Before I begin this blog, I just want to mention that I am not a licensed doctor and I don't have the ability to diagnose anyone. I am just speaking on my experience with my thyroid problems and making people aware that this is a common issue that most women between the ages of 18 to like 35 have issues with.
More than 200,000 people in the US have been diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism per year. Hyperthyroidism is when your thyroid is over-producing hormones. There are many symptoms that hyperthyroidism does to your body. Just to list a few: you have unexpected weight loss, irregular heartbeat, sweating, and irritability. There are three different treatments which can include radioactive iodine, medications, and sometimes surgery.
Now I want to share my experience with you. It was around the beginning of 2017 when I started noticing some weird symptoms that I was having like nausea, being fatigue, and my period was off, so I assumed I could possibly be pregnant. I was on birth control pills so I didn't really think it was that, but who knows. So, I took a pregnancy test and it came up negative, so I went on with my business for about a month and I continued to have the same symptoms about every other day. I wanted to go to the doctor and get a blood work test done to see if I was pregnant, because I couldn't think of what else it would be. I went to the doctor and he did not do a blood work test, just the pee test, and told me it was negative so I didn't know what it was. I eventually just swept it under the rug and blamed it on possible stress. A couple weeks after that I had the same symptoms,but I started getting congested and felt like I had a head cold. It wasn't going away after a week so I made a doctor appointment, unfortunately my doctor wasn't in that day so they had me see the doctor who was available. He checked me out and diagnosed me with a sinus infection and he put me on a steroid (z-pack).
So I thought maybe I was getting sick and my body was just feeling it before all the other symptoms happened. So I took the z-pack and I was still feeling bad but now I had the sinus problems and every day at like 12pm I would get super nauseous and feel like I would pass out, and could not stand up. This happened every day at the same time; I would have to leave work because I couldn't function the way I needed to perform my job. This was also around the time that I switched jobs and started working as a barista at Starbucks, so I was having to learn all the new stuff. My mom talked me into going back to the doctor because she didn't think it was just a sinus infection, something else was wrong. I went back to my doctor and told him everything that was going on, told him that I had taken the steroids, I was still feeling sick, and other symptoms as well. He told me it was a sinus infection as well and put me on yet another round of the z-pack.
I am not a doctor and have been pretty healthy my entire life so I didn't really question it. I thought he knew best and I would feel better sooner or later. Unfortunately, I didn't feel better; I was still leaving work early when I worked. My boss told me to go to the ER, but I hate the ER, so I went to a urgent care. My friend drove me because I couldn't even drive when I would get these "spells". I told the doctor everything that I was told by the two doctors that I had seen earlier and all the symptoms I was having. My heart rate would get super high around 120 to 150 and I had been on Atenolol,which is a beta blocker, since my freshman year in college, but my doctor took me off it around the end of 2016 because he said my blood pressure and heart rate had improved. She checked me out and said I could have chronic sinus infection and wanted to do a CAT scan on my head to see if that was the case, so she sent us to the ER to do that and sent me home with some medicines to help with the pain and nausea and told me to continue taking the z-pack. She told me once I did the CAT scan that they would call me in a day or two with the results. Come to find out, that is not what it was. They just said it was a sinus infection.
Feeling very frustrated and very sick all the time really upset me and I kept thinking this has to be more than just a sinus infection. I have had a ton of sinus infections in my life and this didn't feel like that, it felt like something else. I remember calling my mom and crying and telling her something is wrong, I don't know what it is but something is wrong. She kept telling me to go back to the doctor and I told her I have been to three different doctors and all of them were telling me the same thing. I began to think it was all in my head. My mom was not ok with that so she decided to drive down to Georgia from Arkansas with my sister-in-law and go with me to another doctors appointment I made for August the 15th and demanded that something else be done. So my mom got into town late August 13th. Jesse, my husband, was out of town for work so my mom slept in the bed with me. That night I woke up screaming and crying with a pain that I wouldn't wish upon my worse enemy. I felt like I had this uncontrollable itch that felt like bees stinging me and itching me at the same time but I couldn't tame the itch. I took a benadryl but I couldn't find relief. My mom called the nurses hotline that my insurance provided and they recommended that I go to the ER so we got up at 3 in the morning and went to the emergency room. I know these nurses thought I was on some kind of drug because I was saying I was numb and itching they did all the drug test on me, haha. When they checked my heart rate it was 142, which is high. So they gave me a shot to help calm me down, which made me feel high and made me fall asleep. It was the best sleep I have had in months. They did the one thing that none of the other doctors had done and they took a blood test. My results came back and my Free T4 and TSH.
"Thyroxine (T4) functions as a 'storage' hormone. On its own, it is unable to produce energy or deliver oxygen to cells but must undergo a process known as monodeiodination in which it loses an atom of iodine to become triiodothyronine," (LOGGG).
"TSH stands for thyroid stimulating hormone and the test measures how much of this hormone is in your blood. A TSH test is done to find out if your thyroid gland is working the way it should. It can tell you if it's overactive (hyperthyroidism) or under active (hypothyroidism)," (LOGGG). My Free T4 level was 5.88ng/dL which was labeled high. My TSH level was <0.02uIU/ML which was labeled as low. The doctor at the emergency room diagnosed me with Hyperthyroidism.
The next step was to see a Endocrinologist specialist. When I went to my first appointment ,they did test on my thyroid to recheck what the ER doctors did. The specialist put me back on Atenolol to help with my high heart rate and methIMAzole which I had to take 3 times a day. By this time I had experienced being tired all the time, rashes under my armpits, itching (with constantly applying lotion to help), hair loss, very irritable, constant headaches, and always feeling like I had a lump in my throat. I also had to go to the specialist every 3 weeks and a week before my appointment I would have to get my blood drawn to see where my levels were at.
The specialist told me that I would have to choose a treatment method which would include radioactive iodine or surgery. I wasn't able to just take the medicine and hope it would treat itself because my levels were too out of hand-he didn't suggest taking that route. The surgery would be to remove my thyroid completely.
"Radioactive iodine treats hyperthyroidism by gradually shrinking your thyroid- ultimately destroying the gland," (LOGGG). This does not hurt at all and is the most common treatment and highest recommended treatment for hyperthyroidism. What they do is give you a pill you take by mouth and you don't get hospitalized. Normally a patient only needs one treatment.
I had the radioactive iodine treatment and I had to go home and drink a lot of fluids and I couldn't be in the same room as my husband or dogs for 3 days because I had radiation exposure. I was recommended to not eat foods with a lot of salt for those 3 days and to use disposable plate, cups, and utensils. This was the worst 3 days of my life because I was so bored in our guest bedroom alone and I had to flush the toilet 2 times every time I used it and had to wipe it down since we had one bathroom at the time that we both shared. I never felt pain so it wasn't anything too serious. I eventually got taken off methIMAazole and was put on synthroid, which is what replaces my thyroid and what the thyroid gland is supposed to do. I have to take this medicine for the rest of my life. If I don't I can have some serious health issues. I had to get my medicine bumped up every time I went until we found a amount that worked for me and kept my levels at bay. I was able to get off the Atenolol because it was a symptom of the thyroid issue. I now have hypothyroidism because I no longer have a working thyroid. It has shrunk due to the treatment that I received. I now only have to go and see the doctor about my hypothyroidism every 6 months for a year and then once a year for the rest of my life.
I no longer have any of the symptoms that I had before treatment. The only thing now is I struggle to loose weight because my metabolism has slowed way down, which is a symptom of hypothyroidism.
Some things I have to look forward to is it could take me longer to get pregnant than a woman with a normal working thyroid and I have to monitor something for the rest of my life. The whole reason for me sharing this journey that I went through is so everyone is aware that thyroid issues are very common. The specialist said that each and every person should get blood work done every year to make sure that you don't have any thyroid issues or other issues. I want everyone to be aware and make it a priority. Every time someone asks me is this a thyroid issue symptom I always tell them thyroid is a tricky thing because it can mess with your entire body, because it is such an important part of your body. So check on it regularly so you don't have to be so confused and frustrated like I was.
If you have any questions let me know in the comments below, I love getting comments and interacting with you guys. I will always comment back. Let me know if you have had any thyroid issues and if you had a similar journey or if you had a completely different experience. But for now Stay Awesome. Stay Southern. Stay Beautiful.
References
Shomon, Mary. "Understanding Your Thyroid Blood Test Results." Verywellhealth.com. 22 January
2019. https://www.verywellhealth.com/interpret-your-thyroid-test-results-3231840
Pathak, Neha. "What is a TSH Test?" Webmd.com. 20 March 2017. https://www.webmd.com/women/what-is-tsh-test#1
Milas, Kresimira. "Radioactive Iodine for Hyperthyroidism." Endocrineweb.com. https://www.endocrineweb.com/conditions/hyperthyroidism/radioactive-iodine-hyperthyroidism
Hey Y'all let me know what y'all are thinking about this blog post. Did any of y'all have a similar story?
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