August 15, 2008

• Little butterfly in my throat

  Please note: This blog entry contains medical talk. While a part of me thinks “why are you sharing your medical info with the world,” another part of me thinks “why is everyone so weird and secretive about sharing medical info?” I think that if we all talked about our health a bit more, it would demystify the whole thing a bit. Weird body things shouldn’t be shameful or make us feel like failures. We are just animals–alive things–and if we all talked about body stuff more, perhaps we wouldn’t feel so separated from that fact. Reading bloggers who write about medical stuff is sometimes helpful to me, so I thought that if I had something to say about medical stuff, I might as well just say it.
  
  That said, feel free to skip this if the acknowledgement of me having internal organs is upsetting to you. But its my blog, damn it. And so I write…

  Problem:
  I think I have to break up with my doctor.

  You know how I went in to talk to her about that vertigo I had? Well, she assured me that I was probably fine but did some blood tests just to be sure. The blood tests came back confirming that my vertigo was nothing to fret over, but that I might have a thyroid problem. She had me in for a second round of tests.

  The nurse from her office called today to confirm that my blood tests say I have “slightly low” thyroid hormone production, meaning that I have something called hypothyroidism (not HyPERthyroidism, which means you gt to eat loads of cakes and be really skinny), which makes NO sense, since I have NONE of the symptoms, which are as follows:

  1.) Fatigue/weakness–No. Remember how I love to bike 17 miles a day to work every day, hike up mountains, run 4-6 miles daily, go on evening walks, and play frissbe every night of the summer? Me? Fatigued? Sometimes I wear myself out, but its not like its coming out of nowhere!
  2.) Low cold tolerance–No! Actually, if there is anything that I hate its the HEAT! AHHH! Cant stand it. Makes me pass out.
  3.) Dry skin/hair–no! Opposite problem, actually. very greasy. lots of shine.
  4.) Cold hands/feet–not really. Shaun says sometimes my feet are chilled in the night, but I’ve never noticed. I’m too busy sleeping.
  5.) Weight gain–Not at all! At the doctors last week, I weighed in at 140 (I’m 6 feet tall). I hold it steady, man. Sometimes I’m 135. Sometimes, around Christmas, I can get up to 145. But after I stop drinking the nog, the weight goes away. Mostly, I’m a lean lady.
  6.) Insomnia–Ha! I LOVE sleep time and I am very good at it.
  7.) Constipation–HA! All I DO is shit!
  8.) Depression–what? No! Not unless I’m having a completely valid emotional reaction to a horribly depressing fact of life! Like New York! And I think I handle it pretty damn well. And I’m very happy
  now, thank you very much.
  9.) Poor memory–what? What did you just ask me? I forget. Seriously though, my memory is not as rockin as Shaun’s is, but I think that has more to do with my very specific learning needs than anything. I like interactive learning and learning-through-teaching. 
  10.) Nervousness–No! Just. No. I do not identify with this.
  11.) Immune system problems–okay. Yes. There was the shingles. I have to baby myself and not get stressed  and make sure I get enough sleep. But I’m pretty good about putting health first, so usually I can manage this on my own, without drugs and doctors.
  12.) Heavy periods–HA! NO! Not to get too gory or anything, but from what I gather, I have really light, short rag-sessions compared to most ladies. They are irregular, though. But I’m guessing that has to do with going off birth control; I suspect that my body is still learning to regulate itself. This must be a hard thing for lady parts to do; until fall of 2007, I’d been on the pill for nearly a decade. That’s got to confuse a uterus. Can we not be patient with it and stop demanding it act normally right of the bat?

  Conclusion:
  While I’m willing to believe that I have a “slightly low” production of thyroid hormone like the doctor says (blood tests are blood tests, right? Who am I to argue science?), I’m not going to take drugs for something that is not crating an actual problem for me (aka: symptoms). However, I’m going to keep an eye on my body and try to promote good thyroid health naturally. If I start to get unexpectedly fat and sluggish, I’ll be the first

  in line to get me some drugs. But until then….
  
  Thyroid Plan of Action:
  1.) I have a list of questions for my doctor. She is scheduled to call me today and answer them. Mainly, they focus on her recommendations for natural treatment. 26 is no time to be starting a lifelong, daily dependance on prescription medication. That just seems so extreame and apt to cause more harm than good. Espcially for a “problem” that has gone completely unnoticed by me (and from what I understand, most of the time this hypothyroidism is pretty hard to go unnoticed–it reek HAVOC on ladies!).

  2.) I scheduled a September appointment with the lady doctor, just to have my hormone levels checked and make sure my lady parts are handling the move away from synthetic hormones (birth control) okay.

  3.) I scheduled an appointment for acupuncture next Friday. The more I read, the more I realized that the issues I have are the same ones that acupuncture promises to handle best: migraines and immune system issues and weird body “quirks” (like passing out and vertigo and zits!). Acupuncture is also supposed to be good at preventative stuff, making sure that the body stays healthy and good. Which is helpful to me, as all the research has made me paranoid that my thyroid will misbehave someday, which would be horrible. The only crap news is that acupuncture is expensive. $100 for my first-time visit! Then it goes to $75. I can probably afford to go once a month, but from what I understand, its normal for people to get pin-cushioned weekly. Oh well. I’m getting ahead of myself. Acupuncture could very well make me dry heave and pass out. I might hate it and never go again. Which would be cheaper. But with luck, it won’t gross me out and will comfort my little thyroid so that it never ever misbehaves. In which case, I’m happy to carve out a bit of my budget for it.

  4.) Eat meat daily. Seriously. I researched the types of things that make a thyroid unhappy and found that it can be a lack of zinc, iodine, selenium, fatty acids, and an amino acid called tyrosine. Meat and salt are good ways of getting these and both items are REALLY scarce in my diet (I eat meat sometimes 1x a week and usually its fish. I don’t really like salt.)

  5.) Do “thyrod healthy” yoga. I will look on Amazon for a DVD today. In the winter, I think I may sign up for a yoga studio, since its usually too cold to run and too icy to bike and I’ve always hated doing my wintertime workout tapes in the apartment (I do them to shed the eggnog weight and keep me fit for spring/summer/fall sporty fun, but its a CHORE).

  Anyhow, do any of you have thyroid stories you’d like to share? Anyone ever try acupuncture? Advice? Thoughts?  Thanks!

  • 4:03 pm
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