Me and my kiddo

Me and my kiddo

Monday, July 18, 2011

Thyroid? Migraine?

[For those interested in the health mystery saga...]

So, here was my status five months ago and I'm just going to focus on what has changed.  By April, I had suffered through an unexplained weigh gain of 15lbs which sent me to the doc who again came up with no explanations.  That left me a total of 60lbs overweight, getting ill at least once a week, and wondering what to try next.  I decided to focus on minimizing any remaining stressors (like the sprinting) and keep up the quality foods, while giving the Naltrexone more time (since before this episode it seemed to be helping).

For two months, things went well and then I had three terrible weeks where I got ill 6/10 days.  I decided to turn back to conventional medicine and delve into more diagnostics while at the same time increasing my melatonin for better sleep and removing any source of caffeine (I was drinking very weak, second-steeped decaffeinated coffee).  I made an appointment with a neurologist who specializes in headaches.  Now that I've ruled out thyroid as a primary cause (and my symptoms do match the criteria for migraine without aura), I figure a neurologist might help me find other causative potentials (I'm not particularly interested in patches for the symptoms i.e. migraine medications).  I also have an appointment for a sleep study to see if my brain wave patterns can give any nice clues as to the cause of the insomnia.  Finally, I have a hearing appointment to check if an autoimmune inner ear issue might be at fault since my husband keeps saying I don't hear as well as he does and my dad found some interesting information on these under-diagnosed pathologies.  

I've only been ill once in the last three weeks (clearly there was more caffeine in that weak coffee than I'd thought and I've always been a hyper-responder to caffeine).  Combining this month with the two before that relapse, I've lost 15lbs and am thrilled to be moving in a positive direction again.  I am using the weekly weight training for exercise along with family hikes and play, but no itense cardio.  I am keeping all those scheduled doctor appointments which will occur over the next two weeks.  I am also trying to decrease the Low Dose Naltrexone because insomnia can be a potential side effect.  However, I still want to take it because in the nine months that I've been taking it, more and more studies have come out supporting the original pilot studies' promissing effects of this treatment in both autoimmune diseases and cancer.

So, the saga continues!  Here's to finding my health again.

Goofn' around with my goofy kiddo... still having such a grand time living :)

3 comments:

  1. "Saga" is the right word: a long account of a series of events that happened one after another but no explanation -- yet! -- that strings them together.

    Best wishes.

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  2. I began taking bovine thyroid four months ago. Now, I can think clearly, feel vigorous and start losing those extra pounds that the thyroid condition has created.

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