the other. Like usually it’s not like they’re bouncing back and forth. I mean, not to say that can’t happen, but more like for example, if someone has hyperthyroidism, if they’re diagnosed with Graves,

Jannine Krause (17:43.8)
is.

Dr. Eric Osansky (17:54.584)
they might have the Hashimoto’s antibodies, but they’re usually presenting with hyperthyroidism. again, over time that might switch to Hashimoto’s. And again, I see the opposite too. Usually I see more commonly, the person with Graves’ disease, they also have the antibodies for Hashimoto’s. And again, our goal is to try to prevent them from making that switch over.

But it is more common, it seems, for people to have Graves and eventually switch to Hashimoto’s, even though, again, it’s a little bit tricky, because essentially they might have the antibodies for all three. So when I say they switched to Hashimoto’s, they didn’t really switch. had those antibodies. Many times they had those antibodies for a while. Now, which ones they developed first?

Don is answer. We don’t know like again, because we don’t do predictive antibody testing. So what I know what Hashimoto’s those antibodies could be around for sometimes 10 15 years before it affects the thyroid and on a blood test and you know, and then of course symptom wise with Graves, does seem like to be a little bit quicker because if you know, if someone is experienced that more hyper symptoms, it’s more noticeable. So it’s not to say it can’t be like someone can’t have those antibodies.

you know, for many years before symptoms develop, it just seems like it’s not as long as Hashimoto’s just because when someone develops symptoms, it is more noticeable. But yeah, I’m not sure if I’m answering the question, but the overlap, I mean, there’s definitely a lot of people that have the antibodies for both Graves and Hashimoto’s. And most of the time they’re presenting with either more hyper symptoms, know, and hyperthyroidism on a blood test. Or again,

Hashimoto’s with that elevated thyroid stimulating hormone, the elevated TSH. So, but yeah, we definitely see that overlap quite a bit.

Jannine Krause (19:55.834)
Well, wanted to, you know, no, you’re definitely answering the question because I wanted folks to see kind of how it can be that way. And really because it leads back to one of the big things that I heard you mention on your website, on your video about the the thyroid’s being removed, right, or radioactive iodine situations and things of that nature, when, you know,

Do we really need to do that? Or is it just an effect of toxicity? And of course, there are cases in which thyroid needs to be removed or radiated and there’s nothing else that can be done. But when we look at it, with so many people getting this, it’s an essential part to our body. What gives? There’s gotta be the triggers. And so I would love for you to talk about what you’ve seen in cases of where folks don’t have to go for.

the radioactive iodine treatments where they don’t have to even go as far as having thyroid removed and all kinds of extreme types of situations. And in this case, us little scoop in terms of that so folks can kind of understand that you’re able to help people not have to have those kind of extreme treatments.

Dr. Eric Osansky (21:09.035)
Yeah, so I mean, like you said, there is a time and place for conventional treatments, including thyroid surgery. But unfortunately, a lot of people get the rate of iodine in thyroid surgery who don’t need to get that. And so there’s what’s called the trite of autoimmunity, or also known as the three-legged stool of autoimmunity. So, and that doesn’t just pertain to Graves and Hashimoto’s, even though that’s, of course, this conversation, but really all autoimmune conditions.

There does seem to be a genetic component, which is that one component of the triad. And then a second component is exposure to one or more environmental triggers. And then a third component is that leaky gut component, that increase in intestinal permeability. And so we can’t change the genetics. We can modify the expression of genes, but we can’t completely change genetics. But by finding and removing triggers, healing the gut.

correcting other underlying imbalances, we can reverse the autoimmune component. And I hate using the word cure just because there is that genetic component, even though again, it feels like I’ve been cured. There’s also been times when I felt like I relapsed, but thankfully didn’t. Like when I had certain infections, like I had chronic Lyme disease and COVID and all that. But anyway, so.

Yeah, like it’s definitely as possible. Now that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. It does take time and sometimes it can be challenging to find and remove the triggers. I mean, I always recommend to start with diet and lifestyle factors, clean up one’s diet, block out time for stress management. So again, make sure you’re not overtraining and getting sufficient sleep. But many times you need to go beyond diet and lifestyle.

in order to like, if you might have an underlying infection that you need to address. I mean, you mentioned earlier the impact of environmental toxins and toxicants. It’s just crazy the amount of toxins and toxins, toxicants we’re exposed to. And obviously we can’t completely eliminate our exposure, but we could do a lot to reduce our, reduce our exposure, to reduce our toxic burden. And so, so yeah, I mean, that’s.

Dr. Eric Osansky (23:26.573)
really just in a nutshell again, I make it sound easy, but like I said, it’s not because it’s I mean, in some cases are, I don’t want to say easier than others, but I mean, it’s very common for people to hit roadblocks, but you know, every now and then there’ll be someone I work with and you know, they’re progressing without a problem. Their antibodies are lowering. They’re feeling, you know, better like it’s a gradual process, but more times than not, it is like a roller coaster ride when someone’s recovering.

Jannine Krause (23:30.287)
Thank

Dr. Eric Osansky (23:56.492)
and you just got to be prepared for that. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just, again, like the body is complex, autoimmunity is complex, but the reason you want to address the carcid problem is, I think I mentioned earlier, if you have one autoimmune condition, you’re more likely to develop other autoimmune conditions in the future. And so if all you do is, if you get radioactive iodine or thyroid surgery,

And again, there’s a time and place, but even if you do get those, you still want to focus on the immune system for someone, let’s say with Graves. And same thing with Hashimoto’s. Unfortunately Hashimoto’s, most people are just given a prescription for levothyroxine and nothing’s done for the autoimmune component. So same thing with Hashimoto’s. You can address and reverse that autoimmune component as well.

Jannine Krause (24:44.986)
I’m glad you mentioned the roller coaster component, because I’ve definitely seen that in my clients as well. And it can be really frustrating to see this up and down and up and down. What is your typical sequence of running the antibodies? Because I think a lot of people want to see their antibodies every lab test you do. And I’m like, I don’t know. What if you found a good sweet spot so that you’re not getting too much disappointment?

along the way in checking antibodies.

Dr. Eric Osansky (25:16.129)
Yeah, I mean it varies but you know I usually recommend for blood like to do a thyroid panel like every six to eight weeks so I do like to keep on top of that. That doesn’t mean they have to do the antibodies every six to eight weeks but like know TSH, FriT3, FriT4 and then with antibodies I think it’s fine if they want to like if they do it every other time like rather than now some people want to do it every single time and it’s I don’t think it’s I mean

Like you said, it could be frustrating, you know, like if you do it and then, you know, every six weeks, let’s say, and then, you know, six weeks later, you see an increase and you’re like, oh yeah, okay, it’s D and then you do it another six weeks and it like increased a little bit. It’s like, oh no, I’m getting worse. And, you know, so it’s, you know, I try to keep expectations in check for like, if someone wants to do like, I’d rather them check it every six weeks than check it like every six months. I think that’s a little bit too long.

to do, but again, like you said, if they’re doing it every six weeks, it’s gonna be that roller coaster ride a lot of times. Not all the times, but again, it’s not uncommon. It’s more common than uncommon to see the increases and decreases. yeah, so again, I just need to let them know that if they do that baseline test before we get started, and then six weeks later,

If they choose to look at the antibodies and it’s worse, it doesn’t mean that what we’re doing isn’t necessarily working. It’s a little bit too early to come to that conclusion.

Jannine Krause (26:54.426)
Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for backing me up on that one. Thanks for backing me up on that one. Now in terms of reversing autoimmune conditions, obviously I’ve kind of shared in previous podcasts and you heard my one where I was talking about my lupus antibodies going up and down and you were talking about viruses and you’re talking about exposures, there is this intricate connection between the immune system and the nervous system and exposures and how the body really kind of will re-

Dr. Eric Osansky (26:57.335)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jannine Krause (27:24.026)
Cause of flair, I call them flares, you know? Please give us a little bit background there on terms of like, okay, how are you managing triggers? What are some of the core things that you’re like, you know, people need to be thinking about when working to reverse autoimmune conditions. You had mentioned the gut and yes, a ton of folks in my industry are gut, gut, gut, gut, gut. But it’s more than that really. And that’s what I’ve kind of figured and everybody kind of has their special sauce. Give us kind of a little.

look into what is your protocol for helping folks with reversing autoimmune conditions.

Dr. Eric Osansky (27:59.276)
Yeah, sure. So, mean, again, just looking at some of the different categories of triggers, there’s food. I think most practitioners, at least the ones that I know of, including myself, will recommend to avoid inflammatory foods like gluten is almost always recommended to be avoided by just about all functional medicine practitioners. I mean, some say it could directly be a trigger, but there seems to be no doubt that it can affect

Permeability of the gut, increased permeability and that leaky gut component is part of that try to avoid immunity. So, yeah, just trying to avoid the common allergens. Again, dairy falls into that category. I’m not saying everybody has to avoid dairy permanently. Again, some practitioners would say yes, some would say no. I think some people could reintroduce dairy later on. That’s just my experience. But while healing, I usually would recommend avoid gluten, avoid dairy, take a break from grains, take a break from nightshades.

Again, doesn’t mean everybody reacts to those foods, but just that’s part of an eliminations diet is not everybody’s gonna react, but you want to try to get rid of the foods that are most like people are most likely to react to foods that are most likely to have negative effects on the gut. know, what goes without saying at the very least, she wants to try to avoid the processed foods, stick with whole healthy food, try to eat organic as much as you can, avoid the fast food, stay well hydrated, drink not only water, but

Purified water try to avoid water out of plastic bottles which not only which also can act as endocrine disruptors and it affected that thyroid in a different way and So yeah, so food of course is extremely important. I mean, you know, there’s Someone could be following. I don’t want to say perfect dikes really is no perfect diet, but someone could be doing amazing with the diet and

and not getting good results and that just is telling us that there’s more in that person’s situation than the diet and it gets frustrating because you could join now there’s like all these Facebook groups and I have a couple of them and then you’ll join and you know you’ll have some people saying all I did was eliminate gluten and my antibodies dropped and like we just said even one test doesn’t tell the whole story and it could have been other things but you know then someone else followed an autoimmune protocol an AIP diet and they’re no better.

Dr. Eric Osansky (30:24.277)
And again, it comes down to everybody’s difference and there’s different triggers. So food is one. You know, I mentioned stress and stress. One thing I didn’t mention was trauma that kind of falls. So it’s not just about recent stressors and just just being stressed out because of your job and doing too much. I mean, the overtraining definitely is something important, which is why I brought it up. But even past traumas can.

dysregulate the body, dysregulate the nervous system, and that could be a factor and that could be a challenge and just, you a lot of people don’t think about that. And I also have been one that really, I don’t want to say completely dismiss trauma, but really just over the years, focus more on just regular stress, like fight or flight reactions and fight or flight responses. but then I…

I had some people on my podcast who spoke more about stored trauma and just convinced me that, it definitely could be a factor. then seeing people who addressing the trauma, you know, healing compared to just blocking out time for, you know, doing mind incorporating mind, body medicine, which again, that could help, but it could be a factor even with stored trauma. But many times people need to go beyond that and do things like nervous system retraining and stuff like that. So, the, stress, the trauma.

We mentioned infections. So certain types of infections can definitely be a trigger in a literature H. pylori there’s a correlation between H. pylori, Graves, Hashimoto’s I know correlation doesn’t always mean causation, but but I have seen in my practice I’ve seen what you know, the challenges were not just like if someone has H. pylori, that’s not all we’re doing We’re not just saying let’s treat H. pylori and ignore the diet and trust management and everything else. So

If we treat H. pylori and they’re cleaning up their diet and stress management, do we know 100 % that it was the H. pylori being, you know, like getting rid of the H. pylori? No, we don’t. But if I see it positive, I’m going to recommend, again, a natural protocol. I’m not going to recommend for someone to get the triple, I think now it’s quadruple therapy, you know, getting multiple antibiotics. Again,

Dr. Eric Osansky (32:41.023)
It’s up to them ultimately. if they choose to do that, but usually I’ll just encourage them to take more of a natural approach. Same thing if there’s like parasites or again, without question viruses could be a factor. We saw an increase in people coming in during the pandemic and yeah, so infections could definitely be a factor and then the environmental toxins and toxicants. just…

You just I mentioned the plastics, which are widespread and plastics, microplastics, nanoplastics. You just really can’t escape them, but they not only are endocrine disruptors, as I mentioned, but they also do affect the gut. They’ve been shown, which I didn’t realize until I started diving into the research that affecting permeability of the gut as well. And so many things affect permeability that we don’t know of. then there’s of course glyphosate, which many people do know that that affects the

of the gut microbiome in a negative way. And we know that heavy metals like mercury and lead, you know, can have obviously negative effects on our health. just trying to, and then mold, I didn’t mention mold and mycotoxins, you’re hearing a lot more about mold, people becoming more aware of the impact of mold on our health. So, so yeah, you know, it’s not so…

Where do people start? mean, again, they start with the foundation. So I’m not saying you go crazy and you do like every single test to look for infections and heavy metals and all these things and everybody needs to test for mold. I mean, some people recommend that with me. It’s definitely start with the foundations, clean up your diet. I do like adrenal testing. I do like comprehensive blood testing. I do a lot of stool testing, but I don’t do it in everybody. can’t say I have 100 % of my patients.

do like a GI map or GI effects. But I do, I do a decent amount of those. It really comes down to the health history. And, the truth is testing is not a perfect science. You know, it’s one of those where, you know, you, you could be conservative and then you miss things. But then on the other hand, you could do a lot of testing and the person spending a lot of money unnecessarily. So it’s really just trying to get that balance. And sometimes

Dr. Eric Osansky (34:59.615)
I do testing that I think is going to show something and it turns out to be looking good. And then sometimes I just, you know, I recommend more conservative testing based on the health history. And then we end up needing to do more testing later on. And when I dealt with Graves, again, I I did basic testing. I didn’t do a lot of tests and got good results. So that’s why I tend to be more on the conservative side. But like I said, it depends on the person. If someone’s self history indicates that mold might be an issue.

then yeah, I’m gonna recommend, let’s do a urinary mycotoxins test and or test your home from old. if someone has a lot of gas bloating when eating certain foods, maybe we’ll do a SIBO breath test, for example. So like I said, it really does depend on the person.

Jannine Krause (35:49.508)
You know, it’s good to hear you say that. And I think for a lot of people listening, they’re like, okay. Because I think so many people are convinced that functional medicine means like when you go to the doctor, they’re gonna test everything, whether you need it or not. And truthfully, yeah, the comparison of like what someone presenting with, what’s obvious, let’s look at what’s obvious. Now, one of the big hot topics in the thyroid realm is iodine. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it gonna kill us?

It’s one of these hot topics that is fascinating to me in terms of how much press it’s gotten in the last, I would say, year or two over all the other minerals that are out there. So what have you seen with iodine? What have you seen with even some of the other minerals like selenium and magnesium for the thyroids? Either way, being Graves, being…

Hashimoto’s being just general thyroid health. What’s your take on them? What have you found to be beneficial and what have you seen work well for your folks?

Dr. Eric Osansky (36:59.533)
Yeah, mean, all minerals are good. You just got to be careful. know, so there’s really, wouldn’t say there’s like a bad mineral like iodine being bad. But I mean, to first address the less controversial minerals like magnesium and selenium. Yeah, I mean, I think most people could benefit from selenium. And then there’s a debate, well, can I just get the selenium from Brazil nuts and not…

take and not take a supplement and I mean the answer is yeah but the problem is we don’t know how much magnesium or I’m sorry how much selenium is in a single Brazil nut it varies so I do recommend when I recommend selenium supple like I usually recommend supplementation while healing but you know I don’t take I actually eat Brazil nuts on a wellness basis rather than take selenium supplements so you know but again I’m not I’m not taking it therapeutically

Jannine Krause (37:53.402)
Nice.

Dr. Eric Osansky (37:57.594)
And so, yeah, so I think most people could benefit from selenium with both Graves and Hashimoto’s, including those I didn’t mention, but a lot of patients have. I think you kind of alluded to it a little bit like thyroid eye disease, very common. And again, selenium could help reduce oxidative stress and sometimes could help with that as well. So, so, yeah, selenium, magnesium, a lot of people are deficient and a lot of people can benefit from magnesium.

And yeah, so I mean, let’s let’s talk about iodine also zinc I mean, they’re all important so we could like, yeah zinc’s important I mean, there’s so really all the nutrients are important, but but yeah iodine is a little bit different because iodine It is important for a formation of thyroid hormones. So we definitely need iodine but the I guess the problem is that There’s some practitioners that recommends

Jannine Krause (38:31.577)
Yeah.

Dr. Eric Osansky (38:55.117)
really high amounts of iodine and then there are other practitioners that recommends the opposite. like, you know, there’s, you know, like Dr. David Brownstein, iodine, why you need it, why you can’t live without it. You know, again, like, you know, he’s been around for, his book has been around for a long time and, you know, he was one of the first practitioners who recommended higher dose iodine for really both Graves and Hashimoto’s and

Jannine Krause (39:06.084)
Yes.

Dr. Eric Osansky (39:23.571)
including myself, a lot of practitioners jumped on that bandwagon years ago and was recommending to do urinary iodine testing, like an iodine loading test, and if someone’s deficient, you know, to have them supplement with iodine in milligram amounts, not microgram amounts. And then you got other advocates like Dr. Tatis Kharrazian, Dr. Alan Christensen, who recommends the opposite, like very, very, very low amounts of iodine.

Jannine Krause (39:49.188)
the micro.

Dr. Eric Osansky (39:51.726)
Like really try and say your best to avoid supplemental sources of iodine and I mean research I Mean there’s no research I’m aware of so let me backdrop before I say what I’m about to say So like I said I had in the past I took higher I personally took higher amounts of iodine and had I personally had good experience with it and As a result when I first started practicing over 15 years ago, I recommended for all my patients to do

urinary testing and then most people would show up as deficient so I would put them on again like higher doses of iodine maybe not as high as Dr. Brownstein recommended in his book but still milligram doses and a lot of people seem to be okay, but I did see some people not being okay and then around I guess a few years later that’s when you heard more practitioners like Dr. Tatis Karazian saying like yeah, you got to be careful about the iodine and the research is showing the opposite and

You know, the research, there’s, there’s really not research out there that I’m aware of showing that like you should be taking like 50 milligrams of iodine or 25 milligrams of iodine. and there is, and there is research showing that iodine some, you know, can, and some people be problematic and like higher doses. So over the years, I’m definitely not anti iodine. I’ve just been more cautious about iodine.

I mean, you still hear success stories about people taking iodine and their goiter greatly decreased and you we know it could help with breast health and I mean, so it definitely has benefits. But again, everybody’s different and that’s what makes it a little bit scary is that you could have someone take iodine and you know, supplement iodine and get great results and then you have someone else take iodine and they might…

have their hyperthyroidism worsen or you might see their antibodies spike up. And again, is that related to the iodine or is it something else? You know, again, sometimes it’s hard to make that connection. And again, some will say, well, you know, if you take selenium and other antioxidants with the iodine, that’ll prevent that from happening, but it doesn’t always. So like I said, I’m not anti-iodine.

Dr. Eric Osansky (42:11.831)
But I definitely have changed the approach over the years. can’t say I test everybody for iodine and then have everybody supplement iodine. You if you read my book, The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet, and even my other books, Hashimoto’s Triggers, Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves’ Disease. Again, you could tell I’m more conservative now with iodine. I’m not against it, you know, some people… I recommend starting slow if you are going to supplement with iodine.

And I should say, I’m not really nervous about someone taking a multivitamin with iodine or eating some foods with iodine. But it depends. If someone’s eating a lot of, you know, like kelp, which is really high in iodine, and some people can cause problems. And again, if someone’s supplementing with ioterole, you know, like really high amounts. Again, some people will do fine, but others won’t. And you just don’t know who will fall into that category. So I didn’t give you like a straight answer.

And part of it when I’m on these podcast episodes too, I never know what the person interviewing me is thinking too because I was on a podcast, and again, not to say if someone loves iodine, I’m gonna like say, oh yeah, everybody should take 50 milligrams of Iodrol, but again, I’ve been on podcasts where I pretty much gave what I just spoke about iodine like I did now, and the person was heavily in favor of iodine supplementation, and then they weren’t too

happy about me like saying that not everybody should take high dose iodine. But again, that’s my perspective. Even if your perspective is different, that’s what makes it interesting with the different functional medicine practitioners will have different perspectives. You like to think Dr. David Brownstein has had a lot of success recommending high dose iodine or else he wouldn’t be doing it similar with those who recommend low dose iodine they’re having. So again, it’s…

Jannine Krause (43:48.25)
Yeah.

Dr. Eric Osansky (44:09.815)
To me, it’s, like I said, it does depend on the person.

Jannine Krause (44:14.85)
And I’m in the same camp as you because I’ve seen, I’ve given people iodine and it didn’t go well. Their antibodies shot up, their thyroid slowed. And I’ve had it where it sped up and the other direction. so at the end of the day, we don’t know. And really I think that’s an important thing for everybody listening to hear is that there are certain things that we can’t guarantee one direction or the other. Same thing goes with using glandulars too. And so…

for those you listening, like what’s a glandular? It’s a cow part of a cow thyroid. And here we have a lot of companies now that are selling animal parts. I don’t know, I haven’t seen anything too wild happen, but any stories of glandulars going south on you with folks taking them and the thyroid either sped up or slowed down considerably.

Dr. Eric Osansky (45:08.813)
I don’t recall any like crazy stories, but I mean the thing is what glandulars I Mean some of them clearly have thyroid hormone others claim, you know claim that they like remove the thyroid hormone from the glandulars so it’s just like and you’re just taking it for support but not the So no, I mean just yeah, I can’t say I’ve had like crazy Stories with glandulars and yeah, I’m I’m with you. I’m

cautious when it comes to to glandulars not to say I’m opposed to glandulars but just yeah you’re right there’s not really research you know out there you know when it comes to glandular least maybe there is and I’m just not aware of it but but yeah and that you know again just every company’s difference and if it’s if it’s a company that’s not third-party verified you really don’t know what’s in what’s in really any supplement let alone the glandular but

But yeah, you’re right. I mean there’s a you know, there’s a lot of things out there You got to be careful about like a lot of people this is a different topic But methylene blue is big and and you know then recently I heard where it might negatively affect lactobacillus Which makes sense since it is also used as an antimicrobial. So I’m not against methylene blue I’m just still learning like I still haven’t incorporated it in my practice and I honestly bought a bottle and

experimented very little. I took it like once or twice just like, know, just I honestly just wanted to see if my urine would turn blue, which I guess I didn’t take enough because it really it didn’t like turn like as blue as I would have liked. yeah, again, the like I said, you got to be cautious with these things because, you know, just again, you hear it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon just like I did years ago with iodine. So with methylene blue, I definitely took it slower. And like I said, I’m

then I heard that it could negatively affect the gut microbiome, which, you know, so I’m still learning about that and other things as well.

Jannine Krause (47:11.982)
my gosh, aren’t we all, aren’t we all? Because I mean, all of the biohacking or bio tuning, whatever terminology someone wants to use here, I mean, it’s all of that stuff with like, this supplement’s hot this week and then next month it’s this supplement. And it gets a little overwhelming. I don’t know if you feel that way, but I see all these things and I’m like, well, it looks cool. It sounds like they’ve got great promises, but you know.

How do we actually incorporate these things? How do we know it’s gonna work? How we doing this safe? It’s tricky. I hear you. Same thing about Mathelene Blue, you name it, LDN, a lot of the different popular things that came to be popular and then kind of went away. Colostrum, all of them. So of course, wanna bring it back to onamine stuff, wanna bring it back to thyroid. I think at the end of the day,

Just what I’m hearing you saying, kind of what I’ve kind of come back to is like the basics, looking back at the foundational causes, looking at the gut, looking at the triggers, dial that in first before reaching for the medication, reaching for the magical supplement that might help here and there is the way to go. Is that kind of what I’m gathering from you, kind of your take at it? Go back to the basics, get those first.

Dr. Eric Osansky (48:29.057)
Yeah, definitely. I you know, I’m not shy about recommended supplements, but that’s usually not the solution is like not to take like 20 different things, 30 different things. If you’re, you know, if you’re supplementing and you’re not incorporating the foundations, you’re probably not going to heal, whereas it is possible to incorporate the foundations and do minimal supplementation and heal. again, it’s you know, supplementation.

When I do it, it’s really based on like the testing. you know, I’ll give some general recommendations. I mean, I recommend an omega-3 fatty acid to most people just because most people, unless they’re eating fish multiple times per week, and then that’s all the controversy. Should we be eating fish multiple times a week with the toxins? And anyway, that’s a whole different story. But again, if you’re, we can’t deny there’s still a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. And if someone’s eating fish once a month or not eating fish at all,

they’re probably deficient. again, there’s in that case, a hundred percent, I’m going to recommend a fish oil or, you know, algae oil if someone’s like a vegan, but, but yeah, you’re, right. It definitely wants to start by incorporating the foundations. And then, I mean, for some people, found incorporating foundations might be enough, but for many people, they might need to go beyond that and do some of the functional medicine testing we discussed.

Jannine Krause (49:50.17)
Makes sense, makes sense. And of course you’ve got your three books and that’s over at the website, savemythyroid.com forward slash book. Now let’s recap the books because you’ve mentioned them already once but let’s give folks the three books and then I do wanna talk a little bit about your six steps to reverse Graves’ disease in Hashimoto’s naturally because you already talked about it but that way folks can get an outline of it I’m guessing from the website.

Dr. Eric Osansky (50:15.949)
Yeah, so my three books, so the very first one I released, Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves’ Disease, and that was, that was released initially in 2011, and just came out with the third edition in 2023. And so, so yeah, definitely proud, proud of that book. then,

2018 is when I came out with the book Hashimoto’s triggers and Which is a comprehensive guide when it comes to all the different triggers some of them we spoke about here some of them we didn’t speak about and and then my latest book which came out in 2024 so just a year ago the hyper thyroid healing diet and just Yeah, just focusing on

different diets again, the title is misleading because it suggests that there’s one diet for everyone with hyperthyroidism. It actually talks about multiple different types of diets for those with different types of hyperthyroidism condition, mostly Graves, but other conditions as well, such as toxic multinodular goiter, even subclinical hyperthyroidism.

Jannine Krause (51:36.378)
Cool, that’s good, that’s good. Yeah, subclinical is such, it’s a hot thing. I see a lot of folks headed that way and I really think it is a manifestation of diet and lifestyle. And it’s kinda like the pre-diabetes of thyroid stuff. I don’t know, that’s me. But nevertheless, now you also have a hyperthyroid and a hypothyroid program as well as consultations that you’re doing too with folks as well, correct?

Dr. Eric Osansky (52:07.115)
I do, yes. I mean, I do have a program for both, but honestly, I see a lot more people with hyperthyroidism just because of, my backstory, and then just quite frankly, there’s just not a lot of practitioners out there that focus on hyperthyroidism. So yeah, I would say at least 80 % of the people I work with have Graves’ disease or another hyperthyroid condition. But yeah, I do see people with Hashimoto’s as well.

work with them one on one.

Jannine Krause (52:38.81)
Nice and natural endocrine solutions, correct? that that’s your website? Make sure I get it right here. Okay.

Dr. Eric Osansky (52:45.229)
Yeah, well there’s two there’s because you mentioned the other one same my thought yeah, so the the first one natural endocrine solutions.com came out in 2010 and so it’s been around for now over 15 years and um, and then the save my thyroid podcast came out in Four years ago, and then i’m like, you know what save my thyroid.com is a lot easier to remember the natural endocrine solutions.com But a little bit of a dilemma because I have so many articles from on natural endocrine solutions.com

Jannine Krause (53:01.327)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (53:12.312)
Yeah.

Dr. Eric Osansky (53:15.143)
And so I didn’t want to really mess with that. So I, I still have that and I, know, but say my tower.com again, it’s, it’s, it’s easier. That’s where I host my podcast. And so, I’m one of the unique practitioners who have two websites.

Jannine Krause (53:31.578)
That’s okay, that’s okay. And we’ll make sure guys that we get that in the podcast, and it’s at drjcrossnd.com. And then of course listening to your podcast as well for folks, that’ll give them a lot of great insight there. And are you on social media at all? Instagram, Facebook, do you have anything in those areas?

Dr. Eric Osansky (53:48.993)
Yeah, I’m an Instagram newbie. I’ve only been on Instagram for a little less than a year. But yeah, I’ve actually been pretty active lately on Instagram. And then I have a couple of Facebook groups. I have a YouTube channel. If you visit sameyethower.com forward slash YouTube, I believe. Or you could just go to YouTube and just type in my name. You could find me that way as well. But yeah, that’s how I am on some of the social media channels.

Jannine Krause (54:14.808)
Excellent, Well, Dr. Eric, this has been great to chat with you and learn more about how you’re approaching things, but also just hearing, going back to basics makes me happy to hear, yes, I’m biased that way because it does seem that we’ve gotten off in tangents and forgot, you know, we’re chasing the shiny, you know, magic pills and really when the reality is, is we’ve got to go after the basics. And so…

Gosh, good stuff. I look forward to checking out your podcast as well, listening in. And guys, we will have all the notes at drjkrausnd.com. Thanks again for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Eric Osansky (54:52.769)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Janine. Really appreciate you having me on and really enjoy this conversation.

Jannine Krause (54:59.162)
My pleasure.