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Tea(-4) Time with Tracy: Week of September 25th
Results are back! My TSH is now at 4.9001! I’m returning to the doctor Tuesday for my next blood test to monitor the level. My fingers are crossed that it’ll be below 4. I’m worried that with stress, it will increase. Currently, I am in the process of preparing all my essays and applications for college to send out in November. I never imagined that this process would be so stressful! Throughout my whole high school experience, what I was looking forward to the most was applying to colleges! Well, of course, this was before I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, which occurred Junior year. It has had such a significant impact on my life, and sometimes, I wonder what it may have been like if I never had it.
What do all of you think? I’d like to know if you think stress has contributed to fluctuations in your TSH? Tell me about your personal experiences and struggles with your TSH!
Sending much love and support your way,
Tracy <3
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3 Responses to “Tea(-4) Time with Tracy: Week of September 25th”
Leave a Reply to Tifflessmiles
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I am not sure about the stress, since just having Hashis can be stressful! In high school I found it stressful just to have my friends not understand. I didn’t know then what I know now, so always being sick was just who I was, and my friends made jokes about it all the time.
I was actually in middle school when I was diagnosed, and almost lost my spot on the pom pom squad because of it.
The biggest question I have was what life would have been like without Hashis through out my teens too! So many people get it later in life, that they can say, “before this disease I was . . .” But for me there isn’t much memory of what it is like before 🙁
I wish you the best of luck in getting your numbers down, and am so sorry that you have to deal with this too at such a early age. Being a teenager is hard enough!
Best wishes,
Heather
I did not know it was possible to measure TSH to four decimal places. (!)
Like Heather, I’m not sure if stress can cause significant changes in the levels of thyroid hormones, but I do believe that the reverse is true: if you thyroid function is off, you cannot handle stress as well. But, it may be possible for stress to affect thyroid hormone levels. After all, stress is known to aggravate other diseases. In a way, it doesn’t matter. Stress is not good for us in most situations, so I think it’s important to find ways to reduce stress in our lives, as well as develop methods to cope with the stress we cannot eliminate so that has less of an effect on our minds and bodies. This is true whether you have thyroid disease or do not.
I would not dwell on the “what if” of life too much (“What would my life have been like as a teenager if I did not have Hashimoto’s?”) You are the way you are, now, and you cannot change that any more than you can change the past. Besides, your life experiences make you what you are. If your life had been different, you would not be the You that you know; you’d be Someone Else with your body. The “what if”s only seem to get people down, anyway. If anything you have the blessing of “ignorance is bliss.” For those of us who are older (I’m 38, was diagnosed with thyroid disease at age 26), we *do* have the memories of being vibrant and energetic and so on, and frankly that can get depressing. Some people even have to go through a mourning period for their old self.
The teenage years are the most difficult of your entire life. It’s very hard to get through them, but you do. It’s the same way with thyroid disease. You have to get through those hard times of being diagnosed, going through the emotional issues of it all, finding the right doctor, finding the right treatment, finding the right dose, getting your hormones stabilized, and (the hardest part of all) educating yourself so that you can live just as happily (but with less). But eventually you do. That’s not to say thyroid disease won’t continue to have its ups and downs.. it will… but life is like that.
Hang in there! I know you can do it. If I can do it, so can you.
I understand exactly what you are going through! A year ago, I was diagnosed with Hashimotos. It was during my second year of college, during the time when I was working on transferring schools.
In my experience I think stress can affect TSH levels. When first diagnosed, my symptoms hit me like a ton of bricks and I started not doing so well in school. So that stressed me out on top of the stress of all the testing and lab work my doctors had me doing. And only when that stress started did my level raise. Now I am Hashimoto’s with hyper levels! And not receiving any medications. So I figure that if I stressing out that my levels will decide to go one way or another and I can finally get some relief.
Also I agree with Heather and Mike, there is no point in wondering ‘what if,’ my theory is what next. What I am going to do next to help myself feel better. I used to think and sometimes still feel like i’m doing it alone. But finding these support groups and reading others stories. I now know were all in it together. 🙂