PID is Back

I might have to make an early appointment to see my doctor.  It feels like my PID keeps trying to come back.  I started on metronidazole again but after a few days or so, it starts again.  Now that I know what it is, I don't want to wait until it's too late and then hubby is rushing me to the emergency room, worried about speeding without radar detectors.  I don't want it to get that bad that I have to stay in the hospital for three days again.  That well and truly sucked.  We live in a rural area and our choices for medical care are pretty sad.

I would imagine that since my PID was super bad when I first got it, and that it is obviously still there, my chances for being infertile just went up.  My mother-in-law recently talked about wanting twins.  Her other kids are beyond child-bearing age so that just leaves hubby and me to give them to her.  It's not happening (even if I wanted to, which I don't).

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Shoe Shopping

A few days ago, the scale was down to the lowest point it's been in years and then today, it's back up two pounds.  I don't understand!  I have a family reunion in less than a month and I really wanted to have lost more weight.  It's just not looking like that's going to happen now.

So now I am looking at clothing and shoe shopping for the reunion and trying to figure out which clothes look nice but slim you as well.  Of course, new clothes means new shoes so I am looking at mephisto shoes.  I need something that will be comfortable on the beach since the reunion is at the beach (just the place I want to be when I've not lost all my weight right?). 

Maybe I can find some nice slide sandals and distract family I haven't seen in years from the rest of me.  Then again, the Babata thong shoe (flip flop) looks pretty too. I'll just draw attention to my feet and hope the rest just sort of loses focus.

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Regular Armour Medication Update

It's been a week on regular Armour thyroid medicine and no change yet.  The scale has fluctuated a few tenths of a pound but that's normal anyway so I can't use that as a positive sign of change yet. 

I really want this weight to finish dropping off within the next month.  I'm probably not being practical with my weight loss goal but maybe mind over matter will help.  Ha ha.  It'd be nice to spend one summer not large after several years of being overweight and looking like I should be sending out baby announcements. I can't stand carrying this extra weight around my middle. Besides being unhealthy, I'm just waiting for somebody to come up and ask me when I'm due! That would stink.

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Doctor Increases Armour from 2 to 3 Grains

My doctor appointment for my thyroid last Friday (6/11/10) went well.  I was on two grains of compounded armour up to this appointment.  My doctor, after hearing about all my hypothyroid symptoms I was having, raised me to three grains and switched me from compounded armour to regular armour.  He says it is in stock now and available so there is no point in my spending more every month on compounded.  Hopefully, the regular armour will be good and I won't see problems some people have had with it. 

In 4-6 weeks, I have to get blood tests for TSH, Total T3, and Reverse T3 to see how I am doing on three grains of Armour. 

If I am not feeling better in 4-6 weeks, the doctor mentioned testing for metals in my system. 

I have noticed over this past week that the scale is coming down a couple tenths each day in weight.  Time will tell if it will continue.

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Feeling Awful

I feel truly horrible.  Besides the normal thyroid symptoms, I feel really "off", my throat and lungs feel like crud, my digestive system is screaming bloody murder and has been for a couple weeks.  I think the digestive upset is from all the antibiotics I was on for a month for my pelvic inflammatory disease. 

I bought probiotics yesterday and started taking them, hoping that this will alleviate these awful symptoms.  I don't want to move too far away from the bathroom because I just feel so nauseous and crampy.  I hope it's the antibiotics and that there isn't something else going on with me.  I don't need anything else health-wise at the moment.  I have enough on my plate.  Anything else goes wrong I'm going to need to look into disability insurance; this stuff is really interfering in my life. I really can't handle anything else on my plate right now.

I did have my check-up with my doctor on Friday for my PID and my thyroid.  I'll update on the thyroid stuff a little bit later. 

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Big Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day.  I go to see my doctor again for my thyroid (and pelvic inflammatory disease).  I printed out blank calendars from April to June and wrote the symptoms and issues I was having around the correct dates to give him a timeline.  Between my thyroid symptoms, temperatures, and pelvic inflammatory disease and hospitalization, there was just too much to remember.  Between my posts here, my cell phone list records, and facebook, I was able to piece it all together pretty accurately.  Technology can be great:)

My memory has totally been blanking out on me the last few days.  I go to do something or tell my kids something and whatever it was I was going to do or say just disappears in my mind.  I can't stand that! 

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Don't forget your thyroid during pregnancy

If you are pregnant and have thyroid disease, don't forget to let the doctor managing your thyroid know.  You'll probably need thyroid blood tests to check hormone levels a few time during the pregnancy along with good prenatal vitamins and care.

I had a hard time conceiving after being diagnosed with thyroid disease. It took 18 months to get pregnant! My ob-gyn was scheduling fertility treatments for me when I finally got pregnant. That was a relief because with six kids, I wasn't crazy about the risk of multiple babies with fertility treatments. 

Thyroid hormone levels can fluctuate with pregnancy so don't forget to ask for blood tests during your pregnancy for your thyroid!

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No Thyroid Blood Tests Ordered

I didn't get the blood tests done that were ordered.  I thought they were thyroid blood tests too but when I looked at the lab order, it was only for ferritin and vitamin D3.  I already know those are low and don't need to pay for the lab tests to tell me that right now.  The doctor must've meant it when he said he'd treat my thyroid by symptoms because he didn't order any thyroid blood tests. 

I was really hoping that I would have seen better results with this new doctor.  I was doing better on my own, when I was ordering my medication from Thailand, than I am now.  I thought by my family reunion in a month, I'd be real close to my target weight.  That's just not going to happen now.  It's hard for me to follow or find diets that work because I am such a picky eater. I really thought my thyroid would be under control by now and the weight gone. How depressing. I don't want to see family next month, that I haven't seen in years, several sizes larger than I was the last time I saw them.

I see my doctor Friday.  I also need to make note for him that my menstrual cycle is way off and starting 1-2 weeks early now.  That's really annoying.  Hormones are difficult.

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Reminder: Create Calendar Timeline for Doctor

This is a reminder to myself that I have to create a timeline of my thyroid symptoms and my illness that hospitalized me before next Friday (when I see my doctor).  I have a few months of symptoms and stuff to present to him and I can't trust my hypothyroid memory with remembering everything, especially on the spot like that when you know there are other patients waiting and want to get everything out as fast as possible.  I want to make sure nothing is missed.

I wonder how long it will be before our health history is microchipped into us and can be updated online easily and perhaps Wi-Fi'd to our chip?  I like the idea of having everything easy access online but don't much care for the thought of a ls4278 scanner scanning me for information. That's a little too Star Trek for me.  I'd rather the scanners stay in retail.

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Blood Tests Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I go for blood tests to check my thyroid, vitamin D3 and ferritin levels.  I know the Vitamin D and ferritin will still be low.  I am hoping my thyroid tests are low as well so he increases my medication.  He told me before he'd do it by symptom but when I called him six weeks ago miserable with a host of hypothyroid symptoms, he didn't do anything about it then.  Maybe he's going to need to see labs AND symptoms to raise my thyroid medication dosage.

I'll crawl off my uncomfortable mattress in the morning and hit the lab first thing. I need to remember NOT to take my thyroid medication in the morning so it doesn't skew any of the lab results.

*fingers crossed* that these labs get my compounded Armour medication dose increased!

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Belinda Carlisle Memoir About 30 Years of Cocaine

I know this isn't thyroid related but did you hear that Belinda Carlisle (that 80's girl group - Go Go's) has a memoir out that talks about her 30-year cocaine habit?  I remember some struggles with her weight over the years but I'd have thought her interests were more about weight loss pills that work. Never did I imagine a 30-year drug habit!

Most people know that celebrities aren't immune to drugs. In fact, they probably have them more readily available to them and certainly have the money to get what they need. I'd just never imagined "My Lips Are Sealed" meant hiding a 30-year drug habit!

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Nothing Positive for My Thyroid Issues

Well, getting Pelvic Inflammatory Disease certainly didn't help the way I've been feeling the last couple of months.  I have nothing positive to report on the thyroid front for me right now.  My weight isn't going down.  I was tired, cold, and had the memory of swiss cheese before I got sick.  Not being able to eat for a week and being so sick certainly didn't improve any of those problems (you'd think not having food for a week would help me lose weight but I still look like I need help with Lipofuze).

I have to go Friday to get blood drawn to check my thryoid, ferritin and Vitamin D3 levels for my next thyroid appointment a week from this Friday.  I know my ferritin and D3 levels will still be too low.  The antibiotics I've been on the last couple weeks make me so sick, I didn't add any supplements to the mix because the iron makes my stomach burn.  Who wants that when you're already trying to hold your meals down with mind over matter already?

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I Had Pelvic Inflammatory Disease

I said before I'd tell more about my illness later. Well, it's later.

I was hospitalized due to Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (due to bacterial vaginosis...NOT an STD which the doctors would not believe until the cultures came back proving neither myself nor my husband cheated on each other and gave each other a disease!) after an ER visit had me admitted for fear of abcess and the need for surgery. I was really sick with high fever and extreme pain. They gave me morphine in the ER for pain, then dilaudid (I think that's how it's spelled) once admitted, then Percocet as the pain went down. Apparently, the flu I thought I had with fever for four days a few weeks ago was the start of the infection raging through my reproductive organs until they were screaming at me to get to the hospital.

Unfortunately, the antibiotics (Gentamicin and Clindamycin) they had me on had such bad side effects (dizziness, nausea, ear pain and hallucinations) that I was happy to get off them after 2-1/2 days when I got sent home. Those side effects lingered for several days after but they eventually worked their way out of my system thankfully.  I think it was the Gentamicin that did all that to me. The faces flying at me in my head were bad enough (and the evil grins some of the faces gave me were downright scary) but when the Virgin Mary statue outside my hospital window turned and looked at me several times, I rang for the nurse to get me off the medications!

The I.V. fluids had me so bloated I looked like I needed to find the best weight loss pills but it all came off within the first week of being home thankfully.

I'm still on antibiotics and the pain comes and goes still.  My thyroid meds got off track a bit while I was really sick but I'm trying to take them on schedule now around my antibiotics.

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