Romm Aviva - The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution: A Proven 4-Week Program to Rescue Your Metabolism, Hormones, Mind Mood

To all women who have felt unseen and unheard,
you are not invisible and you are not alone.
To all who have been told Its all in your head, it is not.
And to all who have felt like youve been
sleeping for too long, rise and shine.
Lets move mountains together.

When sleeping women wake, mountains move.

C HINESE PROVERB

Contents

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive, and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

M AYA A NGELOU

I DIDN T GO INTO MEDICINE thinking Id specialize in womens adrenal or thyroid function. I knew a great deal about the importance of these glands in womens health, but did not anticipate that they would play a central role in my medical practice. However, the unexplained symptoms my patients were experiencing, and the difficulties theyd experienced trying to get answers about their symptoms and conditions, brought the adrenals and thyroid to the center of my attention.

While I was seeing women with all of the concerns an integrative family doctor expects, from weight problems to headaches, high cholesterol to hormonal imbalances, I found that almost all of my patients had clusters of symptoms in common that werent technically relatedat least according to the way conventional medicine works. They were worrisome symptoms, too, not only to them, but also to me, because I knew that many of them were signs of chronic inflammation that heralded potentially more serious chronic disease in their future. Some had already progressed to those chronic diseases.

More than 80 percent were fatigued. Sometimes it was minor, causing them to rely on caffeine and sugar to get them through the day, but many were struggling with severe exhaustion, which affected their daily functioning and their ability to care for their families, perform at work, and enjoy their lives. The vast majority werent sleeping wellsome were unable to fall asleep, others were waking up in the night, and many woke in the morning wanting to pull the covers back over their heads because they were still exhausted. Most needed a coffee or two to get their day going. About a third were taking, or had recently been prescribed, a medication for depression, anxiety, or sleepor all three.

Memory and concentration problems were common, even in women as young as their twenties, leading quite a few to express concerns about early dementia. Not only were weight and body image a problem, but so were signs of metabolic syndrome, a serious condition of prediabetes, high cholesterol, belly fat, and high blood pressure, even in women in their thirties and forties. Digestive troubles including constipation, reflux, bloating, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) were typical.

Most shocking was the number of women I was seeing with autoimmune conditions. Previously considered rare, at least one in eight of my patients came to me with at least one autoimmune condition, whether rheumatoid arthritis, Sjgrens syndrome, Crohns disease, psoriasis, celiac disease, or, most commonly, Hashimotos thyroiditis.

Almost all of my patients were perpetually overwhelmed, with a relentless sense of stress and dread over their never-ending to-do list of personal, professional, and family responsibilities, unable to carve out time for self-care, or even to prepare and eat regular meals. My patients were seeking my care for what is now increasingly called the Western clustera twenty-first-century set of chronic symptoms and frighteningly common medical conditions that in the past decade has become the new normal. Overall, my patients felt sick, tired, frazzled, and foggy, and they didnt know why. Over and over I heard patients say, Dr. Romm, I just want to feel like myself again.

Woman after woman came to me after having been seen by sometimes as many as five or more physicians and specialists who had no answers for them other than what could be written on a prescription padoften a recommendation for an antidepressantleaving them feeling alone, confused, unheard, and without solutions to the very real symptoms that were impacting the quality of their lives.

This book began in response to the needs of these women for a deeper understanding of what was going on with their health, and a much-needed way of preventing and reversing this Western cluster. The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution brings you the same plan that I developed for the women in my practice and that I use daily. I bring it to you because you also deserve to have the answers you need to feel at home in your body. This program is designed to reverse the symptoms that are keeping you from feeling your best, reversing the symptom overload that is keeping you from feeling your best and helping you get from depleted to replenished.

The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution focuses on two systemsthe adrenal and thyroid glandsthat are often the most overdriven and overwhelmed in a womans body. The overwhelm of these important organs is the result of multiple influences on your health that youll soon understand and learn to change.

Why a revolution? Because its about time for a change in womens health care, and the medical profession needs to sit up and listen to what were saying. Not only are women suffering needlessly, but too many are being dismissed, ignored, and disrespected. Womens lives are at stake, and it does not have to be this way. It should not be this way. This book offers a revolutionary new way to think about your health: its that you can live energized and symptom-free, instead of feeling frustrated with, or even betrayed by, your body. And it puts the tools you need to take back your health right into your hands. Thats revolutionary.

The solution youre about to discover will strengthen and balance multiple systems in your body by healing the root imbalances that are impacting you the most. It will show you how to make simple, powerful, and sustainable food and lifestyle changes that ease toxic multisystem overload and bring you into a symptom-free life with renewed energy. Ive helped thousands of women transform their health and lives, and Id love to help you, too.

WOMEN NOT SEEN, NOT HEARD

In medical school, I was taught to diagnose and treat an incredibly long list of diseases. I studied under some of the worlds most brilliant and influential doctors at one of the most prestigious medical institutions. Yet somehow, the top concerns leading women to seek medical carefatigue, chronic overwhelm, problems with memory and focus, hormonal imbalances, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and stubborn weightwere not being addressed in our medical education, beyond teaching us what drugs might relieve the symptoms. No connection was made between these various symptoms and their causes, other than to say it was genetic, or all in the patients head, and there was no discussion about why increasing numbers of women were suffering from these seemingly disparate symptoms. Like you perhaps are, my patients were among the tens of millions of women struggling with a complex array of confusing symptoms. Many had been dismissed with medically unexplained symptoms or treated as difficult patients.

Let me introduce you to just a few of the women Ive worked with whose symptoms had been dismissed or overlooked by their doctors, and for whom my program has made a world of difference.

Bethany: Running on Empty and Paying the Price

Bethany, at forty-seven, was so tired that she was pumping herself up with coffee and sugary snacks all day to keep going. By 4:00 P . M . she was already longing for the moment when she could get her kids into bed and crash for the night. Diagnosed with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and prediabeteswhich together are called metabolic syndromeshe was at high risk for heart disease, and her primary care doctor recommended that she start a cholesterol-lowering (statin) drug. She didnt want to, but she was worried because even after doing a restrictive detox program, and diligently going to a spin class five mornings a week, she hadnt been able to lose more than a few of the thirty-five extra pounds shed put on after her fourth child was born five years before. Her TSHan important thyroid labhad doubled in the past year, indicating that she had hypothyroidism, but her doctor had assured her that her thyroid was normal. Hed chalked up her symptoms to fatigue from being a busy mom.