We can now officially add Sleep Apnea to my list of medical conditions.
I apologize for the lack of activity on my blog. I have been having a lot of mood and anxiety problems of late, and I just can’t push myself to do any writing.
I am sure I will find time to make a few posts in the coming weeks though, as I have a lot to talk about, and new things to explore…. CPAP machine?! How will I ever sleep with this contraption?
…but I have been really busy!
In the interim, have a look at this – http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=46# a link related to the development of the DSM-V and proposed changes to 300.4 (Dysthymic Disorder).
It is particularly interesting to me, of course, since I don’t entirely agree with my diagnosis should it mean that there has never been a Major Depressive Episode, because, there has been, and I’m sure I will blog about that experience some day, when I’m emotionally capable.
So, I haven’t been in much of a writing mood the last week and a half. I apologize for the lack of posts.
I guess I’m having a period of “down” time where my mood is concerned, and it takes all I have to just get my butt to work every day, and complete normal daily functions. Motivating myself to do anything extracurricular has been damn near impossible.
I have been reading and researching a lot of new health and nutrition issues that I’m really excited to start writing about, so you should see some of those types of posts coming up soon.
Tomorrow I will be posting about my current anxiety (anxieties?) and how it (they) is (are) affecting my daily life right now, so look forward to that!
Be well everyone!
XO,
Heather
Okay, so as you all know by now, I have weighed in at over 300 pounds in the past, a whole new “low” for me so to speak. I am still pretty close to that low at around 270 pounds, fluctuating daily (water weight and such) up or down 2 – 3 pounds.
How did I get that heavy? A combination of things, ranging from improper nutrition or portion control, quitting smoking, lack of exercise as well as things beyond my control like genetics, hypothyroidism, mental illness (and drugs used to treat it) and age.
I was never a thin person… but I used to be a healthy weight. In high school I was always hovering around 150 – 160 pounds, and realistically for me, that is ideal. Somehow, in the span of about 3 years I went from being about 180 to about 280, and once you put on that much weight, it is VERY difficult to lose it.
People also assume, when they see me, that I know nothing about nutrition, and automatically think I must go home and eat copious amounts of junk food.
This really couldn’t be farther from the truth. I know a lot about nutrition. I was raised on whole grain bread and fruits and vegetables for snacks in a junk-food free home. I know about moderation, and portion control and balance. I’m even a pretty good cook, and don’t have a problem making healthful meals with or without recipes. I’m actually pretty healthy in terms of cardiovascular health, and sugars-wise, which is surprising in someone as big as I am.
A doctor once pointed out to me that because of my metabolism and the way my body functions, all I would have to do to gain 30 pounds in a year would be to eat an extra APPLE every day. That was when I started to think about how crazy it is that some people can eat what they want and never gain an ounce, and then there is me (and I think my mom and sister might be like this too, but I won’t speak for them) who LOOKS at a slice of pie and gain a pound.
I guess the hardest part of being this large to me is the embarrassment. I just feel so self conscious. I can see people looking at me on the subway or at restaurants and pretty much everywhere I go, and it has really ramped up my anxiety tenfold. I’m also really afraid of seeing people I used to know in my younger days, who haven’t seen me like this. I’m not sure why, since I was never really one to care what other people thought of me – as demonstrated by my crazy hair colours (in the past), facial piercings and tattoos and eclectic fashion sense; but being obese totally makes me feel like a complete social pariah, and in turn has made me start to act like one in the sense that I avoid places where I might run into people I knew back in the thinner days.
Of course I know that anyone who is truly a friend of mine won’t care how big or small I am… and I have of course people in my life who are very close to me that have seen me through all of this, and for that I am so grateful. Recently, I have also started to try and not be so afraid of letting others back in. So far, nothing too damaging has happened, but in the back of mind I picture some people going back to their friends and telling them about how obese and gross their old friend Heatha has become. Again, I’m not sure why I should care, but for whatever reason I do.
In any event, I have hovered in the high 200s for the last 5 years or so, and have had minimal success in losing and/or keeping off any weight. Am I just not trying hard enough? That is the case a lot of the time I think. It’s hard to be motivated when you feel depressed and weighed down all the time. It’s hard to prepare and plan and execute healthy meals and snacks when you work full time and feel like a zombie pretty much every day of your life. It’s not that I don’t want to get healthy, I really do. I just find it so hard to get on track and stay on track when all these other things keep creeping up and holding me back.
In the past I have tried Weight Watchers (several times) and another plan that I really like called Weight Care. I liked that in Weight Care, your allotment of food for the day has to be balanced across all the food groups, so that you are eating the right amount of whole grains, veg, fruits, dairy, protein and essential fats. I had some success with the program, losing about 40 pounds, but money and became an issue, and then I hit a period where I was really struggling with my mood and I just couldn’t stick to it.
Since my surgery, I admit, I have been a little indulgent (3 vacations!), but basically have been trying to just eat healthy small portions, until I decide how I’m really going to tackle this issue head on.
This is only the first of what I know will be very many posts on this topic; this is sort of just a rough summary of where my head is at right now.
How do you motivate yourself to stay on track, for health goals?
Biliary Colic is the reason I was very ill for more about four months, and had probably been having bouts of for more than three years. According to this article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biliary_colic, “Biliary colic is pain associated with irritation of the viscera secondary to cholecystitis and gallstones. Unlike renal colic, the phrase ‘biliary colic’ refers to the actual cholelithiasis.” Basically, it is a fancy way of saying that someone has a sick gallbladder, containing gallstones, causing said person a whole lot of pain.
The pain I experienced during acute attacks was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was a deep and sharp pain that stretched across my abdomen and radiated into my lower back and shoulders. It would often be accompanied by a few hours of vomiting and/or diarrhea, and would generally take about 24 – 48 hours to subside following an attack. The first instance I remember having this was probably winter of 2007 or 2008. I thought that I had contracted some kind of gastroenteritis from a family member who had just had it. But, as far back as five years ago, I remember having pain and discomfort when I would eat a large meal, or something rich or heavy, and would often have bouts of “dumping syndrome” where food would push right through me.
My experience with biliary colic presented itself with diarrhea, and lots of it, usually continually for a week at time. This would usually include a day or two within the week where I would have the abdominal pain and vomiting. The most recent episode started in March, but really escalated around Easter weekend. I would have these weeklong bouts of sickness in a cycle of every two weeks. I was going to my doctor almost every week, if not twice a week, doing blood tests, stool samples, taking antibiotics in case I had a parasite or something causing the never ending diarrhea.
I was afraid to eat. Every time I would start to eat again, I would again become ill. So I continued on this pattern, of not eating and having pain, vomiting and diarrhea for about 6 weeks before my doctor ordered an Abdominal X-Ray and Abdominal Ultrasound. This was about mid-May of this year. Tim and I were scheduled to go on a Southern Caribbean Cruise from May 23 – 30. The chances of us having to cancel were looking very high. On May 19, I finally got into see my doctor (yet again) and she told me I had gallstones. She advised me not to travel, and ordered a liver function blood test immediately. She told me I would have to have my gallbladder removed, because once they become diseased, with stones, they will never get better. From the way I understood it, if my liver function enzymes were elevated, I would have been sent to Emergency for surgery ASAP; if the results came back normal, I would be referred to a surgeon and then be put on a waiting list for anywhere from 6 weeks to SIX MONTHS.
I started getting extremely anxious and depressed about everything at that point. The prospect of living in agony and pain for months on end, waiting for surgery seemed like a nightmare. I could barely hold it together as it was. I was malnourished, probably a little dehydrated, in constant pain and just flat out ILL.
I cried a lot. I got really angry. I vented to Tim and my family, A LOT.
After my diagnosis, I began the process of canceling our trip – thank goodness for trip cancellation insurance or we would have been out a few thousand dollars. I was also able to better control the pain and the attacks, by avoiding food containing fat, cholesterol, spice or ascorbic acid. I also had to avoid any drinks with bubbles, as that also aggravated the gallstones. I would also only eat about 2 – 4 ounces of food at a time, a couple times a day. The only source of any fat or cholesterol that I consumed came from lean poached chicken or salmon, about 1 oz twice per day. I ate boiled beets, sweet potatoes, squash, asparagus, peeled cucumber, peeled zucchini, fat free rye bread, fat free “wasa” crackers, egg whites, sugar free fruit spread and fat-free cream cheese (less than a teaspoon at a time) and maybe a peeled apple or pear. And that’s about all I ate. Once I started on this strict diet, I was able to control my symptoms enough to be able to go to work, and just barely function day to day.
I guess now is a good time to point out what the gallbladder actually does, since I really had no idea before this ordeal, I presume a lot of people are unaware. Wikipedia tells me that, “The adult human gallbladder stores about 50 millilitres (1.8 imp fl oz; 1.7 US fl oz) of bile, which is released when food containing fat enters the digestive tract, stimulating the secretion of cholecystokinin (CCK). The bile, produced in the liver, emulsifies fats in partly digested food.” This is why, when you have a diseased gallbladder, your digestive tract can’t handle a lot of food at a time, nor can it handle fatty foods or food high in cholesterol.
My liver test came back normal; therefore, I was looking at continuing this suffering for what seemed like an eternity to me. I had other summer trips booked and a fall wedding to attend… all of these things were now up in the air. I felt so guilty for robbing Tim of his vacation, and potentially more trips and outings in the months to come.
I won’t go into great detail about how I found the surgeon I did, or how I got to see him so quickly when he apparently has the longest waiting list of any doctor ever, but miraculously, I got a consult on June 3 with the head of General Surgery at the Trillium Hospital (in Mississauga, where all my doctors and the like are). I had heard many great things about him, and had also heard he was one of the best laparoscopic surgeons around. This was good news to me, because, as an obese person, the chances of me having to have an open incision surgery were quite high. When you are obese, apparently your liver can get fatty, and this makes the liver rigid and hard to move. The gallbladder is tucked up under the liver, and therefore the liver needs to be moved in order to get at the gallbladder. I was also comforted by the fact that this surgeon also worked out of a private practice, specializing in surgical weight-loss, surgeries obviously done on obese people, by scope.
Anyway, on the day of my consult, the surgeon booked my surgery for June 21 at 11:00am. I felt a great sense of relief knowing that I was going to get this over with. At the time, the prospect of surgery didn’t scare me at all, because I had been suffering through this pain so much that I just wanted the damn thing ripped out of me as soon as humanly possible. He told me that for two weeks prior to the surgery, I would need to shrink my liver, to make the surgery safer and easier to perform. This involved drinking slimfast (powdered meal replacement of some kind) mixed with water three times daily, and adding some steamed vegetables. Now, since I had to avoid gas producing vegetables from the cabbage family, and high sugar vegetables like sweet potatoes and potatoes and squash, my choice of veg was quite limited. I stuck mainly to spinach, asparagus, bok choy, occasionally some sweet peas or edamame, and maybe some baby carrots. About 2 oz twice a day. He told me that after the first couple days, I wouldn’t be hungry anymore, and my body would go into ketosis; which would help get rid of any fat stored in my liver.
This diet absolutely sucked. I felt weak, and had a continual head ache. It was hard to focus and I felt hazy all the damn time. But, the surgeon was right, after a few days, I really didn’t feel hungry at all. From the onset of the illness through to the day before surgery I went from weighing just over 300 pounds (304 to be exact) down to 266.8 pounds. A total loss of 37.2 pounds. So, okay, I needed to lose that weight; however, this kind of rapid weight loss is really not a healthy way to lose, nor is it an ideal way of keeping the weight off. In any event, I was sort of happy to get a head start on something I really needed to get serious about anyways.
Before the surgery, I had to go do some pre-op blood work and have an ECG (EKG) done, as well as have my doctor fill out a pre-op questionnaire. In comes another wrench in my whole ordeal – my ECG results came back abnormal. I showed my doctor, and she said that they might not let me have the surgery because of the possibility of a heart problem. Now, granted I am obese, but I am only 29 years old, have normal blood pressure, and have never had any heart problems whatsoever. I was worried again. All that relief I had felt from knowing when the surgery was going to be, and seeing that end of my pain in sight, that was all gone. Now I had to scramble to get all this information to the surgeon’s office, because I was only 6 days away from my surgery – not a lot of time to book additional testing to make sure I could go ahead with the surgery.
After a couple more days of stress and worrying, the surgeon got back to me, and told me my ECG results did not worry him, but that since my doctor had recommended a pre-op consult with an anesthesiologist, he better send me for one. More waiting for this new appointment! I got the appointment the Friday (June 18) and my surgery was scheduled for the Monday following. I was so worried going into this appointment. I was thinking the worst would happen, and I would have to cancel my surgery. The stress was so overwhelming, that I thought I WOULD have a heart attack.
I saw the anesthesiologist, and she asked me several questions about familial history with general anesthetic (if there were any problems etc), she assessed me and did a repeat ECG (results came back roughly the same), and said she was not worried and the ECG’s aren’t always the most reliable tests, and she cleared me for surgery. I was so overjoyed I think I cried a little. Who the heck is HAPPY about having surgery? THIS GIRL WAS, let me tell you. I called my mom and Tim and texted my sister and my dad and told them all the good news.
So, on Monday morning, at 9am sharp I arrived at TrilliumHospital, the Mississauga site, for my laparoscopic cholecystectomy. As the nurse at the pre-op clinic explained to me, the procedure involved the surgeon making four small incisions – one just around the sternum, one just above my belly button, and two on the right side of my abdomen. The incisions were for the cameras and surgical tools to be inserted for the procedure. The actual procedure should take 45 minutes, she told me, and it involved the surgeon vacuuming out the gallstones and any bile trapped in the gallbladder, deflating the gallbladder, detaching it from the body and pulling it out through the hole above my belly button. Then they put some steri-strips over the incisions, and boom, you’re done.
Of course I was nervous about my surgery, and the panic started to settle in right before it was time for me to go in, but my mom and Tim both said I seemed pretty calm… so good for me!
I remember going into the operating room, and talking to the anesthesiologist a bit, and then, I remember waking up with an oxygen mask on, and the most intense throbbing pain I’ve ever felt right where my gallbladder used to be. I was given Morphine and gravol through my intravenous line, and roused to some sort of alertness, then wheeled back into day surgery, where I waited for someone to bring me a visitor to wait with me. It took them a while, but finally they got Tim, and then my Mom, and then Tim again. I was so thirsty, but not at all nauseous as I was suspecting I would be. I got dressed. Then a volunteer wheeled me down to the waiting car and home I went.
I was on Demerol for about 48 hours, then switched to just extra-strength Tylenol for another 4 days or so. I did A LOT of walking around, which promotes proper healing, as well as helps get rid of any gas left in the abdomen/chest cavity from the surgery. I had some pain, but it was NOTHING compared to the pain of the attacks. My incisions didn’t bleed much at all, and healed up within a couple weeks. At my follow-up, my surgeon told me my gallbladder was quite sick – had a stone about 1.4 cm by 1.6 cm that was lodged into the side of my dark-green bile-filled gallbladder. He also told me my liver looked healthy, which was a relief to me. He checked out my incisions and said I was good to go.
And, so ended my gallbladder disease escapade. I can now pretty much eat whatever, and as such, have gained back a bit of the weight I lost (about 5 pounds), but I am generally trying to eat small, healthy meals and trying, as you know from this blog, to get back into a healthy state.
Five and a half weeks have passed since my surgery, and I feel great. No pain, incisions have healed (they are red, but probably always will be because I am so fair), and able to leave my house without fear of an attack or vomiting or diarrhea. It’s great!
I can answer that by taking some snippets from this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysthymia
This first large snippet (as edited by cutting out some redundancies) sums it up pretty well:
“Dysthymia is a chronic mood disorder that falls within the depression spectrum. Dysthymia is a chronic long-lasting form of depression sharing many characteristic symptoms of major depressive disorder (in the form of the melancholic depression subtype). These symptoms tend to be less severe but do fluctuate in intensity. To be diagnosed, an adult must experience 2 or more of the following symptoms for at least two years:
* Feelings of hopelessness
* Insomnia or hypersomnia
* Poor concentration or difficulty making decisions
* Low energy or fatigue
* Low self-esteem
* Poor appetite or overeating.
* Irritability
People with dysthymia have a higher than average chance of developing major depression. Fluctuating symptoms intensity can trigger a full-blown episode of major depression. This situation is sometimes called "double depression" because the intense episode exists with the usual feelings of low mood.
As dysthymia is a chronic disorder, a person may often experience symptoms for many years before it is diagnosed, if diagnosis occurs at all. As a result, he or she tends to believe that depression is a part of their character. This, subsequently, may lead sufferers not to even discuss their symptoms with doctors, family members or friends.
Dysthymia, like major depression, tends to run in families. It is two to three times more common in women than in men. Some sufferers describe being under chronic stress. When treating diagnosed individuals, it is often difficult to tell whether they are under unusually high environmental stress or if the dysthymia causes them to be more psychologically stressed in a standard environment.”
Dysthymia is considered “less severe” than major depression, but is definitely longer lasting… as in, it is ALWAYS there. It doesn’t come in waves or “episodes”, it is a constant in life.
I was officially diagnosed as having Dysthymic Disorder (or chronic Dysthymia) in the fall of 2008, by my last psychiatrist. I have been on medications for Depression since halfway through college though, so about 7 years now. I knew, for years before that, however, that something was not quite right. I experienced all of the symptoms listed in the article, in varying degrees, for long periods of time… some of which never relented (and still don’t, to be quite honest) like hopelessness, low energy/fatigue and low self-esteem. I think for a long time, I just felt that what I was experiencing was just “who I was”, and that I just had to deal with it. So I’m not sure when it started.
In future posts, I will talk about some of my experiences more in depth, but for the purpose of this post, I just want to explain what the disorder is, and how I am currently being treated for it.
I currently take Wellbutrin XL, 150mg/day (product monograph: http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/dpd-bdpp/item-iteme.do?pm-mp=00005276) to treat my symptoms (down from 300mg/day I was taking for the last 16 months). Since this medication can aggravate anxiety in some patients, I also have sub-lingual Ativan 0.5mg tablets (product monograph: http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/dpd-bdpp/item-iteme.do?pm-mp=00002455) that I can take if I have an anxiety attack. I try not to take it, because it can be quite addictive, and I am terrified of becoming addicted to anything.
From sometime in 2003, until January 2009 I was taking Effexor XR (product monograph: http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/dpd-bdpp/item-iteme.do?pm-mp=00009015) – a drug that I absolutely abhor, and am so glad to be free of it. I went from 37.5 mg/day all the way up to 150mg/day. This particular medicine caused excessive weight gain, had terrible side-effects that affected my relationships, and an absolutely torturous withdrawal process. If I forgot to take my pill one day, I would get the feeling of electric shock pulses running through my limbs and into my extremities… I would get severe headaches, nausea and what I called the “perma-gag” where my throat would constantly have a lump in it, feeling like I was perpetually gagging. It took me about 4 months to wean myself off of the Effexor and transition to Wellbutrin, which seems to have none of the same side effects.
Do the drugs help? Well, I am able to get up and go to work and do social things and generally function in a pretty normal way. But it is hard. It takes everything I have to get up and moving some days. So I guess the short answer is, yes, the drugs help. The long answer is that yes, they help in the sense that they take the edge off, and help me have some clarity and motivation to move forward with my treatment, and not get lost in the sea of negativity I often find myself swimming in. But I have my bad days for sure. And I think that learning to cope with these feelings and learning how to let them go will be a far better treatment than any chemicals.
My ultimate goal is to be drug-free, and coping on my own. But I’m not sure if that will ever be a possibility. I am not under the care of a psychologist or psychiatrist at the moment, but am searching to find both a new psychiatrist and a new clinical psychologist – both are VERY difficult feats, and can be expensive (especially the psychology). Wait lists for OHIP covered clinicians are out of control in Ontario. Mental Health is definitely not given enough money and resources in this province (I can’t speak for the rest of Canada).
How do you know if you have something like this? It’s hard for most people I think. People have a hard time admitting that something is wrong with them – especially when it comes to the brain. Unfortunately, there is still a HUGE stigma attached to mental illness in our society, and it’s so sad because so many people who desperately need help refuse to seek it out. I hope that by talking about this openly and freely admitting I have a mental illness demonstrates that I refuse to succumb to the stigma and sweep my problems under the rug for fear of humiliation. People from all walks of life have these issues. Why not open up about them? Education and knowledge are the key components to getting rid of the social stigma, and I hope to be able to do my part, in some small way, to help see that happen in my lifetime.
My charity of choice for Mental Illness issues is the CAMH Foundation. http://www.supportcamh.ca/. CAMH (the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) is Canada’s largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental health and addiction issues. (http://www.camh.net)
Other topics for this week: Anxiety Disorders, Biliary Colic, and Weight Loss. Stay tuned!
I will take advantage of the wonderfulness that is Wikipedia, and point out exactly what a Thyroid is. If you want a lot of detailed information, you can check out the full article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyroid, but for the purpose of this blog post, I am only going to post a brief description of what it is and what it does.
“In vertebrate anatomy, the thyroid gland or simply, the thyroid, is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body, and is not to be confused with the “parathyroid glands” (a completely different set of glands). The thyroid gland is found in the neck, inferior to (below) the thyroid cartilage (also known as the ‘Adam’s Apple’) and at approximately the same level as the cricoid cartilage. The thyroid controls how quickly the body uses energy, makes proteins, and controls how sensitive the body should be to other hormones.
The thyroid gland participates in these processes by producing thyroid hormones, principally triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4). These hormones regulate the rate of metabolism and affect the growth and rate of function of many other systems in the body. T3 and T4 are synthesized utilizing both iodine as well as tyrosine. The thyroid gland also produces a hormone called ‘calcitonin’, which plays a role in calcium homeostasis.
The thyroid gland is controlled by the hypothalamus and pituitary (specifically, the anterior pituitary). The thyroid gland gets its name from the Greek word for “shield”, after the shape of the related thyroid cartilage. The most common problems of the thyroid gland consist of an over-active thyroid gland, referred to as ‘hyperthyroidism’, and an under-active thyroid gland, referred to as ‘hypothyroidism’.”
The latter of which seems to run in my immediate family, with the women, as both my sister and mother also have hypothyroidism, and were diagnosed many years before me. I believe I was officially diagnosed (via blood tests) sometime in late 2005 – early 2006. About 6 months before any abnormalities showed up in my blood work, a homeopathic doctor (I’ll talk about this in a whole other post) had told me that she felt I had thyroid problems based on the various symptoms I had been having. Turns out she was right.
I was having a hard time with energy levels, mood (despite being on anti-depressants), and weight gain that I couldn’t really explain. I was overly fatigued ALL THE TIME, and felt like I had lead running through my veins. It really took all the energy I had just to get up in the morning and go about my day. I had been feeling this way for quite some time, but my blood work always came back normal, so I would attribute these symptoms to other problems with my body. In retrospect, I now know I was also having some other symptoms that could be attributed to my malfunctioning thyroid that have since improved.
“Hypothyroidism is the disease state in humans and in vertebrates caused by insufficient production of thyroid hormones by the thyroid gland.” (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothyroidism)
“To diagnose primary hypothyroidism, many doctors simply measure the amount of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) being produced by the pituitary gland. High levels of TSH indicate that the thyroid is not producing sufficient levels of thyroid hormone (mainly as thyroxine (T4) and smaller amounts of triiodothyronine (T3)).” (same source as above)
The symptoms of Hypothyroidism include 3 tiers of possibilities, which I’ve included as lists (taken from the source above) below (I bolded the ones I have experienced, but may not necessarily be related to my Thyroid issues):
The usual treatment for this condition is Thyroid Replacement Therapy, which for me is a prescription medicine with the brand name Synthroid (or Eltroxin, depending on the dosage), generic name Levothyroxine, which is a synthetic form of the Thyroid hormone thyroxine. (check out http://www.synthroid.com/about-synthroid/how-to-take-synthroid/dosing-information-for-synthroid.cfm for a colourful rainbow of synthroid pills .. each dose is a different colour, how fun!). I started with the lowest dose, 25 mcg/day – a lovely orange one, then graduated to the purple (75 mcg), the yellow (100 mcg), the pink (112 mcg) and finally the brown (125 mcg) – which is the dose I currently take today. People with Hypothyroidism (or Hyperthyroidism for that matter) will have to take these pills for the duration of their lifetime. The medicine is cheap (usually around 13.00 for 60 tablets, and that includes the 8.99 filling fee at the pharmacy), which is good, because I could afford it even before I had a good benefits plan.
From the many articles and pamphlets I’ve read on the subject, I believe a “normal range” for TSH levels in the blood is between 0.4 – 4.0 mIU/L. When you are first diagnosed, you are required to go in for blood tests every 3 months to ensure that your medication is working properly. Apparently it can take up to 3 months for the medication to reach its full effects in the body, hence the time between the tests. My TSH level at first was around 10, but has fluctuated and has been as high as 32 and currently sits around 1.5 – 3.0. My TSH levels yo-yo’d up and down for about 3 years, until the spring of 2009, when, for the first time, my levels stayed below the high end of the normal range for a full 12 month period. This means that the 125 mcg/day has regulated my TSH levels adequately and I only require routine blood work on a yearly basis.
I believe that my hypothyroidism is partially responsible for the 100+ pounds I gained since 2005. Let’s be frank, I was never a slim person, but I was never morbidly obese either. I didn’t change my eating or exercise patterns, but still managed to gain weight in the amount of a whole other person in 2-ish years.
The big question is do I feel better now that I’ve been on the medication for 4+ years and my TSH levels have sorted themselves out? I guess the answer could be yes. In a lot of ways I do feel better, much better than I did, but the problem is, I still have other health issues that affect my energy levels and my mood, so it’s hard for me to say that I feel great, because on a normal day, I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I have good days, but carrying around all this weight is really hard on the body, making it even harder to get rid of it… the never ending paradox of my life… need to exercise to lose weight, can’t conjure up the energy to exercise because of the excess weight. (I will definitely talk more about this in another blog post).
That’s it for my explanation of Hypothyroidism. I’m sure I will make reference to it again in future posts, so now you know what it is, if you didn’t already!
I’ve finally decided that writing about life makes me see things from a different perspective. Writing about the woes also helps me let go of negativity I tend to hold inside. So this is what it’s all about folks: I’m not setting up yet another blog for any other reason than to help myself. I hope through the process of my writing on this blog, anyone who chooses to read might learn something, or share an experience, or relate to what I have to say.
The ultimate purpose of this blog will be to talk about my health, and how I somehow let it deteriorate so badly over the last 10 years. Initially, I was setting up this blog to talk solely about my struggle with weight, and the various avenues I have (and am considering) taken (taking) to combat the never-ending weight battle. But in light of my latest health issue, I thought, hey… this health issue is much, much more than obesity. Any one thing in our bodies can go off center and it can throw your entire body out of alignment.
I plan to make a couple blog posts per week, talking about my historical health issues, and eventually, once you are all caught up, it will be current events… struggles, decisions, health care options, how it all works here in Ontario, nutrition, advice, and maybe some general venting at the frustration of the day.
So, where do I begin?
My name is Heather. I am 29 years old. I work at the Federal Courts of Canada in Toronto. I am an artist at heart, and I love film, photography, painting, writing, drawing and music. I used to be able to play guitar, and I love to sing… to myself. I like travel, cats (animals in general, but I only have cats in my family), and procrastination. I’ve been diagnosed with chronic Dysthymic Disorder, with cyclical Major Depressive Episodes, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety. I have hypothyroidism which was not fully regulated until about two years ago, and I have a long history of painful stomach/digestive tract issues. Oh, and I am 5’6″ and until recently weighed over 300 lbs.
That last bit is very hard for me to post publicly.
My Journey Back to Health 