Episode 8: How to Put Together the BEST Care Team: Finding the Right Doctor for Managing Hypothyroidism
One of the most important and challenging things to figure out when managing hypothyroidism is finding a doctor you can work with to start figuring out what the root causes were to get trigger hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
In this episode, I'm talking about the importance of creating a care team of professionals with different areas of expertise and what questions to ask your doctor to find out if they are the right fit to help you reverse your hypothyroid symptoms.
Glad you're here,
Sarah
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Take the quizzes-- Hypothyroid Symptom Assessment, Adrenal Dysfunction Quiz, Toxic Load Quiz: bit.ly/thyroid-checker
Products and Tools to Support Your Healing: bit.ly/thyroid-tools
Disclaimer: Information shared on this podcast and any referenced websites are not to be taken as medical advice or to be used as a diagnosis or treatment plan for any medical condition. I’m sharing my educated opinions & experience but nothing shared here can be taken on a one size fits all basis and we always recommend you do your own research, talk to your own doctors and practitioners, and take full responsibility for any health & medical choices you make.
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Want to read this episode instead? Here’s the transcript!
Finding a Doctor To Help You Manage Hypothyroidism
Wouldn't it just be incredible to find a doctor that just could give us a magic pill and make our problems just poof, go away, or would even just listen, hear us and respond with suggestions that actually answer our questions and take our concerns into consideration. Or maybe even just to find a practitioner that believes the things that we're saying, which is the case for so many people dealing with hypothyroidism that they aren't even believed by their practitioners, that they have the symptoms that they are saying they're looked at, like they're a little bit crazy. I get that cuz I've been there. And so today in this episode, we're gonna talk about finding and working with a practitioner that supports you and the importance of forming what I like to call a care team and who you might like to consider having on your care team.
So grab that pen a notebook, and let's get started with today's episode. Before we jump in, I am, again, I'm so excited to share some assessment tools with you this week, which are, especially for people who are trying to figure out if what they're dealing with is a thyroid issue or if what they're dealing with is an adrenal issue, or if their liver needs some help and support. I've got quite a few little quizzes available to help you just sort through the symptoms that you're dealing with. Then that can help you to have a better roadmap of what things you should focus on as you are working on peeling back the layers to create healing. So you can head to the link in the show notes or go to bit lee slash thyroid tools and you'll have a number of different options of assessments to take. The hypothyroid symptom assessment, the toxic load assessment, the adrenal assessment. You've got all kinds of things right there on one page at your disposal. These are great tools to take now and then also to come back to from time to time to see what gains you're making in resolving these symptoms over time. So you can grab that at bit.ly/thyroid-tools.
Welcome to the Natural Thyroid Fix. I'm Sarah Geisinger, a holistic lifestyle and nutrition coach and former hypothyroid mom who has reversed her thyroid disease using a natural approach to thyroid health. Trust me, I know what it feels like to move through the life in a brain fog meeting, a nap by mid-afternoon and constantly be cleaning the hair you've lost outta the shower drain. Do you know what I'm talking about? If you're here, I bet you do. So if you're ready to reject the notion that this tired hypothyroid life is as good as it gets and start implementing simple natural strategies to live a vibrant symptom-free life, then this is the podcast for you. Let's dive into today's show.
Well, hello there. So today we are talking about finding the right practitioner to work with as you are working on your own thyroid issues. And I know this struggle, well, this was one of my most frustrating points as I was trying to figure out what was going on with my own health issues. This biggest struggle was starting initially with my general practitioner heading there, getting some blood work, being told it was normal, but also then being referred to other, more like Western medicine, uh, type of approach. Doctors like an endocrinologist, an internist, a rheumatologist, a number of different practitioners, and bouncing to each one of them. And this, if you have been there, you know that when you are searching one, trying to figure out what's going on with your body, and two, trying to find a doctor that can help you to unravel it, it is just exhausting.
Why You Need The Right Provider
It's exhausting to kind of pull the information together, find the doctor, make the appointment, you know, maybe take time off from work to be able to go to the appointment or find childcare. You know, you're juggling a lot to even get there. And then when you get there to retell the story, to retell what your, your history is, to pull out the blood work again, to explain your symptoms. Sometimes you, in a very, very short window of time that is allotted for your appointment and sometimes with doctors who maybe aren't having the best day or really just aren't buying what you're, what you're telling them. Uh, and, and that can be a very, very frustrating experience. And so this is something that I know is a thing we need to talk about. And something that I'm very passionate about is helping to develop a sense of patient advocacy because it's our bodies.
We know our bodies well. And even if we need, you know, kind of sounding board and, and a doctor who's giving us, you know, a little bit of feedback there, we still are a valuable source of information. But it is challenging sometimes to find a practitioner that one has sort of the same uh, view and maybe the the hope for treatment that, that you have. It's hard to do that too. It's hard to find a doctor in maybe your area that has those perspectives and that you can kind of have a good relationship with where you can bring your questions and they're gonna kind of push back at you. Those are very challenging things, but it's really, really important that as people who are dealing with hypothyroidism, that we become a really strong advocate for ourselves because we know our bodies best and nobody we we're the common thread we can bounce from specialist to specialist or practitioner to practitioner, but the, the, the common thread is us.
Finding The Right Doctor Starts With You
And so it is important that one, we're informed and two, that we are comfortable asking questions of doctors and other practitioners so that that can help us to find the right fit for the kind of care that we deserve and that we want. And so that's what we're jumping into today because it's an important, important topic. And so as we start this conversation here about finding the right physician, the right doctors, the right practitioners that can help you, I wanna also encourage you to just think a little bit differently about your approach to your healthcare. And that is, I would encourage you before just trying to find a doctor that can help you, I would encourage you to start kind of looking in the mirror and considering what are things that you can do to help yourself. Again, you are the expert on your body, it's your body and you have intuition that you can trust.
That intuition, you're the one who lives in your body. You know, the nuances and the messages and the reactions that happen when, when you know, you encounter certain triggers, you know those things. No one else is able to be such an expert on our bodies. But I do find that many, many people have lost that, uh, ability to hear from their body and also trust that they know some things about their bodies. And so it's important to remember that you are an important, important player. There's a level of personal responsibility that I believe is incredibly important when we're talking about approaching our healthcare, especially from a holistic perspective. It's really, really critical that we are gonna be really important players in creating our healing. And so that's important. We are the only ones who have the power to make shifts in our diet that are gonna reduce inflammation.
We are the only ones who have the ability to swap out products that are adding to our toxic load and toxic burden that our liver then has to deal with. We are the only ones that are going to put into place routines that support our stress response in a healthy way and prioritize sleep. We're the only ones who can do that. No practitioner, no matter how holistic, no matter how naturally minded, no matter what functional medicine certification they have, no matter what, they can't do it for you. There's a level of personal responsibility that is deeply connected to healing and I want to encourage you to remember that and sort of shift that framework in your mind that has you saying, I need to find a doctor that can help me. And then, and also just think, how can I help myself as I find a, a practitioner that I can partner with because it's really, really important that we have personal responsibility.
We have the most skin in this game, it's our body. So as we talk about finding the right doctor, the right practitioner to work with, I wanna just say right out of the gate that I absolutely recommend that everybody, everyone with Hashimotos, with hypothyroidism consults, a healthcare practitioner, a healthcare professional, even if you are one, if you are in the medical field, if you are a a, a healthcare provider yourself, I would encourage you, and or not only that, even if you're an expert, if you have read all the things on, uh, hypothyroidism and if you've taken all the classes and done all the stuff, I would still encourage you to get another voice in the room as you're trying to figure out how to work through your own health issues. It really, really helps to have someone who is knowledgeable about the topic, someone that has an objective view of what's going on and can kind of zoom out with what you're dealing with, both in terms of symptoms and interventions and other things that you've got going on and give you a little bit of feedback.
That's a really helpful thing to be able to have someone like that to bounce ideas off of. We're all obviously coming to the table with different levels of bias, different types of bias, different maybe preferences or ways of thinking about things. And so having multiple voices at the table in terms of uh, establishing a care team is really important. And so you'll hear me use this term over and over again and that is care team. And so I like to think of it as we want to establish a team of people that are speaking into our healing, that are speaking into the journey that we're on, trying to unravel our issues with hypothyroidism and the healing, the processing of that healing. And so I am of the, the firm opinion <laugh> after going through this myself that there is not one practitioner that can help you with all aspects of your healing.
So for example, for me, I was working when I was really in the thick of figuring out what was going on in my bo with my body. I was working with a, uh, my general practitioner and he was the one who was really good about keeping tabs on blood work and kind of look tweaking the medication when I was on medication for a while and all of that. And then I had, um, someone who I was working with who had more of a background in nutrition. And so we were working on that together and that was kind of my area that I really dug into as well. I had, um, some, a chiropractor. I was also seeing a mental health counselor at the time too, cuz man, there is some some mental health stuff to work through when you're dealing with chronic illness like that.
Building a Care Team
So all of these different people are working together. And so other people that you might want to have on your care team might be a, you know, a, a nutritionist, a functional medicine practitioner, or, uh, sometimes you can find functional medicine doctor in your area or a functional medicine coach. You can find those all over the country. That can be helpful. You can be working with people who have expertise in dental care, how, like biological or holistic dental, that's something that I kind of added into my care team later because I've, I, I've discovered that was, uh, an element I needed to address. And so all of these people, all of these professionals, each have different backgrounds, each have different areas of expertise and each were able to help me with different aspects of my, my healing. But they're all connected. And so I'd encourage you to consider the same thing and to consider the voices and the input and the opinions of those different people as valid, bringing different information to the table, just different information, not contradictory, not wrong, just different information.
I also can't tell you the number of people who were either like course teachers or different researchers that also I sort of considered as a virtual mentor part of my care team. People who, you know, I've never even met. But their work and their efforts and their research and their ability to put information out there in an accessible way was a really, really important part of my care team as well. And that's where I sort of, where I fit. I always say that I am a synthesizer of information and so there's a place for that kind of a voice on your care team as well. And I hope I can bring that for you with this podcast. But bottom line, when it comes to finding a doctor, I would encourage you to work hard and don't give up until you find a healthcare professional that is open to working with you, not just telling you what to do, but working alongside you and willing to help you identify and resolve the triggers and the underlying factors that led to the condition that you're dealing with, to the hypothyroid status that you're dealing with and the symptoms that go along with that.
What To Look For In a Provider To Help You Heal Hypothyroidism
This is something that is worth searching for because they are out there and this looks different from just having a doctor that's gonna quickly look at the basic blood tests and then just assign a medication, prescribe a medication. This is, that's different. And so I, it is worth putting in the effort to find a doctor who is going to peel away the layers with you, bounce ideas back, um, at you when you have questions and help you work towards resolving the triggers of the hypothyroidism. And so that is really, really important. So a great place to start when searching for a doctor, a medical practitioner to work with, is to look for someone who is a functional medicine practitioner. And this is something that is much more common now than it was even a decade ago, but functional medicine clinicians, they kind of look at the body as a whole and as, uh, the sum of its interconnected parts.
And so they don't just kind of zero in on, in this case, the thyroid, but they, they zero on the thyroid. And also the other factors that are connected to that, things like the liver, the adrenals, uh, the gut health, underlying infections, inflammation levels, all sorts of things. A functional medicine clinician is gonna look at all of those things and peel back layers and get to the root cause. And so this is something that I know that I hear this frustration a lot. I've had this frustration that conventional doctors just don't do that. They don't tell, they just kind of tell them there's that you can't do anything. Everything looks normal, it's fine. And it's just a different approach when you're talking about a functional medicine practitioner. Training is a little bit different and they are more, they're trained to look for root causes and to sort of be slow to prescribe medication and a little more, uh, willing or not even willing, likely to suggest lifestyle changes as a solution to whatever's going on.
And so that is something that is worth looking for. And with the wonders of the internet, it's much easier to find functional medicine practitioners either in your area or functional, um, medicine clinicians that are either, that are working online, doing consults. And so I have some resources in the show notes with some different databases that, that you can search for in your area, but also just a quick Google search of functional medicine doctor in whatever town you're in will help to pop things up. Those that, that helps to just have those terms to be able to search so you can start getting the results that you actually are looking for. What you're looking for when you're having some conversations. I like to think of it as you sort of wanna interview the doctor a little bit, the practitioner to see if this is the kind of practitioner you wanna work with.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor if you have Hypothyroidism
And so I wanted to give you a couple questions that you can ask a doctor to find out if they are gonna be a good fit. Now there's obviously, there's differences in personality and background and whatever, but at the end of the day, if you can find a practitioner that can positively answer some of these questions, then that's gonna help you know that the framework they're working from is kind of in the direction that you wanna go if you are looking to, uh, reduce your hypothyroid symptoms in a holistic natural root cause sort of way. And so some of those questions, so the, the first thing that I think is a really good question to start with is asking if they prescribe different types of thyroid medication beyond levothyroxine or Synthroid, which are the common common standard of care. So do they prescribe things like natural desiccated thyroid or compounded thyroid medication, things like that.
You can ask them that. Um, and if they say no, then that, that's, if that's not something that they consider, then that might be an indication that they are maybe not open to alternatives in terms of a thyroid medication. That's just a good, kind of a good way to, to gi give you some good markers as to where they're at. I would also ask about if they do adrenal saliva testing. So we talk about the importance of the adrenals in connection with the thyroid. And so the best way to test your, uh, your cortisol levels with your, that are, you know, it's the primary hormone that the adrenals make. The best way to test that is by doing a saliva test, which has done multiple and multiple points throughout a day. And that's something that is, uh, another indicator. If they do that sort of testing, then that's kind of like a thumbs up that might be the kind of practitioner that you wanna be working with y um, you'll wanna ask them if they have access to functional medicine labs, things, places like Genova Diagnostics, Z R t, BioHealth, these are all functional medicine labs and they offer a broad range of tests that are commonly used in the functional medicine sphere.
And so if they do, then yes, you'll be able to get different tests outside of some of the norms. Uh, and then another question would be is does this practitioner, do they order food sensitivity tests? What's their process for helping pa helping patients to navigate what foods are working or not working for their bodies? And those are good questions. I think that can help you start to discern if maybe this is your general practitioner, maybe this is, um, some kind of, uh, more holistic doctor that you've come across. These are good questions to be able to start to see if they are going to be able to point you in the direction that you wanna go. Uh, it's important to keep in mind too that most times when you are looking for a doctor that is working outside of what maybe the, uh, insurance company deems as the standard of care, then that means that you are going to be paying for your appointments out of pocket.
You might be paying for your testing out of pocket. Now you may be able to get those reimbursed through your insurance. It just depends. But this is an interesting point because the standard of care for hypothyroid patients is simply just to give people a thyroid hormone replacement and nothing else. Then it becomes challenging sometimes to find doctors that are willing to kind of do the testing and start to look at some of the other options. That's just something you need to know. And so if you're someone who has a health savings account, maybe that's how you're paying for things, but you can look into, it's worth asking your insurance to find out what sorts of testing and what sorts of, um, practitioners they'll reimburse for. Everyone is different, quite honestly. There are so many different types of, uh, uh, insurances and so many different types of insurance options out there these days.
That is something that I honestly can't say whether or not things will be covered. You're gonna have to make some calls on your own and find that out. But just know that oftentimes we find when we're going outside of conventional doctors, then we end up having to pay more out of pocket. That's a challenge. I wish that was not the case. I man would love to see more doctors and more insurance <laugh> encouraging preventative and root cause-type approaches that would ultimately prevent more long-term problems. But that man, this system is just so broken, isn't it? Anyhow, I could go on a whole thing, but I'm not gonna,
I wanna encourage you, the biggest thing that I want you to take away from this is that you have the ability to basically hire and fire your doctor. And you should, if you continue to go to doctor's appointments where you feel unheard, belittled, frustrated, not taken seriously, given the hard brush off, treated like you're crazy, that is not acceptable. And there are practitioners out there that don't do that. And so you should go find them. It's challenging to say where they are in your area. However, things have shifted dramatically in the treatment of hypothyroidism. There is tons of research out there that has, that suggests that supporting the thyroid from a holistic perspective is very effective. And quite honestly, if your doctor is giving you the brush off, they just aren't up on their current research. And so that's something that you can advocate for. It's important when you are dealing with something like hypothyroidism, which can be put into remission, you can live a symptom-free life. The research demonstrates it. I have lived it, so have tons of other people.
It is possible. And so any practitioner that stands there and tells you that you're just gonna deal with this for the rest of your life, they're wrong and you should go find a new Doctor <laugh>. And so I'd encourage you to do that. And a lot of times we don't have the uh, the courage to do that, especially when we're not feeling good and we're just trying to feel better. And we have this belief that this specific doctor can help us. And I want to tell you that if that is not the vibe you are getting from your doctor, it is up to you to go and find one that can help you to put the people on your care team that can actually help to produce the kind of healing that you wanna have. So I'm hoping that you have a couple of questions that you jotted down that you can ask doctors.
And again, in the show notes, I have some links to some websites where it's easy to find some practitioner databases. And if nothing else, I wouldn't want you to walk away. Encourage that. You can ask questions of your practitioner and if they aren't willing to work with you to get at the root causes, you can find another one. You should find another one. Alright, so there we have it. Be sure to head to the show notes to click on that link to take some of those quizzes and just see where you're at with your adrenals or your thyroid symptoms or your toxic load. See how things are and see how high on the priority list those, uh, various items should be in terms of focusing your energy and efforts on helping to move the needle. All these things are so connected and so it's helpful to know exactly where you're at.
So that's bit.ly/thyroid-tools or the link in the show notes will get you there as well. So it's important to again, see where you're at so you can know how far you've come over time. I hope that you are able to apply some of these things today and start putting together that care team that can really help move you towards wellness and energy and healing and that symptom-free life that is possible for you. This making small shifts towards feeling healthy and good, that's the way to do it because I firmly believe that when you do it that way, when you focus on those doable lifestyle shifts, a symptom-free life is totally possible. And I want that for you. Real quick before you go, if this show has helped you in some way, then I know that it'll help others too. So please head over to iTunes, subscribe, and then leave a review so that more women can find health and healing too. And do you know that you can have an incredible impact on the women who deal with thyroid issues in your circle? Yep, that's right. All you have to do is take a screenshot of this podcast, tag me at natural dot thyroid dot fix and post it in your stories. Let's light a path for all the other hypothyroid mamas looking for hope and healing and to just feel like themselves again. I'll look forward to connect