DEAR THYROID^TM

Today’s Dear Thyroid Letter was written by, Nancy:  I’m Ready to Throw in the Towel. We were quite proud of Nancy, because she went there, to the place we don’t discuss: depression, and the vice grip it has on our lives. As thyroid patients, we face psychiatric disturbances that run the gamut; anxiety, depression, rage, paranoia, delusions, and psychoses, among others.

By sharing her letter with us, and no-holds bared severe depression, literally on the brink; holding on by a thread; she opened Pandora’s box. We all dove in with her. Every comment delivered love, support, our own stories, and resources. The community did far more than rally today. Today, we came out of the closet with respect to a rarely discussed mental disturbance we all face, regardless of what our thyroid condition is.

I (Katie Schwartz) AM SO PROUD OF EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU. You made me cry and tap into the abyss. YOU reminded me. YOU reminded all of us that we are in this together.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Today’s comment of the day;

Lori says: April 14, 2010 at 7:25 am

Nancy, many of us have been where you are and you can get better. You have to hang in there and fight for what you deserve. We are here to support and help you do that. I have felt the same way. I never thought I would survive it at times but I did and you can too. I turned 50 last December and I am determined to not let an ignorant doctor keep me from healing and have a better life. There are good docs out there. You have to keep looking. I heard these same words from the thyamily here but worried I would ever find one. I thought I’d never be that lucky but I have one now. Sometimes when we go in armed with information and ask for specific tests they listen. I started with my primary care and she saw I was not doing well on T4 drugs and started ordering more test, but she never would have done it on her own without me asking. I then found a hormone doc that could help me more. At the end of this post, I am going to copy and paste my adrenal gland story, which I had just posted on Dear Thyroid on Facebook.

I think Tracy’s recommendation on blood tests are very good and these are a must to know how your thyroid is functioning, as well as other problems that often accompany thyroid disease. I would add another blood test to that list DHEA-S. This will test the status of your adrenal glands. If your adrenal glands are not functioning well, T4 drugs or Synthroid will not work and can even make you worse. Another good test is an “RT3 or reverse T3, which is harder to get ordered by many docs because they are not familiar with it, but should be checked if things are still not improving.

I also have Julia Ross’ book “Mood Cure”. It is an excellent book but please be careful with the kind of supps this book recommends, as there are contraindications to many of these, and do as Heather did and OK this with a professional.

I wanted to get my adrenal glands checked before treating myself but that was not going to happen with my primary care at the time. Everything was falling apart at the seams and I was headed for a crash I didn’t think I’d come out of so I treated myself with Dr. Tietlbaums’ “Adrenal Stress-End supps, which did not have a contraindication to anything I was currently doing. I think they just about saved my life, that’s how sick I was.

My new doc has since tested my DHEA-S or DHEA-Sulfate, which is a standard blood test every doc should know about and not have a problem ordering. Mine is still elevated so I still have a way to go but I’m glad to have it documented. Many people are able to get this under control with lifestyle changes but that was not going to happen. All the stress-reducing techniques in the world were not going to get me out of that hell. I think this is partly why I could not tolerate T4 meds and even became worse on it. NDT was not enough by itself either, for me. Unfortunately docs only know about adrenal crisis which you can’t rebound from and need cortisol likely forever. For some reason, most docs don’t recognize you don’t just end up in adrenal crisis and that there is adrenal fatigue/exhaustion before one reaches the stage of crisis.

This afternoon, we wanted to do something literary, to get us writing about our diseases. After all, Dear Thyroid is a literary brand. We write, on our terms and in our words. Today, we played a wonderful game: Thyme for Some Literary Healing and a Few Qs.

Every response was so poetic, heartfelt and brutally honest. Once again, you rendered me speechless with your literary prowess. If you’ve forgotten, everything we write is non-fiction. With non-fiction, when there’s a willingness to dive into the epicenter of your womb or balls, whatever the case may be, out comes every emotion in the human condition.

To say that I am deeply proud of each of you marginalizes how deeply you made me think and feel. Once again, I was reminded that I am not alone; we are a family thyamily.

Loving youse madly.

Today’s comment of the day;

Donna says: April 14, 2010 at 12:57 pm

1. Yikes, looks gray some days and bright and shiny others.
2. I wish you could have stayed with me because you worked perfectly fine but the cancer got a hold on us and it was decided you had to be left behind.
3. I had a lump in my neck for two years that my doctor told me was probably just sinus drainage because my thyroid levels were perfectly fine.
4. I love my endo because she calls me herself and more importantly she listened to me about my immune system concerns and ran blood work which showed that I had high red blood cell counts which explained my sleeping problems. My family doctor attributed my sleeping problems the same as I did, anxiety from the cancer.
5. Depends on the day and my energy levels. Once I push myself out the door I am as social as a butterfly (no pun intended) but if I did not push myself I could sit here and be perfectly content. Thank goodness I have obligations to my mama and my family!

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