Mine was overactive. On the plus side I had a great metabolism and was never cold. The bad part of that was that my blood pressure was through the roof and my heart was beating like I was running a never ending marathon of doom. Even laying down it was like I had a miniature jackhammer pounding on my heart (oh the tragedy). So after 2 years of telling my horrible doctor that something was wrong and having her ignore my concerns, I finally got to see someone else. This was, of course, when my husband and I wanted to try for kids. Still waiting, BTW.
After many, many tests they discovered that there was something wrong with me. Shocker, I know. So some more tests later they say that I have severe hyperthyroidism . Obviously it wouldn't have been so severe if my doc 2 years ago had listened to me, but whatever. Then I see a specialist who decides the best treatment would be to get rid of the evil thyroid that was trying to kill me. At this point I saw it as an evil king lording over my health and well being, cackling maniacally in his thyroid castle of terror, so I figured why not end his rein. No problem. I read up on radio iodine treatment and figured that was for me. Little did I know there are side effects that were not included in ANY of the information I could find.
I think the evil thyroid king looked something like this....
Because I was not on thyroid replacement hormones yet (that's right, they kill it then replace your levels- WTF?) I started getting horrible debilitating muscle cramps. From what I could find it is because calcium gets filtered through your thyroid and because the evil thyroid king was kicked out, calcium levels in my body were too low. Thus, cramping. Then there was the change of taste. What I used to like I now disliked. I gained a love of french fries when I didn't like them before. Most things had to be spicy or I couldn't taste them. I'm a foodie so I was pretty upset by this. After I started taking hormone replacement I got better but there is another issue that still plagues me to this day. Split ends and weight gain! dun Dun DUN!
I keep finding split ends and it's driving me crazy! I never had them until I did the radio iodine treatment. Then about a month or 2 later.... BAM! Split ends! I'm still vain enough to care about my hair. The fact that I gained over 30 pounds even with diet and exercise doesn't help my self esteem, so at least leave my hair alone you bastard! So there it is, my thyroid is evil. It's like in a horror movie how the villain never dies right away. They keep coming back. I have to keep checking to make sure it isn't going to crawl out from underneath my bed at night and grab for my ankles. Or I guess kankles now. Sigh.
My thyroid kicked its own bucket when I was ten. That was an interesting month. Maybe more so for my mom than me, because I mostly slept through it. I had food poisoning, and my immune system was all, like, "Hey, that thing there, in the throat! Killit, killit, killit!"
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I know it sucks to be sick and going back and forth to the doctor.