Dear Thyroid

Please just die already. Am not enjoying my stints of - brace yourselves - Hashimoto's toxicosis. Mind you, before I figured out what it was I was panicking over my legs doing that twitchy spasmy restless thing again last week. But then I added it up to my rapid heartbeat and palpitations during same time period and voila!
Annoying but harmless stint of hyperthyreosis as my thyroid is in death throes.

The interesting/sad/pathetic part is actually that I have now found a reference that confirms that I could take some beta blockers to relieve the symptoms. I have beta blockers in my possession. However, on the odd chance that I get supermetabolism along with the other symptoms, I'm not actually sure if I want to take them... I've got holiday flab to loose! What's a few palpitations and tremors?
(these episodes could however go on for years before my thyroid dies, so I might revise this opinion)

Excuse me while I turn the fan on, elbows are sticking to the table.

The heat was marvellous over the weekend. I managed something so odd as a weekend that seemed to stretch on forever, however in a good way. Spent awesome day in Malmö with J on Saturday. On my way home I managed to greet our neighbours' house swap guests at the train, guide them in German, and came home only to arrive to another relative get-together. Sunday also seemed to incorporate several days. I managed to get proper sleep, squeeze in a few hours of work, go for a run, bbq, and introduce my parents to cream soda in a random 4th of July-inspired moment (we shared one 33cl can, sis, don't worry. They also sold vanilla and cherry coke and root beer at ICA in a special Americana display. Hmm). I also made some cut-offs.

It was fabulous. Now, will try to not disintegrate into sweat molecules or fall asleep and get some work done. Had the worst night's sleep in months last night due to heat and palpitations and all right. I may try some beta blockers just before bed, actually.

Ehm. Not really interesting for anyone not undergoing thyroid replacement therapy

Right, so, this is just to collect my thoughts and will be completely uninteresting for anyone but me (yes, I'm at work, but I can't focus on work beause my legs are spasming again making me panic about coming down with a spot of fibromyalgia/rheumatism/ALS)

Fact: a lot of people feel like crap when they start T4 hormone replacement therapy
(Me: muscle weakness, muscle spasms, joint pain, general feeling of being 'crummy', anxiety. Other common ones I've been spared: short term memory problems and migraine)

Supposed fact: you can't be allergic to Levothyroxine because it is an exact replica of the body's own hormone.
This is the cause of extremely heated debates bordering on hazing on hypothyroid forums: those that insist they feel bad because the hormone they are getting is synthetic and that the solution is natural thyroid hormone (ie Armour) vs those that claim that this is insane, they just need a higher dose.

Possible solution/exlanation:

Both could be right - Levothyroxine only supplies T4, which the body is supposed to turn into T3. However, not everyone's bodies have the same ability to turn T4 into T3 for various reasons, so in some people they get too much T4 and not enough T3. Since Armour includes actual T3, this can correct this problem. So, they are not really getting better because the drug is natural as opposed to synthetic, but rather as a side-effect of the drug being natural they get an extra hormone. In theory, this should mean that combined T3/T4 hormone replacement therapy could work just as well.

Caveat: natural thyroid hormone from pigs already has the right balance between T3 and T4, whereas getting that balance correct by supplying T3 and T4 seperately can be trickier, especially since T3 has a much shorter half-life. In addition, Armour also includes other hormones involved in thyroid function, and if you have an issue with producing any of these, Armour would help whereas T3/T4 combination wouldn't help.

Not helping discussion: argument about the fact that Armour is less standardized than synthroid drugs because levels of T3/T4 will vary (like the sweetness of strawberries depending on season). I have seen arguments both supporting and opposing this theory, I'm not convinced either way.

So, this part I get. The next possible explanation for feeling crummy when you start levothyroxine treatment, even if you maybe had no obvious symptoms before starting treatment, is apparently something called adrenal fatigue. Even subclinical adrenal fatigue, apparently to do with cortisone levels and extremely hard to measure, can cause worsening of hypothyroid symptoms when you first start medicating.
As far as I understand it, the symptoms will either get worse as you increase T4 levels to compensate for sudden, increased hypothyroid symptoms (despite normal TSH levels) until you feel like crap or sometimes, die, OR at some magical level the adrenal insufficiany will manage to correct itself using some substrate from the T4 and eventually if you keep elevating the dose you will be fine. Although first you will feel like crap for a really long time.

Yeah, that last one needs some more extensive research.

Fight for your right to non-synthroid drugs

So. Haven't written much lately, mostly because most of the time I feel like shit. It feels like someone replaced my body with that of a 70-year old sometime in the last few months. I had to go to the doctor this week because I had muscle cramps, everywhere. Yesterday I took a walk with the dog which was painful, resulted in more cramps and aches and well, I've always had sympathy for those with rheumatism but let's say it's renewed.

Not to mention how anxious I've been, do I have ALS? Rheumatism? Fibromyalgia? Ulcer? My stomach hurts or is distressed on a low level since several months now. I wake up and can barely walk because my hip bones ache. Feet spasm all the time.
Going to a doctor makes you feel stupid (or, in this case, called a lazy lard-ass in not quite those words). All doctors say is that no one ever had any side effects from synthroid levothyroxine drugs, which is quite funny really, since there are several forums and campaigns where many many people complain of everything from muscle aches to anxiety to IBS. Apparently there is a simple solution in the form of natural levothyroxine from pigs, which is only available in Sweden if you find a doctor willing to fight your case in a tangled web of global pharmaceutical rules.

Anyway, I'm gonna stop taking it for now. I only started because it was going to help me loose weight and I've lost nada, despite now practically eating Atkins. Let's see what comes first, a paradigm shift in the attitude toward natural vs synthroid drugs (highly unlikely), an Armour license for Sweden (not eligible to guess on this one) or a competent doctor who is not an ass and willing to battle paperwork for my health (not impossible I guess, but I don't see it anytime soon).
I had a great doctor - apparently she decided to have a baby.
Bloody democracy with year-long maternity leaves.

Somethings Gotta Give (#2?)

Sooo.
I don't think people perceive me as vain because in order to be vain you kind of have to be pretty (I mean, you could be ugly and vain, but that's possibly even more sad as you have then failed in your efforts). Also, am a geek. But seriously, people with low self-esteem are some of the most egocentric people out there. Hello!! My name is, eh, Librarian Girl, and I am vain.

Anyway, I remember with distinct clarity that several people in different places used to tell me I have the most amazing skin. Like, I wasn't entirely convinced but enough people told me I was like, OK, yeah, not too bad. Never had that much acne. But it's become some kind of distant dream, because for several years I would say I've had bad skin. This year, I would say it's pretty severe. Yes there are people worse off but they've always had it, mine is just, suddenly severe where it didn't used to be. Anyway, I've been trying to ignore it because I was really not wanting to find out it was the fat in my new diet. Because I really don't want to go back to carb-living, EVER. And I've read in several places that people have cured their acne with a high-fat diet. So, hello, confused?

I didn't really want to find out it's probably the dairy either, but I guess it's slightly less catastrophic. Mind you, only just slightly. Apparently it's got to do with hormones, again (of course!). Haven't researched it enough but there's enough arguments I'm going to give it a go.
Anyway, it makes total sense because my skin got worse when I was living in Spain, which is when I became a vegetarian. Bring on the cheese!! And since I became LCHF, I mean, practically all my fat-calories come from dairy. If I go for a quick ICA-run to bring back the essentials, its: cream, creme fraiche, milk, cottage cheese, cheese, and soft cheese. Eeeh. Would probably explain why a good skin day now is a not disastrous skin day where as I used to have good skin most of the time.

Geez. So. Odds for being able to exist as a LCHF vegetarian without eating dairy? I'm going to give it a try, but seriously, what am I going to eat? Fish, nuts, coconut fat, olives, and avocados, I guess. Gonna have to learn to drink coffee black OH DARN.

Hence, vanity. Eating meat or eternal acne? Because Carbs are out of the question.

Don't do drugs!!

One of the few subjects I would love to study out of sheer fascination (but don't because there's no future career prospects in it) is music theory. I had one of the most profound experiences in my life in the Milv sometime early Spring 2006 when I saw a documentary (on the BBC, of course, all hail the mighty Beeb!) about the Beatles and why exactly they were so bloody famous.

It's not all to do with how cool they were, or the timing, or the lyrics (though I know some get off more on the lyrics than the music so they are definitely a big part of it), but mainly because (and this is somewhat hazy, but I remember the gist of it): there are only a certain number of combination of notes that are pleasurable to the human brain. These belong, by tradition, in certain types of music, and go in and out of use with time and culture.

The Beatles somehow used (came up with? discovered? depends on how you look at it) ones that have not been around for awhile and so their music was fresh (to a 1960s ear anyway). I can't recall much more details than this other than that ABBA was mentioned in these circumstances as well - their melodies were also re-inventing music and thus highly 'catchy' for people all around the world, regardless of what language you speak (music is universal and boundary-less, yadda yadda and TRUE).

Anyway. This theory is prooved further by the Eurovision Song Contest. Yes, 2008 they won because of the goddamn skater (I used to like him but I now boycot him, so good for him he doesn't compete anymore!) but this year it was that chorus, that bloody violin chorus. Most people joke heavily about folk elements in the Eurovision but this combination of notes was so heady, so powerful, that all over Europe people chose to vote for Norway despite them being rich bastards with their oil and fantastic social security and chirpy language. Can't blame it on the number of neighbouring countries either as has been the case the last few years.

The guy who won wasn't even a particularly likeable chap, and everyone moaned post-win about his Polish parents making him practice 5h a day supporting the highly un-likeable theory that everyone can become a pro with the amount of practice fery few of us could ever bother with.
Nope. It was that chorus that won. Pure music crack.

Anyway. For the last few weeks Humanoid has been my crack. The lesson to learn is of course that everything that can be compared to drugs will probably have repercussions. I got about two weeks of constant music-induced euphoria before things went to hell. I started out being careful, only listening on like volume 5 out of 40 in quiet areas. Soon, however, I had to raise the volume and play it on my CD-player to get the same kind of high. Now my tinnitus is back with a vengeance, bugging me all day, at work, at home, when I am about to sleep. So, crap.

Note: this was originally going to be a happy, fluffy post about the mathematic/musical geniuses who write music crack. I got interrupted mid-post and now that I'm finishing it a week later it's gone down-hill. Just, in case anyone got confused with the change of tone.

So people: MIND YOUR EARS, AND DON'T DO DRUGS.

Health is relative

So. Ironically enough I was going to write about how amazing it is that it's Thursday and I'm still at work, healthy (the last two weeks I had a bad cold and stomach flu respectively).

HOWEVER.

Having finally decided to take the flu-shot because I've been sick so much, I consulted my sister whether or not I was in a risk group and could be bumped up the queu. She then alerted me to the fact that I shouldn't take the shot at all, as there's a possibility that taking vaccines when you have Hashimoto's causes multiple sclerosis. The risk of that is pretty small, granted. I researched it and OMG there is so much research. Apparently you are also not supposed to drink tea when you have Hashimoto's because of the high fluoride content. Seriously? I've been taking fluoride supplements religiously since I was a teen because of my bad teeth. I may very well have triggered my hypothyroidism with all these supplements for all I know.

Also, I love tea!! I always have at least seven different kinds in my desk drawer, and at home. A life without tea?? This is a horror that seems almost unimaginable. Granted, maybe still one step up from getting multiple sclerosis... I've taken the flu shot three years running!! Never again until they can prove it's safe.

I should probably stop researching and start working before I drive myself completely manic.

I've just been oblivious to the fact that having a genetic auto-immune desease might mean more for me than having to remember taking a pill every day for the rest of my life.

I'm just really glad I decided to test for the disease at all at my sister's insistance. Some people don't find out until they're past their 50's. Although I guess I'm not sure which is better: spend your life avoiding lots of things because of a thus-far fairly benign disease or finding out when you're 50 that there were a ton of things you could have done to improve your chances for continued general health?

Also, apparently I shouldn't eat cabbage, broccoli or soy products.
Seriously, WTF.