Aa
Just need to vent!!
Today, I made a comment about a bruise I had on my knee. My husband said, "Oh you must have hoshimotos in it!" I guess he thought that was funny. I was very upset. I blew up on him! I feel like this disease has taken something from me. I know others have way worse problems to deal with. But this is my life. I feel like I was a different person before my symptoms got worse a year ago. Now I just want to sleep and I am highly depressed. Depression meds make me worse!!! I just want him and others to understand that I just want to be normal again and not worry about a sickness inside of me which there is no cure!!! Maybe I am being over dramatic, but I have a swollen face in the morning, I feel stiff all over, I am freezing at night, and I sleep like a four month old baby!!!
How am I supposed to feel about it???
I will never be "back to me". I wonder about my childrens health as well. ARRGH!!!!!
How am I supposed to feel about it???
I will never be "back to me". I wonder about my childrens health as well. ARRGH!!!!!
HI, I really understand and empathise with you on this! It can be sooooo frustrating when you feel so lousy to have others just think you are just (and to quote an Aussie phrase) bunging it on..meaning you are just being a whining loser!
We both know how horrible Hashimoto's can be. It is insidious and not fair to have. As gimel said earlier many times we are just dosed or diagnosed just on our TSH.. I know I was! Severe depression which led me to take anti-depressants for over 8 years actually made me worse!
Many doctors are not educated enough to understand the connection of Hashimotos to other illnesses and tend to treat individual symptoms rather than the disease itself.
My advice to you is; accept things will never be the same, grieve for that, then get your thyroid levels checked again. Free T4, Free T3, TSH and antibodies. Look at them and see that level is not your ideal...see what dose you can take to help you feel at your best. For me my TSH being over 2.0 makes me feel lousy, my Free T4 will be high and my Free T3's low....I am still adjusting my doses to find the 'sweet spot' For you it may be a higher dose, or perhaps a lower dose. Get tested every 6 weeks (if you can afford it) and keep a record of your symptoms. Soon you will find what level makes you feel ok. Notice I did not say good? Hashimotos you will never feel 100%. There are good days and bad days.
The main thing is to not let the doctors dictate to you what is 'normal' MY levels are normal for someone else not me!
The other advice I give you is; VENT all you want! We are all here to listen and we all go through bad garbage sometimes too.
Perhaps you tell your hubby you didn't mean to flare up, just that the feeling of being overwhelmed sometimes is too much....and tell him you need his support. I am sure he loves you enough to be there for you, good and bad.
Hugs from a fellow sufferer! ( I snavelled my man's head off the other day when he said I was naughty for having slept in till midday. Man! I NEEDED that sleep sooooo badly! I apologised later and he said,"That's ok, I was just teasing you. I know you needed it." See I just took it the wrong way!)
Cheers!
We both know how horrible Hashimoto's can be. It is insidious and not fair to have. As gimel said earlier many times we are just dosed or diagnosed just on our TSH.. I know I was! Severe depression which led me to take anti-depressants for over 8 years actually made me worse!
Many doctors are not educated enough to understand the connection of Hashimotos to other illnesses and tend to treat individual symptoms rather than the disease itself.
My advice to you is; accept things will never be the same, grieve for that, then get your thyroid levels checked again. Free T4, Free T3, TSH and antibodies. Look at them and see that level is not your ideal...see what dose you can take to help you feel at your best. For me my TSH being over 2.0 makes me feel lousy, my Free T4 will be high and my Free T3's low....I am still adjusting my doses to find the 'sweet spot' For you it may be a higher dose, or perhaps a lower dose. Get tested every 6 weeks (if you can afford it) and keep a record of your symptoms. Soon you will find what level makes you feel ok. Notice I did not say good? Hashimotos you will never feel 100%. There are good days and bad days.
The main thing is to not let the doctors dictate to you what is 'normal' MY levels are normal for someone else not me!
The other advice I give you is; VENT all you want! We are all here to listen and we all go through bad garbage sometimes too.
Perhaps you tell your hubby you didn't mean to flare up, just that the feeling of being overwhelmed sometimes is too much....and tell him you need his support. I am sure he loves you enough to be there for you, good and bad.
Hugs from a fellow sufferer! ( I snavelled my man's head off the other day when he said I was naughty for having slept in till midday. Man! I NEEDED that sleep sooooo badly! I apologised later and he said,"That's ok, I was just teasing you. I know you needed it." See I just took it the wrong way!)
Cheers!
Thanks for the info - will do more resurch and reading
Got all my test results today to have a look at the free T3/T4 my antibodies and peroxidase is way way out of range 450 and 3300 Tsh still 30 T3 and T4 within the normal range but higher side of the scale - just want to rip this thing out of my neck right now - has caused enough problems just in the last 2 months.
Got all my test results today to have a look at the free T3/T4 my antibodies and peroxidase is way way out of range 450 and 3300 Tsh still 30 T3 and T4 within the normal range but higher side of the scale - just want to rip this thing out of my neck right now - has caused enough problems just in the last 2 months.
Thanks for really listening!!! Sometimes you just get tired of hearing about many different test they could give you to make you better. I have had EVERY test mentioned above and then some.
Just need some time to grieve I guess.
Just need some time to grieve I guess.
I have had Hashimoto's for about 5 years now and have never been the same. Goiter (TT) removed just this July with a cancer diagnosis. I know I will never be the same. We do go through a kind of grieving process and it is completely okay. Now I have to worry about my thyroid levels going up and down like others on this site. But at some point there must come some acceptance that the milk has been spilled and will continue to spill. Just expect it and it might not be that bad the next time. As for your husband, he should calmly be told that that was an insensitive remark. My husband is the same, talking about "levels". Men just are from Mars, rather they are from some other galaxy and we are on Venus! (Sorry gentlemen on this site). Seriously, he may not know how to help you. My husband can rarely be serious, but this does affect him --he just doesn't show it as sensitively as I would like. Know that he does care, he just doesn't know how to help. Completely my opinion and not meant to offend anyone.
I keep reminding myself as well, that others have it worse than I do. Right now I am in RAI isolation for the cancer and have been feeling sorry for myself. I am dying for a cheeseburger right now and yet I think again about those going through chemotherapy who have little appetite. I have to feel some kind of gratitude for not having it worse. It makes it a bit easier for me to move on.
I keep reminding myself as well, that others have it worse than I do. Right now I am in RAI isolation for the cancer and have been feeling sorry for myself. I am dying for a cheeseburger right now and yet I think again about those going through chemotherapy who have little appetite. I have to feel some kind of gratitude for not having it worse. It makes it a bit easier for me to move on.
I read both your posts and it struck me that maybe you both have been diagnosed and treated by your TSH levels, rather than by testing and adjusting the active thyroid hormones (FT3 and FT4) with meds as required to alleviate symptoms. Dosing a patient based on TSH frequently results in lingering symptoms. I thought you both might get some useful info from a post I made previously to another patient.
Since TSH is a pituitary hormone and affected by so many variables, I have little regard for its use as a diagnostic. At best it is an indicator, to be considered along with symptoms and the "Frees". A TSH suppressed below the reference range limit doesn't automatically make you hyper. Only having hyper symptoms should classify you as hyper. In my opinion, the best way to treat a thyroid patient is to test and adjust FT3 and FT4 levels with meds, as required to alleviate symptoms. It should be all about symptom relief and not just getting test results somewhere within very broad reference ranges.
The reason the reference ranges for the "Frees" are called "normal", is that they are based on a large population of patients' test results. From that data base the decision was made that about 2.5 % of people would fall out of each end of this "normal" range because they were possibly hypo or hyper. From this decision limits were placed at plus and minus two standard deviations (which correlates with plus or minus 2.5%) from the overall average and that was called the "normal" range, supposedly representing people who had no thyroid problems.
After many years of bad experience with this "normal" range for TSH, the AACE finally acknowledged 6 years ago that there were a lot more patients out there with hypo and hyper problems than previously recognized when they originally established the range.
After excluding from the data base those patients who were suspect for hypo and hyper, they again analyzed the remaining data base and established limits that included 95% of the total data base and called these new limits "normal". This changed the reference range from .5-5.0 down to .3-3.0, which is a huge change. Unfortunately this change hasn't yet been accepted or acknowledged by most labs and doctors.
Also, realize that the reference ranges for the "Frees" were established the same basic way. These ranges have never been reexamined and modified like the range for TSH. I am absolutely convinced that this is the reason why so many hypo people fall into the lower end of the ranges for FT3 and FT4 and are still told they are "normal".
In one my past lives I had a lot of training and experience in statistical analysis. Based on that experience, if I had to estimate what a revised range for FT3 would be if the data base were purged of suspect hypo and hyper people, like was done for TSH, then I would say the FT3 range should change from 2.3-4.2 pg/dl up to about 3.2-4.3. And FT4 probably would change from .60-1.50ng/dl up to about 1.0-1.55. Quite a difference, huh? Think maybe that is why we hear from so many people that have hypo symptoms, yet they are in the "normal" ranges for the "Frees"? I'd bet my last dollar.
Also, if you haven't read this article, you may find it worthwhile.
http://www.hormonerestoration.com/Thyroid.html
Since TSH is a pituitary hormone and affected by so many variables, I have little regard for its use as a diagnostic. At best it is an indicator, to be considered along with symptoms and the "Frees". A TSH suppressed below the reference range limit doesn't automatically make you hyper. Only having hyper symptoms should classify you as hyper. In my opinion, the best way to treat a thyroid patient is to test and adjust FT3 and FT4 levels with meds, as required to alleviate symptoms. It should be all about symptom relief and not just getting test results somewhere within very broad reference ranges.
The reason the reference ranges for the "Frees" are called "normal", is that they are based on a large population of patients' test results. From that data base the decision was made that about 2.5 % of people would fall out of each end of this "normal" range because they were possibly hypo or hyper. From this decision limits were placed at plus and minus two standard deviations (which correlates with plus or minus 2.5%) from the overall average and that was called the "normal" range, supposedly representing people who had no thyroid problems.
After many years of bad experience with this "normal" range for TSH, the AACE finally acknowledged 6 years ago that there were a lot more patients out there with hypo and hyper problems than previously recognized when they originally established the range.
After excluding from the data base those patients who were suspect for hypo and hyper, they again analyzed the remaining data base and established limits that included 95% of the total data base and called these new limits "normal". This changed the reference range from .5-5.0 down to .3-3.0, which is a huge change. Unfortunately this change hasn't yet been accepted or acknowledged by most labs and doctors.
Also, realize that the reference ranges for the "Frees" were established the same basic way. These ranges have never been reexamined and modified like the range for TSH. I am absolutely convinced that this is the reason why so many hypo people fall into the lower end of the ranges for FT3 and FT4 and are still told they are "normal".
In one my past lives I had a lot of training and experience in statistical analysis. Based on that experience, if I had to estimate what a revised range for FT3 would be if the data base were purged of suspect hypo and hyper people, like was done for TSH, then I would say the FT3 range should change from 2.3-4.2 pg/dl up to about 3.2-4.3. And FT4 probably would change from .60-1.50ng/dl up to about 1.0-1.55. Quite a difference, huh? Think maybe that is why we hear from so many people that have hypo symptoms, yet they are in the "normal" ranges for the "Frees"? I'd bet my last dollar.
Also, if you haven't read this article, you may find it worthwhile.
http://www.hormonerestoration.com/Thyroid.html
Feel with you - been diagnose 3 years ago with hashimoto's - symptoms also got worce for me about a month ago - had my TSH levels tested and it was 30 suddenly just went way out of range and ive been stable with my TSH levels and thyroxin for the last 3 years - also found thyroid nodule - further test showed it's a cold nodule and now going for biopsy - at this stage i just want my thyroid out - it's caused enough havoc in my life
Maybe find out from your GP to do your bloods again and just routine ultrasound of your neck - they say most nodules are discovered by chance so who know's maybe that's whats making your symptoms worce now
All the best hope you feel better soon
Maybe find out from your GP to do your bloods again and just routine ultrasound of your neck - they say most nodules are discovered by chance so who know's maybe that's whats making your symptoms worce now
All the best hope you feel better soon
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