Oh Thyroid, Behave!

Boy am I glad this week is over. It certainly has been a week of ups and downs in nearly every area of my life!

I won’t go into all the details except for the few relating to my health. I only write this in case someone is out there googling away and they find these posts and think, “Hey, the same things happen to me!”. To that person, may you discover this problem a LOT earlier then I did.

Quick as lightning recap:

About three years ago I started to get a lump on my throat which has slowly gotten bigger. It doesn’t really effect me apart from the fact that you can see it. In the last few months it has occasionaly started to push on my throat and I can feel it as I breath.

It’s been difficult for me to loose weight for YEARS.

For the last year I’ve been lacking energy, and get tired really, really easily. I can sleep for most of the day if my husband will let me, and he often says things like, “I don’t know how you can sleep so much!”

Nearly four months ago I went to a seminar on thyroid health after hearning an interview on our local radio station. (read what I learnt here)

After that I started going to a naturopath. She asked me to get a blood test (dun, dun, duuuunnnn!). (read about my first experience at the naturopath here)

Now:

Just before we went to Europe I went to the doctor to get the above mentioned blood test. Now, I HATE needles (I am literarly terrified of them for some reason), and was all upset when they took my blood etc. The nurse saw me cry, but I got it done.

All my results came back within the normal range, and so my doctor recomended I get a biopsy to test the cells. This is mostly to see if the cells will mutate into the C word, and if I will become a statistic.

Did I mention I hate needles? And did I mention that the biopsy is basically sticking a HUGE needle into my throat, an area that I haven’t let anyone touch for the last 8 years because I am oddly sensitive about it? Yeah, well, I was TOTALLY looking forward to this procedure, and I didn’t constantly put it off, or spend nights stressing about it, or dodge all coversations involving my thyroid or said procedure. Definitely not… :-S

Long story short, after our holiday Luke nagged me about getting it done, and my mum took me down to hold me hand. Is cost me 150 big ones, and MORE people saw me cry and stress and tense up to the point where I felt like I was going to explode. I am still waiting for the results (I just did this on Tuesday), but will keep you posted. I’m not at all worried about the results, they’ll hopefully just help the naturopath know what to do (maybe it is foolish not to worry- we will see!).

Wednesday I went to the naturopath who I haven’t seen since ages before we left for Europe, and she looked at the results of my blood test. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw the level of thyroid hormone I had. It was .01 off the minimum. TECHNICALLY in the ‘normal’ range, but as my naturopath says, the ‘normal’ range includes a lot of numbers which are anything BUT normal. So this is both good and bad. Bad because my brain isn’t working properly and it’s telling my thyroid the wrong thing, but good because we now know what the problem is. Any plans we may or may not have had of starting a family soon-ish (*blush*) have been put on the backburner, as apparently that could be pretty bad for my health at this stage.

I’m relieved to know that there’s a REASON it is so gosh darn hard for me to loose weight. I’m relieved that there’s a reason I feel so tired all the time. I’m relieved that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

So if you’re suffering from these types of things, it might be worth going to the doctors, or a naturopath and talking to someone about it. I’m on some helpful herbs (the legit kind- no Amsterdam style herbs for me!), that are giving my body some of the things it needs to keep me healthy and awake!

Thanks for visiting my site again! keep checking back for more updates!

Tags: blood, healthy, naturopath, needles, thyroid

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