My Client's PCP Called Me a Fraud 😳: Here's What Happened

When this happened, I laughed out loud.

Here's why she had called me fraud.

My client, S, had reached out to me because she was diagnosed with hyperthyroid. Her symptoms were debilitating.

She was so dizzy and fatigued that she could barely stand. Her racing heart left her constantly anxious. And as a young mom to two beautiful girls, she NEEDED to feel different.

Her PCP gave her one option: surgically remove her thyroid.

This is fairly standard for the industry as there are no oral medications to treat hyperthyroid. People will typically use surgery to remove it entirely or kill it with radioactive iodine. Then you'll be on medication to replace thyroid hormone for the rest of your life.

S was devastated. She wasn't ready to have surgery yet and wanted to see if there was anything else that could be done.

So she found me and reached out.

In our first meeting, I explained how there are typically culprits behind any hormonal imbalance- thyroid or otherwise- and if those culprits can be found and dealt with directly, the body will naturally come back into balance. I was honest with her too, I wasn't sure if it would work (I wish I had a magic ball to see the future, but I don't). It could be the case that she puts in this effort and still has to remove her thyroid.

It was a gamble that she decided to take. She trusted her gut that this was the right move for her.

So when she started working together, I wrote out a list of labs that her PCP could order for her to try to save her some of the cost. The labs included a full thyroid panel (because as I said, she had been diagnosed with hyperthyroid... makes sense to get some repeat labs on that... follow me?).

Her PCP wrote back that I was fraud and she wouldn't order any of the labs.

Me: 😂

I found myself laughing at the absurdity of it.  Her PCP already knew that my client had this condition but she was so unwilling to consider or support my client to find alternative solutions that she had to try to do something to stand in her way.  

Here's how things unfolded.

S continued to work with me and she opted for the extra cost upfront for me to order her labs and she would see what her insurance would reimburse her later.

Using the labs we ordered, we found some additional culprits that could be contributing to the imbalance in her thyroid:

❌Nutrient insufficiencies

❌Chronic infections with Candida and mold

❌Food sensitivities

I guided her to make a few tweaks in her diet and lifestyle by using a temporary Elimination Diet challenge to see exactly what she was sensitive too while focusing on nutrient dense foods and helping to kill off the microbes that had over grown and colonized (yes- the elimination diet challenge helped with all of these). We were able to start these changes BEFORE her labs even came back so she didn't have to wait for months to start feeling better. 

She started noticing that her symptoms were less intense within the first 2 weeks.  We got her lab results back ~2 months in and used the results to further tweak her regimen with supplements, foods, and lifestyle.

By the time her initial lab results came in, her thyroid levels were normal. This was HUGE.  She knew the steps we were taking were working from the beginning from the change in her symptoms but she could not stop celebrating after seeing the change in her labs👏👏👏. 

By 3 months, her symptoms were gone💨. No more dizzy spells. Anxiety at a lifetime low. Gaining muscle and weight in a good way. Shocking her family with how much energy and zest she had. She had taken a leap of faith and gone against the recommendation of her PCP as she trusted her gut and it had huge positive repercussions for her.

So if fraud is helping people find their agency and wellbeing by giving them more choice and control... then count me in. At the end of the day, the opinion of her PCP was clearly wrong and what mattered most was that she was back to living her life again.

If you want to try to balance your hormones naturally, I walk you step by step in the process in my online course The Gutsy Reboot.