Saturday, October 20, 2007

Day 5: Feeling more balanced

Last night I went to yoga and noticed something interesting. I always, and I do mean always, used to have this horrid ammonia sweat smell that would seep into my yoga clothes and towel. According to one online source, an ammonia sweat smell comes from the breakdown of amino acids for energy; in other words, when you're not getting enough carbs. I had tried eating some time before class before, but it's a tricky balance (if you're eating anything other than fruit, that is) if you don't want a full stomach. Well, guess what? Last night, no ammonia smell. Another thing sorted out that I hadn't even thought of. I can't argue with that. AND my energy was really good and I did everything in a manner consistent with my current physical (i.e. recuperating) state.

I thought I'd talk a little more about what got me on this path, and I mean what really got me here, i.e. illness. Because I really don't think I would be doing this today if I hadn't gotten as ill as I had. It was about a year and a half ago and my youngest son was about a year old. I was constantly tired, something I didn't notice right away since, well, isn't every mother of a one-year-old who has to wake up a million times at night to feed and change a baby? But this was different. I would sleep 10 hours and still need a nap a few hours later, and, as my mother can tell you, I don't nap. I hate napping. Always have, even now. Can't stand it. So this was not at all normal. Eventually I relented and went to the doctor. I wanted tests. Thought I had a nutritional deficiency or something.

The doctor office called a few weeks later and said they wanted me to come in to go over my results, that they couldn't tell me over the phone but that it was not a big deal. (Not a big deal???? I don't know what kind of crack they're smoking!) So I was told I had low thyroid. My TSH (that's thyroid stimulating hormone, a pituitary hormone) registered 8.75, when it should be about 1. She wrote out a prescription, but I wasn't ready for that yet. She told me my "levels weren't so high" that I couldn't try some alternative treatments such as acupuncture. I took the scrip and said I'd look into it.

I was not immediately convinced of the wisdom of taking the synthetic hormone. I did acupuncture, and messed with my diet a bit, trying to stick to raw food (the anything-you-want variety) and felt a bit better. I used the lab order they had given me at the last visit and had another test. The results, I thought, were somewhat encouraging, as my TSH was down to 6.2 or thereabouts. I continued what I was doing for another few months, but couldn't seem to feel much better. I called the doctor office to get another lab order, but they wouldn't give it to me without seeing the doctor.

I went in and this time it was the doctor who met with me. To make a long story short she raked me over the coals for not taking the medication, and acted hostile to the notion of me getting another opinion. She was downright mean, and I still think that's no way to treat a sick person with a legitimate mistrust of pharmaceutical companies. Plus, she seemed to be clueless as to my original conversation with the RN (who, interestingly, was no longer at that office). One of the things that sticks out most in my mind about this horrible visit was that she said, arms crossed defensively on her chest, "Oh! You've got VERY little chance of being able to recover from this on your own." How positive! That was Monday, and on Wednesday I got a letter from Missy MD who felt I would be better served by another doctor. Gee, no kidding!!

I found another doctor who was sympathetic to my concerns. By the way, I was not necessarily opposed to the idea of taking pharmaceuticals; I just needed to be fully convinced for myself that it was a last resort and that I was making my own decision to do that. I tried managing it myself for a couple more months, and then couldn't take it anymore, and finally relented, starting generic Synthroid thyroid hormone at 75 mcg. (By the way, once you start thyroid hormone, generally your dose is not decreased, and I'm currently on 100/112 mcg). My new, good, doctor ran some more tests and finally established that my problem appeared to be autoimmune in nature.

So for about 8 months I felt like I only slept about 2 hours a night. I was so tired that if I drove down to my dad's house with the kids for an afternoon (about an hour away), I would sometimes have to take a nap down there before returning home or risk crashing on the freeway. I felt like I had black holes behind my eyes, and I would get recurrent boils on my face and neck (still happening to some extent). My skin was constantly dry, and I just couldn't get enough sleep. I would yell at my kids when I just couldn't handle all the things that young kids do to try your nerves.

The medication helped, but, as I've mentioned, I've had to keep increasing the dose. Hopefully I'm stabilizing for now, but it's been a really rough ride. Basically I have hardly felt normal since Spring 2006. And the meds have not solved everything. My skin is still less than good, and, when I'm not eating this way, my energy is still unreliable.

But I have refused to give up on the idea that there is a way out of this lifelong dependence on Big Pharma. I knew to find the way out, I had to make major changes, and, quite frankly, when you have no energy, well, it's hard to make major changes. So the meds did help with that. But at my last doctor visit (a new guy -- an endocrinologist who is pretty good by conventional standards) I was told that I may have autoimmune problems with my pituitary and my adrenals. In other words, my whole endocrine system is messed up. That, for me, was the straw that broke the camel's back. I felt very calm and unafraid actually, and just decided, "No, I'm not going to do this anymore." As Bikram Choudhury says, if you want to turn your life around, just turn around and walk the other direction. So for once in my life, just once, that's what I did.

I am tempted to say that I had "no choice" but to do this diet, but that's not true. My choices were to keep on with the traditional approach and continue to watch my health decline, or choose something else, which is what I did. It was a choice. I don't have to do this. I choose to do this. I choose to heal and to learn from that process.

I hope that I can turn around some years hence and say that that diagnosis was one of the best things that ever happened to me, spurring me on to new heights. I'm not quite there yet, but I would love to be able to say that.

As for today, my energy is good and I haven't had really bad cravings, just the standard annoyance factor. My husband's making roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding tonight (he's English), so I'm going to exit stage left and go to yoga to avoid those wafting scents.

Today's Stats:
Food:
  • Peppermint tea with honey
  • About 4 pints of watermelon juice over about an hour (I juiced a bunch of rind since I didn't want to waste it)
  • 3 tangerines
  • Big bowl of fresh tomato
  • 2 bananas
  • Handful of grapes
  • 10 g walnuts, 60 g lettuce from garden, 2 kiwis, 2/3 grapefruit (I don't like it, not sure why I had it)

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