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5 Hashimoto’s Secrets You Can Use Today Most people assume that Hashimoto’s is a thyroid disease. But the primary issue is actually animmune problem. Your immune system is body-wide, so in order to heal yourHashimoto’s, we have to take your entire body into account.I pride myself on creating individualized treatment plans for my patients. However, there are areas ofconstancy for nearly all of them. Here are 5 clinical secrets that I find myself going back to again andagain.1. Modulation of the immune fire.2. MTHFR/methylation3. Is your brain working for you or against you?4. How are your emotional storms?5. Eat food that loves you back.6. How to test and treat (and how NOT to test and treat) environmental toxicity.1. Consider pouring water on your immune fireIf you have Hashimoto’s, your problem is not your thyroid—it’s your immune system.Sure, you may need thyroid hormone because your thyroid has been damaged, but it’s the raging fireof your immune system that is at fault. The immune chemical IL-6 is a common marker of thisinflammatory fire that is high in chronic infections.In my practice, I always consider adding some immune modulators to the mix. Threecommon choices are:Glutathione, High dose turmeric, and Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).Glutathione is a master antioxidant and key detoxifier in your body. Do you experienceany kind of physical reaction (headaches, nausea, rash) to perfumes, dyes, orexhaust fumes? If so, it is critical for you to get more glutathione into your body. Glutathione islike a hero soldier who throws herself on a grenade to save bystanders. It will sacrifice itself to enableyou to safely escort foreign chemicals out your liver and kidneys. S-acetyl-glutathione is a good oralform, but I usually use a liposomal form of glutathione that is whisked easily into the body. A goodtarget is around 400 mg per day.Do you have brain fog or transient joint pain? These two symptoms are caused byan out of control immune fire. One way to put it out is a 10-day burst of high-dose turmeric orcurcumin. I use a liquid form of turmeric that is blended with some black pepper to increaseTravis J. Elliott, ND (802) 489-5913 travis@drtraviselliott.com5224 Shelburne Rd #102, Shelburne, VT 05482 www.DrTravisElliott.com

effectiveness. It won’t work for everyone, but 500-1000 mg of turmeric two-three times per day canbring down the fog and the joint pain.LDN is a compounded medication that increases body endorphin production and increasesregulatory T-cells. In other words, LDN helps you make more opioids and controls thewild impulses of your immune system. Who wouldn’t want that? LDN is made by acompounding pharmacy and requires a doctor’s prescription and should be started at a low dose—around 1 mg and slowly increased. It controls inflammation in multiple pathways, leading to betteroverall function of the immune system and the thyroid.2. Assess and improve your methylation and MTHFR statusWhat? What did you just call me? Sorry, enough joking MTHFR is an acronym for anenzyme that activates folate—an important b-vitamin. The essential thing for you to know is thatMTHFR is a common sticking point in the production of key methylation compounds like SAMe.Methylation helps with neurotransmitter balance, the production of energy,detoxification—especially of hormones—and hundreds of other functions in thebody. Every day I see patients who have improved energy from high doses of methylation support.I test every patient for MTHFR variants and I intervene if my patient has one ortwo copies of the C677T variant and/or two copies of the A1298C variant. Thisappears to be especially important for my autoimmune thyroid patients who are fatigued. I startwith a normal dose of a full b-complex and a multi-mineral. This helps all the enzymes in themethylation process, not just MTHFR. After one week, I ask them to take 3-4 times the amount ofb-vitamins by using a specialized methylation product that contains methylcobalamin, P5P,methylfolate, and trimethylgycine. I have patients note their reactions to each level ofsupplementation and stay on the most effective level for up to six weeks. This “burst” repletes all thepathways and enzymes with the necessary cofactors. By going through this process, you get an ideaof exactly what you need. You also gain a tool in your toolbox. In the future, whenever you arestressed or ill, you can go back to the “burst dose” of methylators and whip your biochemistry backinto shape.I recognize that this is a complicated topic that cannot be adequately explained in thishandout. If you would like a deeper explanation as well as some more dosing hints, please enrollin my video-based Healing Hashimoto’s class.2Travis J. Elliott, ND (802) 489-5913 travis@drtraviselliott.com5224 Shelburne Rd #102, Shelburne, VT 05482 www.DrTravisElliott.com

3. How is your brain doing?Do you have brain fog? Is your memory slipping? Do you feel more tired when you exerciseyour brain by reading, driving at night, or studying? All of these symptoms are symptoms of braindysfunction. And here are a couple of other relevant symptoms: Is your balance getting worse? Do you need to take enzymes and HCL with meals in order to digest your food? Do you have chronic, unexplained pain on only one side of your body?The good news is that there is an explosion of research about functional brain issues and how totreat them. In fact, doctors called functional neurologists (usually a chiropractic specialty) have beenteaching us how brain dysfunction is often at the heart of chronic digestive symptoms and chronicpain.Here’s a test: try walking 5-6steps heel-toe, heel-toe with youreyes closed. Can you do it? If youhave trouble, consider taking turmeric, afish oil with a high percentage of DHA,and nootropic substances like n-acetylcarnitine or huperzine A.A great read on this subject is “Why Isn’t My Brain Working” by Datis Kharrazian. Thisbook is packed with great information, but warning(!)—it’s pretty dense and is definitely not muchof a self-help book. For adequate self-help, it’s going to be necessary to dive into your ownsymptoms and explain more about the benefits of certain nutrients for the brain. In my video series,I will walk you through a detailed brain questionnaire that was developed by Dr. Kharrazian andshare with you some balance and brain tests that will help you evaluate your ownbrain function—including which neurotransmitter function may be deficient. It’s atruly fascinating subject that I really don’t want you to miss. Therefore I’ve package the brainmodule directly into the flow of the Healing Hashimoto’s video class.4. Take charge of your emotional healthResearch shows that stress will directly increase inflammation. I’ve found that a keysource of chronic stress is underlying emotional trauma that becomes “stuck” in the body and mind.Releasing some of these pent up emotions can be a key to healing, and mindfulness work is a greatway to go about it. You may want to consider reading Cabot-Zinn’s many mindfulness books. Ifyou have chronic pain, please check out “Healing Back Pain” by Dr. Sarno or “Unlearn Your Pain”by Dr. Schubiner.However, the simplest thing that you can do right now is to try a technique called the Suspended3Travis J. Elliott, ND (802) 489-5913 travis@drtraviselliott.com5224 Shelburne Rd #102, Shelburne, VT 05482 www.DrTravisElliott.com

Breath. It takes about one minute and it will immediately stimulate your parasympathetic (relax!digest!) nervous system. You can download the Suspended Breath Handout here.5. Eat food that will love you backHere’s the deal: 70% of your immune system is lining your gut, so gut health is critical toyour overall immune health. The problem is that some of the foods that we eat make allthat immune tissue very angry. For lots of reasons. For example, sugars and starches can feedbacterial and yeast overgrowths in your gut, leading to toxic by-products that your immune systemdoesn’t like. Or your body may have developed a slow onset allergy to a food like gluten or dairyproteins. Your immune system could be angry at your food even if you don’t haveany digestive problems! How would you know? One way is to order expensive food allergytests from a lab like Cyrex. However, those labs aren’t perfect. A better way is to bite the bullet andtry 3-4 weeks of a restricted anti-inflammatory diet. This can mean an anti-inflammatory diet likeJessica Black ND espouses, or a full-blown Autoimmune Paleo Diet. I ask my patients to dothe AIP for three weeks and then follow a guided reintroduction. This singleprescription is BY FAR the most powerful tool I have at my disposal and the results can behumbling.If you do have digestive symptoms like bloating, cramping, or constipation, please considerthe Healing Hashimoto’s video class. As part of the class, you will grade the function of yourdigestion and I will help you isolate the part of your gut that is the problem. Eating food that lovesyou back is helpful, but sometimes we need to dig deeper to keep that 70% of our immune systemhappy.6. This (toxic) land is your land—how are you dealing with environmental toxicity?When you’ve changed your diet, balanced your blood sugar, treated your gut, addressedMTHFR and balanced your thyroid and adrenal glands, and you still feel terrible, it’s timeto start thinking about heavy metal or other chemical toxicity. I also have a highersuspicion of toxicity with patients who have risk factors like non-biological removal of silver fillings,a toxic occupation like hairstylist, or severe reactions to chemicals like gasoline fumes.This is a big topic, but let me see if I can distill some useful nuggets of information: My focus is not how high are your levels, but how are those levels affecting you? You couldhave a normal level of mercury in your body, but your immune system could be reacting tothe mercury, leading to problems. Cyrex Laboratories Array 11 measures antibodyresponses to 15 different categories of toxins. These categories include heavymetals, organotoxins, phthalates, and many more. Secondly, I might look at how a toxin is being excreted from your body. The QuicksilverScientific Mercury Tri-test analyzes absolute levels of mercury and (by comparing levels inblood, urine, and hair) how well your kidneys and liver are excreting mercury. If you do have a problem with heavy metals or some other toxin, I generally do notrecommend chelation. Chelation usually involves the use of a strong chemical binder thatforcefully grabs the metal and pulls it into your blood and out of your body. I was taught by4Travis J. Elliott, ND (802) 489-5913 travis@drtraviselliott.com5224 Shelburne Rd #102, Shelburne, VT 05482 www.DrTravisElliott.com