Temperature Dropping, Stress Rising

With our house teetering into foreclosure, like so many others right now, we've stopped remodeling for now.  I was looking at metal tile for our kitchen but there is no point in making the house pretty if the bank ends up taking it from us.  Just what I need - another stressor with my thyroid stressing me out enough right now.

Speaking of thyroid, my doctor hasn't called me back yet. I left my temperature results with his office on Wednesday.  It's Friday.  Can't a nurse call me back or even the receptionist?  Somebody to tell me that the doctor has looked at the temps and plans A, B, & C?  My temperatures are dropping again and I've had the headache from you know where for 24 hours now.   If I don't hear from him today, I have to wait through the weekend.  That will irritate me to no end.

I'll go back to dreaming about the metal tile I want in my kitchen I guess...

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Five Day Morning Temperature Readings

Well, my five days are up as of this morning so as soon as my doctor gets in, I can call them and let them now what they are.  Here are the final results:

• Sat:  97.2
• Sun: 97.4
• Mon: 97.7
• Tues: 98.0
• Wed: 97.6

Just for the heck of it (the doctor didn't ask), I took a few night-time readings as well because I was curious.  Here they are:

• Sun:  97.0
• Mon: 98.0
• Tues: 97.5

So what does all of this mean?  I'll find out what my doctor think it means hopefully today.

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Temperature and My Thyroid

So my temperature this morning was up to 97.7 so they are coming up.  Last night I took my temperature on a whim (the doctor didn't ask for night-time readings, I just wanted to see) and it was at 97 at 9:30 p.m.  I really need to learn more about what the temperatures mean in terms of my thyroid. The doctor's receptionist said I was taking them for my thyroid (but she couldn't explain why, she said the doctor knew why) but would it have anything to do with my adrenals as well or cortisol? I have no clue!

This is an area of my thyroid care I haven't delved into deeply yet.  It is one I am going to have to put on my "to do" list this week.  I should have five days' worth of temperatures in two days to call my doctor back with them.  I need to have a general understanding before then.

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Symptoms Back and Temps Falling

I didn't maintain the half grain increase from a couple weeks ago for my compounded Armour.  I wanted doctor's approval for it so I called there the other day and left my symptoms with the nurse (cold, exhaustion, brain fog, and eczema back and a couple others I can't remember right now...brain fog is wonderful isn't it?).  I could also add a small weight gain (the best weight loss pill are looking good about right now) and a heavy period again into those symptoms. They called me back and said the doctor wants me to take my under-arm temperature in the morning for five mornings with a glass thermometer and then call them with the results. 

So, my results so far for temperatures are:

Saturday:  97.2
Sunday: 97.4

He told me at my last appointment that they would base my dosage on my symptoms.  I thought my initial symptoms would have been enough but I guess they want temperature too.  Time, time, time.  I just want to shoot ahead with my increased dosage and be done with it but maybe he's looking at the adrenals as well?  I'll know in a few days I guess.

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Makeover Boosts Spirits That My Thyroid Disease Destroyed For Awhile

I was online today looking at rebecca minkoff fashions and thinking about what a great boost it was emotionally for the makeover my little sister gave me a couple weeks ago - hair and clothing makeover. I feel better internally because I feel like I look better on the outside too.  It is something that I just never would have done for myself.  After struggling with my weight due to my thyroid for so many years, and after losing 19 pounds (and still trying to get rid of the remaining pounds left), I am not going to feel vain about that at all.  I am going to walk around in my tight, designer jeans she bought for me and enjoy being that much smaller!

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Smoking

My husband loves cigars. He would smoke a couple a week while relaxing out on our porch until our kids guilted him into stopping. That was about four years ago.

About a month ago, a friend of his gave him two cigars that he brought home and put in our fridge for later. He was REALLY looking forward to them.  Well, the kids saw them first so now they still sit in my fridge because they heaped the guilt onto daddy.  We should've brought them on vacation with us so he could either smoke them or give them away without the kids around. 

I briefly smoked cigarettes before my kids were born and once in awhile afterward until my nephew made me feel bad one time when I was lighting up.  I haven't smoked a cigarette since and that was about six years ago. 

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It's YOUR Health! Don't Let Your Doctor Destroy It!

How many of us thyroid disease patients actually proactively manage our thyroid disease? I know I didn’t for the first seven years. It wasn’t until this past year that I got mad enough at not being listened to and feeling worse physically, that I researched myself.

About that time, I went to an endocrinologist who tried to tell me I may have chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. He had me wondering if I should apply for social security disability before he’d even examined me. I KNEW I didn’t have either. I KNEW it was all my thyroid. I was right. It just took finding the right doctor to put me on the road to recovery.

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Are you being proactive about your health?

When I first got thyroid disease, I thought it held the great possibility of putting me into a coma (myxedema). I started out scared of the disease. Was I going to need high risk life insurance to take care of my children if cancer got me? I lost hair, lost energy, gained weight, developed aches and pains, had devastating periods, worried about thyroid cancer in the many nodules on my thyroid and watched my cholesterol start to climb. Then I got angry – at the disease but more so at my doctors who wouldn’t listen.

I can not stress enough that you can not just let your doctor treat you without your being proactive about your own health. If you feel something is wrong, find a new doctor if your current doctor won’t listen. If your research finds information your doctor won’t even consider (and there is plenty of it, believe me) and you’re not happy with their reason why, find another doctor. It’s your health. They don’t need YOU as a patient but YOU need a good doctor!

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Getting Weight Back Down

From adjusting my natural thyroid hormone dosage up a half a grain the last few days, the scale is being much nicer to me when I get on it in the morning.  It's amazing what such a small pill can do.  So many need diet pills and a whole fitness regimen to try to lose weight but with my thyroid nothing worked for me.  Apparently, I just needed the proper dose of natural thyroid hormone!

Now if my doctors had listened to me for the past eight years, I wouldn't have spent them feeling so miserable.  It still irritates me that the pharmaceutical company pushing Synthroid to most doctors has interfered in so many doctors treating thyroid disease properly.

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Going to Raise Compounded Armour Dose

Well, on two grains of armour thyroid, my system is slowing down.  The doctor thought that would happen and that I'd start to see symptoms soon.  I raised my dose by half a grain and will see what that does for me.  My eczema has also come back and that only went away before with a higher dose of thyroid hormone medication (not synthetic...that is useless to me).  So I have the signs that my dosage is too low.  I'm glad that my doctor will treat by symptoms because my old doctor would've stopped raising my dose no matter how I felt!

I'm off to run errands now.  My daughter needs a new flash drive for school.  This is her third one this year!  I need to price a better calculator for her pre-algebra class.  My stepdaughter had one here this past weekend she really liked but it cost over $100.  I'm not spending that much for a calculator until I HAVE to.  No way.

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Thyroid Doctor Visit Update

I think my doctor appointment went ok on Friday.  He spent a lot of time with me going over each individual blood test I had done and writing down what I needed to do to fix that particular result. 

I thought he was going to put me on straight T3 to rid my body of the reverse T3 problem it has but he thinks that the reverse T3 problem was caused by my Synthroid medication (synthetic T4 thyroid medication) and since I stopped taking that a couple weeks ago and only take a natural thyroid medication, he thinks the abnormal reverse T3 results will go away on their own.

If he's right, then it went great.  If he's wrong, then I'll know it over the next couple weeks. 

He also increased my dose of Vitamin D, told me to add Selenium supplements, go back to iron supplements regularly and go back on the Iodine supplements (I'd stopped them when I got jittery on all the extra thyroid medications).  I get more blood work in two months. 

I am on two grains of natural thyroid medication currently.  If my system slows down, it will be raised.  He thinks with my thyroid disease and all the toxins we take in that I might need to go to three grains. 

My morning cortisol levels were low normal but he isn't going to do anything about that right now because I am not lacking energy in the morning. I usually wake up with energy and happy.  If I didn't have any energy in the morning, he'd address that.  I also never lacked for energy on our vacation and we ran from place to place constantly.

As I was sitting in his office waiting for him, I noticed that they actually offer prescription refills for basic medications right there in the office (like for respiratory infections and bladder infections).  That would be really convenient for a doctor to have their own POS systems in-office to scan and buy what we need in one trip.  Maybe eventually they'll offer grains of natural thyroid medication as well!  That would be super convenient.

So, I think it was a good visit. 

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Diets and Thyroid Disease

I know how badly we want to lose weight when our thyroid is making it impossible.  It is beyond frustrating!  We start with a diet pill review, exercise, healthy eating and no weight comes off! We all need to live healthy but if your thyroid is messing with you, it's not going to move the weight the way it should. 

All I did to lose 19 pounds was change my medication.  I went from Synthroid to a natural thyroid medication.  It made such a HUGE difference.

If you are on a synthetic thyroid medication and struggling, please feel free to comment and ask for direction on where you can go to find out more about natural thyroid medications and talk to people who it made a difference to.  There are forums online that turned my weight frustrations right around!

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Reconnecting with Hubby on Vacation

Now that we are back from vacation and back into a normal routine, I miss my husband.  I got used to having him around 24/7 and we really reconnected.  He said it was like falling in love all over again.  He's so sweet. 

He works an annoying shift in the machining industry.  I don't understand most of the technical side of what he does but they need him. He's really smart though and aced all those classes in college.  Smarty pants!

I'm good at business stuff and he's good at the technical stuff.  We are SO opposite!  Taking the time to reconnect as man and woman vs. dad and mom was really great though.  Everybody should do that! 

We're staying connected as much as possible.  He's driving me an hour to my doctor's tomorrow when he could be at home instead.  He's great.

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Thyroid Memory Problems

One thing about having kids and health problems is that it brought to the forefront how important it is to take care of our children if something happens to us.  We got both term life insurance quotes and regular life insurance quotes on the both of us. Then we actually bought both types of policies.  I am thinking about converting our term life over but I need to learn more about the benefits first. 

I actually studied to sell life insurance but never went ahead and got my license.  That's sad that I can't even remember what the benefits are of one policy over another.  Hopefully when my thyroid gets fixed, my memory will come back!  I used to have a very good and very long memory.  Now I have holes where my memory used to be.  I have faith that my new doctor can fix me though.

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Less "Me" in the Saddle

I can't believe how much better I feel after losing this weight!  I feel good!  I can't wait to put my smaller behind intomy saddle on my black and white spotted draft horse.  I won't fill the saddle up with extra "me" anymore! 

Tomorrow morning I head out to my doctor's where I am hoping the next step is straight T3 until all the reverse T3 and T4 is out of my system.  I need to get my body converting things correctly so it should be out with the old (and bad) and in with the new to replace it all. 

I have family hitting town tomorrow to so I may not be able to update what happened at the doctor's for a few days.  I'll sneak it in if I can.

I hope everybody who celebrates it has a HAPPY EASTER!

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