Introducing the Hashimoto's Institute!



I often get many emails from my readers who come to me because they are frustrated and overwhelmed with finding the help they need to overcome Hashimoto’s.



This is because the conventional medical model is lacking in helpful approaches to Hashimoto’s. While Synthroid, the most commonly prescribed medication in the US during 2013, helps many people feel better, it does not address the underlying root causes, and leaves many more people left with lingering symptoms. This leaves many patients feeling helpless….



In contrast, the practitioners that are knowledgeable about autoimmunity usually have long waiting lists and don’t accept insurance as insurance companies see their services as excessive and experimental.



Therefore, many people become frustrated with the medical model, and try to take their health into their own hands. They seek out information online, going to Dr. Google instead. Some of the information is really helpful, but some can be harmful. Unfortunately, there are people out in cyberspace who claim to have the cure for just about everything but they don’t have enough healthcare knowledge to know that something they are recommending may be harmful or contraindicated for certain people. There’s just so much conflicting information on the Internet, and the information can become really overwhelming!



Even though I'm a health care professional, I felt helpless and frustrated too when I was first diagnosed, until I decided to take charge of my own health. I went though all of my old immunology, pharmacology, physiology and biochemistry textbooks and notes. I spent hours and hours reading medical journals, health books and attending nutrition and functional medicine conferences.



I used my background as a pharmacist to evaluate all of the information out there, and turned myself into a human guinea pig to get myself into remission…



…But it took me almost three years to sort out all of the information and to find something that actually worked for me (courtesy of infamous Hashimoto's brain fog).



How change happens



I wanted to change the way Hashimoto's is treated and to make this life-saving information accessible to everyone. This is why instead of becoming a concierge health care professional, I started my blog and wrote a patient guide to help other people figure out how to get their health back through addressing the underlying causes of Hashimoto’s.



I’m so happy that many of you have been helped by my book and website, and so I was encouraged to do something that would move the conversation about Hashimoto’s forward even more.



I want every patient with Hashimoto’s and every health care professional who treats people with Hashimoto’s to understand the fundamentals of how this condition develops and to understand the treatment options and protocols that can turn an exhausted, anxious and bloated person into someone with energy, vitality, a healthy weight and proper digestion.



I struggled for too long with fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux, hair loss, carpal tunnel and anxiety. Hashimoto’s made me become a shell of my former self, and I get so sad thinking about everyone out there who is still suffering. I want you to get your life back too!



You can get your life back.



At the risk of sounding cheesy, I want to reach out to everyone personally and say, “There are so many things you can do to get your life back”, and I want to call their doctors and tell them the same.



My goal for 2014 is to help 10,000 people reverse Hashimoto's and put it into remission! I've been attending various conferences, doing a lot of networking, reading and researching to find the best resources to make this happen.



The last year, I’ve travelled around the world speaking to patients, physicians, nutritionist and pharmacists, with great results, but knew I couldn’t keep it up for ever, this kind of travel is really tough on the adrenals and quite expensive! I felt like I was one little pharmacist trying to change the world one person at a time, and although I certainly have more energy than I used to, my experience in public health taught me that change needs to happen on a wider scale.



The question I ask myself everyday is “How can I help more people, effectively, in the shortest amount of time, costing them the least amount of money?”



Because I think many of you are tired of being tired, and tired of spinning your wheels, and tired of spending a lot of money without feeling much better.



So the answer came to me last December, from one of you, one of my readers (by the way, I read all of your messages, Facebook comments and blog comments). This reader reached out to me with a suggestion: “You should create a week-long online Hashimoto’s course!” I thought this was a brilliant suggestion as I think every person with Hashimoto’s deserves to have this type of education, but I wasn’t sure how I could pull off such a big, expensive and complicated task, that is, until serendipitously, I met two other Hashimoto’s experts: Dr. Alan Christianson and nutritionist Andrea Nakayama, a few weeks later at a health conference in Florida. “Dr. C” as he is affectionately called by his patients, suggested that the three of us create the world’s first ever Hashimoto’s online event.



So we’ve joined forces to make it happen and that's how the Hashimoto's Institute came to be!