I haven't posted for over 2 months. Lots happened, but not much medical news. A friend told me that she rarely read my blog, because I just talked about medical conditions. I previously posted what I thought others might like to read, but during the past year used this blog to track symptoms while I slowly increased my thyroid supplement up to an effective dose. Since I reached that effective (no more hypo symptoms) last August, I didn't have much news to post during the past few months.
I should probably update what I last posted about visiting my doc and getting IAG (arabinogalactin) to fight frequent colds. I used that for several days and felt better rapidly. However, I had forgotten how much gas and bloating side effects I experienced when I took IAG regularly. Because my doc mentioned that DHEA helps with immunity, bone and brain health, I decided to resume taking DHEA, which has no side effects at low levels (I take 2.5 mg sublingual daily). So I stopped taking IAG and stopped the 'side effects'. Since I resumed DHEA, I've had no real colds. Occasionally I get slight cold symptoms (sinus headache or throat tickle or slight sore throat or fatigue), but slightly increasing my DHEA (to 4.0mg daily) or just getting more sleep or even eating very spicy food or ginger cookies quickly eliminates those symptoms without developing a real cold.
Also my doc requested another NTX (bone health) test. I 'passed' in the normal range again. So when my HMO PC pesters me about getting a bone scan (which I consider unnecessary radiation), I can tell her 2 NTX tests showed that I am NOT excreting bone. I may have lost bone during all those years when she misdiagnosed my celiac disease symptoms (and I wasn't absorbing calcium). However, I've been gluten free for almost 9 years and the NTX tests indicated that I'm not losing bone.
Another interesting (okay, excellent) side effect of taking an effective level of T3 supplement is that I can eat as much as I want of anything (to which I don't have diagnosed allergies) and not gain weight. During the holidays I baked a birthday cake for my husband the day before Thanksgiving. So we enjoyed cake (and ice cream a few times) well into December. Then I started baking 5 kinds of Christmas cookies (thanks to my allergy free baking books). I missed pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving (when we had leftover birthday cake). So I had to make pumpkin pie and a dairy/soy free topping for Christmas dinner. Sometime during the holidays (New Year's?) I decided to make muffins after tiring of pancakes with syrup and sausage for weekend breakfasts. So we've enjoyed homemade cranberry/coconut muffins every weekend since then. We still have a few Christmas cookies left (2, 2, 3 and 20 of my favorites which I rarely share) of the 5 batches I baked, even after giving away 5 gift plates to members of our church group. We may finish all the cookies and muffins just in time for my birthday (less than 2 weeks away), when I plan to make an apple spice bundt cake with maple glaze. After eating all those goodies plus regular meals I weigh less than I did during my last mid November post.
I need to clarify that I'm not one of those people who can ignore fullness, when I eat. If I don't stop when I feel comfortably full, the next symptom is 'painfully' full. So I rarely graze or binge eat, although I did that regularly during previous years. Maybe having H. Pylori, Celiac Disease and all those gut bug infections shrunk my stomach. Or maybe having normal metabolism thanks to thyroid supplements means I burn more of what I eat. I suspect that I must have restricted my calories enough during all those years I had hypothryoidism so that I wasn't overweight. So now that I have normal metabolism, I can eat whatever and actually lost weight, but I'm learning to choose more dense calorie foods, rather than too many 'healthy' fruits and vegies.
Maybe the previous paragraphs still sound like 'medical' updates. Lemesee ... after all that baking, eating and holiday outings (Christmas shopping, seeing holiday displays, church services and 2 ice skating sessions at local holiday rinks), I'm finally getting back to my first love, sewing. Maybe that should be 'clothes', because I sew for myself. Right now I'm altering garments that don't fit as well as I'd like.
I also took a pair of (expensive) designer jeans back to Nordstrom and used my alterations credit I purchased those over 4 years ago and wore them maybe 3x, because they were wide leg. I liked the high waist feature, but I realized the wide leg part really didn't flatter my short legs after I started buying more skinny jeans. So I had them altered to 'boot cut'. The leg opening as still wider than I like, but the denim was so heavy that I didn't want to make trouser or skinny jeans. The weight of the jeans makes them hang well. With a short jacket and boots, the altered jeans make my legs look very long, which I need just to look normal rather than 'penguin' shaped. LOL
I can't remember whether or how much I posted about our "Course in Miracles" group. Meetings were moved from the church library to the leader's house (which is about 7 minute drive from our house). Then the leader asked that we rotate leadership for meetings. One member volunteered for the first rotated leader meeting. So I volunteered for the next meeting, which will occur this coming Thursday. (We also changed the meeting day.) I only have a vague idea of how I will lead the meeting/discussion. Hopefully that will just come to me during meditation or sleep or somehow before Thursday night ...
That's enough update. Maybe next time I'll have less medical news ... or not. LOL
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5 comments:
What thyroid supplements do u take? and what do they help u with?
Deanna
Hi Deanna: My lifelong thyroid symptoms were chronic constipation, low body temperature (I was only warm in Maui!), low pulse, high LDLs, despite very high HDLs, increasing fatigue so much that everything seemed overwhelming, loss of outer third of my eyebrows and low immunity (I caught one respiratory infection after another during the final year before I found a doc who wanted to test my thyroid hormones (T4, T3, TSH and TPOab (Hashimoto's antibodies, which are strongly correlated with celiac disease, which I have). After 3 months on Levoxyl (a T4 hormone supplement), my doc added liothyronine (generic T3 which didn't contain any of my allergens). After months on T4/T3 combinations and no continual symptom relief, I went to T3 only over a year ago. (I'm one of those people who doesn't easily convert T4 to T3.) I'm doing well on 55 mcg of Paddock Liothyronine in 4 divided doses (7 am, 10-11am, 1-3 pm and 5-6 pm depending on meals, etc., because you have to take thyroid away from meals and supplements like magnesium (which I take) and iron or calcium (which I don't take.) Most docs only consider TSH and ignore symptoms. However with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (an autoimmune disease) you can have hypothyroid symptoms and normal range TSH. Also most docs consider a 'too wide' normal range for TSH. That should be 0.35-3.5, but most won't even consider you unless your TSH is over 5.0, which means many people with hypothyroidism stay undiagnosed and untreated
Hi Sue
I do read your blog from time to time. I do see that you mainly blog about your physical health, which I guess is a great way to track your well being and recognize patterns. I don't know much about all the different medicines and treatments you talk about, so I can't relate to that, but I do enjoy reading about your daily life and when you describe the things you feel passionate about...like sewing and going for long walks, etc.
I recognize you from the bottom half of your photo! Glad you replied to this post. I suspect my lie really did revolve around illness, tests, diagnoses and treatments during the past 8 years or so. However, that's an improvement over believing I had an eating disorder and looking for psychological treatments. SIGH
Amazingly the posts which attracted the most comments and page views were about medical issues, like capryllic acid side effects, treatment for c-diff and dientamoeba fragilis and cane sugar allergies. So many readers are looking for medical info from my point of view.
I had a funny experience with crows yesterday. So I promise to post about that next time I post on this blog.
CORRECTION: That should be "LIFE" not "lie" in the second sentence. LOL
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