Wednesday, November 21, 2007

I haven't given up

Although the last few days have been a huge challenge for me with my symptoms all starting to return, I've been grateful for the support I've gotten from some raw food folks. I've been exchanging emails with Helen of Tennessee (found her on Shazzie's site) who also has a thyroid problem. She wrote this to me:

“I can totally relate to what you wrote about eating raw (fruits). I love fruits though. But even though I love fruits, when I’m hypo, I find it very difficult to eat them and prefer the cooked foods. It’s a catch 22. If I’m feeling well I can eat raw and love it. When I feel bad (hypo), I can’t stay eating raw. Maybe if and when you can get all your hormones balanced (including your adrenal glands) you may find you’ll enjoy eating raw. In the mean time you’ll have to do whatever it takes to feel the best you can.”

I would never wish this problem on anyone, but at least I'm not alone in the world in having to deal with it. To top it all off, I've been desperately putting in calls to my doctor's office to try to get my dosage sorted out before I take a serious nosedive. I know my levels are off and they probably have been for a month. But it appears it wasn't important enough to my doctor to even warrant looking at my lab work -- let alone call me back -- before he left for the rest of the week. At least he'll have a nice Thanksgiving. I've been calling since last Friday. I need a new doctor.

Getting off 811 hasn't helped one iota (duh!). Nothing helps. So I just need to put one foot in front of the other and eat some fruit I guess. I don't know that tomorrow is the best day to force the issue though. Maybe Friday.


7 comments:

Sarah said...

Hi Stacy,

I was thinking about you this week. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

I had some thoughts for you - just some rambly thoughts, don't take them too seriously. :)

Have you looked into natural hygiene much? http://rawfoodexplained has some great detailed discussion about this philosophy of how the body works and what the cause of disease is, etc. (Forgive me if you already know all about it, I just don't remember if you did.)

From the natural hygiene perspective, a possible explanation for you feeling worse at first when you switch to a low fat healthy fruit based diet, might be because your body is jumpstarted into cleaning itself out and you may feel worse before you feel better. Your body might be saying, Oh goodie, thank you for this chance to start healing, and go into super healing mode, during which you might feel really crappy.

I was not very sick before I started 811, and I didn't go through any urgent detox symptoms but I know that many do.

My gut feeling is telling me that Dr. D would say that the best bet for you would be to do a supervised fast, preceded and followed by the 811 diet. A fast would be the quickest way, I believe, for your body to heal itself. A low fat fruit based diet would be just a step below that.

I hope you find a solution soon! Hang in there and take good care of yourself.

Stacy said...

Hi Sarah:

Thanks for your comments, and sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Yes, I've read a great deal about natural hygeine over the years, and am actually pretty familiar myself with what detox feels like. When I first got into raw food (from a really junk food vegetarian diet, as well as some other toxins to detox from) the very first day I was all raw I was throwing up with headaches and palpitations all day -- no joke! From my experience it is totally normal to feel tired, like sleepy-tired, and I do think it's a difficult thing to judge from the outside.

But to answer your question more specifically, while I do think that some form of detox -- even a slower detox due to the illness -- is/would be normal, there are a few things that point to my symptoms as being something other than detox. Number one is that the symptoms all come from a deficiency of thyroid hormone. I suppose you could reason though that maybe it might temporarily produce less while it's healing, if that's possible (not sure). Yet the thing that tells me with absolute certainty that this is not detox is that when I "go off" of 811 the symptoms do not go away, but persist. If it was truly detox, this wouldn't be the pattern, judging from my previous experiences.

I am not necessarily saying that 811 is to blame in any way, but it is a bit perplexing that it hasn't really helped -- YET. I fully concede that maybe I just haven't stuck to it long enough. With this kind of problem it would be unreasonable to expect it to go away in 10 days. But I've always found it's so much more difficult to overcome through changing my life, because it's so hard to change my life when I have no energy to change my life.

Dr. D said a three week fast is usually in order for someone with this kind of issue (I asked him). My response to that is, quite honestly, "Yeah, right!" I couldn't do that and actually function as a mother, which is my main responsibility, even if he's right. A day or two maybe, but not a long fast. I did a 10-day fast once and was totally useless for about 7 days. So I think I have to start where I am and be more gentle on myself.

Thanks for your encouragement and kind wishes. You're one of my real life heroes!

Anonymous said...

Hello - I stumbled accross your blog & wanted to say I can relate with what you are saying. I too have Hypo and have experimented with diet for many years now. When I am having thyroid issues I feel bad (even when I am 811) but I feel much worse overall when I eat cooked. Its so tempting when you feel bad to do _anything_ to feel better and to get thru the day (which for me sometimes means I turn to cooked foods) However this has never relieved my symptoms or made me feel better. My thyroid symptoms stay the same & the rest of me feels worse (dull, stomach discomfort, grouchy). These days I eat 811 and feel pretty good most of the time. I have stuggled for many years with a major coffee addiction and I can say for me I never see results with my health when I am drinking coffee, and I look about 5 years yonger as soon as I quit. (if that wasn't modivation enough!) Sounds like you are on the right track, keep on trucking let go of the coffee as soon as you can.
Have you ever been to this site? www.stopthethyroidmadness.com
lots of good info. Take care - Tracy

Anonymous said...

Hello - I stumbled accross your blog & wanted to say I can relate with what you are saying. I too have Hypo and have experimented with diet for many years now. When I am having thyroid issues I feel bad (even when I am 811) but I feel much worse overall when I eat cooked. Its so tempting when you feel bad to do _anything_ to feel better and to get thru the day (which for me sometimes means I turn to cooked) However this has never relieved my thyroid symptoms or made me feel better. These days I eat 811 and feel pretty good most of the time. I have stuggled for many years with a major coffee addiction and I can say for me I never see results with my health when I am drinking coffee, and I look about 5 years yonger as soon as I quit. (if that wasn't modivation enough!) Sounds like you are on the right track, keep on trucking let go of the coffee as soon as you can.
Have you ever been to this site? www.stopthethyroidmadness.com
lots of good temp info. Take care - Tracy

Rachel said...

Stacy, I'm rootin' for you girl! I wish I lived close and could come help you with your kiddos while you fasted. Keep looking and believing for a solution.
((HUGS))

Azura Skye said...

Hi Stacy,
I haven't had any experience with the illness you are currently experiencing, but my heart goes out to you.
I don't want to impart any words of wisdom, as I don't really have any, but I will say - trust yourself and don't be frightened.
When I used to be ill I'd reach for the painkillers, and I'd be worried why my body was in pain.
When I exercised and sweated loads, I was worried about that too!
Sometimes our bodies do things and we don't know WHAT they are upto!
I think you have built a really good foundation for yourself, and eventhough your body is sending you super confusing signals perhaps it really does know what it's doing.

It's a shame our bodies don't realise that we have a life to live - in regards to a 3 week fast as well as being a busy mother!

I hope that you find someway of finding some calm, but don't worry too much if you can. I'm sure you know what to do and you can never do anything 'wrong'!

so all the best,
and take care x
AS

Stacy said...

Tracy: Thanks for the comment. Yes, you're right, and that's something I noticed too. The one thing that eating cooked food does is make me stop thinking about food all the time, so it does get rid of that misery, but it doesn't help in other ways, true, and doesn't get rid of the symptoms.

Rachel: Thanks for your cheers!

Stacy