Save Your Thyroid with Jen

Save Your Thyroid with Jen Podcaster, Founder of Save Your Thyroid https://linktr.ee/itsme_jenagain

06/02/2026

This is where I'm headed — and I cannot wait. 🌊

No new episode this Tuesday, friends. I'm taking a much needed break at the beach with my family to recharge. Seven years of patient advocacy, hundreds of episodes, and more thyroid conversations than I can count — and I am so grateful for every single one of them. But even the most passionate advocates need to step away and fill their cup sometimes.

I'll be back Tuesday June 9th with a brand new episode you are not going to want to miss. I'm sitting down with Chelsie — a patient who had Microwave Ablation
performed on two indeterminate thyroid nodules. Her story is powerful, her results are remarkable, and I cannot wait to share it with you.

Until then — thank you for being part of this community. It means absolutely everything to me. 🦋

See you June 9th.

06/01/2026

When I went to the ENT, I already knew what he was going to say.

Surgery. Remove half the thyroid. Not just the nodule — that's not how it works. The whole side goes.

And I sat there thinking about everything that comes after that. The medication. The years some patients spend trying to get their levels regulated. The people I already knew who were on thyroid medication and still didn't feel right.

I have always been incredibly sensitive to medications. My body just doesn't tolerate them well. And the idea of potentially spending the rest of my life dependent on a medication I might not even tolerate — for a thyroid that was functioning perfectly, just with a nodule on it — was not something I could accept.

So I left that appointment knowing one thing: I was not going to have surgery until I had exhausted every other option.

That conviction is the entire reason Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem exists. Seven years ago I went looking for another way. I found RFA. And I've spent every year since making sure other patients can find it too.

If you're new here — this is where it started.

05/31/2026

This is where it all started — and I'm sharing it for everyone who is new here.

It was 2019. I was up in the middle of the night because I was having trouble breathing. My thyroid nodule had me in a choke hold — literally. And I just kept thinking: there has to be another way.

So I prayed. Then, I started Googling. And I found something called Radiofrequency Ablation — RFA. A nonsurgical procedure that had been performed for nearly 20 years in Italy and South Korea. Available at exactly three clinics in the entire United States at the time.

The concept was simple but revolutionary: a needle, local anesthetic, radio frequencies delivered directly into the nodule. The nodule tissue dies. Over the following months, your white blood cells carry away the dead tissue little by little — until you're left with nothing but a fully functioning thyroid.

No surgery. No scar. No lifetime of hormone replacement.

I was stunned that this existed and that no one was talking about it. That night changed the entire direction of my life.

Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem exists because of that answered prayer. Seven years later I'm still here — and this community was built for you.

If you're new here — welcome. This is where it all began.

05/30/2026

Emily Saska is a lawyer. She is not a doctor, a researcher, or anyone with a medical background. And when she started Googling after her surgery referral, she found herself reading clinical literature that was absolutely not written for her.

But keywords kept jumping out. Thyroid ablation. Non-surgical. And a name that kept appearing over and over in the Save Your Thyroid Facebook community: Dr. Emad Kandil. An hour away from her home in Baton Rouge.

She made an appointment. She walked in and said: "This is who I am and this is what I have going on. You're smarter than me. Tell me what you think I should do."
And she let herself fully trust his recommendation.

Jen started the Save Your Thyroid patient community for exactly this reason — because she was in the same place. Reading medical literature that wasn't written for patients. Looking for information she could actually understand. Finding nothing. So she built it.

If you found this community the same way Emily did — through a Google search, a page, a name that kept coming up — this episode is for you.

Episode 119: Shrinking Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery: Emily's 82% nsPFA Success Story — Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem.

05/29/2026

There's a moment in every thyroid patient's journey where everything moves very fast.

You get a diagnosis. You get a referral. You get a consult. You get a surgery date. And before you've had a chance to process any of it — it's on the books.

Jen sees it happen all the time. And she sees the regret that follows when patients don't stop to think, don't do the research, and don't ask whether there's another way.
"No one is going to advocate for you better than you."

Emily Saska stopped. She Googled. She found Dr. Emad Kandil. She asked questions. She got a second opinion. And today her thyroid is still doing its job — intact, functioning perfectly, hers.

That extra step — the one that feels uncomfortable, the one that feels like you're questioning your doctor — is the one worth taking.

Episode 119: Shrinking Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery: Emily's 82% nsPFA Success Story — Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem.

05/28/2026

When patients come to Jen for a navigation consult and ask "who should I go see?" — her answer is often: more than one person.

An endocrinologist brings one perspective. A surgeon brings another. An interventional radiologist brings a third. They all have different knowledge, different skills, and different tools available to them. And they're all capable of performing some of these nonsurgical techniques.

That's exactly why Dr. Emad Kandil was such a valuable resource for Emily Saska — he has the surgical background if it's truly needed, and the nonsurgical options when it's not. Every tool in the toolbox.

But here's the most important thing Jen tells every patient she works with: if you want a true assessment of whether you're a candidate for a nonsurgical procedure — you cannot get that from someone who doesn't perform it. You need to talk to someone who actually does it.

Episode 119: Shrinking Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery: Emily's 82% nsPFA Success Story — Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem.

Emily Saska is a lawyer. She's not a doctor. She's not a researcher. She's not a medical professional of any kind.She's ...
05/27/2026

Emily Saska is a lawyer. She's not a doctor. She's not a researcher. She's not a medical professional of any kind.

She's a mom of two who found out she had a thyroid nodule during a back scan, got referred to a surgeon with zero mention of alternatives, did her own research, found Dr. Emad Kandil, chose nsPFA — and ended up with 82% nodule reduction and her thyroid still intact.

And now? She has a new mission.

"Don't gatekeep it. It's wonderful."

She reached out to Dr. Kandil and asked: how can I help you advocate for this? Because she knows there are thousands of patients out there right now sitting in an exam room being told surgery is their only option. She was almost one of them.
This podcast exists for exactly that reason. Share this with someone who needs to hear it.

Episode 119: Shrinking Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery: Emily's 82% nsPFA Success Story — Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem.

05/26/2026

Emily Saska's 37th birthday looked a little different than most.

6:30 AM hospital check-in. A gown. An IV. A visit from Dr. Emad Kandil's nurse Wendy. A visit from the anesthesiologist. And then being rolled back to the procedure room a little after eight.

Her last conscious memory? Popping her head up and saying to Dr. Kandil: "Happy birthday to me. Hope you had your coffee."

Then she counted backwards from 10.

Insurance didn't cover everything. She did it anyway. She called it her birthday present to herself. And when you consider what the alternative birthday present would have looked like — a thyroidectomy, a scar, a lifetime of hormone replacement — it was the easiest decision she ever made.

Three days later she was in Puerto Rico. Six weeks later — over 65% nodule reduction. Six months — 82%.

Best birthday present she ever gave herself.

Episode 119: Shrinking Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery: Emily's 82% nsPFA Success Story — Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem.

05/25/2026

Six weeks after her nsPFA procedure with Dr. Emad Kandil, Emily Saska walked into her follow-up appointment already knowing what the ultrasound was going to show.
Because she could feel it. The lump that had been visibly growing in her neck — the one that had sent her down a path toward thyroidectomy — was gone.

The results confirmed it: over 65% reduction in total nodule volume in six weeks.
No surgery. No hospital stay beyond the day of the procedure. No scar. No thyroid medication. No lifetime of hormone replacement.

Just a band-aid, a trip to Puerto Rico three days later, and results that made the entire team at Tulane very happy.

And by six months? 82%.

Episode 119: Shrinking Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery: Emily's 82% nsPFA Success Story — Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem.

This is the sentence that should stop every thyroid patient before they agree to surgery.Emily Saska said it simply and ...
05/24/2026

This is the sentence that should stop every thyroid patient before they agree to surgery.

Emily Saska said it simply and she said it exactly right: once your thyroid is gone — they can't just put it back in.

Thyroid hormone replacement is remarkable medicine. But it is not your thyroid. And Emily had done enough research to know that. She was a healthy, fit 37-year-old with a fully functioning thyroid gland that was doing a wonderful job — she just had a nodule growing on it. The idea that the answer to that nodule was to remove the entire gland felt, in her words, absolutely bizarre.

So she looked for another way. She found Dr. Emad Kandil. She chose nsPFA. And today her thyroid is still exactly where it belongs — doing its job, intact, hers.

They can't just put it back in. Make sure you've explored every option before you let it go.

Episode 119: Shrinking Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery: Emily's 82% nsPFA Success Story — Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem.

Address

Madison, AL

Website

http://saveyourthyroid.org/, https://linktr.ee/saveyourthyroidwithjen

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Save Your Thyroid with Jen posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Save Your Thyroid with Jen:

Shortcuts

Share

Category