Wasted 30's?

I realized something yesterday as I was thinking about (hoping) that this new doctor was going to change things for me for the better where my thyroid was concerned.  I realized that if he does and I am finally feeling like myself again (without the hair loss, weight gain, brain fog, swiss cheese memory, moods/depression/low energy, dry skin, cold intolerance, etc.), that all of my 30's (I am 38 now) would have been spent unhappy about how I felt and how I looked.  All that crap affects my parenting so it wasn't just me who lost out, it was my kids and husband too.  They didn't get the whole person.  They got bits and pieces of me. It would be a shame that if there was a possibility that how I've felt (and advised doctors time and again to be ignored) can be improved by something as simple as natural thyroid medication and supplements (iodine, iron for low ferritin levels and different vitamins in my case), shame on all the doctors who left me to feel like crap all these years and shame on every doctor who doesn't do more for their patients than hand them a Synthroid prescription and tell them it is all in their head or their health problems are related to other conditions when it was all thyroid-related and thyroid-medication-related all along.

Managing the thyroid correctly has also helped many women struggling with infertility.  We had one more child after I was diagnosed hypothyroid and with Hashimoto's and it was very difficult to get pregnant.  When I think about the 18 months that we spent trying to conceive our youngest daughter (all the tears, frustration, almost having to get expensive fertility treatments) and how something as simple as the natural thyroid medication could have made all the difference.  It has helped so many women manage their thyroid better enabling them to conceive easily again.  Why won't more doctors educate themselves?  Are they so far up Big Pharma's backsides that they ignore the actual treatment of their patients?

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Thyroid, Sexual Health & Infertility

I finished reading Thyroid Solution: A Mind-Body Program for Beating Depression & Regaining Your Emotional & Physical Health. It had some good points in it but I am glad I didn't buy it since there is a newer copy out called The Thyroid Solution: A Revolutionary Mind-Body Program for Regaining Your Emotional and Physical Health which I would rather have on my bookshelf.

I'll go on with some important notes that I made on the rest of the book (to see my notes from the beginning of this book, click here):

• After your thyroid levels are brought within normal range, you still should exercise and eat right. I need to do this more myself.

• Thyroid & Sexual Health: Hypothyroidism can lead to lack of interest in sex, which may decline a bit or vanish completely. If you have never been tested for thyroid imbalance and are exhibiting loss of interest and your gynecologist can't figure it out, have your blood drawn. It's as simple as that to rule out your thyroid being the problem in the bedroom. I am thankful this hasn't been a problem for me or maybe because I was a bit oversexed to begin with, it just brought me down to a more normal sex drive, lol. If you have the opposite problem - a raging libido - could be hyperthyroid. Get a blood test! Dr. Arem suggests that if you are still having problems after your hypothyroidism is fixed, to consider a T4/T3 combination (which can also help with persistent depression).

• Your Thyroid & Infertility/Miscarriage: Having an overactive or underactive thyroid can make it hard to conceive and it may be overlooked. The book talks of couples going through years of infertility treatments (and debt) only to find out it was as simple as a blood test to check thyroid levels! This was a big one for us. Despite having four kids, three out of those four children were difficult to conceive. It took about a year for our first child to be conceived. It took over a year for my son to be conceived. My third child was conceived the first month after we decided to try for a third child (during a big fight with my husband's sister...husband was being loving and consoling me and voila! A baby!) It was after this third child that I developed thyroid disease though I do wonder if my thyroid levels had been off just enough prior to diagnosis to cause problems conceiving my oldest two children. After diagnosis, it took almost two years for my last child to be conceived...the doctor was getting ready to give me infertility treatments when I finally got pregnant before he was to do that.

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