Time to nip this in the bud!

Still February 2010: Oh Autoimmune disease how I loathe thee! On this journey I've been told by multiple doctors and Endocrinologist that there is NO CURE for Hashimoto's disease. They have even gone as far as to say that there is nothing you can do to lower TPO antibodies. Really?? That's not what my blood work has shown! Sadly most patients want a quick fix to the problem and the doctor is more that happy to give it to them in the form of a pill! The easy way for doctors to deal with Hashimoto's Hypothyroid is to put you on thyroid replacement therapy(a pill you have to take everyday for the rest of your life) and believe me that's not the end of it! Most people never feel 100% normal again and continually have to have there medication dose upped. When you take thyroid replacement hormone your thyroid eventually stops working on it's own and you become dependant on the medication. This was not an option for me! I knew there had to be something that was causing my immune system to attack my thyroid and I was determined to STOP it and give my thyroid a chance to live!

Hop, Skip and a Jump ahead!

February 2010: I know! A few years have passed and guess what!! I'm still ONLY taking Selenium and Vitamin E and My TSH is 2.0 and my TPO antibodies are 290. At this point I'm feeling pretty good but not completely normal. I'm still having some Hypothyroid symptoms like:

• Fatigue


• Headaches


• Nausea


• Heart Palps

All these symptoms are no where near as bad as they were in 2007 but they are still not pleasant and I'd like to get rid of them.

After doing some research online I find out that one of the most important test to get done when you are hypothyroid is Free T3 .I decided to see a holistic doctor to see why I'm still having symptoms when my TSH is in a normal range and to find out what my Free T3 level is.

RESULTS:

• Free T3 is 2.2 ( Normal range is 2.4-4.4)

Aha!!! This could be why I'm still having hypothyroid symptoms.

I started taking 37mg of Zinc and 1mg of copper after reading THIS article.

I'm taking THIS supplement and THIS supplement.

One month later my Free T3 is up to 3.0 and I feel so much better! Now onto dealing with those pesky TPO antibodies!

What a blessing!

End of December 2007: I'm finally starting to feel normal again. I'd been taking selenium and vitamin E for about 2 months. Time to get my blood tested again!

RESULTS :

• TSH 2.3 (6.9 back in September)




• TPO Antibodies 309 (602 in September)



• TgAb Antibodies are completely gone!
  
  
  

I'd say I've made some progress! Now I will have to wait and see if this was the answer I was praying for and if I can keep my thyroid stable on Selenium and Vitamin E or would I have to eventually go on Thyroid hormone replacement? Time to defy the odds!

If you want something done right..DO IT YOURSELF!

October 2007: After weeks of researching natural remedies for Hashimoto's Disease I came across hundreds of herbs,vitamins and minerals that could possibly help. The problem is where do you start? I didn't want to try tons of different things and waste money on something that might not work. More than anything I didn't have the time to play trial and error with all these options as I was far too ill to have to wait for months to see what would work. One day I came across and random article about the trace mineral called Selenium. I had been praying for a natural way to overcome this disease and when I read this article I had a overwhelming feeling that I should try it. The article suggested taking 200 mcg of Selenium with 400IU of Vitamin E. So I went online to the Vitamin shop I use and purchased some. BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE!! In 4 days of taking it my panic attacks stopped! 8 days later I had an appointment with a new Endocrinologist who retested my blood. My results were that my TSH had dropped to 5.3 The Endo warned me that this probably was just a fluke and that it could have dropped because I took Synthroid for 5 days the month before and not to get my hopes up। Well...I got my hopes up!
Side note: People with hashimoto's disease should not take iodine supplements. Iodine is very inflammatory if you have hashimoto's disease.

Endocrinologist..Blah..blah..blah..

Still September 2007: So here's what I know. I have Hashimoto's Disease TSH of 6.9 (nurse practitioner retested to make sure the numbers were the same as they were in June) I have TPO antibodies at 602 and Synthroid did me no favors and I feel like utter crap! So off to the Endocrinologist that my nurse practitioner referred me too. This Endo is suppose to be "one of the best" in the state I live in, so I figure I'll give her a try. To make a long story short I drive an hour to see her only to get told that I have Hashimoto's Disease!! YOU THINK!! and there is nothing I can do about it. When I tell her that the Synthroid made me sick, she says " It's because when your thyroid is being attacked and in the process of dying you will have points where you are hyperthyroid." So I ask "then what am I suppose to do!" She says " We will just have to wait until the thyroid dies, then we will medicate you." I ask " How long will I have to wait for my thyroid to die?" Her reply " I don't know." ME: "Well I want to have children,will this effect me having children." HER: " Kids are overated anyways Hahahah!" Someone shoot me now!! I actually stood up and walk out of her office! I got into the car with my husband and started crying. It was official...NO ONE COULD HELP ME!

Ding Ding Ding!! Stinking Hashimoto's Disease!

After weeks of research I went back to the nurse practitioner and asked her to please run some labs to see if I had TPO or Thyroid Peroxidase (Hashimoto's) antibodies and wouldn't you know it! Those darn little antibodies were attacking my thyroid! The normal TPO antibody range is under 60 mine were 602! I also tested positive for TgAb antibodies. They were slightly elevated 24.6(normal range is under 14)Finally I knew what was causing my thyroid to die! Now I needed to find a way to fight back!

Wow!! Someone actually knows what they are doing!

September 2007: I went back to the hospital to see a nurse practitioner that worked in the women's center. After telling her about all my symptoms she said it sounded like I had a thyroid problem. I told her that I had my thyroid tested in June. She asked " Where did you get the blood work done for your thyroid." I told her " Here at this hospital in the ER, but they told me nothing was wrong." She immediately had her nurse pull the lab reports. She came back in the room and said " No S*&# you don't have a thyroid problem!" You know something in wrong when your doctor swears in front of you. She said that the lab results from June showed my TSH( thyroid stimulant hormone) at a 6.9 The normal range for your TSH is (0.3-3.0) If your TSH is over 3.0 it is a sign that your thyroid is struggling to produce the proper amount of T4 and T3 needed to run your body correctly. So the pituitary gland has to put out more stimulant hormone to make the thyroid work harder. You would think the ER doctor would have caught this! One of the many things I've learned through this process is to always second guess everything you are told and to always do research on your own! My doctor could not believe that I was sent home from the ER without being notified that I had Hypothyroid. She proscribed me synthroid ( synthetic T4 hormone replacement) and told me I needed to go to a Endocrinologist because she was not really qualified to treat hypothyroid. I didn't want to go on a pill that I had to take everyday for the rest of my life that also came with a long list of side effects, but I thought I would give it a try for a few weeks. After 5 days of taking synthroid I felt worse than ever! My heart was racing and I couldn't keep any food down. I was constantly praying that I would feel better and that I would be able to know what to do to overcome this disease. I had a strong feeling that synthroid was not the right thing for me so I stopped taking it and started hours upon hours of research to determined why my thyroid was failing and if there was a natural way to fix it.

Let's start and the very beginning...it's a very good place to start

May 2007: I was sitting in a movie theater with my family, minding my own business when a little gland that I never paid any attention to decided it was time for it to be the center of attention. Enter THYROID with some major attitude problems. Within minutes I went from enjoying a nice day out with the family to having a horrible pain in my chest, heart palps and the left side of my body going numb. I quickly stood up and told my sister "I think I'm having a heart attack!" then passed out. Pretty darn embarrassing thing to do in a movie theater. An ambulance was called and I was taken to the ER. I was told that my EKG looked normal and there was nothing wrong with my heart. The ER doctor wasn't sure what had happened. A month later I realised that it was a panic attack!( a nice little way of my thyroid telling me it was ready to give up the ghost) I had another panic attack in my local mall and that was it for me! NO more going out of the house! Over the next few weeks I began to have panic attacks at night and during the day I could hardly eat because I was so nauseous. I knew something was very wrong so one night I went to the ER. They told me nothing was wrong and asked if I smoked or drank alcohol or caffeine. When I told them I did none of the above. The doctor said " Do you eat chocolate?" I said "Well I'm a woman..of course I do, and a lot of it!" And she said " That could be what's causing the heart issues!" With that being said they told me to go home and just try to relax. As you probably guessed, I was back in the ER a few nights later! I had been doing some research and thought I had a lot of symptoms of Hypothyroid. I asked the ER doctor to please test my thyroid. About an hour later he came in with the results and said "Everything looks great!" I was shocked! Then he said "Maybe you are just overly worried and it's making you feel unwell." A nice way of saying " You're mental and just think your sick!" I went home and cried,something I do not do too often. I felt hopeless! No doctors seemed to know why I was ill or care about what I was going through. The next 3 months were a nightmare! Every week new symptoms started showing up and the panic attacks had become so bad that I couldn't even walk to my mailbox to get the mail. I went to my local doctor and he ran a few blood test ( I passed out in his office) he told me that all my blood work looked good. By this time I'm tired of passing out in public places and I've decided I'm not going to see anymore doctors! When the summer was over I decided that I would give seeing a doctor one more try. I told my husband that this doctor was my last hope and if she can't figure out what is wrong with me I was just going to have to live with it!