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2 Limits of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The author, Brad Shook has made their best effort to produce a high quality and informative reference. The author makes no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness or completeness of the contents of this program. They accept no liability of any kind for any losses or damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly, from using the information contained in this book. This book is not intended for use as a source of any legal or medical advice. The publisher wants to stress that the information contained herein may be subject to varying international, federal, state and/or local laws or regulations. The purchaser or reader of this publication assumes responsibility for the use of these materials and information. All information is intended for your general knowledge only and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. You should seek prompt medical care for any specific health issues and consult your physician before starting a new diet, supplement, exercise or health program. Affiliate Disclosure: I am grateful to be of service and bring you this information at a low cost. In order to do this, please note that when you click links and purchase items, in most (not all) cases I will receive a commission. Your support in purchasing through these links enables me to keep my program and guidebook prices ridiculously low and empowers more people worldwide to become better educated and be their own advocates. Thank you for your support!

3 Page1 Table of Contents: Page 2 Page 6 Page 8 Page 12 Page 15 Page 18 Page 28 Page 28 Page 29 Introduction and Overview Step #1 Answering the most important question What is the mechanism causing your symptoms? Step #2 Do you have enough blood flow to have healthy hair? Step #3 - Are you absorbing your nutrients? (Improving Digestion) STEP #4 Are you getting enough essential vitamins and minerals? STEP #5 Blood Sugar, Cortisol and Sex Hormones! STEP #6 Are your medications contributing to hair loss? STEP #7 Are you losing your hair due to an autoimmune condition against your hair follicles? What to do next.

4 Page2 Welcome my guidebook, How Can I Prevent Hair Loss with Hashimoto s?! This guidebook is designed to help you better understand many of the causes of hair loss that are seen with Hashimoto s and thyroid problems, so that you can be better informed of some of the possible causes, and begin the journey to take your health back. Let me start by sharing with you who this guidebook is not for It is not for someone looking for a quick fix, a potion, lotion or pill to regrow, or prevent hair loss. Why you ask? Because hair loss, especially hair loss associated with thyroid dysfunction is not a quick fix. The causes are typically due to several problems that are happening at the same time. Hair loss is the symptom, not the cause. You have to investigate the drivers of your hair loss, and that is what I am going to share with you in this guidebook. With that said, let me tell you who this book is for This guidebook is for someone that wants to become empowered, be their own health advocate and take personal responsibility for their healing. Look, I will make this as simple as possible without watering it down, but this guide isn t just about a biotin deficiency, or a thyroid hormone deficiency. That s right! I said hair loss is NOT just about a thyroid hormone deficiency, you know why? Because on a DAILY basis I see women that are unknowingly taking too much thyroid hormone and it is making their thyroid related symptoms worse!

5 Page3 Guess what the top two complaints are for those women that are taking too much thyroid hormone? 1) Thinning Hair 2) Can t Lose Weight You know why these women are the ones that I see taking too much thyroid hormone? Because these two groups of women are desperate! They want help, they don t want to lose their hair, or for it to thin, and they desperately want to lose weight but nothing is working! So these women go to their doctor and they beg for help. They go to their doctor, and the ONLY tool their doctor has is thyroid hormone, so guess what they get? MORE thyroid hormone, because they are trying to help, but that is all they have to offer. So being the compassionate and caring doctor, PA or NP (I sincerely mean that, they are trying to help), they do the only thing they can, they try to change your thyroid medication, or increase the dose anything to help you. What results from your desperation, and your health care providers desire to help you, is that you end up being over medicated, and feeling worse! This is just one possibility of many potential causes contributing to your hair loss. So what are you to do? You try to identify the biochemical mechanism (cause) that is resulting in your hair loss so that you can do something about the problem, not treat symptoms! Isn t that a novel idea really look into the causes! Please excuse my sarcasm, but I ve seen far too many people suffer because the only thing being done is treatment of symptoms!

6 Page4 I have a problem with our healthcare systems approach to most chronic health conditions, especially thyroid conditions, because frankly, it s unacceptable. Healthcare providers mean well, but they are in a broken system. The US healthcare system is primarily based on insurance reimbursement and matching a medication to a pharmaceutical. There is a time and place for everything, but many chronic health conditions are being medicated to manage symptoms, and that is valuable and noble, but wouldn t it be nice to just be healthy? The current healthcare system doesn t offer an approach to help your maximize your health, because further investigation of the causes of your problems are considered not medically necessary. Medical Necessity is a term used to define what an insurance company will pay for or not. Medical necessity is determined by best practice guidelines, which are basically guides that tell doctors what they should order and do based on a patient s condition, symptoms or presentation. If a test is not part of a best practice guideline (and all insurance companies have different best practice guidelines), then it is NOT medically necessary. If it s not medically necessary then your insurance company will not pay for it. If your doctor orders a test that is considered not medically necessary, and your insurance company does pay for it (which they usually will), when the doctor s notes are evaluated by the insurance company for medical necessity, the insurance company will ask for the money back, because the test that was ordered did not follow best practice guidelines, and therefore is not medically necessary. This is just one of the reasons your doctor will NOT order extra tests for you. Your doctor s are stressed out, and do not have training or understand why they should order the tests you are requesting in the first place. This is why your doctors are often agitated by your request for additional testing. I m not justifying it, I m just telling you like it is. The system is broken.

7 Page5 So now that you have some perspective, let s dig in and let me walk you through my perspective on hair loss. The most important thing to realize is that there are reasons other than hypothyroidism that can cause hair loss. Your thyroid is a major factor, and one that needs to be investigated in detail, far beyond the typical work-up that is done, to make sure that your thyroid hormone physiology is as optimal as possible. Notice I said thyroid hormone physiology and not thyroid hormone levels. Why would I say thyroid physiology and not thyroid levels? Because you can have normal hormone levels and still not be able to use the thyroid hormone that is circulating in your blood stream! Do you know if the thyroid hormone you have in your blood stream can actually get into and be used by your cells? This is something that has to be considered! This is a complex topic, but I m going to break it down and try to make it easier to understand so that you can begin taking your health back (and hopefully improve your hair). Let s take this in a step by step, topic by topic approach so that you can be as organized and methodical as possible when working through some of the potential causes of your hair loss.

8 Page6 Let s begin by covering the basics. Step #1 Answering the most important question What is the mechanism causing your symptoms? What do I mean by that? I mean that if you don t know the biochemical mechanism causing your symptoms of hair loss, then ALL YOU ARE DOING IS TREATING SYMPTOMS! You have to know what is happening with your thyroid physiology and OTHER biochemical functions to best improve your hair health, or you are just treating symptoms! If you don t get the testing done, THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW! Is that what you want? To treat the symptoms? I cannot emphasize this first step enough. It is the most important thing that you have to do if you are serious about improving your health! If you haven t seen my presentation on how your thyroid hormone is made and used, and how it breaks down, then you MUST start here I promise it will open a whole new world to you if you haven t seen it. Here is the link:

9 Page7 If you don t have a copy of my guidebooks The 9 Tests Required to Understand Your Thyroid, and 29 Non-Thyroid Labs You Need That No one Has Ordered, and their associated video walk-through programs, then I highly suggest you get them (for a very small fee, just like this guide), because they are one of the best ways to better understand your labs. You can get the guidebooks here. Remember, every cell in your body requires thyroid hormone. Your hair follicles require T4 and T3 to function, so your thyroid physiology has to be optimal or you will have trouble with the health of your hair. If you watch my video on the previous page, and use the lab guidebooks I mentioned above to compare your labs to the values I use, that s a great start. Some people need professional guidance, or they are just tired of being tired and want someone to help guide them investigate their problems so that they can save time and money. If you want assistance, all you need to do is request help here. Let s move on to step #2.

10 Page8 Step #2 Improve blood flow! (This is a biggie!) Are your hands, feet and the tip of your nose cold? Before you read further, why do you think I am mentioning cold extremities? If you can t get blood to your extremities (your hands, feet and the tip of your nose are extremities) then you will also have problems getting blood to your scalp! The reason that improving blood flow is number two is because it doesn t matter what vitamins and minerals you take, what test results show that you are deficient in, if you can t get blood to the hair follicle, then you can t get nutrients there either, and your hair will suffer! The lack of blood flow to the scalp is the #1 missed cause of hair loss in people with thyroid problems that is not being talked about or addressed. Most people, even most of the thyroid experts don t realize that this is a huge problem, and a mechanism that has to be addressed if you are going to improve hair loss. So why do people that are hypothyroid have decreased blood flow anyway? There are a few mechanism/causes for decreased blood flow in hypothyroidism and Hashimoto s. We have to talk about Hashimoto s too, because there is research indicating that up to 90% of all hypothyroid cases are because of Hashimoto s. Hashimoto s is such a big problem, that in my office if you are hypothyroid, you are considered autoimmune until proven otherwise. Autoimmunity brings with it, its own unique causes of decreased blood flow, so let s dig into these problems. 1) Being hypothyroid causes decreased blood flow because T4 and T3 deficiency will result in decreased heart rate, reducing your circulation. So you have to have normal levels of thyroid hormone, and you have to be able to deliver and use the hormone that is in your circulation. If you don t understand this, then you need to get my guidebooks (9 Tests and 29 Non- Thyroid Labs) on understanding your labs.

11 Page9 2) Autoimmunity (Hashimoto s, Graves and ANY autoimmune condition) causes decreased circulation. This occurs because autoimmunity stimulates your Nitric Oxide Synthase system (NOS). Hang with me, I ll make it easy to understand. The NOS system has 3 parts (they are called isomers): 1) Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase (inos) is involved in immune responses, and we don t want it over stimulated! a. During an autoimmune attack inos is stimulated, causing tissue destruction (this is bad!) 2) Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase (enos) involved in blood flow! a. During an autoimmune attack enos is decreased, causing a decrease in blood flow! (This is exactly what you do not want if you are trying to improve your hair growth.) 3) Neuronal Nitric Oxide Synthase (nnos) helps protect neurons (nerve cells, this is good!) a. During an autoimmune attack nnos is decreased! We don t want to decrease our ability to protect our nerve cells, so we don t want this to decrease! When you have an autoimmune attack here is what happens to these systems: - inos increases causing more tissue destruction - enos decreases resulting in decreased circulation to peripheral tissues - nnos decreases resulting in less neuron (nerve cell) protection As you can see, decreased enos is not good if you are concerned about circulation! So what do you do? For one thing, let me tell you what you should absolutely NOT DO! Do not take Arginine to increased blood flow! You will see this all over the internet Arginine increases circulation, and all kinds of claims touting its benefits but let me tell you something. If you are autoimmune, taking arginine could be like setting off a bomb in your body!

12 Page10 Let me explain Taking arginine stimulates ALL of the NOS systems! If you look back on the previous page, is that what you want to do? Do you want to stimulate inos? Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase? The one that increases tissues destruction and inflammation? The one associated with an immune response? If I haven t spoon fed you the answer well enough yet, let me tell you, the answer is a resounding NO! Taking arginine will stimulate all of these systems. If you stimulate the inos system you will be pushing increased tissue destruction and inflammation! I have seen this happen to people clinically, and guess what? This is the mechanism that I believe triggered my psoriasis taking arginine! Really! In 2004 I was working out every day, and focused on bodybuilding. If you know anything about the body building world, you know that supplementing with arginine has been around for years. Bodybuilders found that by taking arginine they could perform better, recover fast AND be more vascular! What does be more vascular mean? It means they had more veins showing. Yeah, I m sure a lot of you think that is gross, but in bodybuilding it is associated with less fat and more muscular definition. So being the young and dumb college student I was, I decided to go to the vitamin store and load up on all kinds of stuff to help me get stronger and increase the size of my muscles. This was a big mistake

13 Page11 Soon after I started taking a very popular bodybuilding pre-workout supplement, I developed psoriasis. This stuff had all kinds of chemicals, food coloring and stimulants, and it was loaded with arginine! It was a bomb that I believe triggered my autoimmunity, I am convinced of it. Take home message, I DO NOT RECOMMEND ARGININE TO HELP YOUR BLOOD FLOW!!! So here is how I address blood flow: 1) Identify and address WHY you have decreased blood flow. Look, if you don t do this you are wasting time, money, and likely only treating symptoms. As you can see, this is a complex problem it could be any part of your thyroid physiology breaking down, it could be autoimmunity and inflammation. 2) One great way to increase enos (blood flow) is exercise. Now you have to be VERY careful when exercising if you are hypothyroid and/or autoimmune. It is very, very easy to over train and cause a stress response. The rule of thumb is, you should feel energized after your workout, not wiped out. If you are completely exhausted after your workout, you have done too much. Most of my patients and clients DO NOT exercise at all for 6 to 12 weeks, or until it is appropriate for them to push their metabolism. Bottom line, blood flow is critical to the health of your hair. If blood flow is playing a role in your hair loss, then you have to identify the problem so that you can accurately support the biochemistry that is breaking down.

14 Page12 Step #3 - Are you absorbing your nutrients? (Improving Digestion) The absorption of vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) are absolutely critical for healthy hair growth. Vitamins, minerals and macronutrients are absorbed by your body in the small intestine. The small intestine is between your stomach and large intestine. Optimal food and nutrient absorption are affected by several key things including: - Stomach Acid (you have to have enough, and most people, especially those with heartburn don t!) o In cases where appropriate, I may use Betaine HCL with Pepsin to increase stomach acidity. - Digestive Enzymes - The release of digestive enzymes from the gallbladder and pancreas are critical to proper digestion and absorption. o In cases where appropriate I may use digestive enzymes that are free of gluten, soy, dairy and eggs. - A healthy small intestinal wall (inflammation and autoimmunity can wreak havoc on your gut wall and its ability to absorb nutrients) o In similar cases I may test for food sensitivities (IgG and IgA) and get a fecal cytology profile to check for gut and immune infections and triggers. I would address those food sensitivities and stool infections (bacteria, yeast, parasites) and begin a diet and temporary nutritional protocol to support healing of the gut. - Vagus Nerve Function - Inadequate vagal stimulation (brain stimulation of your digestive tract via the Vagus nerve) is essential to ALL GI tract functions. If you are going to have proper digestion and absorption of your food, then you absolutely must have healthy vagal stimulation. o In similar cases I would address inflammation, autoimmunity and begin stimulating the Vagus nerve with exercises to try and establish better vagal activation of the gut. - Gut Bacteria - Your gut bacteria balance is critical. Many people have dysbiosis, or a gut bacteria imbalance causing chronic inflammation, leaky gut and problems with absorption.

15 Page13 o Some cases of gut bacterial imbalance are true bacterial infections, and others are imbalances where healthy bacteria is under or overgrown. I would consider killing bacteria overgrowth and possible using a high potency probiotic in combination with dietary changes. - Parasites - GI tract parasites are a real thing that I see in my patients on a regular basis. Parasites can cause inflammation, chronic immune system stimulation, poor absorption and a number of other health problems. o In similar cases I would take an approach to kill the parasites. This is unique to each parasite. - Yeast yeast overgrowth is a common infection of the GI tract that can cause problems similar to parasites and bacteria. o In similar cases I may start someone on an anti-candida diet and supplementation protocol to kill the yeast. - Inflammatory Bowel Conditions - If you have an inflammatory bowel conditions like Crohn s Disease, or if you have Celiac Disease, then nutrient absorption is going to be a major problem. In these cases, you absolutely need testing to identify potential drivers of your autoimmune condition. o In similar cases I would identify as many of the drivers of the autoimmunity as possible through testing, remove them, and support the body with vitamins and minerals as well as a lifestyle program to try and dampen autoimmunity. If you are having these problems you could try trial and error with supplements and diet, but most of the cases that I see require testing to determine what is happening so that the appropriate plan can be determined to help improve the person s health. I ve seen to many people spend a lot of extra time and money going from diet to diet, supplement to supplement, only to become more and more frustrated. My best recommendation is to do some testing and start investigating why you are having these problems. If you are going to try and figure these things out yourself, make sure you take detailed notes of what you are doing so that you can better track what works, and what doesn t. There are a lot of variables to consider, so you have to be extremely organized and patient if you are going to try and do this yourself.

16 Page14 When it comes to improving digestion, the most common problem I see is low stomach acidity. That s right, even if you have heartburn, you likely don t have enough stomach acid, and that is what is causing your heart burn! Watch this video where I explain how low stomach acid causes heart burn: Rather than taking a lot of supplements, I suggest you make sure you are absorbing your vitamins, minerals and nutrients as well as possible. Though most Americans are deficient in almost every nutrient, I am not an advocate of long-term nutrient supplementation. That s right! I don t think most people need to take a handful of vitamins every day to be healthy. The reality is that you may need nutritional supplementation to help improve your body chemistry in the beginning, but long-term, you don t want to continue taking vitamins. Taking vitamins unnecessarily could cause you to deplete other nutrients! The bottom line is that once you are health, you should spurt dose vitamins and not take them all the time. I routinely wean patients and clients off of supplementation as fast as possible. Our goal should be to get our nutrients and vitamins from the food we eat!

17 Page15 STEP #4 Are you getting enough essential vitamins and minerals? Vitamin and mineral status are important and have to be considered when trying to improve the hair loss. Some of the most important vitamins and minerals for healthy hair growth are: Biotin Zinc Magnesium Iodine (but you need to be extremely careful with iodine) B12 Essential Fatty Acids (Omega 3s and 6s a fish oil and plant oil like evening primrose are reasonable. If you only get one, get fish oil) Iron I want to start by saying, more is not always better with vitamins. As I mentioned before, taking too many vitamins can actually deplete other biochemicals, so don t take vitamins you don t need! The best option is to get a nutritional evaluation test to determine your unique vitamin, mineral needs. (See example tests on the next two pages). The other thing that I have recommended in cases of hair loss is for the person to take a very good multivitamin that will help fill in the nutrient potholes. This may be a reasonable approach, but unless you have testing to determine your individual needs, you are probably not getting what you need. You can see the exact supplements that I recommend as a basic minimum, inside my FullScript supplement dispensary. Take a look at the test results from one of my distance consulting clients on the next page. I can tell you, I recommend a high dose multivitamin that in my opinion is the best on the market, and even with the high dose provided in that vitamin, I have to add extra supplementation to most of my distance consulting client s and patient s temporary supplementation protocols.

18 Page16 Take a look at the test results. As you can see in this test my client required high doses of many nutrients just to give her body what it needed to carryout basic biochemistry. Testing saved this woman a lot of time and money in the long run. I would never have been able to know her exact needs without this test. Take a look at another patient s results on the next page

19 Page17 This test also shows a need for amino acids the building blocks of your body!

20 Page18 STEP #5 Blood Sugar, Cortisol and Sex Hormones! Diabetes is a major problem around the world, but especially in the United States. It is estimated that 50% of Americans have diabetes! Wow! This is a huge problem that is expected to bankrupt the US. Did you know that Alzheimer s disease is now called Type III Diabetes in much of the scientific literature? That s right! If you have Type II diabetes, are prediabetic, have been diagnosed with metabolic syndrome then you need to watch my presentation on blood sugar regulation here: (please forgive me, I get a little heated in this presentation ) Blood sugar swings spike insulin and inflammatory chemicals called cytokines that promote the breakdown of the tight junctions in the small intestinal wall (aka Leaky Gut), and they also do the same thing to your blood brain barrier! The main things that I see causing problems with blood sugar are NOT a poor diet and lack of exercise! That is probably surprising to you, but let me explain

21 Page19 Yes, poor diet and lack of physical activity do contribute to blood sugar problems, and those things could be the initial factors that caused you to become prediabetic or diabetic (type II), but they are often not what causes diabetes to persist. Let me share with you 3 things that I see cause blood sugar problems that are being missed in almost every patient and distance consulting client I see: 1) High levels of inflammation. This needs to be checked by looking at your C - reactive protein (CRP) and Homocysteine levels. a. Inflammation contributes to increased insulin resistance, meaning your insulin doesn t stimulate your cells to pull blood sugar from the blood, into the cell, which lowers your blood sugar. Here is a quote from a recent study: Metabolic syndrome is associated with low-grade inflammation of the white adipose tissue, which can subsequently lead to insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes. Adipocytes secrete proinflammatory cytokines as well as leptin and trigger a vicious circle which leads to additional weight gain largely as fat. As you can see in the results below (this patient has Rheumatoid Arthritis) and very high C - reactive protein, these levels are important to check! This patient s CRP is 32 times the lab range! This will cause major problems! 2) High levels of cortisol. Cortisol is the stress hormone made by your adrenal glands on the top of your kidneys. Guess what one of the functions of cortisol is? It will increase your blood sugar by stimulating the release of stored blood sugar (glycogen) from your liver and skeletal muscles. Can you see the problem here? Elevated cortisol, elevated blood sugar! Cortisol is a critical hormone to consider when trying to balance blood sugar, and it is commonly taken for granted and missed. So what elevates cortisol? a. Stress (physical, chemical and emotional) changes your chemistry. Pain causes a stress response that triggers cortisol; emotional stress does the same thing, and guess what? Yes, our friend inflammation also triggers a stress response.

22 Page20 So how do we check cortisol? This is one of the tests that I use in practice to help determine if the person has enough cortisol, and if there circadian rhythm (daily production cycle timing) is normal or not. The cortisol rhythm is off. It should be higher in the AM and lower in the PM

23 Page21 So what can you do about high cortisol? First, try to identify your stressor, and work on improving, or removing it from your life! Address the stress at the cause. With some of my patients and clients I have used adrenal adaptogenic herbs to help with the stress response. You have to be careful when taking any supplement, and as with all the information in this guidebook, I am not giving you medical advice, this is informational only. You always have to ask your primary care physician before starting diet, lifestyle and supplementation. I also like meditation, prayer, Heart Math and exercise like Yoga, stretching and walking to help reduce stress. Getting adequate sleep is also critical. If you do not get enough sleep, you will elevate your cortisol and predispose yourself to a number of health problems. I often find that my patients or distance clients that have difficulty sleeping have problems with their blood sugar. I routinely find that people eat sugary snacks close to their bedtime, and they trigger reactive hypoglycemia (blood sugar spikes, then crashes) while they sleep. Reactive hypoglycemia will cause you to wake-up a few hours after going to sleep, and feel wide awake. The solution, don t eat a carbohydrate late in the evening. If you have to eat a snack, eat one that is high in fat and protein, not sugar. It will help reactive hypoglycemia in many cases, and help you to sleep much better. Okay, let s cover the 3 rd thing that I see cause blood sugar spikes and dips!

24 Page22 3) Plastics like BPA have been shown in research to contribute to insulin resistance! Among other things, plastics are known to contribute to cancer and known to have estrogenic effects! Get them out of your environment! Have you heard of obesogens? Here is another study on obesogens. So how do we check for endocrine disrupting plastics? We would do one or two tests, because plastics can mimic estrogens and cause a host of problems including blood sugar issues, inflammation by triggering an immune response, and are linked to cancer! These Are The Two Tests I Recommend For Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: a. Chemical Immune Reactivity Testing looks at the immune response to environmental chemicals, including BPA. If these chemicals are stimulating an immune response they will promote immune reactivity and inflammation.

25 Page23 b. Toxic Chemical Levels - Has to do with the presence of toxic chemicals in your blood, and includes endocrine disruptors that can mimic estrogens. These are called xenoestrogens.

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27 Page25 These are some of the tests that we would use to determine the potential impact estrogen mimicking environmental chemicals could be having on your blood sugar, endocrine system and immune system. So now that we know some of the most common things that contribute to blood sugar fluctuations, let s look at how the surges in blood sugar cause two major problems for people trying to improve hair regrowth and stop hair loss: 1) It causes more of your T4 to convert to Reverse T3 (inactive) rather than to the form you need for hair growth, T3. 2) It causes you to produce higher levels of the form of Testosterone, 5 DHT (5 Alpha DiHydroxy Testosterone) which is associated with male pattern baldness! This is NOT good! How do we check to see if you have high 5 DHT Testosterone that could contribute to you loosing hair like a man with male pattern baldness? Would you like me to show you the test I use to check for 5 DHT? Are you okay if I show you female hormones too? Progesterone? What if I show you how your estrogens breakdown so you can know if you are creating cancer causing estrogens? Let s take a look

28 Page26 Look at this patient s male and female sex hormones This patient had 5 -DHT levels that are getting high! Progesterone metabolites are normal for a postmenopausal female Estrogen metabolites are in DANGEROUS ratios! 16OH is associated with tissue proliferation (overgrowth)

29 Page27 If you have hair loss, then sex hormone imbalances and this type of testing is absolutely critical! Once testing is done I can recommend that patients focus on balancing blood sugar and utilizing some temporary supplementation to help support the specific hormonal imbalances if this is a factoring into your hair loss. Bottom Line You have to regulate blood sugar if you want healthy hair and hormones! How do you balance blood sugar? I suggest you get professional help, and get the needed testing done so that you can be specific and save yourself time and money in the long run. If you don t get testing done, then you need to be extremely detailed in everything that you do, so that you can better understand if the changes you make are improving your blood sugar or not. There are so many variables with blood sugar (and hair loss for that matter) that the testing helps you to sort through some of the possible contributing factors so that you don t waste time. Some strategies I like that you can try, include a strict gluten free diet for 4 weeks. I mean a 100% gluten free diet with no cheating at all. See if your blood sugar doesn t improve. I have also had patients and distance consulting clients make sure that they eat frequently, every 2 to 3 hours, and to make sure that you plan your meals. The worst thing you can do is to not plan, have your blood sugar crash, and then you gorge our fast food, junk food or candy, and completely wreck your blood sugar and hormones. I have created a program specifically to help people with thyroid problems, including thyroid autoimmunity with specific meal plans and lifestyle recommendations to balance blood sugar, decrease inflammation, and improve leaky gut. If you are interested in saving time and money, you can attend one of the webinars on the program here.

30 Page28 STEP #6 Are your medications contributing to hair loss? For a more complete list of medications that can cause hair loss, visit WebMD and take a look at this list. Thyroid medication is on this list! STEP #7 Are you losing your hair due to an autoimmune condition against your hair follicles? (Alopecia Areata) If you are losing hair in patches, you could have an autoimmune condition against your hair follicles called Alopecia Areata. If you have alopecia, it comes back to identifying the drivers of autoimmunity. We would take the same approach to addressing Alopecia Areata that we would to addressing any other autoimmune condition. Let me give you a 3000 foot overview of how I approach autoimmunity 1) Investigate immune antigens (triggers) a. Food Sensitivities b. Chronic Infections c. Environmental haptens (immune triggers) 2) Investigate Immune Dysregulation (things that cause your immune system to not be able and regulate itself.) I would test: a. Vitamin and Mineral Status b. Fatty Acid Status You can watch my entire presentation on autoimmunity to get better perspective.

31 Page29 Those are the major drivers of hair loss that I commonly see in people that have thyroid problems and autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto s and Graves disease. As you can see there are a lot of potential causes of hair loss. Some people take a trial and error approach and try improving their hair loss on their own, but with all of the possibilities it is very difficult to determine what s working or not. This type of trial and error approach can cause you to waste precious time that you can t get back. Any time that someone tries to work through improving their hair loss themselves, they have to be extremely detailed in what they do, so that they can try to control and account for the numerous factors contributing to their problem. My best recommendation is that you get professional help to investigate the drivers or causes of your hair loss so that you can take a specific approach and ultimately save yourself time and money. One last thing I do not recommend any synthetic or topical chemicals that are not natural to improve hair loss. You need to start by identifying why you have hair loss, and then create a plan to support your specific biochemical problems. I sincerely hope that this has been a valuable and useful resource for you. If you need help, or would like my assistance, I work with patients in my office, and I offer distance consulting services where I work with clients around the world and across the US to investigate the drivers of their thyroid problem, including hair loss. We can get the tests done that I have mentioned in this guide in almost any state. If you are interested in working one on one with me, just click here to request an appointment, or click here to request a free 15 minute consultation where we can discuss your case, and see if I think I may be able to help you. I hope you have a wonderful day. Dr. Brad Shook, DC, BCIM