Midtown Chiropractic and Vital Principal Functional Medicine

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Midtown Chiropractic and Vital Principal Functional Medicine Dr. Lindsey Carr, DC, CACCP, IFMCP, DABCI and Dr. Allison Bomar-Hyong, DC Dr. Lindsey Carr is a chiropractor at Midtown Chiropractic in Memphis, TN.

If you are struggling with neck or back pain, headaches or migraines, carpal tunnel, sciatica, or any other health condition please call us today or visit our website.

📝Your liver is doing hormone paperwork while Instagram sells you a detox tea. Let’s translate the actual biochemistry of...
10/15/2026

📝Your liver is doing hormone paperwork while Instagram sells you a detox tea. Let’s translate the actual biochemistry of how the liver actually impacts hormones.

The liver has a major role in metabolizing many steroid hormones after they circulate. Clinicians often teach this in two broad stages.

➡️Phase I: Cytochrome P450 enzymes chemically modify hormones through reactions such as hydroxylation.
>>>That may create intermediate metabolites that need further processing.

➡️Phase II: Enzymes including UGTs, sulfotransferases, and COMT attach chemical groups to many of those compounds.
>>>This often increases water solubility so metabolites can leave through bile and stool or through the kidneys and urine.

There is a gut chapter too. Some conjugated estrogens enter the intestine in bile. Certain microbial enzymes can deconjugate them, allowing a portion to be reabsorbed. The mechanism is real. Its use as a simple explanation for every hormone symptom is far ahead of the clinical evidence.

📌Why should you care?📌
➡︎Prescription drugs
➡︎Supplements
➡︎Alcohol
➡︎Liver disease
➡︎Genetics
➡︎Nutrition
➡︎Bowel function

…can all influence pieces of this system.

Breast tenderness on cycle day 23 or a brutal response to one glass of w**e belongs in your history. Neither symptom identifies a CYP enzyme or a COMT variant from across the internet.

Before I reach for a “detox” stack, I review:
❓medications
❓supplements
❓alcohol
❓bowel patterns
❓liver history
❓diet
❓appropriate standard labs

DIM and other concentrated compounds are biologically active, and their effects depend on context.

🥦Broccoli can be dinner. It does not get to impersonate a treatment plan.

Swipe through for the chemistry, then use it to ask better questions.

10/14/2026

Some health clues arrive quietly. 🤐
They look like needing another sweater.
Buying drain cleaner… again.
And keeping coffee close enough to qualify as emotional support. ☕️
Five things that make me look more carefully at the thyroid picture:
1️⃣ New or worsening cold intolerance
2️⃣ Constipation that persists despite reasonable hydration and fiber
3️⃣ Diffuse hair shedding or thinning toward the outer eyebrows
4️⃣ Slower thinking, word-finding trouble, or a noticeably lower mood
5️⃣ Fatigue that keeps showing up despite adequate sleep
But here’s what matters:
None of these symptoms diagnoses hypothyroidism by itself.
And a low morning body temperature isn’t a stand-alone thyroid test either.
I want the pattern + the timeline + the appropriate labs.
Because hair shedding after a major illness may tell a very different story than hair thinning that appeared alongside constipation and cold intolerance.
Fatigue with snoring and unrefreshing sleep deserves a different conversation.
Constipation that started immediately after a medication change deserves one too.
And symptoms that appeared postpartum give me another piece of the timeline.
The goal isn’t to turn every symptom into a thyroid problem.
It’s to stop dismissing a cluster of changes as “just getting older,” “just stress,” or “just hormones” without asking better questions.
Your body usually gives you a timeline before it gives you a tidy label.
Save this if you’ve been collecting symptoms that everyone keeps calling “normal.”
womenshealth hormonehealth functionalmedicine

If your hormones had a traffic report, would it say:🚧 backed up⛽ running on empty↪️ taking the wrong exit⏰ completely of...
10/14/2026

If your hormones had a traffic report, would it say:

🚧 backed up
⛽ running on empty
↪️ taking the wrong exit
⏰ completely off schedule?

In practice, I use four working patterns to organize the investigation. Most people overlap, but one pattern may deserve first place in the workup.

1️⃣Overloaded Clearance
I review liver and gallbladder history, bowel habits, medications, alcohol, and hormone exposure. Clues worth discussing include constipation, jeans that fit at 8 a.m. and pinch by lunch, breast tenderness 7 to 10 days before bleeding, heavy or clotty periods, and one glass of w**e causing next-day mutiny. Symptoms alone cannot confirm a clearance problem.

2️⃣Deficiency and Depletion
Cycles may stretch past 38 days or disappear. Hair collects near the shower drain. Libido goes quiet. Workouts take days to recover from. I assess energy availability, iron status, thyroid function, prolactin, nutrition, stress, sleep, and medication effects. Coffee and willpower are poor raw materials.

3️⃣Traffic Misdirection
This is the mixed picture: jawline acne or new chin hairs alongside scalp shedding, breast tenderness, bloating, or unpredictable moods. I look at ovulation, androgen activity, insulin signaling, thyroid function, medications, PCOS, and life stage. Mixed symptoms need a broad workup.

4️⃣Dysregulated Rhythm
Think awake at 2:47 a.m., dragging at 7, crashing at 3, then oddly alert at 9:30. Cycle length may swing from 26 days to 39. I review light exposure, shift work, sleep disorders, meal timing, training, and ovulatory patterns.

These patterns organize clinical questions. They do not diagnose the cause. Bring me the weirdly specific timeline. It is usually more useful than ‘my hormones are a mess.’

When I review thyroid symptom histories, I listen for recurring patterns. They help me know where to look next.📌The work...
10/13/2026

When I review thyroid symptom histories, I listen for recurring patterns. They help me know where to look next.

📌The workup was described as "thyroid labs" but only TSH appears in the portal.
📌Fatigue travels with cold intolerance, constipation, hair changes, low mood, or brain fog.
📌The symptom timeline changed after pregnancy, illness, major stress, or a restrictive diet.
📌The 3 pm coffee has been doing unpaid overtime for months. ☕
📌More exercise and less food made recovery, temperature, cycles, or hair worse.
📌Thyroid medication improved the lab value, but some symptoms remained.
📌Heavy periods, snoring, restless legs, digestive symptoms, or perimenopause clues were never connected to the fatigue.
📌The person wants a real differential diagnosis and a plan, not another vague instruction to "eat clean."

These patterns guide a smarter workup without assuming the thyroid caused every one, and they help me avoid missing common contributors such as iron deficiency, sleep apnea, medication absorption, or hormonal transitions.

10/12/2026

Just reduce your stress.”
Okay… but what does that actually mean when it’s Tuesday, you have 46 unread emails, you slept 5 hours, skipped lunch, and still tried to crush a workout? 😵‍💫
Stress can intersect with thyroid physiology in several very real ways.
🧠 Brain signaling
The hypothalamus and pituitary regulate thyroid function through TRH and TSH. Severe illness, prolonged physiologic stress, and glucocorticoid exposure can influence that signaling.
🔄 Thyroid hormone metabolism
Illness and inflammation can alter deiodinase activity and circulating T3.
And importantly, those changes can sometimes be adaptive.
That means a thyroid lab pattern needs CONTEXT—not an automatic diagnosis based on one marker.
🏃‍♀️ Then there are the behaviors that come with chronic stress
Five hours of sleep.
Skipped meals.
Too much alcohol.
Relentless training.
Living on caffeine.
Taking thyroid medication inconsistently or with food that interferes with absorption.
Those things can affect both how you FEEL and how well thyroid treatment works.
So when I talk about “stress management,” I want it to become concrete:
✔️ consistent thyroid-medication timing
✔️ adequate meals
✔️ a realistic sleep window
✔️ appropriate training intensity
✔️ morning light
✔️ addressing the actual stressor—not just adding another breathing app
Breathing exercises are wonderful.
But they are not a treatment for thyroid disease.
Your body also keeps receipts for months of under-sleeping, under-eating, and over-performing.
Save this if you’ve ever been told your thyroid symptoms are “just stress” without anyone explaining what that actually means.

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
10/12/2026

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

💔You should not have to sit in the parking lot editing your symptom list so it sounds serious enough.💔You should not hav...
10/09/2026

💔You should not have to sit in the parking lot editing your symptom list so it sounds serious enough.

💔You should not have to choose between mentioning the hair loss and the constipation because the appointment is short.

💔You should not have to remove "brain fog" because you worry it sounds vague.

💔You should not have to wait for the fatigue to become a crisis before it earns a workup.

❤️I want the full, unpolished version.❤️

➡︎Tell me you forgot the familiar word in the middle of a meeting.
➡︎Tell me your hands are cold while everyone else is comfortable.
➡︎Tell me the jeans fit in the morning and feel different by lunch.
➡︎Tell me your period changed, your bowel pattern slowed, or your usual workout now requires two days of recovery.

Those details help a clinician build a differential diagnosis and select the right next step. Thyroid disease still requires appropriate evaluation.

Good care can hold two ideas at once:
💡the screening test may be reassuring
💡and the symptom pattern may still need an explanation.

If your thyroid labs are “normal” but you still don’t feel like yourself, that doesn’t automatically mean your symptoms ...
10/08/2026

If your thyroid labs are “normal” but you still don’t feel like yourself, that doesn’t automatically mean your symptoms have nothing to do with what’s happening physiologically.

But it also doesn’t automatically mean you have a hidden thyroid problem.

Your thyroid is part of a three-office chain of command:

Hypothalamus → TRH
Pituitary → TSH
Thyroid → thyroid hormone

This is your HPT axis, and it doesn’t operate in isolation.

Severe illness, calorie deprivation, inflammation, pregnancy, aging, and certain medications can temporarily change thyroid hormone levels or the signals controlling them.

That means the context of your labs matters.

For example, clinicians may see low T3 during illness, changes in TSH timing, or results that look different once the body has recovered from a major physiologic stressor.

This is also where the concept of allostatic load can be useful. It describes the cumulative physiologic cost of repeatedly adapting to stress and gives us a broader way to think about what may be happening across sleep, metabolism, inflammation, and endocrine signaling.

What it doesn’t mean is that fatigue + a normal TSH automatically proves your thyroid “set-point” has shifted.

And that distinction matters for you.

Because you deserve better than either extreme:
→ “Your TSH is normal, so nothing is wrong.”
or
→ “You’re tired, so this must be a hidden thyroid dysfunction.”

🔑A better approach is to respect your symptoms, interpret testing in context, reassess after illness or major physiologic stress when appropriate, and keep investigating when the clinical picture warrants it.

Your symptoms deserve curiosity.
They also deserve good evidence. ;)

10/07/2026

Jawline acne. New coarse chin hair. Scalp thinning. Irregular periods.
Please don’t reduce that entire picture to:
“Let’s check your testosterone.”
A thoughtful androgen evaluation may include:
🧪 Total testosterone
🧪 SHBG + calculated free testosterone
🧪 DHEA-S
🧪 17-hydroxyprogesterone when indicated
🧪 Metabolic + related testing based on the clinical picture
And the LABS are only part of the story.
I also want to know:
How quickly did the symptoms appear?
What are your cycles doing?
What medications, hormones and supplements are you taking?
Is there a family history of PCOS or metabolic disease?
Are there signs of insulin resistance?
Did symptoms develop slowly over years ...or dramatically over a few months?
Because PCOS is not diagnosed by one lab value.
And an LH ratio is not a stand-alone PCOS test.
Neither is “check all my hormones” a meaningful lab order.
One more important distinction: rapidly progressing facial/body hair, voice deepening, increased muscle mass, cl****al enlargement, or other significant virilizing changes deserve timely medical evaluation.
The goal isn’t to order MORE labs.
It’s to order the right labs for the clinical question.
Save this if you’ve ever been told your hormones were “normal” but nobody really investigated why your symptoms changed.
jawlineacne hairloss irregularperiods functionalmedicine womenswellness

A thyroid plan works better when each step answers a clear question.❌Throwing medication changes❌Twelve supplements❌A re...
10/07/2026

A thyroid plan works better when each step answers a clear question.

❌Throwing medication changes
❌Twelve supplements
❌A restrictive diet
❌And a new workout plan at the body on Monday makes it impossible to know what helped. ☑

Here is the sequence I use conceptually:
1️⃣Confirm the diagnosis and the basics
Review symptoms, examination, TSH, Free T4 when appropriate, medication dose, timing, adherence, and interactions.

2️⃣Identify competing causes
Check for iron deficiency, sleep problems, perimenopause, mood disorders, under-fueling, gastrointestinal conditions, and other contributors suggested by the history.

3️⃣Correct documented deficiencies and treatment barriers
Address low iron, poor absorption, inconsistent dosing, inadequate nutrition, or another confirmed issue with a monitored plan.

4️⃣Reassess with both labs and lived measures
Track energy, bowel function, heart rate, temperature comfort, cognition, hair shedding, and menstrual changes. Repeat appropriate labs at the right interval.

5️⃣Adjust carefully
Medication decisions belong with the prescribing clinician. Changes should have a rationale, a follow-up date, and safety monitoring.

The boring part of good thyroid care is often the part that works: one clear change, enough time, objective follow-up, and fewer mystery capsules.

Address

204 N Evergreen Street
Memphis, TN
38112

Opening Hours

Monday 9:30am - 1pm
2:30pm - 6pm
Tuesday 8am - 12pm
Wednesday 8am - 1pm
2:30pm - 6pm
Thursday 9:30am - 1pm
2:30pm - 6pm
Friday 8am - 1pm

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