DEAR THYROID^TM

Dear Thyroid,

I really feel like crap.  I can’t fall asleep at night.  Any little noise wakes me up.  But then I can’t wake up in the morning.  I feel hungry and nauseated at the same time.  I’m tired.  My dream job now feels like a nightmare, as if I’m being punished for being competent and loving what I do.  The dog is extra cuddly because he knows something isn’t right.  (Thank you doggy!)

But it’s autumn.  My body’s shifting around, like it always does.  The doctor recently lowered the dose of levothyroxine because the blood tests showed I was taking too much. But I felt good and didn’t want to decrease.  However, my needs do seem to fluctuate up and down with the seasons.  Since it’s a new season, this sort of thing is to be expected.

But, lately I’ve felt so bad, that I thought “Maybe I’m just tired because I can’t sleep well.  Maybe I can’t sleep well because I’m still on too high a dose. Maybe I just need a drug holiday to wind by body down so I can get some good sleep.”

Yesterday I discovered that is not the case.  After four days of no drugs, at which point I should have noticed an improvement, I had not noticed an improvement.  In fact, I realized I was worse off after smashing the colander with the frying pan because it wouldn’t fit into the dishwasher the way I wanted it to.  I smashed it at least eight times before I realized what I was doing.  I never liked that colander anyway.  I certainly didn’t buy it.  (I did buy the frying pan, however, and not a scratch was left on that thing…and it fits perfectly in the dishwasher.)  Maybe I should have smashed it sixty-seven more times until it was a flattened shred of metal embedded in the floor.  Maybe that would have made me feel better, a little.

So if I’ve fallen into Irritable Male Syndrome this bad and this quickly.  I know I need to go see my doctor now.  I can’t wait until January.  And I’m going to ask her if I should see an endocrinologist, because sometimes I wonder if you, dear Thyroid, are not the only non-functioning member of my endocrine system.  Why should just one part of the system fail?  Sometimes I feel surges of adrenaline for no explicable reason, for example.  This is by far not my normal seasonal fluctuation.  And if she won’t refer me or discourages it in some way, I’m going behind her back.  It may not be covered by insurance that way, but I just need to know.  I need to know you’re not the one driving me crazy because I ran out of anger at you a long time ago.

*sigh*

And now I’m an hour late for work, and I’m not even out of bed yet.  But you know what, fuckit!  I’ll get there when I get there.

—Mike

—

(Bio) Mike has the “nobody knows why” form of hypothyroidism for almost 12 years now. Twitter: @mind_static

Tags: irritability thyroid, men with thyroid disease, men's health issues, men's health support, support for men with thyroid disorders cancers and autoimmune diseases, thyroid medications, weather impacting thyroid

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