Hypothyroidism

Coming to grips with this condition.

When you enter “how hypothyroidism is diagnosed” into Google you will get 7,080,000 results. Can you imaging trying to figure out what is wrong with you and entering that into Google and getting that deluge of results? There is so much information out there to sift through. It’s enough to make you want to give up before you even get started. I didn’t even know where to begin myself. Much less where I could find support.

When you’re going through the process of coming to terms that there is something wrong with you it is already overwhelming. The year I was diagnosed I had no idea how in the hell I was even functioning. I literally felt like I was swimming in quicksand.

They had tested my blood once before for hypothyroidism but the numbers came back normal.

TSH levels typically fall between 0.4 and 4.0 milliunits per liter (mU/L), according to the American Thyroid Association.

So again I wrote it off. That year though I would find out my thyroid was acting far from normal. We had my blood tested and when I got the results back and saw that my numbers were off the charts I kept thinking over and over how in the hell was I not in a bed instead of walking among the living. My number was 10.577. This was in September 2011.

I wasn’t told much on how to manage it if at all. I was prescribed levothyroxine. Sent on my way. Told I would need to have my blood work done every three months to monitor my levels. That was it.

For roughly the next 8 years that is all I did. I didn’t manage it any other way. I got the shock of a lifetime when I stepped on the scales in Dec of 2018 and saw the scales had said 185. Even with taking my meds as prescribed and having my blood work done at the slated intervals it wasn’t enough to effectively manage it. 185 had been the heaviest I had ever been.

The other thing that being hypothyroid does is it screws up your cholesterol. I have been on avortistatin almost as long as I have been on levothyroxine. It also messes with your blood sugar. At one point my A1C did tick up to a pre-diabetic level.

Seeing as how my health was heading down a path I didn’t want it to I was ready to start making some serious changes in my life. I stopped living in the land of denial. Not that I was there hardcore but I forced myself out of complacency nonetheless.

It is my intent with this space to help keep myself accountable to my health and help others with support and information. I will be sharing more on what has been working for me, general information on hypothyroidism and offering community here.