Welcome to the libido lounge where we focus on all things love, lust, and libido. We believe that fabulous sex is important to health as exercise and good food. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode on the libido lounge. I'm your host and libido expert, doctor Diane Mueller.
And I'm so excited to spend time today with doctor Amy Horniman, a friend and colleague of mine who does amazing work, has a podcast her own of her own on the thyroid, and is really working to help people get to the root cause of thyroid issues, of all sorts of health issues, and sees a ton in her personal practice of the links between thyroid and sex hormones and libido issues. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Hi, doctor Diane. It's my pleasure.
I love what you're doing here. Thanks so much. And so let's talk a little bit about the sexual health component of things, the libido component of things. Can you give people a brief summary of thyroid and how it connects to everything libido? And then I'm gonna direct people to your talk on my summit that's coming up here very shortly. This will be in the show notes, you guys.
And what we're gonna talk about today with doctor Amy, we're gonna go into much deeper on my upcoming summit with her, So make sure you check that out as well. But can you give us just, like, a little bit of an overview of what's going on for people about their thyroid and how that is connected to libido? Absolutely. So we have to think of the thyroid as the master gland.
It's controlling every single aspect of your body from the balance of the sex hormones to circulation, blood flow, blood flow to down there, and even brain function, lighting up your brain and giving you that motivation and that sexual desire and that that confidence to move forward and even want to have sex with your partner. So it really starts with the thyroid. We also know that the thyroid controls weight, and we talked about that on on the summit as well.
Because when the thyroid is controlling your metabolism and your weight and all cellular functions, you tend to gain weight when you have low thyroid function. Now as women, and I can speak for myself, I don't wanna have sex when I my body is rebelling against me putting on twenty, twenty five, 30 pounds because I've been there and done that, and I know. And in addition, when the thyroid is controlling depression and anxiety, you don't wanna have sex when you're depressed.
You don't wanna have sex when you're fatigued. You don't wanna have sex when you you can't even focus on your own job. You can't even get through the day. Huge correlation. Huge, huge, huge between thyroid, thyroid function, optimal thyroid function, and libido. Yeah. Thank you for that. I think there's a misunderstanding of people sometimes with thinking that, like, low libido is a, quote, unquote, disease. And low libido is, like, way more of a symptom. Right?
It's a symptom that's saying, I don't feel comfortable with my body like you're talking about, or there's a thyroid problem. And so it's a symptom of something underlying that is really at the root of of that. So just to give people just something that is, you know, a quick start actionable thing, where if somebody is thinking and they're listening to you and they have low libido and they're like, wow. Maybe my thyroid is is out of balance. Where would you have people start?
And with that, can you also include maybe a myth or two that people might have about the thyroid that you see commonly in your practice? Like, a the thing that maybe they've been told about their thyroid, and you're like, they're told that. People are told that a lot, but it's not really very true. Absolutely. Good questions. Okay. So how are we going to start how are how are we gonna gain the knowledge that we have something up with our thyroid?
Maybe it's a little bit off or maybe it's a lot off. We have to test. We have to test. Yes. You can absolutely go by symptoms, and I'm a strong proponent of a person listening to their body, listening to their symptoms. And just like you said, Diane, the libido low libido is a big signal. It's a big red flag that tells us, hey. There's something going on in the body. Maybe you wanna check this out and figure out what it is. And then beyond that, how are you gonna know? You have to test.
So if we're talking about thyroid, we wanna get all the testing. We wanna go outside of what your PCP or your standard conventional medicine doctor is gonna do. Because I guarantee you, if you go to have this conversation with your doctor, you are going to be told, you're normal. Everything's fine. Because they're going to test one thing. They're going to test TSH, which is thyroid stimulating hormone. The problem with this is that it is a brain hormone.
They're not even testing your thyroid hormones. How about that? They're not even looking at your thyroid hormones, and we're talking about your thyroid health. So we have to move on from that. We have to test beyond TSH. And for that, we look at free t three, free t four. We look at reverse t three, which is a blocker. We look at TPO and TGA antibodies, which tells us if you have Hashimoto's, that's autoimmune, very, very genetic, very rampant in families.
So we wanna look at all of those markers, compare it with your list of symptoms that might go beyond low libido, and then we can have that full picture of your own thyroid health. I would say, what what do people what are people told that's a myth? I hear a couple different things. Number one is just what we said, that TSH is the be all end all. You know, you test TSH. That's all you need to do. Boom. See you. We'll check you again in six months.
The other thing is and it's a common I would say it's more of a a misconception from the patient is that thyroid controls your weight, period. Thyroid and metabolism because we hear it so much. And that is a very big symptom to low thyroid function is that uncontrolled weight gain and inability to lose weight, a %, but it's so much more. It's so much more.
When we talk about cellular processes of the body, when we when we say the word metabolism, it really is talking about how your cells function, how your mitochondria functions, that ATP production. So that we could be talking about your hair growth and how slow it is or how it's falling out. We could be talking about your gut motility, AKA why you're constipated. We could be talking about your erectile dysfunction because you're not getting enough blood flow down there.
We could be talking about your sex hormones going in the tank. And and men and women walking around with low testosterone and wackadoodle hormones and women going into menopause at the age of 35. That's all metabolism controlled. That's all thyroid controlled. So we have to start there, and then we can move on from there and still I mean, check all the other boxes at the same time. I'm not just gonna check your thyroid and then go, you know what?
I'll check you in six months to look at your sex hormones. No. We're gonna all look at it all at the same time. But when we're talking about thyroid, those tests are the most important. Thank you so much. And as a reminder, you guys, I know this is just kind of a short sweet little thing we're doing here, so make sure you check out more with doctor Amy at our upcoming summit.
There is information about how to get ahold of doctor Amy and her clinic in the show notes from this podcast, so make sure you check that out out as well. Is there any final thoughts or contact or anything else you wanna leave us with today? Just that big old adage, test don't guess. Test don't guess. So we have to start there. And then pay attention to your own body. Pay attention to all of the symptoms.
Because sometimes it's not until you fill out an intake form and we're asking you about your symptoms, and you go, oh, yeah. That's right. I am constipated. Oh, yeah. That's right. I do have brain fog and memory loss. So all of that's important for whatever practitioner you're working with. And just to dive deeper, go to the Thyroid Fixer podcast. That's my podcast on podcast platforms. I go deep into all of these topics, and we went very deep in Diane's Summit too.
So that's where you're gonna get a ton more information on all the all the little nuggets that we just gave you today. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here with with us today. Thank you everybody for listening. Again, I'm doctor Diane reminding you to stay sexy, feel classy. See you on the next episode of Libido Lounge. Thank you for listening to the Libido Lounge. Please don't keep me a secret. Please share this with your friends.
You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.