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Thywheel Of Torture
Dear Thyroid,
That little breakdown in the middle of the shopping centre may have let our secret out. It wasn’t a big scene, but people generally notice a woman in her 30’s with the shakes, tears running down her face and the expression that says ‘impending doom approaches’.
I feel helpless to prevent it and weak for not doing so, since anyone I’ve spoken with while sick seems to, either have these symptoms but controls them or just doesn’t believe me. There are, apparently plenty undiagnosed thyroid disease patients, so perhaps they are right, perhaps I am weak for not being able to control it. My readings are all at the high end. I’m not low on T4 or T3. Perhaps it is all in my head and I am just looking for attention. Perhaps I am just a faulty model.
Feel anxious, frozen, frightened, fat, alone, nauseous, lazy, unintelligent, unattractive, achy, confused, unworthy, alone alone; like everything I’ve built over the last 18 months with various ups and downs is crumbling and I can do nothing but watch — and no-one to talk to.
Your only friend,
Jody.
P.S. Why did my throat hurt so much last week and why isn’t my brain working? I need to study dammit!
P.P.S screw it, maybe I’ll just have a couple of drinks so I can sleep it all away for now.
(Bio) I am a 33 year old Australian. I am not married and have no children yet. For a living, I am an office manager and when not working I am studying towards a Bachelor of Commerce (Financial Planning) and managing my holiday rental. Goodness – that sounds so much more orderly than the reality!
Tags: affects of thyroid disorders, hyperthyroidism support, hypothyroidism support, thyroid literary support, Thyroid patient letters
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18 Responses to “Thywheel Of Torture”
Leave a Reply to amolpatil2k
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Jody—the people you’re speaking to are liars!!!!! Plain and simple.
“Feel anxious; frozen; frightened;fat; alone; nauseous; lazy; unintelligent; unattractive;achy; confused;unworthy;alone; alone; like everything I’ve built over the last 18 months with various ups and downs is crumbling and I can do nothing but watch. ;and no-one to talk to.”
I’ve felt exactly the same way at various times on my journey—join the club, you have plenty of friends here, we “get it”! You’re not weak just worn down- so come along and laugh and cry with us…you are not alone, EVER…thanks for sharing
Oh, I am so there, but I had no idea what was going on at all. I was always told I had a “sluggish” thyroid and that more exercise would cause it to behave correctly. What a joke. Everything I have read points to the thyroid was not functioning properly when I was a young adult, all the signs were there. It took until I was 51 to receive any sort of medication.
You not nuts, it’s not in your head, it’s real. We’re here pulling for you (and each other)..
I want to also confirm what Bee wrote above me. I have felt Scratch that – AM feeling all of the issues that you wrote. Very descriptive words for such a problematic disease! I felt the same way – noone to talk too etc.. But then I found Dear Thyroid and my life is now changed. I get to converse with such lovely people and listen to their stories and realize I am not alone. That has helped me cope with most of the issues I face and has also helped me gain much needed strength.
Remember you are not alone and that you have virtual friends that are with you. All of us.
I think the people you speak with too have a way of bending the truth. I wouldn’t believe them for a second. I once talked to a girl who refused to take meds for her thyroid. When I asked her why not – she said she didn’t want to deal with it right now and wanted to lose weight first. I about laughed in her face. 😀
Keep visiting Dear Thyroid we will give you laughs and tons of support.
Jody,
Just because they say your thyroid levels are normal FT4 and FT3 within range doesn’t mean they are in the right place for you, but until these crapola doctors who practice medicine yes practise because that’s what they do on human subjects, get it into there thick skulls that we are all different what might seem normal for one person isn’t necessarily so for another.
So keep getting your thyroid labs tested keep looking for a Doctor or Endo to listen to your symptoms, ask for hard copies of your results along with the reference ranges and build a diary for yourself, it isn’t in your head it’s in your neck and it’s called a thyroid gland.
We all started like you with probably fluctuating thyroid levels that made us symptomatic, yet were in range just about until one day they went mad one way or the other. Don’t let it get to that stage if you can help it.
I feel your pain and your turmoil, you are not alone you have us here, to cry or laugh with you.
Anyone who says their thyroid disease was easy to control is full of shit. There, I said it.
You are strong–keep it up! We’re here for you.
A acquaintance has TSH of 11 plus. I am thinking of recommending nutri-meds, natural sources, iodoral and vitazym. Any ideas?
A TSH of 11 is probably way past the point where natural foods and that sort of thing will be enough to help it. The trouble with the natural approach is that nature just loves the sick-it gives the well something to eat. Why do you think that there are no sick zebras when the lions are around? That being said healthy nutrition has made a world of difference to my general health. Sometimes I wonder if that was the problem. Around the time I started to eat really well my immune system got feisty. I stopped get colds and that sort of thing, and then the immune system went after my thyroid. Sort of like the folks who develop asthma AFTER they stop smoking. Not that I’m going to go back to eating junk food.
Jody I’d like to echo what someone else said. We have a T4/T3/TSH range that is proper for us and it may not correspond to the average proper range. This isn’t even cutting edge thinking anymore, it’s been in all the mainstream thyroid stuff I’ve read. Also my endo says that she really considers the T4 and T3 tests to just be a sort of a check on the TSH test and that she thinks they are pretty worthless by themselves.
I like my endo. She’s pretty well informed and open minded and has been very helpful to me. But still I am left with the idea that there is just something that has never been the same since the I131 a few years ago. I don’t think she is stupid or uncaring, just that medical science still has a great deal to learn.
Hang in there and don’t be afraid to go doctor shopping and get more opinons.
Thanks for your post.
Zari
dearthyroid, Zari
Thanks for replying. He does not have insurance so we are stuck with OTC choices like Nutri-meds and Natural Sources instead of Armour and Naturethroid. Plus Iodoral and L-Tyrosine Complex might also help with those trace minerals and B12. The problem with Iodine is that it aggravates auto-immune thyroid. Seniors have stressed out adrenals anyway. And he is anemic to boot so we need to worry about low cortisol and low ferritin levels too. I lack the grounding needed to make sense of all the info available on the Net.
Dear Amolpatik2k,
The thing is that a TSH of 11 is potentially very serious. There are some doctors who say that at that level one should not drive, and I know that at 5.6 due to an ill advised medication adjustment this summer that I sometimes felt like I was about to pass out. It made my body unable to handle the heat due to low blood pressure, and in the winter it can have very bad effects on the ability to handle the cold. There is a very lengthy list of other bad things that can happen as well.
Eating well and using a lot of supplements has been very helpful to me in terms of overall health. However when the thyroid gets to a certain point it’s like putting high test gasoline into a car that has no sparkplugs-the body becomes unable to utilize the healthful nourishment I give it.
I’d strongly suggest that one of your efforts should be to find medical resources that can be used without insurance. Asking who ever did the TSH test in the first place might be a good place to start. And if your friend is a senior hopefully medicare will help.
There is a lot of controversy about what is the right level of TSH-they changed the maximum from 5.5 to 3.5 a few years ago and for people like me on full replacement they try to keep it at around 1.0. Even that seems to be higher than what works well for me-everyone has their own right level. But any doctor, including any faintly reputable GP, would be alarmed at a TSH of 11.
Hope this helps. I’m not trying to be bossy but I have come to learn, sometimes the hard way, what failing to address this can lead to.
Zari
Rereading your post I noticed that you said you can’t afford Armour or naturethyroid. Although some people think they work better than synthroid, the synthroid will still be vastly better than nothing.
Personally I take synthroid. In the right dosage (about 225 mg a day) it seems to allieviate about 95 % of my symptoms. At the suggestion of my endo I also added cytomel but stopped after a month as it seemed to really agravate the brain fog. I have a good friend who swears by the Armour, but she also tells me it’s harder to get the right dosage (it’s strenght is not quite as consistent as the synthroid, and synthroid is not always consistent to begin with) and that some days she feels like she doesn’t have the right amount. Since most of my residual symptoms feel like I’m slightly under for a few days I figure this would not be helpful to me. But she has a different set of residual symprtoms from me.
You’re right about how sometimes too much iodine can agravate auto immune thyroid. Likewise not enough causes problems. The difficulty is in knowing the right amount, and I have no idea how to figure that out. I just eat lots of fish and vegetables.
Zari, Thanks for your advice. We can’t take Armour not because it is expensive but because we can’t get it prescribed to us. Also Armour was reformulated this year. It seems to have lost some of its potency and it can no longer be taken sublingually. Why Naturethroid or Westhroid is better than Synthroid is because natural desiccated porcine thyroid has natural T1,T2,T3,T4 and calcitonin instead of just synthetic T4. Nutri-meds is a less potent form of Naturethroid and that is probably why it is available over the counter. Continued use of Synthroid would take a toll on your adrenals. Only natural thyroid can help you achieve the holy grail of high free T3 and low TSH. An alternative to the serum test is taking your basal body temperature. If Cytomel plus Synthroid did not suit you, try Thyrolar.
I had my thyroid removed about 3-4 mos. ago, and still feel that way a lot, as Jody says- “Feel anxious, frozen, frightened, fat, alone, nauseous, lazy, unintelligent, unattractive, achy, confused, unworthy, alone alone; like everything is crumbling and I can do nothing but watch.” I’m on increased meds (Synthroid 137mcg) and thought it was doing the trick. However, I started feel crappy again about a week or two after my last endo appt. Of course, they did bloodwork that apparently came back “normal”- (I haven’t officially heard from the doctor, but usually when they don’t call, that means they won’t be adjusting anything). So, I used to normally be a happy, optimistic person who has now become self-conscious, exhausted, un-motivated, achy all over, moody, and have severly low self-esteem. I try to be there for my husband, daughters, aging mother, church, extracurricular activities, etc. but just feel constantly drained, agitated, and never, ever good enough. I’m so thankful Dear Thyroid is here for extra support and guidance. A lot of days I feel all alone even if my house is full. Family and friends try to understand, but can’t really unless they experience it themselves (and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone!) Plus, how can you expect others to truly empathize when you, yourself, don’t always know what’s going on, why, and when it will resolve itself (at least, temporarily). I want to be a good wife, good mother, good daughter, good sister, good friend, etc., but feel “good-for-nothing” on so many days. My only true escape is when I sleep, which doesn’t always come easy, either. Otherwise when I’m awake, I’m constantly anxious, can’t be still, feel depressed (for no real reason because I am SO blessed and know it!) and just want to have quiet and be by myself for awhile. I have good days here and there, but I always know the bad ones are on the way and occur much more frequently than the good ones. Thanks, again, for this forum to find friends, help, and support! 🙂
I spent over 10 years undiagnosed because my blood work all said everything was “normal”. Vertgo one year, miscarriage the next, finally major depressive disorder. I felt like a freak, and a failure in many ways. You are not alone! We’re here, and we want you to know you are normal, your thyroid is not.
Find a doctor who will listen to you. It took me going office to office with a checklist of my symptoms to find a doctor who listened to me, even after my labs came back “normal” he kept looking for an answer.