Requesting a do-over, please.

Well, things continue to be great. I'm sleeping a bit better, haven't had a nap yet (woohooo!), and am feeling energetic all day. I don't think my metabolism is at full roar yet, I'm having non-hungry days back to back with hungry days.

I would like to request a do-over though. The master's degree would have been *SO* much easier with this level of energy. I honestly do not know how I did it.

Hm.. Thinking about it, I think I do know how I did it. Adrenaline. I kept myself at a high stress level so I could function successfully. The second I relaxed, I'd do nothing but sleep. My uncle called me Rip-Van-Richardson and my husband was very kind about me sleeping away my free time. If I had a day off (rare!) I'd generally sleep until mid morning, drift around the house for a while, then have a five hour nap in the afternoon, then be in bed at a decent hour for the night's sleep. Why didn't I think this was weird? Why didn't I ask questions sooner? Why didn't my doctors ask any questions about this? Every time I went in for some random little thing - headaches, tendinitis (I was swimming 4 to 6 hours a week, and royally bollocking up my joints in the meantime), neck pain, etc. they would *always* ask "Is anything else going on?" I would follow with the usual fat girl litany - I'm overweight, I exercise a lot, I don't eat much sugar or starch, I don't sleep well.

They'd always nod, but never say anything. Perhaps passing judgement - not exercising enough, not eating right, etc. They'd send me to physical therapy where I would be pronounced very strong.

Finally, this last spring, I went to the doctor because I had some brown mottling on my back. Looked a bit like leopard spots. I basically wanted reassurance that this wasn't the creeping death, and found out that it was tinea versicolor, a yeast infection of the skin that turns it brown. Easily fixed, not a problem. Yay! Also not the creeping death, big plus there. She asked the usual "Anything else?" question, I responded with the Fat Girl Litany, and she said "You should get your thyroid checked."

Whuh? Never occurred to me. So, being a grad student, I made an appointment with a new physician and then I Googled it. Holy buckets - I think I'm hypothyroid! I read the encyclopedic sites with lists of symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments. I read the anecdote sites with the usual assortment of the highly knowledgable, the frustrated who haven't found the right treatment yet, and the enthusiastic people who *have* found the right treatment who tell the frustrated to try what worked for them. I then found citations for papers in medical journals, and read them. I then read the papers that *they* cited.

Thus armed, I danced off to my appointment, and the doctor gave me a good bollocking for not coming in sooner. She pronounced the thyroid "big" and said I had a compelling list of symptoms. When the blood test came back my TSH was 2.94 - right on the edge of "normal" with the new guidelines. She said, well, you're not hypothyroid so get on the ball with diet and exercise.

I was a bit upset, did some more research, and then found a great little paper. The paper describes patients who are clinically euthyroid, but diagnostically hypothyroid, and remarks that they benefitted from treatment. That's me! I asked for some followup tests - total T4, free T4, T3, thyroid antibodies. Doctor referred me to an endocrinologist.

Endocrinologist tested all this stuff, and found out that I have Hashimoto's Thyroidits. My numbers all came back awesome, except for T4 which was in the very low end of the "normal" range. This is good, it means that my injured thyroid is keeping up pretty well, even if it is pretty huge.

Endo started me on a teeny weeny dose of T4 to see if it would help with my symptoms, and voila, it has.

Thus, I declare myself Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, clinically euthyroid, symptomatically hypothyroid, responding AMAZINGLY to treatment.

In retrospect, I don't think I'll do that Master's degree over again. That was a heck of a lot of work ;) Plus, it now becomes a point of pride. Master's. Hypothyroid. Uphill, both ways, barefoot, in the snow... So began the legend ;)