Hypo-Metabloism and Chiari!

[survivor08]

Check this out:

I am a personal trainer and was a fitness competitor.  In 2001 I all of a sudden starting putting on weight.  Skipping the details......went to specialist after specialist, after specialist (2 endocrinologist, gynocologist, nutritionist, internist, etc) I was dismissed by these doctors saying my weight gain was due to over eating.  I knew that wasn’t true and I had upped my personal workouts to 2 hours a day + training clients!  

Every kind of blood, urine, thyroid etc test was run all were normal........

Being in the health and fitness industry, I knew that the amount of calories muscles burned a day could be measured.  This is DIFFERENT than a "metabolic profile" done through blood work.  So I told my 2nd endo doctor that I wanted to find out where/how this could be done.

Doctor said this could be done at the pulmonary clinic at the hospital he works at.  Then he said  “lowest BMR (basal metabolic rate---the rate your body burns calories while doing nothing) he has ever seen was 1200 cal a day.  

My BMR studied revealed I only burn 891 cal a day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He then said he had no clue as to what to do so another long story short......my insurance company (I know, shock) referred my to an endocrinologist who did have experience with "hypo-metabolism"  (which, btw, is what I call it as I dont know the official medical term for it)

Any way this endocrinologist said that this was caused by a CNS disorder!!!!  He prescribed phentermine which I have been on since 2002.  I lost the undesirable 30 lbs (relatively quickly) that was gained and no more problems.  

Then I read last week that Chiari affects the CNS, and I thought "Oh my!  I just KNOW that is true for me,  and there are probably other Chiari sufferers who have weight gain and not successful losing it and are miserable b/c of it"!  So that is why I am posting this!

Here is the deal: With a BMR of 891, I would have continued to gain weight, even with my workouts, unless I ate LESS than 800 cal a day!!!  Not gonna happen!

[selmaS]

I also gained weight without increasing my calories....and my activity remained the same...a TSH was done to look at thyroid and was normal...I did learn from the thyroid forum here on MedHelp that Hashimoto's which is an autoimmune thyroid condition will give a normal test if only the TSH is done.....u need to have the free T3 and free T 4 and TPO antibodies along with the TSH......I know chiari affects us in so many ways....and this was not anticipated...but many of us chiarians  do have Hashimoto's....

Thanks for ur insight and posting this....

"selma"

[*Stormy*]

Crazy!! Talk about not getting a fighting chance! That is very, very interesting. It amazes me how differently our bodies our affected by the same disorder...I am not surprised that this one is added to the list. I think that is why it is so hard to get dx..there is such a wide span of how you can be affected, it is hard to put a finger on.
Thank you for posting this so that others with the same problems can ask to get that testing done!

Carolyn