Hello friends! Welcome back to the crazy saga that is my health. A while ago my mother quipped that I talk about my body like it’s my temperamental toddler and all I could say was eh, that’s accurate…I just try to contain the crazy!
Some of you might have seen the post from last year on my journey to fix leaky gut, and the good news is that that problem is fixed! I still have to be gluten-free to try to reduce the amount of inflammation in my body but being gluten-free only is so much easier than the previously ever-growing list of things.
I enjoyed a few months of good health (for me) and then later this spring began to feel tired to the bone. All. The. Time. I would come home from work and collapse into a nap, would have trouble staying awake while driving, and it became par for the course for me to take two naps on weekend days. I couldn’t stay awake and I wasn’t sure why — my thyroid levels are ‘normal’ and I was eating a fairly healthy diet. I wasn’t (and am not) pregnant, so it definitely wasn’t a good sign.
After a month or so of this, I dragged myself to the doctor, where they ran tests for autoimmune disorders, Epstein bar, blood cell counts, and my thyroid levels once again. All came back normal, which while it was GREAT that I didn’t have any major things wrong, it was still frustrating to remain a Dormouse without cause.
They didn’t have any further ideas (aside from an expensive sleep study) and it was impossible to get them to suggest and so I turned to acupuncture once again. The doc there suggested that it was very likely adrenal fatigue and a chi-imbalance, and during the first treatment, I could feel the energy moving around my body more strongly than it had been when I sought treatment a few years ago! It was crazy. While it would help for a day or so after, the effects weren’t too long lasting and going so frequently strained our budget. It had to be something more underlying.
(Instead of a sleep study, we decided to get a Fitbit to track my sleep and it has revealed that my sleep is indeed pretty normal, aside from sleeping alllll the time.)
After month four or five of this, I realized that it likely had to do something with my congenital hypothyroidism as pretty much everything that happens with my body can be linked back to it. I started researching and found out that sometimes levothyroxine can stop being as effective as it once was AND that the “normal” range for TSH tests is based on a small sample size and is more a measure of pituitary function than actual thyroid hormone levels in the body.
A website called Stop The Thyroid Madness provided a lot of good information and suggested that thyroid patients be treated until they are feeling better, not until they are in a good test range like I was. Additionally, I found out that there is a natural form of thyroid medication made from porcine and bovine thyroid hormone, which can provide a more well-rounded form of the hormones (plus T3 as well as the normal T4) than the synthetic version can. I decided to give it a try.
…it took a month to get it. (Anyone have recommendations for a good endocrinologist in Northern Colorado? I’m even willing to go to Denver) In the meantime, a co-worker recommended a supplement of Raw Thyroid to provide some extra thyroid and adrenal support and think that that has helped keep some of the fatigue in check.
Now I’m on day 4 of the NatureThroid and combined with the raw thyroid I’m hopeful that it will make a difference – prayers are appreciated!
Hoping that the next update will be much more positive haha.
