We Forgot What's Natural

Dr. Kelly: The symptoms of Graves’ disease, is it a hyper or a hypo function of the thyroid?

Dr. Matt: Yeah, hyperthyroidism. So with Graves’, when the thyroid is overactive, the thought is, well, let’s remove it so it’s gone, and then we’ll reproduce the drugs. We’ll give the person the drugs that it would naturally make so we just give you some sense of normalcy. And for those that aren’t familiar, the thyroid is right in the throat, so to have a surgery to remove an organ from your throat and then be put on drugs for the rest of your life as a 27-year-old, that’s alarming.

Dr. Kelly: Welcome to Hormone Heroes, where I share testimonials from real people who have experienced bio-identical hormone therapy. Men and women share the symptoms they have experienced and the difference proper hormone replacement has made. I’m your host, Dr. Kelly Hopkins, and I have been in the functional medicine space for over 30 years, with a focus on hormones for 20 years. Please keep in mind this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult with your physician or practitioner for medical advice. Let’s get started with today’s guest.

Dr. Matt Delgado is with us today. He is based in Austin, but he grew up in El Paso, Texas. He is a nervous system-focused chiropractor. His work centers on the relationship between stress physiology, nervous system regulation, lifestyle factors, and chronic health symptoms. His interest in this area is deeply personal, because at age 27 he was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, and he was presented with conventional treatment options, including surgery, radioactive iodine, and long-term medication. The condition later went into remission following major lifestyle changes that he made, which is an experience that led him to spend nearly a decade exploring the relationship between nervous system function, stress, sleep, movement, environmental factors, and health. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Stepping Out of the Grave: How to Heal When You’re Tired of Trying, which is scheduled for release in January of 2027. So, welcome, Dr. Matt.

Dr. Matt: Thank you. Thanks for the nice intro as well.

Dr. Kelly: Well, you’ve accomplished a lot, and I do want to mention, you do have a clinic in Austin where you are, where you treat patients on a daily basis. But the focus today, we really want to talk about your Graves’ disease and your treatment. So tell us a little bit about where it all began.

Dr. Matt: Yeah. I think for me, right out of a graduate program, chiropractic school, I don’t know what your experience was like, but the stress of, how ironic, the stress of going through the education for a health program is so real, so extreme I would say too. I did a 3-year accelerated program at Life West in the Bay Area, and I was really burnt out after that, I think like a lot of us are, and I went right into a 75-hour-a-week job, my first associateship, thinking that was a good idea at the time, and it wasn’t.

Dr. Kelly: You’re just young and full of energy.

Dr. Matt: Young and full of energy. I thought I was invincible, like a lot of probably 27-year-olds out there. And 3 months into my job, I remember just really hitting a wall. It was a combination of symptoms at the time, from fatigue, and I had my hair falling out, which was the thing probably that really freaked me out the most, the significance in which my hair was falling out. And then I barely slept at all, and I’d wake up through the night. I was always on such high alert. My gut was always in some level of pain, I would say, and I was just really tense, and I just overall felt like crap. My fatigue got really bad to the point where I tried to ride it out as long as I could, and I’ve never really quit anything in my life. I grew up playing sports. But I remember calling my boss in the middle of a shift, I think it was on a Tuesday afternoon, saying, “I can’t do this anymore.” And we had had conversations. I tried to reduce my hours by a little bit, and it didn’t really work for that clinic, so enough was enough for me, and I ended up hitting my rock bottom, if you will. That was about 10 years ago now.

Dr. Kelly: Well, and for anyone that doesn’t know, chiropractic is a very physical job. You are literally bending over people, wrestling people, whatever your technique is. It is tough to do that 75 to 80 hours a week. That’s awful, actually.

Dr. Matt: Totally, and I think I got used to it physically. I was very physically fit, but the mental component I didn’t really do so well with. It was just a lot, and when you care for people, that’s a lot of people.

Dr. Kelly: Sure, and a lot of stories to listen to and a lot of aches and pains, and so you’re absorbing all that energy as well. So you mentioned you were physically fit. When did the diagnosis of Graves’ disease come, and explain what Graves’ disease is, actually.

Dr. Matt: Yeah, so an autoimmune thyroid diagnosis. Really, it’s more of an immune system problem than anything. The thyroid gets the blame. It’s always the end organ, the part that gets the blame. But it’s this chronic stress response on repeat for so many years, and the downstream effects of that end up oftentimes showing up like the symptoms I had, and then you get these blood labs done. For me, that’s what I had done. Where I was living at the time, it was Omaha, Nebraska, and I saw a functional medicine doctor, and I’m glad that I did. Being a chiropractor, we’re a little more holistic, a little more natural focused, so I didn’t even go the traditional route. It wasn’t really even a question so much for me. So I went into a functional medicine doctor, and I remember getting my blood labs back, and I’m really glad I did, because the traditional labs wouldn’t have shown it, or I wouldn’t have really had a named diagnosis. I would’ve been told, “Your labs are fine,” which I’m sure you probably see patients all the time that say the same thing.

Dr. Kelly: Right.

Dr. Matt: Because my TSH was within a normal range, and with anything thyroid related, that’s typically what most traditional Western medicine practitioners test. And mine was normal.

Dr. Kelly: So TSH is thyroid stimulating hormone. So your physician in Omaha must have gone a much deeper dive in the thyroid, just trying to discover why you were feeling the fatigue and the hair loss and just, you know, dragging.

Dr. Matt: Yeah, totally. And it was a comprehensive metabolic panel too, so you get all the different markers showing up, and you really see how interconnected everything is when the body’s under duress for long periods, because it’s never just one thing, and I think a lot of people can relate to that. My liver enzymes were off, my thyroid markers were off, there were a few deficiencies in some of the micronutrients and the minerals. I mean, I was a mess.

Dr. Kelly: So what lab test did show you that you had Graves’ disease?

Dr. Matt: It’s interesting, because every practitioner has their own. You could put their last name on it. Whatever markers they want to test for, they can test for, right, if you’re not going through traditional insurance. So it was this practice’s protocol, if you will. But there’s a lot of them out there now, and a lot of functional medicine doctors will just do more of a comprehensive panel, and then they’ll look at ratios oftentimes too, instead of just single values.

Dr. Kelly: So TPO antibodies, just for someone that might be wanting to ask their physician for the testing.

Dr. Matt: The antibodies were tested in mine, correct. So I had the thyroid antibodies, reverse T3, reverse T4, and that’s where mine really showed up, was the antibodies and the reverse T3.

Dr. Kelly: And so the symptoms of Graves’ disease, is it a hyper or a hypo function of the thyroid?

Dr. Matt: Yeah, hyperthyroidism. Which is interesting, because looking back in school, I remember learning about the more common versions of things. In school I remember learning, okay, it’s mostly females that get this, and then you see the picture of these females with their eyes popping out of their heads, the bulging eyes, and they’re very frail and thin and lose a bunch of weight, and I didn’t have those symptoms. So I didn’t have your textbook Graves’ symptoms, if you will, and I think that’s where a lot of people are just looking for, like, what’s the word to best describe what I have?

Dr. Kelly: Right. So of course, once the diagnosis was made, tell us what treatment options you were offered.

Dr. Matt: Yeah, so with Graves’, when the thyroid is overactive, the thought is, “Well, let’s remove it so it’s gone, and then we’ll reproduce the drugs. We’ll give the person the drugs that it would naturally make, so we just give you some sense of normalcy.” And for those that aren’t familiar, the thyroid is right in the throat, so to have a surgery to remove an organ from your throat and then be put on drugs for the rest of your life as a 27-year-old, that’s alarming.

Dr. Kelly: Probably at any age.

Dr. Matt: Yes. That’s alarming. So I did not entertain that idea, and I went down just about every natural remedy and protocol and rabbit hole that I could. I stayed up late reading so many books. And in chiropractic school, we didn’t learn about this. I don’t know if you did, but I learned you just refer someone to a medical doctor. But then when they go to the medical doctor, those are the options that you get.

Dr. Kelly: Right. So you decided not to go that direction. Tell us what you did do.

Dr. Matt: Yeah. I spent a lot of time on different protocols for a few months. The first few months, I actually kind of exhausted myself with trying everything that seemed logical, and there were different reps I knew from school, from these supplement companies, that all had a really good explanation. They used beautiful analogies for things. I remember a guy on the phone at one point, he’s like, “If you have a leak in the roof and it keeps ruining this beautiful hardwood floor, you want to repair the roof first without going to the floor.” I was like, “Oh, that makes a lot of sense.” And then he would name, and I don’t even remember at the time what it was, it might’ve been the liver or the gallbladder, and I tried protocols for liver detox, to improve my gallbladder function, to repair leaky gut. At one point I thought I had a parasite also, and that could be the thing causing this, because my symptoms fit. I had some symptoms that you could kind of throw into a lot of these different categories, and I spent so much time, energy, and money on these supplement protocols, and I’d say they helped marginally, but they really didn’t change anything long term.

And that was kind of my turning point, where I just thought, I just need to slow myself down a little bit. I feel worn out. And I don’t know why, but I said I was just going to give myself a year to try a really simple lifestyle, and I moved to the desert of southern New Mexico, Las Cruces, New Mexico, for those that are familiar. And I lived a really simple, natural life for close to a year. I slept basically all day. I’d watch comedy movies. I’d go for walks. I ate really nothing but whole foods. I didn’t really eat a lot of sugar at all. Even fruit, just the low glycemic berries. I stopped drinking alcohol. I stopped drinking coffee for a month, and for people that know me, I’m a huge coffee nerd, so that was probably the hardest part for me, honestly. And then I felt better little by little, and nothing drastic happened through that whole time. It was just the little subtle shifts, and probably 6 months in, I realized, oh shit, I don’t know if I can say that on here.

Dr. Kelly: Sure.

Dr. Matt: Like, I’m getting better. I feel better. This is crazy. The energy. You wake up one day and you realize, I think this is actually working.

Dr. Kelly: Yes. What you described, chiropractic school, or just like medical school or any professional type school like that, you are drinking from a fire hydrant, and the stress level is high. You’ve got to pass all these exams and board exams and all these things, and then you go right into a heavy duty, high energy practice where you’re working 75 to 80 hours a week, and your body just was saying, “Stop. Just give me a minute.” And so how did you manage to survive in the desert? I’m assuming you took a year off of work.

Dr. Matt: So great question. I had $200 to my name when I broke my lease in Omaha, Nebraska, and I had $250,000 worth of debt. So if people are saying that money is the barrier, I don’t think so, as much as it is time, and I can make a good case for that. I lived with a friend, on her couch mostly. She had a guest room, her and her fiance at the time, but I was mostly on the couch, just relaxing, and they were very, very nurturing and were really supportive of my healing, which, thank God I had someone in my corner. And my mom at the time became my biggest advocate, and I’m so grateful for that experience with her. I talked to her on the phone every day, and my mom had Hashimoto’s. So my mom was doing all the gluten-free stuff for years. When I was in high school, I used to think it was so weird, and me and my brothers would make fun of her, and then here I was like, “Oh, well, I’m actually going gluten-free now too, Mom.” And she actually gave me more information, I’d say, than most doctors could, because she had been going to naturopaths for years, and she did all the lifestyle habits that were conducive for healing. So I think I had the right voice next to me with my mom. I think she played a significant role in that, and she helped me out a little bit financially. It’d be like $100 to go get groceries. And I remember, when I’d get in trouble, I’d get Matthew instead of Matt, and she was serious: “Matthew, you will rest and take care of yourself, and just let someone else take care of you for once.”

Dr. Kelly: Yes.

Dr. Matt: So I did.

Dr. Kelly: What a blessing, that friend of yours. Wow. So obviously, removing yourself from stress, but also removing your body from stress, meaning foods you were eating. You had removed processed foods, sugar, caffeine. So the gut is able to heal. And if your leaky gut’s healed, then antigens running around in your bloodstream aren’t going to be attacking your thyroid anymore, causing those autoimmune issues. So you really got the key to the kingdom there, didn’t you?

Dr. Matt: Yeah, and I didn’t understand it so much at the time. I didn’t have as much information about the mechanisms and why and how, and it took about a decade, like you said in the intro there, to really figure out how and why. And looking back, when you talk about food even, what I did really well that I didn’t measure at the time was really managing my blood sugar. That’s something that I’ve come to understand now through wearing a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, on my arm regularly. That’s so key for health, and when we control that, we’re literally curbing inflammation and oxidative stress and aging. You want to be younger, wear a glucose monitor. You want to have less inflammation, wear a glucose monitor. It’s $40, and you get 2 weeks worth of data.

Dr. Kelly: What brand do you like?

Dr. Matt: I like Lingo. I’ve tried a few. I had a few tech issues with some of the other ones, but Lingo has never really steered me wrong. And an interesting story, actually. Even last year, I wore a CGM for the first time when they became over the counter and readily available for pretty cheap, and I actually had pre-diabetic blood sugar levels on my fasting glucose. They were right around 100 when I would wake up, and my swings and my glucose curves were kind of all over the place. I was spiking and crashing, and I didn’t even realize it. And it’s come to be understood that over 90% of our country has metabolic dysfunction. So I’m a huge proponent for, if you can measure it, you can manage it. Just take a look.

Dr. Kelly: So let’s talk about that for a second. When you were learning about yourself and how different foods and drinks affected your blood sugar, give us an example of what you were able to remove.

Dr. Matt: Yeah, so carbohydrates was the key thing that I didn’t really realize the amount of, and I’m sure this is helpful for people who are in a similar position. Eating out, carbohydrates are cheap, so the ratio of carbohydrates to proteins to fats, you get mostly carbs when you’re eating out because they’re cheap. When you cook at home, I’ve really changed the ratio, so it was mostly healthy proteins and healthy fats, and I had far less carbohydrates than the standard American diet. And then fiber also. A lot of people severely under-eat fiber.

Dr. Kelly: So just give us a quick example of a typical meal that you eat.

Dr. Matt: Now or then? Let me go back to then, even, because I think this would fascinate people a little bit. For breakfast, I’d eat non-breakfast foods. At the very beginning, I was on more of, if you had to umbrella it, you’d probably put it in more of a paleo diet or an autoimmune paleo diet. For a while, I wasn’t even eating eggs, for like a month. But people get on these protocols, and they’re on them for years. The protocols are brilliant, but they’re designed to be short-term. They’re not designed typically for us to be on them forever. So I would make ground turkey and cooked vegetables for breakfast. No sauce, just salt and pepper. That was my breakfast back then. And you could repeat that meal throughout the day as well. I would just change my vegetables and change my proteins. I had a lot of meats and veggies, and then my carbs came from sweet potatoes or squash or some of the starchy vegetables.

Dr. Kelly: So it’s so simple, and it’s so hard for people to do.

Dr. Matt: I know. What is it, like Warren Buffett with investing, he says the same: “It’s simple. It’s not easy.” And the whole, same conditions I put my body in, the whole premise of this that I’ve come to understand is that the body’s intelligent. It’s more like a plant than a car. Rather than all the protocols that were repairing all the different organs, I went to the root system of the body, which I would name the central nervous system, and all of those conditions that I named, sleep, stress management, movement, and reducing toxins, they all tie back to that one system, and when you allow that to heal for long enough, it’s just like that plant. You give it the right conditions, and it’s designed to come back to life.

Dr. Kelly: That is so true. I like the idea of thinking of ourselves as plants rather than a complicated piece of machinery.

Dr. Matt: Well, we’re not fragile.

Dr. Kelly: Right. Well, tell us a little bit about your four core elements.

Dr. Matt: Yeah. So the four I just named. Sleep is one of them, and I could go rabbit hole on all of them. I won’t for you, but I’ll give a little tidbit on each so people can better understand, because I think we’ve actually forgotten what’s natural. With the plant, we know: give it sunlight, give it water. But with the human body, if I say sleep, if I say stress, if I say movement, and if I say toxins, we’re like, okay, I don’t really know what that means. So with sleep, our biology requires 7 hours, period. Ideal is 8. We can make a case for “I feel fine,” and again, that’s the brilliance of how adaptable we are, but the body doesn’t care. Anything less than 7 hours creates this sympathetic dominance, the stress mode, that fight or flight. And that’s your start to just about anything right there. You keep in that mode for long enough, boom. For me, it’s Graves’. For someone else, it’s another autoimmune, or a hormone imbalance, or gut issues, or pain, or you name it.

And then stress, I think, is probably the single hardest for people to conceptualize, because when we talk about stress, we really mean a physiologic stress response, not just emotions. And emotionally, if something feels rewarding to us, I’ll use myself as an example: my favorite way to insult my nervous system is to overschedule my day and to work, because I love it. I find it so rewarding.

Dr. Kelly: Wow. What a way to put that. It’s whatever gets those dopamine receptors going for us, and I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it like that.

Dr. Matt: Well, it pulls from the same account, whether it’s work stress or the focus. I’d put performance as an interchangeable word with stress, for people to better understand it. When we’re in performance mode, and performance doesn’t have a negative connotation, so we’re willing to talk about that more. Being overscheduled or overstimulated, performing, always being on. We are not designed to always be in that. That is not natural.

Dr. Kelly: That’s so true.

Dr. Matt: Just like the plant can be in a windstorm. That’s okay. It’s not fragile. But if you leave it there forever, it’s going to really start to struggle. It’s not designed to be in that forever.

Dr. Kelly: Okay, so sleep is important, and like you said, the rabbit hole on sleep could go on forever, because that is a big issue even in our clinics. People will come in, and they’re unable to sleep. So we have to work through all the things.

Dr. Matt: Well, and those two right there, sleep and stress, that’s hard for a lot of people. This is where they sometimes need some support, because any less than 7 hours creates this sympathetic dominance, this fight or flight. So to put it simply, less than ideal sleep creates more stress. But then more stress creates worse sleep. So this little loop starts to show up, and you can see how this could perpetuate and last for years.

Dr. Kelly: So where does movement fit in?

Dr. Matt: This is my favorite to break that loop. Movement helps build something called sleep pressure. Think of a kid, if anyone has kids listening to this: you take them to the park, you let them play, and then they fall asleep. Same thing for us as adults. We need to be worn out just like a child at the park. And it’s a lot more simple than we’d think. It’s not a crazy workout in a gym. I’m more of an advocate for foundational movement, like walking. We recommend people track their steps as just a good indicator of success for movement, and the regularity of movement. We’re meant to move regularly, and get up and move around. It’s where our brain gets more blood supply. We’re designed to move. Everything is really driven based on this movement. Even our autonomics, and I don’t want to get too nerdy, but the background system that’s running the show, the nervous system, that runs off movement. The vestibular system and the autonomics are so connected, and that runs off movement. That’s formed through movement in the mother’s womb. That’s before any of our senses. The first thing that even forms is this vestibular apparatus. So we’re designed to move.

And to give a milestone of what’s natural: not too long ago in time, as humans, we would move anywhere from maybe 15,000 to 20,000 steps a day as a species. Now, 3,000 is the average.

Dr. Kelly: Right. Yeah, unfortunately.

Dr. Matt: And I’m no saint. Some days, yesterday I was at 4,000. I was exhausted, and I just didn’t want to do it. So it’s figuring out ways to take these little micro walks, a little 1,000 here, 2,000 there, and that tends to be so much better than these all or nothing swings.

Dr. Kelly: And they say sitting is the new smoking.

Dr. Matt: Yes, and I’d say more correct would be, lack of regular movement is the new smoking. Because even if you’re standing all day at a standing desk, it’s the same thing. You don’t get the movement to really drive all this ideal optimal function that we were just talking about. So a standing desk will kill you just as much as the sitting, I’d say. It’s a little better.

Dr. Kelly: I worked with a guy once that had a treadmill desk. And I tried it. To me it was distracting, but I guess you could get used to it.

Dr. Matt: Yeah, I agree. I don’t have one, but I like the idea.

Dr. Kelly: And then last is avoiding harmful exposures. Tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. Matt: I think the world has become probably more toxic than it ever has. There’s a food documentary my friends just made, Breaking Big Food. That’s a really good one. Patrick and Ashley, shout out to them. They have a supplement company also in Scottsdale, Jigsaw Health. It’s on Apple TV and Prime, this documentary. And they do a good job of just showing how broken this food system is. They have Casey Means, who’s a big name on the policy side of things as it relates to big food or big tobacco. And it kind of pisses you off by the end, rightfully so. You see how broken the system is, and how there’s a lot of people profiting off of a sick system. Whether it’s the ingredients that are sprayed on, the chemicals like glyphosate sprayed on our crops, or just the additives in just about anything. So when we talked about whole foods earlier, I think that’s important.

But then also controlling blood sugar, because I would argue, and I haven’t heard many other people talk about this so much, and I hope more do, that is a toxic internal state. This blood sugar that’s out of balance, it’s alarmingly bad, and that’s why the body will even, thank you, body, what a smart design, get rid of this excess glucose by storing it, whether it’s in the liver or the muscles, which don’t have much room for it, so then it stores it as fat. What a brilliant design to get rid of a toxic state. And once again, the continuous glucose monitor. You like Lingo, I’ll just do a little reminder for that.

And I think a caveat, one thing I would love to say while we’re here. I was talking to a patient in my office yesterday, actually, that had been on a protocol for 10 years, and this pendant, from a holistic doctor, was supposed to block all these pathogens and all these chemtrails and things. While I think there’s a lot of validity in that, and I’m not saying that’s wrong whatsoever, sometimes we get caught up in so much defense that we forget the intelligence within, this natural defense that’s built in. As long as that immune system’s functioning optimally, and that’s the whole point of the plant, right? We don’t obsess about putting a plant in a bubble because of all these new pathogens it may be exposed to in the air. As long as that plant’s resilient and healthy, it’s good.

Dr. Kelly: That’s so true. So I want to get back to your website, which is drmattdelgado.com.

Dr. Matt: Yeah. D-R-M-A-T-T-D-E-L-G-A-D-O dot com.

Dr. Kelly: And if you go to Dr. Matt’s website, you can learn more about him and his story, but also about the book that’s coming out. Tell us the focus of the book.

Dr. Matt: This is it. We’ve been talking about it. The body’s more like a plant than a car. You put it in the right conditions long enough and it heals, and I think it’ll give a lot of people some understanding as to why certain things haven’t worked for them. I talk about my own story. I am totally fine with being vulnerable and just showing my humanness, because I’ve found that we all have something. If someone’s telling you they don’t, they’re lying. And I’m really honest with people. It’s hard. It’s not easy. But I would argue it is far more simple than what we’re making it. I think we’re really complicating health. And I know you have a hormones podcast, so one of the things that I like to say to people is that these hormones don’t misbehave out of nowhere. They’re actually obeying the command center, which is the central nervous system. So I think a lot of people will really be able to tie all this together by reading this book, and to finally have some agency and take their power back, so that they don’t have to be propped up for the rest of their life on some of these protocols or medications or supplements.

Dr. Kelly: Yeah, I think that’s beautifully put. So you can purchase Stepping Out of the Grave on your website, drmattdelgado.com. Is there any other place it will be available?

Dr. Matt: I’ve got a waitlist right now. So it’s a waitlist right now. It’ll be out in January. I’ll have a pre-order this fall, and then it’ll be on Amazon for people. I’m going to do an audiobook also. I get a little animated, and sometimes, sorry, I drop a swear word here or there.

Dr. Kelly: I like a swear word every now and then.

Dr. Matt: Yeah, me too. It means something to me. I give a crap about it. I’m not making it up.

Dr. Kelly: Right. Well, before I let you go, Dr. Delgado, so you can get to clinic, do you have any stories from any of your patients you’d like to share?

Dr. Matt: Yeah, there’s one that was just recent, and I’m glad you asked, because I’m going to bring a hormone one in, and I think it’s a really brilliant way to show the interconnectedness of everything in the body, similar to a plant. You don’t prop all the branches up. You go to the root system. So she came in, and we see probably 50% like this, that are more traditional chiropractic cases that haven’t gotten success, more pain-focused, and then 50% tend to be more autoimmune or hormone or digestive. But it all ties back to the same system, so either way, they’re getting help, and it doesn’t really change what we do.

This woman came in with both of her feet just killing her, in a lot of pain, and she threw out multiple diagnoses, tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and then her shoulders as well. And she was going to a myofascial release chain where they would do treatment on one of her shoulders, then the other one for a few visits, then one of the feet, then the other foot. So treating the body like a car. And it was happening for years, and she spent literally thousands of dollars on this. So she came into my clinic looking for a path out of that. Pretty quickly, the pain went away. She was amazed. She was dumbfounded. It was maybe 6, 7 sessions in, and the pain is basically gone. I think she said 80% better at that point, and she was amazed. She could walk normal again.

And then the thing that she told me that she was shocked about, that she didn’t realize was even connected or related, was her hot flashes went away, and they haven’t come back. Twenty hot flashes a day, she’d say, that she would get, and again, she had tried, like, the kitchen sink she had thrown at it. And they went away. And it really ties back to creating less stress in this central nervous system, which is what we do in my office. We quantify that. Our adjustments are focused on that, on changing the neurological system, not necessarily the downstream things like the muscles and the joints and the tendons and the ligaments. And the body’s designed to heal. So often it’s really cool when people tell us, “I’m coming off my drugs for this or for that, and I didn’t even know it was related to this at all.”

Dr. Kelly: Wow, what a story. And it just goes to show you how much the body has memory and holds trauma. If the nervous system is healthier, the adrenals can kick in and help with hormone levels, even if the ovaries have gone kaput, because they do. We’re such a beautiful, complex being, but there’s so much good that can be done just by following your core principles.

Dr. Matt: We’re designed to heal, and it gives us our power back. It gives us agency all of a sudden, so that we’re not outsourcing all of our power to our doctors. And I have a guide that’s on my website, on my clinic’s website. We give these 4 things and teach people how to see us less before they ever even see us. It was the same design that I used to reverse an autoimmune diagnosis, and it’s pretty much the same for everyone. There are little variations, and there’s definitely a lot of strategy that goes into it, but it’s the taste of it. It’s the starting place to getting your power back.

Dr. Kelly: Yeah. Well, I see University of Texas stuff on your wall. Are you a UT fan?

Dr. Matt: I am a UT fan. That’s a helmet behind me here. A lot of the UT football players for years I’ve had the privilege to care for. And the basketball right back here is from the Texas women’s basketball team. A bunch of them wrote something nice on there for me. So it’s a little personal keepsake, a reminder of the impact that you get to play in people’s lives. Very rewarding.

Dr. Kelly: Yes, and being in Austin, that’s perfect. Well, Dr. Matt, thank you so much for your time today and for your messaging. It’s been a different sort of message that people don’t necessarily hear that much, and the focus on the central nervous system is something we haven’t talked a lot about on the podcast. So I think that was an amazing, helpful topic.

Dr. Matt: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Kelly: Thanks for listening to Hormone Heroes. Take a moment to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss the next episode. While you are there, help us spread the word by leaving a rating and a review. If you would like to share your bioidentical hormone story or need help finding a physician in your area, please email us at drkelly@hormoneheroes.org.