Bronte May — Autoimmune Thyroid Naturopath | Somatic Healing Facilitator
I walked out of the hospital doors, called my friend, and couldn't stop crying long enough to tell her what was wrong.
She kept asking me to breathe. She could barely understand me.
That was the day I was diagnosed with Graves' disease.
But let me go back — because the story started long before that appointment.
Before I had any answers, my body was already trying to tell me something.
I was always hungry — eating constantly — and still losing weight. A rash had spread across my stomach and up my chest. My hair was thinning. My eyesight felt off. I was anxious and low in a way that didn't match my life. I had experienced depression before, and I was convinced it had returned.
What I didn't know then — and what I now understand deeply — is that the years leading up to my diagnosis had been quietly loading my system. A toxic relationship. A period of burning the candle hard at both ends. Unresolved stress and experiences that had been living in my body far longer than I realised. My nervous system had been running on high alert for years. My body had been carrying more than anyone could see from the outside.
It was only a matter of time before something gave way.
When I finally sought answers, I was told I had hyperthyroidism. My antibodies were significantly elevated — over 1,300, flagged in red on my results. I pointed them out. I was told not to worry about them.
So I pursued what help I could find, made changes to my health, and went into remission within seven months.
And then life got hard again. A period of significant stress triggered a relapse — and this time, my body made sure I could not ignore it.
I was breathless climbing four or five stairs. My coordination was off. At night especially I could feel my heart pounding — and through the day it was there too, a heavy, unsettling awareness of my own heartbeat. I was emotionally unravelling in ways I couldn't explain. The depression I thought I'd known before felt different this time — darker, more frightening. I didn't yet know that when thyroid hormones are severely dysregulated, they can drive a person to the edge of themselves. I had suicidal thoughts. I now know this was physiological — driven by the extreme elevation of my T3 and T4 — but at the time I just thought I was falling apart.
I went to my GP convinced something was wrong with my heart.
It wasn't my heart.
It was my thyroid. I was finally correctly diagnosed with Graves' disease and referred to an endocrinologist. I went alone. And I walked out of that appointment in tears — on the phone to my friend, barely able to breathe — because no one had explained what the thyroid did, what an autoimmune condition meant, or what my life was going to look like. I didn't know if I was seriously ill. I didn't know if I was going to be okay. My friend was a medical research scientist. She was the one who explained my own diagnosis to me, standing outside the hospital doors.
At the appointment, I had been given three options.
Option one: thyroidectomy — surgical removal of my thyroid, and medication for life.
Option two: radioactive iodine — a treatment that came with a printed list of warnings I still remember clearly. I could not be within close proximity of a pregnant woman because I could pose a risk to her pregnancy. I could not sleep in the same bed as my partner for two weeks after taking the pill. I remember thinking: if I am a risk to others — what is this doing inside my body?
Option three: remain on antithyroid medication long-term, with its own risk profile and no clear endpoint.
Something in me knew these weren't my options.
So I created a fourth one.
I committed — completely — to healing myself as naturally and as deeply as I possibly could. I worked with practitioners across multiple disciplines. I changed how I ate, how I lived, and — critically — how I understood the deeper patterns that had been running in my body long before any diagnosis arrived. I researched. I questioned everything. I began to understand that what had happened in my earlier years — the stress, the survival patterns, the experiences I had never fully processed — had not disappeared. They had taken up residence in my nervous system. And that was part of what needed to heal.
It was not any single thing that healed me. Diet helped enormously — but it was not enough on its own. What I discovered is that there are many pieces that must come together to unlock deep healing and keep an autoimmune condition in remission. Physical, emotional, nervous system and subconscious — all of it. That understanding — earned through my own body, refined through years of clinical practice — is what I now bring to every woman who works with me.
I didn't study this in a classroom. I lived it. And I came out the other side.
Today I live symptom-free and medication-free, with stable thyroid function and energy I genuinely trust. The suicidal thoughts, the pounding heart, the breathlessness, the hair loss, the rash — gone. For over a decade now, I have known what it feels like to live well inside my own body. And every day I get to guide my clients there too.
What I know now — that I could not have known then — is that this diagnosis was one of the greatest gifts of my life.
Not because it was easy. It wasn't. But because of everything it taught me — about the body, about healing, about listening to yourself at a level most people never reach. I would not give back a single lesson.
It led me to my purpose. And it means that every woman who works with me gets to move faster, with more clarity and more support, than I ever had.
That is the gift I get to pass on.
My philosophy: thyroid conditions are whole-system conditions
What I learned through my own healing — and what has been confirmed through years of clinical practice — is this: the thyroid does not exist in isolation.
It is exquisitely sensitive to everything happening in your internal environment — your gut health, your stress physiology, your nutrient status, your immune tone, and the emotional and subconscious patterns your nervous system has been running, sometimes for decades.
When I work with a client, I'm not looking at just the thyroid. I'm looking at the whole person.
The physical layer: What is your gut doing? Which nutrients are depleted — selenium, iron, zinc, vitamin D? How is your liver supporting thyroid hormone conversion? What inflammatory drivers are keeping your immune system activated?
The nervous system layer: Is your body stuck in chronic survival mode — that low-grade hum of fight-or-flight that dysregulates immune function and prevents the deep cellular repair your thyroid needs?
The subconscious and emotional layer: What deeper patterns — subconscious and emotional, often running quietly since childhood — has your body been carrying and expressing through these symptoms? Because the body expresses what we don't process — and Hashimoto's and Graves' disease are rarely exceptions to this.
Lasting thyroid healing requires all three layers to be addressed. This is the work I do.
My clinical training and approach
My clinical work integrates evidence-informed naturopathic medicine with somatic and nervous system healing — because in my experience, and in the emerging research, both are essential for lasting autoimmune thyroid recovery.
I am a qualified naturopath with focused clinical experience in:
Autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's and Graves') · Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism · Thyroid nodules and goitre · Post-thyroidectomy recovery · Thyroid fatigue and brain fog · Nervous system-driven thyroid dysfunction · Gut health and thyroid hormone conversion · Functional pathology and thyroid lab interpretation
My somatic healing work draws on: EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) · Internal Family Systems (IFS) · Family Constellations
These modalities work at the level of the nervous system and subconscious — addressing the patterns, inherited dynamics, and held experiences that physical protocols alone cannot reach.
I work collaboratively alongside GPs, endocrinologists and other health professionals as part of a genuinely integrative care approach.
What my clients say most often
"I finally feel understood."
"This is life-changing."
Not just understood clinically — but as a whole person. The exhaustion that doesn't show up in any blood test. The shame of not being able to stick to a protocol when your body has nothing left to give. The quiet grief of feeling like your best years are being swallowed by a condition that the people around you can't fully see or understand.
I see it. I've lived it. And I know — in a way that goes beyond textbooks — how to work with it.
Beyond the Clinic
Outside of clinical practice you'll find me walking in nature or watching the sunset, travelling and immersing in new cultures, dancing bachata, salsa or zouk, experimenting in the kitchen (culinary training never fully leaves you), playing tennis, or on my mat for yoga or Pilates.
I share this because I think it matters. The women I work with are not just healing a thyroid condition — they are rebuilding a life they actually want to live inside. That is something I understand personally, and it is something I carry into every clinical relationship.
Ready to begin?
If something in you shifted as you read this — that's worth paying attention to.
Not sure yet?
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