I figure I might as well get this subject out of the way. My Thyroid has been a wreck for about the last two years. It has been a miserable road to recovery and I'm hoping that road changes directions soon.
About 2 years ago (and very suddenly) I began having these wierd symptoms in my chest. It wasn't a pain but it sort of felt like my heart was fluttering (it wasn't) and I would get this weird sense of panic (over nothing). My pulse was all over the place. I could be sitting still and my pulse would begin to race up to around 100. Needless to say I was scared to death. At first it seemed to happen about once a month, then the frequency increased.
I finally went to the doctor. He tested my thyroid and everything came back normal. So he went with the "overstressed" diagnosis. Which at the time I guess made since. I was trying to run a business, take care of my family, etc. Honestly I didn't think I was overstressed. I enjoy my business, my family is awesome, everything (but my health) was going great. About a month went by and I thought I was losing my mind. I searched the internet for every possible answer. I had read of burnout and the symptoms seemed to be right on. So I took a month off of work. Oh man....I was miserable. I honestly thought I was going crazy. I was sleeping about 1-2 hours every night. My heart wouldn't quit pounding. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't focus on anything. I'd go for bike rides just to help myself relax. Even on the bike I felt miserable. I could feel my heart constantly pounding in my head. I would go to bed every night just hoping I would sleep all night, but it never happened. I would wake up around 2am and go into the living room in tears wondering what the heck was going on. It got to the point where I was wondering if that night was going to be the last night I saw my boys. It was the most miserable time of my life. This went on for about 2 months when a friend of mine who was also a Physician Assistant heard about it. He called me at home and asked me to come in to his office. His specialty was cardiology so of course he leaned on the Cardiac diagnosis. After running some tests, he was pretty convinced that something was up with my heart. My EKG, I guess looked a little funny. His nurse called me at work and said he wanted to see me right away. (Ok I was really freaking out now) They said he wanted to run some blood work. I've worked in the medical industry for years and I know when a dr. wants to see your cardiac enzymes, they are ruling out a heart attack. As I mentioned in the earlier blog, this became the longest day of my life. My PA knew I was a stress case with everything I was going through so he said he would have the tests ran STAT (in a hurry) and call me with the results. I think this is the most torturous part of medicine........making the patient wait for results. He promised he would call as soon as the lab called him. I waited and waited. I waited until 1 am when the phone finally rang. The results were negative. No heart attack. The relief was undescribable. He told me to come in the following day. They did a stress ekg and stress echo. This is when they run you to death on a treadmill then take pictures of your heart. I was pretty much normal except my right ventricle was a bit enlarged (I'll save this for another story).
My PA faxed all my tests to a cardiologist (one whom I've ridden bikes with) who I will call E.P. This guy is awesome. Not just as a doctor but as a person as well. For a guy who's knowledge far outweighs most, he is so down to earth and he treats his patients like people. They all love him. Including me. E.P. looked at my tests (including my Thyroid blood tests) and said it had to be the Thyroid. He ordered a nuclear scan of my thyroid and (luckily I ride with one of the radiologists) they got me in right away. Damn if they didn't find a hot nodule. A hot nodule is an abnormal part of the thyroid that secretes too much thyroid. I couldn't believe it, we finally had a diagnosis. Problem is....nobody would do anything because my blood work continued to come back normal.
The symptoms started to lessen and over time I just started feeling good again. Life began again. I had actually lost some weight (great for a cyclist) and was doing well on the bike. In May of 2006 I had my best time in the IronHorse of 3:04:00.
In July I started getting small tremors in my hands, they continued to get worse. The rapid heart beat was coming back as well. I immediately went to my PA and had my Thyroid blood work done. My TSH came back low which meant I was hyperthyroid. I was so unbelievably excited. I finally had the results everyone was wanting. I felt like crap but it was nice to know why.
I decided to have my thyroid ablated with radiation. This meant that my Thyroid gland would be destroyed by a little nuclear pill and I would have to be on Thyroid meds the rest of my life. I thought it would be easy. I took the pill on October 31, 2006 and finally started feeling good in April of 2007. I was taking 112mcg of Synthroid with 5 mcg of Cytomel. I was feeling awesome. I had gained some weight because I was low on Thyroid for quite a while but now I was feeling good. I felt totally normal again.
Then in July of 2007 I began to feel like I was Hyperthyroid again. My head began to feel cloudy, my heart pounding. What the heck was going on?? Of course this all started while I was on vacation.
When I returned I went back to my doctor and he gave me a couple of options. Increase my dose to 125mcg of T4 and no T3 or try 100mcg of T4 and 5mcg of T3. Well in hopes of not having to take so many medications I tried the 125mcg of Synthroid. I felt horrible the whole time. About 3 weeks into the change, I just felt like crap. Trying to run my business while feeling like this was a nightmare. I couldn't stay focused on anything. And what made it worse was that the symptoms come and go. I can be feeling great one moment then crappy the next.
It's now December and I still haven't nailed it down. I'm currently trying alternating 112/125mcg T4 every other day with 1/4tab of T3 (the T3 seems to alleviate the leg pains and brain fog). I'm still not feeling great but it's only been two weeks with this dosage. I'm hoping I'm getting close to the optimum dosage.
Anyone that has been through this, my heart goes out to you. I try not to let the symptoms get the best of me but some days it is just overwhelming.
My bike has been my refuge. When I'm not feeling well, it seems that the ones you love the most are those that it affects the most. Riding seems to at least lessen the symptoms sometimes. If anything, it helps with the stress of everyday life.
Well that's my current Thyroid experience. Hopefully it will become a very small part of my life soon. As I mentioned in my first post, there are so many people worse off than me. I do my best to remember that.
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