Health Habit

Health Habit Health Habit We are a natural foods and supplement store in Willows, California. Come and see us today!

We have a full line of vitamins, supplements and foods to help you reach your health goals. As of May 1st 2012, the store in under the new ownership of Willie and Missy Beavers.

Iron supplements were spiking my thyroid antibodies, and I had no idea why.At the time, I thought I was doing everything...
05/28/2026

Iron supplements were spiking my thyroid antibodies, and I had no idea why.

At the time, I thought I was doing everything right. I was seeing a functional medicine doctor who had diagnosed me with candida as the root cause of my Hashimoto's.

I was following a strict candida diet and taking strong herbal supplements to try to kill the overgrowth in my gut.

At the same time, I was told to take iron supplements because my ferritin was low and I was exhausted, losing hair, freezing cold, and struggling with anemia.

What I didn’t understand yet was that candida can actually use iron as a fuel source, and every time I added more iron into my system, I was unintentionally feeding the very thing driving inflammation in my gut and immune system.

The more inflamed my gut became, the harder it was for me to absorb and regulate iron properly.

My antibodies kept climbing because my immune system was constantly reacting to the irritation and overgrowth happening in the digestive tract. I kept chasing iron levels without realizing the real problem wasn’t simply that I “needed more iron.”

The issue was that my gut and liver were too inflamed to handle and transport minerals correctly in the first place. Looking back now, it makes complete sense why ferritin and antibodies so often rise and fall together in women with Hashimoto’s.

This is also why I stopped recommending iron supplements to my clients. Because forcing iron into the body is not always the answer, especially when the gut is inflamed, bile flow is sluggish, or microbes are overgrowing.

Ferritin is heavily tied to liver function, inflammation, and how the body manages stress and immunity. When the system feels under attack, iron handling changes dramatically.

Once I stopped focusing only on replacing iron and started supporting the gut, liver, bile flow, and immune stress underneath it all, everything finally started shifting in the right direction and my ferritin started rising on it's own.

If you would like to learn more about how the gut, liver, and bile impact iron balance, check out my new iron guide here: https://thyroidbymissy.com/ironguide

So many women with thyroid issues focus on adjusting thyroid meds or chasing "optimal" Free T3 levels and never feeling ...
05/26/2026

So many women with thyroid issues focus on adjusting thyroid meds or chasing "optimal" Free T3 levels and never feeling better.

That's because the problem may not be the amount of hormones you're taking, but the way they are delivered to the cells!

Think of ferritin like a taxi cab for thyroid hormones.

Your body needs enough ferritin to help move iron where it’s needed so thyroid hormones can actually do their job inside the cells. When ferritin is very low, women often feel exhausted, foggy, cold, weak, or stuck, even when labs and meds look "normal."

The most important thing to know is that Ferritin is NOT iron.

It is a protein that stores and carries iron that is regulated by the liver.

So if ferritin is low, I always ask:

Why is the liver struggling to store and move iron and hormones correctly in the first place?

Because simply adding more iron supplements, iron infusions or increasing the meds without understanding the “why” can sometimes create more irritation in the gut and liver and increase inflammation in sensitive women.

If the liver and bile flow are sluggish, the body may struggle to properly recycle, transport, and manage nutrients well.

That’s why I often start by looking at liver and bile flow first instead of immediately throwing more iron into the system.

Your body doesn’t just need iron, it needs a liver that can process and utilize it.

This is also why some women keep increasing thyroid meds but still feel like their thyroid hormones “aren’t working.” Because low ferritin can cause free T3 to pool in the blood instead of being delivered to the cells.

The hormones may show optimal levels on your labs, but the cells may still not be getting what they need.

I just put together a free guide to explain how you can increase your ferritin naturally without taking high dose supplements or getting inflammatory infusions.

Click here to download it now: https://thyroidbymissy.com/ironguide

My iron once tested at a 4.FOUR!I was bruising everywhere, losing hair, exhausted all the time, and constantly breaking ...
05/22/2026

My iron once tested at a 4.

FOUR!

I was bruising everywhere, losing hair, exhausted all the time, and constantly breaking out. My doctor panicked and sent me straight to a hematologist where I was put on high-dose iron pills and iron infusions immediately.

I had high hopes of being cured, but the infusions didn't solve anything. I still bruised like a ripe peach and couldn't get off the couch.

My thyroid medication kept getting increased, and after all those IV's, my iron only rose to 6.82.

Years later, after getting my Master’s Degree in Nutrition and spending over 20 years studying thyroid and hormone health, I finally understood what no one had explained to me:

Iron is heavily regulated through the liver and bile.

If bile is thick, sluggish, or not flowing well, (or you have lost your gallbladder!) iron may not be processed and recycled correctly no matter how much you take.

So many women are force-feeding iron into a liver that is backed up and congested.

That’s why some women feel worse on iron pills, constipation gets worse and ferritin doesn't budge.

What changed everything for me was learning what phase of my liver and bile flow that was struggling so I could support it instead of forcing more iron into my body.

One of the biggest things that helped me personally was artichokes.

Simple canned artichoke hearts in olive oil has been one of the foods I used consistently once I learned they supported the exact phase of bile flow my body was struggling with.

In just a few weeks, my energy, digestion, and skin improved. And I stopped needing to constantly chase higher thyroid medication doses trying to compensate for deeper congestion.

But the most exciting part was when I tested my iron levels and for the first time EVER, my ferritin rose without taking any iron supplements or infusions!

This is why my approach is different.

I don’t just ask:
“How do we get more iron in?”

I ask:
“Why is the body struggling to regulate and use iron in the first place?”

The missing piece is often liver and bile flow and we can figure that out without guessing.

If you want to learn how to raise iron naturally, click here for my new iron guide: https://thyroidbymissy.com/ironguide

I spent years and thousands of dollars doing stool tests, elimination diets, SIBO protocols, Candida cleanses, mold prot...
05/18/2026

I spent years and thousands of dollars doing stool tests, elimination diets, SIBO protocols, Candida cleanses, mold protocols, and taking handfuls of supplements trying to fix my Hashimoto’s.

Some of those things gave me helpful information, but nothing explained why my body still felt stuck.

Then I learned something that completely changed my healing journey:

Thyroid hormones follow a flow pathway.

They’re produced,(or taken in pill form) converted, used by the cells, broken down by the liver, and then cleared out through bile, and stool.

And for many women with thyroid symptoms, this flow is stuck.

That’s why I love urine testing.

The Organic Acids Test (OAT) and DUTCH test help us look at hormone clearance, liver detox pathways, bile flow, stress hormones, energy production, nutrient deficiencies, and metabolism.

Instead of asking what pathogens we need to kill or what hormones we need to replace, these tests help us see if things are actually flowing out of the body.

Because when hormones can’t leave the body well, they recycle.
And that can show up as:

Fatigue
Anxiety
Weight gain
Histamine issues
Heavy cycles
Thyroid nodules
Brain fog
Hormone chaos
Elevated antibodies that won't budge

This is why my approach focuses so heavily on improving hormone flow through the liver, gut, and bile pathways instead of just chasing symptoms.

If you feel like you’ve tried everything and your body still feels stuck, click the link below to apply for a call and learn more about working together:

https://thyroidbymissy.com/strategycall

I once heard Byron Katie say, “Fear belongs on paper,” and it completely changed my life.At the time, I realized I was c...
05/15/2026

I once heard Byron Katie say, “Fear belongs on paper,” and it completely changed my life.

At the time, I realized I was carrying around SO many fears about my health that I had never fully spoken out loud or allowed anyone to witness. Not even myself.

For years I had been told:
“Hashimoto’s is incurable.”
“You’ll need medication forever.”
“Your immune system is destroying your thyroid.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it.”

And even though I tried to stay positive, those words were still living inside my body every single day.

What I didn’t understand back then is that fearful thoughts create real physical stress responses in the body. Every anxious thought, every “what if,” every late-night doom scroll creates stress hormones that the liver then has to process and clear out.

Eventually I realized my body wasn’t just carrying inflammation from food and hormones, it was carrying years of fear.

The first time I wrote those fears down in a journal, everything changed. It felt like I interrupted a hormone loop my body had been stuck in for years. Instead of recycling those fears over and over internally, I was finally getting them OUT where I could actually look at them, process them, and challenge them.

That’s one reason emotional health is such a huge part of how I help women reclaim their health.

Yes, we focus on testing, bile flow, hormone clearance, gut health, metabolism, and thyroid function. But we also talk about the stress chemistry created by living in survival mode for years.

Your body was never designed to carry unspoken fear forever.

Sometimes healing begins the moment the truth finally has a safe place to land.

If you’re tired of feeling trapped in fear about your body and ready to understand what’s actually going on underneath your symptoms, visit the link this link to learn more about working together: https://thyroidbymissy.com/strategycall

I owned a health food store and still couldn’t “supplement” my way out of Hashimoto’s.I had access to every probiotic, a...
05/14/2026

I owned a health food store and still couldn’t “supplement” my way out of Hashimoto’s.

I had access to every probiotic, adrenal supplement, liver support, collagen powder, thyroid booster, greens drink, and “miracle” protocol you can imagine.

There was even a season where I was taking 20+ supplements a day and still not feeling better.

Some things helped temporarily, but none of it fully worked because I was missing the strategy behind WHY my thyroid hormones were struggling in the first place.

What finally changed my health was learning:
• how hormones move through the liver and bile
• why gut issues keep recycling hormones
• how stress hormones compete with thyroid hormones
• and why more supplements can bog down the liver and make things worse

Now I use supplements very differently.

I personally take 4 core supplements that support the burdened pathways in my liver that were causing antibodies to spike and hormones to backup.

I learned this from advanced testing that I use on all of my clients so I never have to recommend more than 4 products at a time because I believe if we need a giant pile of supplements, we probably haven’t targeted the real problem yet.

Supplements are meant to target the breaks in the system, not silence the symptoms.

That’s the difference between collecting supplements that end up expiring in a cupboard and creating a real plan.

Click the link below if you want to uncover what may actually be blocking your thyroid hormones from working properly and get a targeted plan for your body: https://thyroidbymissy.com/strategycall

05/13/2026

For years, I thought my thyroid was the problem.

So I researched supplements to help me make more hormones and spent hundreds of dollars on promising pills.

When that didn’t work I increased my medication dose, then switched to NDT.

My Free T3 was “optimal,” but I was struggling to function.

Then, when getting my Master’s degree in nutrition I learned what nobody had ever explained:

Thyroid hormones have to MOVE through the body correctly after they’re made. (or taken in pill form)

They have to be:
✔ activated by the liver
✔ used by the cells
✔ cleared out through bile and p**p

And when that system slows down, hormones start piling up instead of flowing.

That’s when women feel stuck with:
Brain fog
Weight gain
Hair loss
Anxiety
Fatigue
Hormone swings
And labs that still “look fine”

This is why I became so passionate about advanced testing and investigating the liver/gut side of thyroid health.

Because women like me don’t need to “try harder” or buy another pill, they need answers about where the system is getting jammed.

If this sounds like your story, click the link below and I’ll walk you through what may actually be blocking your thyroid hormones from working properly:

https://thyroidbymissy.com/strategycall

Did you know that research shows women with Hashimoto's are more likely to carry MTHFR gene variations?MTHFR affects a p...
05/11/2026

Did you know that research shows women with Hashimoto's are more likely to carry MTHFR gene variations?

MTHFR affects a process called methylation, which is one of the ways your body processes and clears hormones out. And when that process is sluggish, the liver ends up carrying a much heavier load than it was designed to handle on its own.

Your liver is responsible for breaking down stress hormones, processing used-up estrogen, converting and clearing thyroid hormones, and recycling antioxidants like glutathione.

When those pathways get overwhelmed, hormones don't leave the body the way they should. Instead of flowing out, they recirculate. And when hormones and inflammatory compounds keep cycling through your system, thyroid hormone messaging becomes chaotic right along with them.

This is one of the reasons so many women say they're taking their thyroid medication faithfully, eating well, doing everything right, and still feeling exhausted, puffy, foggy, anxious, or stuck.

Because they are having estrogen dominance, mast cell issues (histamine overload), thyroid resistance, and hormone imbalances that are tied to poor methylation.

The solution isn't to make more thyroid hormones or start HRT.
It's to actually get them out of the body!

And MTHFR genes slow that process down so hormones end up in a traffic jam.

This is why I start all of my Hashimoto's/MTHFR clients start with testing to reveal the burdened pathways in the liver that need support so we can get hormones flowing again.

When this bottleneck is cleared, hormones, histamines, and anxiety causing neurotransmitters can finally leave the body and peace is restored. Without taking high dose methylfolate (that makes things worse!), or going on another elimination diet.

If you want to learn more about how to fix your hormone flow click here and I'll show exactly what you need to do next: https://thyroidbymissy.com/cp

I frequently talk with women who have managed their Hashimoto's with diet, lifestyle, and medications until suddenly eve...
05/08/2026

I frequently talk with women who have managed their Hashimoto's with diet, lifestyle, and medications until suddenly everything quits working.

It’s usually after a huge hormone shift like:

Pregnancy
Perimenopause
Or adding in hormone replacement therapy

And now their hair is falling out in handfuls, the scale only goes up, anxiety is a constant companion, and nothing works like it used to.

This is where most women are told:
“your thyroid is getting worse”
or “you need to increase your dose”

But what I see is something different.

Hormone shifts don’t create these problems, they reveal what your body was already struggling to handle.

Because every hormone your body makes or takes in has to be:

1. broken down into smaller pieces
2. processed through the liver and moved into bile
3. cleared out through the gut and stool

When that system is under strain, hormone shifts increase the demand on the liver and the body can’t keep up the same way.

So symptoms escalate quickly.

It’s not that your body stopped working, it’s that your liver and bile are struggling to keep up with the higher hormone demand.

My job is to find out which step in that system needs support so your body can actually handle what’s already there.

I do this with targeted testing to uncover your specific patterns, so we can support your body in the right order, without guessing what diet or supplement to try next.

If that resonates, you’re exactly who I built this for.

Click here I’ll show you the right order to support your hormones so your body can finally respond again: https://thyroidbymissy.com/cp

One of my clients had been on thyroid medication for seven years.She had done the work to optimize her labs, invest in t...
05/07/2026

One of my clients had been on thyroid medication for seven years.

She had done the work to optimize her labs, invest in testing, cleaned up her diet, and addressed her gut.

Her thyroid levels looked great on paper, but she was still dragging herself through every single day, still struggling to lose weight, still waking up exhausted no matter how much she slept.

She suspected something was going on with her liver and talked her doctor into ordering some deeper testing after months of asking. Her Reverse T3 came back out of range and she was validated to see something that was off.

It finally felt like an answer, but her doctor just shrugged it off and said it wasn't a useful marker.

What nobody had ever explained to her was that her thyroid hormones were not actually leaving her body. And the reverse T3 was giving it away.

Here is what was happening:

The liver is responsible for packaging up used thyroid hormones and loading them into bile. From there, that bile should flow into the gut, and exit through stool. It is a process that most practitioners never talk about, but it is absolutely essential for thyroid medication to work the way it is supposed to.

Her bile flow had become sluggish. So instead of those spent hormones clearing out, they were getting reabsorbed and recirculated back into her bloodstream over and over again. Her body was swimming in old, used-up hormones and her cells stopped responding well to the new thyroid hormone coming in through medication. That drove Reverse T3 up, and every dose adjustment her doctor made barely moved the needle.

Once we focused on supporting her liver and restoring her bile flow, things started to shift in a way that years of medication changes never had.

The dose was never her problem.
The drainage was.

If this sounds familiar because you have been on thyroid medication and still feel like nothing is working, the missing piece may not be your prescription. It may be whether your body is actually clearing the hormones it has already used.

Click the link below and I will show you how I address hormones in the right order: https://thyroidbymissy.com/cp

Nobody warned you that your hormones would be derailed after losing your gallbladder.They said it wasn't a necessary org...
05/06/2026

Nobody warned you that your hormones would be derailed after losing your gallbladder.

They said it wasn't a necessary organ and suggested taking ox bile to help with digestion, but you've learned that it is far more than a digestive organ.

Maybe you've run the labs, cleaned up your diet, and addressed your gut. Yet your thyroid levels and antibodies still won't budge.

Most practitioners will simply increase the med dose and tell you to recheck in a year.

But what if the missing piece has nothing to do with what you've already tried?

There is one system that almost nobody talks about after gallbladder removal, and it sits right at the center of why your hormones and immune system can't find balance.

It's your bile pathway.

And when it's disrupted by gallbladder removal, your body loses its ability to clear the very hormones that are driving your antibodies up.

The good news is, I just put together a new guide to help this make sense.

Click the link below and I'll walk you through exactly what's happening and what to do about it: https://thyroidbymissy.com/bilepdf

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