My FORMER Long and Pathetic List of Health Problems

Image via Wikipedia

If you met me today, you would think I was a pretty healthy person, and relatively speaking, I am.

If you met me 5 years ago, you would think I was nearly dead, because I nearly was. At least I felt nearly dead. I was hypothyroid (low thyroid levels) and my adrenal glands were nearly kaput. I kept dragging a three-page list of symptoms to "the best endocrinologist" in Austin and the best he could do is shrug his Big Pharma backed shoulders and offer me zero solutions and refuse to give me any thyroid medications I so desperately needed because I was considered to be sub-clinical hypothyroid.

As a layperson, when I look back over my long and pathetic list of symptoms, I am aghast that the "best endo in Austin" offered me no help at all. By doing so, he guaranteed me to get sicker and sicker. He also insisted that the parathyroid cyst I had to be removed surgically. I fought that for 5 years and he finally wore me down with his repeated concern that it might one day be cancerous. His good friend and ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) surgeon operated on me. He missed the parathyroid cyst (it is completely different than the actual thyroid) and instead removed half my thyroid, leaving me extremely hypothyroid and with an ugly neck scar. It also left me with the parathyroid cyst. I still have it and it is not cancerous, so that surgery was completely unnecessary and it guaranteed that I would need thyroid medicine for the rest of my life.

When I finally got some life-saving advice from some very wise women on-line, I found a true thyroid expert and he put me on dessicated (dried) thyroid medicine and adrenal support and I begin to get my life back. It has been a slow, uphill battle that one nationally known health expert says is the equivalent of becoming an Olympic athlete. I climbed up and over that Olympic-sized health hurdle, and now I blog in hopes of saving others this same misery.

I will share all of the symptoms I once had to illustrate what I have overcome. If you have any of these symptoms -- or all of them as I once did -- please know that you do not have to feel that punk. Find a truly caring doctor who listens to how you feel and one that works as your health care partner to get you back on your feet. (Check out my post on how to find a great doctor.) Also join on-line, patient-advocacy support groups and then read, read, read relevant health books.

And then get ready to thrive and not just barely survive.

Former Symptoms:

Low body temperature (97 degrees or lower)
Very low blood pressure (made me wonder if I was even alive)
Low thyroid levels (especially Free T3 and Free T4, forget the useless TSH test)
Nearly non-functioning adrenal glands
Candida overgrowth
Gaining weight and nothing I did would make it stop
Ataxia
Bruising
Alternating diarrhea and constipation
Excessive sweating
Extreme heat intolerance
Low Libido
Perimenopausal in my early 30s
Extreme fatigue (couldn't hardly get off the bed in 2005-2006)
Repeated sinus infections
Antibiotics stopped working altogether
Severe allergies
Air hunger
Inability to exercise
Loss of ambition
Slowing of speech
Continual cough
Severe acid reflux
Puffy face
Loss of outer eyebrows
Thinning hair
Dry hair
Brittle fingernails
Hypoglycemia
Anemic
PMS
Low female hormones
High cholesterol
Failure to thrive
Fast heartbeat
Appendicitis
Edema
Anxiety
Shakiness
Hand tremor
Increased thirst
Excessive itching
Night sweats
Inability to sleep thru the night
Inability to wake up easily in the mornings
Cold hands and feet
Brain fog
Bumps on the legs
Acne
Inability to work full time
Handwriting nearly illegible
Ear infections
Dizziness
Joint pain
Headaches
Carpel Tunnel
Dry eyes
Dry mouth
Muscle cramps
Bone pain
Thyroid nodules
Iodine deficiency

Thankfully, I never lost my mind or got severely depressed but if you live without thyroid hormone for a long enough, you can even slide into schizophrenia. That happened to my maternal grandmother Mimi and to other women in my family. I kept my mental facilities but nearly lost the physical battle.

Today I am an active, inquisitive and healthy person.

I have not caught so much as a cold in more than two years. I have not had a sinus infection in four years. I am far, far from being stuck on the bed, watching life pass me by. Some days I think I get more done than "healthy' folks who still have their thyroid and whose adrenals work properly. I walk our 5 dogs every day and most days, I ride my horses. I work as a professional dog trainer and writer. Other than fighting a Candida overgrowth, ALL of the symptoms above are either completely gone or so minimal as to not pose problems. The only medicines I take are hormone related (thyroid, adrenal and female hormones).

Please don't settle for feeling sick. You have options and you are sitting in the driver's seat when it comes to your own health. Reach out on-line and surround yourself with people who have fought this battle and won it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Your Sluggish Thyroid Is a Huge Problem (lewrockwell.com)
• 'Wearing In' Your Newly Normal Thyroid: Patience. (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)

Natural Solutions Magazine Hits Thyroid Article Out of the Park

Image via Wikipedia

This article in Natural Solutions magazine is the very best mainstream article I have ever read about thyroid issues. Kudos to Natural Solutions! They got the story right.

Check out The Hidden Epidemic: Is Your Thyroid Making You Fat?

2 More Pounds Gone + New Foods that I Love

Image by The Shed1 via Flickr

Oh happiest of days!!! I am actually down two more pounds, making my weight loss 10 pounds in 4 days!! And, my energy levels are through the roof. I even wake up peppy, and that is a first.

I do believe that the healthy way to lose weight is little by little so that it stays off for good . . . however, I have been seriously trying to lose weight for 6 months and nothing happened except for gaining weight. I now believe that I was still ingesting foods that were toxins to my body and my body clung on to every ounce trying to tell me it wasn't happy and it was trying to pull any trace amounts of nutrients it could out of the bad food. I do not know exactly why that resulted in a bloated feeling and appearance and I am still researching that one.

I've been very strict about what eat and I am 99% sure that I have avoided all corn, gluten and dairy (casein) products for 4 days and then presto! Ten pounds melt away.

I also got my adrenal and thyroid medicines switched to compounded versions and that helped a lot. If you still feel ill after removing the food toxins in your diet, please look closely at your medications and supplements. The corn starch in my iron pills made me very ill. I've also given up my 20 year habit of wine in the evenings. I will introduce it back in down the road and I will be sad beyond measure if it turns out I have an allergy to alcohol because that is my one bad habit -- but I will give that up too if I must. I am too tired of feeling bloated and I want my youthful energy back and I will do everything and anything it takes to get there.

I have also discovered a grocery store called Sprouts. I love that store so very much that I could almost sell the farm and move in right next door to it. Okay, I could never leave my horses and donkeys and I will just suck up the two-hour journey it takes to get there and back, but I highly recommend you check out a Sprouts if you have one in your state. I like it much, much better than Whole Foods. Whole Foods needs to change its name to "Wholly Expensive Foods."

Here are a few things that I have found at Sprouts that I absolutely love and finding these yummy things keeps me motivated:

SO Delicious Coconut Milk
SO Delicious Coconut Creamer
MaraNartha Almond Butter
Just Pineapple (dried fruit)
Lundberg Organic Whole Grain Brown Rice Cakes
Amy's Organic Soups
Pacific Natural Foods Organic Free Range Chicken Broth
Brown Rice Snaps (crackers)
Seeds of Change Organic Whole Grain Basmati Rice
MLO Brown Rice Protein powder (for smoothies)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Principles Of The Rawfood Diet (fitnesstipsforlife.com)
• Go Raw: Natural Life Magazine (rawlivingfoods.typepad.com)
• Uncooked Food Diet (thebestrawfooddiet.com)

Fat, fat, fat!

Image by ♥♥peppersmom♥♥ via Flickr

I was always one of those super skinny girls who could eat anything and never gain a pound. You know, that irritating gal we now all dislike. Immensely.

In my mid 30s, the weight s-l-o-w-l-y started coming on, just as most of my major hormones started fading away. I became hypothyroid and losing weight while being hypo is perhaps nothing more than a fable or a myth, at best. Even medicated it is hard work to lose weight when your metabolism has slowed to a crawl.

Once I figured out that I was gluten sensitive as well as sensitive to corn and casein, I stopped ingesting any of that harmful junk. I waited in anticipation for the poundage to fall off, as I know it has for so many when they just stop ingesting gluten. I have never eaten as much fresh, whole food as I now do.

I am still waiting for the weight to fall off. Looks like the weight wait will be even longer -- in spite of my daily exercise that includes running our ranch and tending to horses and walking our 5 dogs every day and exercise videos when I feel healthy enough. Apparently some of us with gluten issues find that our bodies suck onto weight when we start eating right. Our metabolism has slowed to a snail's pace after years of eating food that was poisoning us. In a way I can't blame the body for that -- it thinks it is dying from the constant assault from harmful food so it goes into protection mode and slows down, trying to absorb what little nutrition that it can.

Now that my gut is in the SLOW process of healing, I am absorbing nutrients better and that means I am hanging on to calories better as well. So not only do I go without most foods that Americans eat all day every day, I still am not that skinny girl of long ago.

For the short term, I am very happy to have some of my youthful energy return, but once I have gone 6 entire months without any kind of accidental poisoning, I will start to look for that skinny girl inside me and do whatever I need to to coax her back into existence.

It's okay if you already dislike me for the future skinny girl I will become (again). I can handle that better than I can feeling like a bloated whale.

I am looking into good lifestyle changes to use and I am liking so far what I am reading about this diet plan. Please let me know if you have tried it and what your thoughts are about it.

Armour Thyroid Is Harder to Find than a Needle in a Haystack

Cover via Amazon

I have been hypothyroid most -- if not all -- of my life. I went to a lousy Austin endocrinologist who could do no better than shrug his shoulders at my three pages of symptoms that I brought to him for 5 years. I fired him and finally found a truly caring doctor who actually understands how the thyroid works. As I have gained my health and thus my life back, my anger at that harmful doctor is still present, though lessened somewhat by finally feeling healthy again. My good doctor has almost erased my wrath at the arrogant endocrinologist, but every now and then a news story crops up about thyroid medications (such as the one below) and my anger at the needless suffering of the millions of thyroid patients at the hands of their doctors and Big Pharma gets my mad going again.

I am now sure that I was first gluten intolerant and a lifetime of not knowing that whittled my thyroid gland down to nothing. Mr. Big Fancy Pants Endo -- who is paid thousands every year to give "lectures" by the makers of his favorite drugs, including Synthroid -- apparently has never heard of Celiac's or gluten intolerance and probably has never even heard of gluten itself. He certainly never suggested that I may have some serious food allergies that caused all of my health symptoms.

I was put on Armour Thyroid on March 8, 2007 by my new doctor. I have that date marked on my calendar every year and I celebrate it as that is the date I started to get my life back. I had been practically bedridden for most of 2005-2006, so when my brain fog started to lift and my energy levels came back, I was in love with Armour Thyroid as that is the drug that made health possible for me.

I was on Armour Thyroid until the summer of 2009, when for some incomprehensible reason, the makers of Armour changed the 100-year old formula that worked wonders for countless thyroid patients. I began to feel hypo again. I also felt nauseous from something the genius makers of Armour decided to add to the formula. The company ignored pleas from thyroid patient advocates and refused to answer why they changed the formula. So most of us switched to another form of thyroid called Nature-thyroid. You can guess what happened next -- that also became nearly impossible to find.

Synthetic thyroid brands such as Synthroid simply do not work for me and for thousands of other hypothyroid patients as well. We have to have thyroid that is not synthetic or we remain ill.

What would happen in the national media if a major maker of insulin suddenly changed their formula and diabetics everywhere began to feel ill from the new formula? What if the makers of the most popular statin drug started playing around with that formula and people felt ill from that change? Would there not be a national outcry?

It is incredibly sad to me that we have to become health detectives and figure out for ourselves why we feel like shit. It is even sadder that once we finally find a medicine that gives us hope for a healthy life again, that medicine is suddenly changed and no longer does what it should for thousands of sufferers.

But saddest of all, you have to find that special doctor who refuses to be told how to treat patients based on what an insurance company thinks is best and instead relies on his or her training AND he/she bothers to listens to the actual symptoms the patient presents. Every day I say a small prayer of thanks to the thyroid patient advocates whom I have never met in person but who I count as dear friends as they are the one who directed me to the doctor who cared enough to actually heal me. I have a pit in my stomach every time I meet someone new who has suffered at the hands of an unknowledgeable and lazy doctor who has permitted that patient's life to ebb away until there isn't much there anymore.

For more information about the importance of getting on the right thyroid medicine, please bookmark Stop the Thyroid Madness and make it your personal thyroid Bible. Also check out Thyroid patients panicked as medication disappears.

Related articles by Zemanta

• No End In Sight To The Armour Thyroid Shortage? (prweb.com)
• Misdiagnosis FACT (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• Study Links Thyroid Disease to Non-Stick Chemicals (nlm.nih.gov)
• Wait For It... (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• Daily Dose: How Healthy is Your Thyroid? (dailywd.womansday.com)

Acid Reflux No More?

The healthier I become, the angrier I get with any doctor who is an -ologist. I have particular wrath for the endocrinologist who ignored my thyroid condition for 10 years. That genius literally shrugged his shoulders when I brought him in three pages of symptoms. I can't get the decade back that I wasted with that harmful doctor, but I can help others in the same boat by giving you the knowledge you need to become healthy again, in spite of some incredibly harmful doctors.

Image via Wikipedia

My endocrinologist sent me to his buddy, a gastrointerologist, to talk about my acid reflux problem. Instead of looking at my body as a whole and instead of examining what role my normal American diet had on my esophagus and my stomach, the gastro informed me that I would be just fine if I took an acid reflux prescription pill FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Just as the Ear Nose and Throat doctor who botched my thyroid surgery cheerily told me I would be just fine if I just took a synthetic thyroid pill FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Health does not and never will come in the form of a pill.

I took that prescription drug for acid reflux for 5 years, only it quit working. So then the genius doctor UPPED the dosage to two times a day. So I did that for a few years and finally ended up in the hospital with severe acid reflux.

When I finally discovered a caring doctor who truly understood thyroid issues and he put me on the thyroid hormone my body had to have and was no longer producing on its own, my brain fog slowly lifted and I got my brain back. I began to read everything I could find on thyroid issues and that led me to where I am today: knowing that I have issues with gluten, corn and casein. My body becomes inflamed and non-functioning when I ingest those things. Things stop working properly, like the way my stomach functions.

Do you know how many pills I take these days for acid reflux? ZERO. I eliminated the foods that were killing me and draining my body of the energy-producing hormones that we all have to have to thrive.

If you currently have acid reflux, look first at your diet and see what changes you can make before you pop a pill and think it will all be okay . . . because it won't be.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to Deal With the Effects of Acid Reflux in Babies (parenting-success.com)
• Acid Reflux - A Surprising Cause of Sore Throat (naturalacidreflux.com)
• It's January...Do You Know Where Your Thyroid Is? Thyroid Awareness Month Focuses on Millions of Undiagnosed Americans with Thyroid Problems (prweb.com)

Post Cards from the Edge

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I caught the last half of that movie, "Post Cards from the Edge" the other night. If you haven't seen it, it was written by Princess Leia, er, I mean Carrie Fisher. She tells the sad tale of her and her mother's addiction to drugs, alcohol and craziness. You probably have heard of her mother -- Debbie Reynolds?

A line in the movie made me shiver. Debbie Reynolds (played by Shirley McClaine) is in the hospital after she pulled a Tiger Woods and rammed her expensive car into a tree. Carrie Fisher (played by Meryl Streep) is getting her mom gussied up in the hospital since the press is lurking outside. Debbie Reynolds starts penciling in her eyebrows . . . she has no eyebrows!!

She said they never grew back after the Studio shaved them for a film. NO EYEBROWS! Even though they were shaved, they should have grown back in a healthy person. Hers did not. This shouts "THYROID PROBLEM."

I know this as I have lost the outer edges of my eyebrows. They will never grow back. It didn't have to happen but I lost 10 years of health and my life wasting my time (and my eyebrows) going to doctors who flat out refused to believe that I had a thyroid issue. I did, and my eyebrows tell the tale. I know now that my gluten intolerance was the starting point of my failing thyroid gland.

I often think about other famous people who make or made headlines. I especially think about Texan Anna Nicole Smith. Wish I could see a photo of her with no make up on. I am certain she would have no eyebrows . . .

When you see or hear about people doing crazy things with their lives, like drinking themselves nearly to death, take a moment and question if a gluten problem plays a role. I think many folks try to make themselves physically feel better by drinking, smoking or gorging on carbs. It doesn't give them a free pass to be stupid and drive drunk, etc, but it could help explain why so many people reach for the bottle, when they should instead be putting down that piece of bread.

Don't Mind Me While I Stare at Your Eyebrows (and fat belly)

I have developed a new habit that is rather unseemly.

If we meet one another on the street and you catch me staring at your eyebrows, I apologize in advance. I can't help it! I see the results of gluten intolerance written all over some of your faces . . . and your big bellies.

Gluten intolerance can lead to all sorts of hideous autoimmune diseases, including being hypothyroid. I am hypo, or was hypo until I found a wise doctor who actually believed me and got me on the correct medicines (dessicated thyroid + adrenal support with low dose cortisol). Your thyroid can be run down thanks to a sensitivity to gluten.

If you are hypothyroid, you might very well have lost the outer edges of your eyebrows. I look for that now when I meet people. Those whom I care deeply about I might mention it to, but mostly I am learning to try to keep my mouth shut because I find that many (most?) people do not want to hear that they have an autoimmune problem or that they may, in fact, have to give up bread (and ketchup and cake and cookies and beer and, and, and the list goes on)

A sensitivity to gluten can make you too fat and puffy (as well as it makes some folks super skinny and once was called "the wasting disease"). I watched a very over-sized family near us at the Pappadeaux's restaurant where we stopped on our way home after enjoying Christmas with the family in Baton Rouge.

I once would have thought not nice thoughts about this family's lack of self-control. As I watched them eat two baskets of complimentary bread, followed by fried everything and finishing off with a flour-laden desserts, I felt sorry for their lack of information.

As my wise father tells me all the time, knowledge is power and I thankfully have the knowledge that gluten is lethal for me. Thus, we sent our free bread basket back and didn't touch that poison.

We ordered non-fried food and we left without partaking in floury desserts. We nearly skipped out of the restaurant because we felt good after eating a light meal . . . the overly-large family rather waddled out the door.

Instead of judging them, I just felt bad for them and hoped that one day they learn about gluten and what it does to a body. Nothing good!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Celiac Disease - A Podcast (prep4md.blogspot.com)
• Celiac Disease Awareness Month: October (blisstree.com)

Are We Grain Gluttons??

We ARE grain gluttons. Not just wheat -- we eat too much corn, rice, etc.

My maternal Grandmother Mimi spent three-fourths of her long life living with the condition called Paranoid Schizophrenia. You have surely heard of it and know that if you have it, your mind plays tricks on you and you can have hallucinations and live in a great deal of fear.

Mimi loved her wheat toast, more than anyone I have ever known. She was severely anemic, which points to not absorbing nutrients in the gut, which points to a big problem with gluten. I think she also had a thyroid condition and the end result of not getting the right amount of thyroid is: paranoid schizophrenia.

I am hypothyroid, which means I do not get enough thyroid in my cells. I am thankfully on the right medication and have been able to get back on my feet and off the bed, where I spent nearly a year before I found the right doctor to help me help myself.

Along with cutting edge M.D.s, I now wonder: which comes first, an autoimmune problem such as a thyroid condition or a problem with gluten that results in an autoimmune condition?

I put my money on the gluten problem. It has been linked the following:


Malnutrition
Cancer
Osteoporosis
Kidney stones
Miscarriage or congenital malformation
Preterm delivery
Short stature
Seizures
Lactose intolerance
Infections
Dermatitis herpetiformis
Thyroid disease
Type 1 diabetes
Liver disease
Sjogren's syndrome
Autoimmune polyglandular syndrome --
Uncommon group of disorders that may include type 1 diabetes, Addison's disease (adrenal insufficiency), yeast infections, vitiligo (a skin disease), alopecia (hair loss), pernicious anemia or other conditions.
Collagen vascular diseases
Rheumatoid arthritis
Lupus
Polyarteritis nodosa
Scleroderma
Dermatomyositis


Makes you want to put down that piece of toast, doesn't it?

Related articles by Zemanta

• RA and Lupus (brassandivory.blogspot.com)
• Celiac Disease Insights: Clues to Solving Autoimmunity (scientificamerican.com)