Less than two weeks after stopping my 200mcg daily dose of thyroxine "cold turkey" (do not do this!) something very strange happened. I began to feel better than I had since I was a child!
Obviously at some point in the process of the thyroxine leaving my system the planets aligned or something and everything was in equilibrium! I need not of worried as this period of nirvana (I miss you Kurt!) only lasted about a week!
The funniest thing that happened during this week was experiencing a sex drive for the only time in my life so far! And no, I have not given up on it one day returning, ha ha ha! I was like a horny teenage boy walking around with a loaded gun in his pocket!
But this was not the best of it, honestly! Do you know what was? And here I hope I have sympathy from the ladies! I was experiencing the unfamiliar sensation of falling asleep soundly shortly after going to bed and waking up refreshed, yes refreshed, the next day, along with the surprising but not unpleasant "morning glory"!
I can only explain it like this; refreshing sleep is a necessity whereas a sex drive is a luxury item! If I had to chose just one, and I take this very seriously, I would chose refreshing sleep every time. I felt great! Anyone who has spent the last twenty years of their life with their quality of sleep gradually deteriorating will back me up on this.
Reading this back I just want to make one thing clear; even without a sex drive the equipment is fully functioning! Sex drive is different to desire. Please excuse the alpha male moment!
I hope this demonstrates how debilitating the repeatedly poor quality "sleep" was. Any men out there will realise how serious the situation was, and still is!
To get your dirty minds back on track; my bowels also functioned like a dream for this one week only! Normally I would make more of a song and dance about this but taking into consideration the aforementioned you could only tell to look at me by the innocent grin on my face!
Basically I felt tip top! But it didn't last. And I've been chasing this nirvana ever since!
After a month of no thyroxine, the symptoms returned, and I had a blood test that confirmed I still had hypothyroidism. So I was back to square one!
It was around this time that my friends suggested I research a little bit about hypothyroidism on the internet, and offered to help me on their computer at home. They are two very special people and I'm blessed to have them in my life and honoured to call them my friends. Love you!
This was to prove to be the single biggest moment in my fight with hypothyroidism; education, education, education! So important I said it three times!
Remember at this point I knew less than nothing about hypothyroidism. In fact if I knew I knew nothing I would have been ahead of the game!
The first significant information I came across was a hypothyroidism patient resources guide on the American Thyroid Association website. The extract below changed my life, it was like opening the curtains on a sunny day and the light flooding in!
American Thyroid Association ٠ Hypothyroidism ٠ Page 18
Side effects and complications of treatment
The only dangers of thyroxine are caused by taking too little or too much. If you take too little, your hypothyroidism will continue. If you take too much, you’ll develop the symptoms of hyperthyroidism—an overactive thyroid gland. The most common symptoms of too much thyroid hormone are fatigue but an inability to sleep, greater appetite, nervousness, shakiness, feeling hot when other people are cold, and trouble exercising because of weak muscles, shortness of breath, and a racing, skipping heart. Hyperthyroidism can also cause changes that you can’t feel, like bone loss (osteoporosis) and irregular heart beat.
This was written evidence that 200mcg of thyroxine a day was causing me to have symptoms of hyperthyroidism. And had been for 4 years! I still do not know if my heart has been damaged or I have suffered any bone loss. How did my doctor not know this? I was always honest with how I felt but was told I was a "difficult patient"!
Anyway, I made a decision, I would change doctor! It was now the beginning of 2006.
I also made a decision that I would need access to the internet at home to continue my research. I bought a basic laptop, which I still use today, and arranged an internet connection. I went without to make this happen but I had to do it.
When I started to research hypothyroidism properly at home I came across my guardian angel in the form of Mary J. Shomon and her book Living Well With Hypothyroidism.
In my humble opinion it is the most informative, inspiring, uplifting, optimistic and hopeful book on the topic of hypothyroidism! I have always believed in quality over quantity and Mary's book would be the one book I would recommend to someone who has just been diagnosed with hypothyroidism.
Mary's book is never far away and is always to hand. Just recently I have been paying it more attention as my confidence has slowly been improving and keeping this blog has raised many questions. In particular adrenal fatigue and T3. Anyway I looked up adrenal fatigue and was rereading it as if for the first time! Please remember (excuse the pun!) that poor memory is one of the most common symptoms of hypothyroidism and most days mine is like a sieve! My point is, the list of symptoms could not of been written better by myself as a way of describing how I feel, except for "premenstrual syndrome", although I'm sure if someone explained it to me I suffer from that as well! Joking ladies!
In all seriousness I have a renewed respect for women who experience their unique symptoms on top of those of hypothyroidism. How do you do it?
Anyway I started 2006 with a new doctor, an angel on my shoulder, and on a new dose of thyroxine; 125mcg. Over the next two years I spent twelve weeks on each of the following doses; 125, 137.5, 150, 162.5, 175, 187.5, back to 162.5 then 150 then 125mcg. Every dose I was in the "normal" range! This took just over two years to the beginning of 2008 and all the while chasing nirvana!
I still had all the symptoms of hypothyroidism that I'd always had except not as serious as during the period 2002 to the end of 2005. I was making progress but it was bloody slow! And I was a long long way from being what a "normal" person would call well!
The importance of Mary's book during this period and the thyroid forums on About.com were immeasurable. Mary did not know it, and all of those contributors on the thyroid forums did not know it, but I gained the strength I needed to get through the tough times from these sources. I know there are many forums and websites out there but during 2006 and 2007 I could only cope with a limited number of sources of information.
As I have got a little bit stronger I have had the confidence to begin to embrace the thyroid support community in all it's guises. I wish I could hug you all!
Next time I will cover the period 2008 to the present day. I am sailing on calmer waters but still have to weather storms along the way.
I hope this post was worth the wait, sorry about that. I was caught in a storm.
This blog is for you as much as it is for me. Let it go and laugh and cry with me and let us heal together.
It has been emotional, again, Robert.
Getting optimised is difficult. You need to work on the adrenal function and look at adding in T3. I am messing around with my T4 dose and have gone up from 100 to 112.5 recently. now i want to go back down to 100 and see how i do on that.
ReplyDeleteT3 is what has made the biggest diference to me, but if i take to much of it in one go i get tired and hypo symptoms coming on. this is often due to the adrenals not able to handle the strain on them. best to take T3 in small doses spread through the day i reckon.