I got diagnosed 4 years ago with Hypothyroidism and Iron Deficiency Anemia. The past 4 years has been a huge struggle for me to deal with all the symptoms associated with these 2 things. People think that if you take a pill all those symptoms go away. I thought this. I thought I would take the pill, let it get into my system and then the weight that I gained because of it would just melt away as fast as it came and my memory would be immediately restored. What a joke! It just didn't happen like that at all. It still is something I deal with, but thankfully after taking my own health into my own hands I am finally getting results. Let me start at the beginning of this journey and tell you the background.
Hypothyroidism runs in my family. That doesn't mean everyone will get it though. I spent my whole life being thin. Had myself a nice curvy but thin figure. Until about 38 years of age. Suddenly I had memory problems and thinking problems. I gained 20 pounds in a few weeks time. Nothing had changed. I ate the way I always had. Exercised or not the way I always did. I always prided myself on remembering things, people and places when others couldn't. I could remember details down to what something looked like and smelled like- even after my past of drug and alcohol abuse. Then it stopped working. I couldn't remember mid sentence what I was saying. I have always been prone to write and yet there I was struggling to spell things correctly, use sentences correctly or even speak without forgetting what I was just talking about. I really began struggling in bible studies and teaching a bible class to fellow Christians. I started shutting myself down more and more. I was so exhausted all the time, would take numerous naps during the day and still sleep at night. My hair was thinning out immensely. I couldn't think straight. Looking around at the world was literally like looking through a hazy glass, there really felt like a film over my eyes. My level of understanding really took a nosedive and so I quit writing. One of my favorite past times has been working Cross-Word puzzles and I suddenly couldn't even do those. I tried so many times throughout the ensuing years and would get so frustrated and so I packed them away. Books became a foreign entity and I LOVE to read....but couldn't and I couldn't comprehend what I was reading.
A lot of people don't know or realize that a lot of the same symptoms blur together when you have Iron Deficiency Anemia as well. These 2 things usually go hand in hand at some point in the life of a woman that still has her female organs intact and working if you get my drift. Memory problems, vision problems, exhaustion that makes you want to lay down in the middle of the road and sleep, hair loss. I have always been a very pale person but dealing with this has made it extreme. Problems with my teeth and gums. All of these symptoms run the same lines with both diagnoses. Including icy feeling in my legs- this was so extreme that I would almost cry. It felt like I had frost-bite on the inside...the only thing that helped was resting my legs in almost scalding water to even feel warm. My throat area would throb and pulsate and I would think my blood pressure was up, so I would check and it wouldn't be, in fact it would be perfect (that was thyroid gland I found out and isn't listed as a usual symptom).
This has been my life for the past 4 years. Actually longer since it took an extreme cycle of this to force me to go to the Dr. I got on thyroid meds (NP Thyroid) immediately and started taking iron. I would love it if my symptoms had gone away after that, but they didn't. They improved somewhat, but I was still cycling the exhaustion, memory lapses and symptoms. This even affected relationships and how my thought processes went as well.
In December of 2019 my grandmother was on hospice and so she had different nurses that would come and give her meds and monitor her. There was one specific male nurse that came that believed in a holistic way of life. He was so knowledgeable and so I began asking him questions about thyroid issues and if there were natural remedies to help. He began giving me some information that has sent me on a journey to healthiness. This has been in addition to the thyroid medication that I take religiously.
I am in no way a Dr., Nurse, Expert or anything on this subject. I just wanted to see what this did for me. It has helped me tremendously get my energy back, my memory is getting better and I can focus better than I have in several years. This approach is holistic, natural, hippie-fied whatever you want to call it, but it is a journey I am glad I have started. Join me on this journey and the craziness that is life...
Hypothyroidism runs in my family. That doesn't mean everyone will get it though. I spent my whole life being thin. Had myself a nice curvy but thin figure. Until about 38 years of age. Suddenly I had memory problems and thinking problems. I gained 20 pounds in a few weeks time. Nothing had changed. I ate the way I always had. Exercised or not the way I always did. I always prided myself on remembering things, people and places when others couldn't. I could remember details down to what something looked like and smelled like- even after my past of drug and alcohol abuse. Then it stopped working. I couldn't remember mid sentence what I was saying. I have always been prone to write and yet there I was struggling to spell things correctly, use sentences correctly or even speak without forgetting what I was just talking about. I really began struggling in bible studies and teaching a bible class to fellow Christians. I started shutting myself down more and more. I was so exhausted all the time, would take numerous naps during the day and still sleep at night. My hair was thinning out immensely. I couldn't think straight. Looking around at the world was literally like looking through a hazy glass, there really felt like a film over my eyes. My level of understanding really took a nosedive and so I quit writing. One of my favorite past times has been working Cross-Word puzzles and I suddenly couldn't even do those. I tried so many times throughout the ensuing years and would get so frustrated and so I packed them away. Books became a foreign entity and I LOVE to read....but couldn't and I couldn't comprehend what I was reading.
A lot of people don't know or realize that a lot of the same symptoms blur together when you have Iron Deficiency Anemia as well. These 2 things usually go hand in hand at some point in the life of a woman that still has her female organs intact and working if you get my drift. Memory problems, vision problems, exhaustion that makes you want to lay down in the middle of the road and sleep, hair loss. I have always been a very pale person but dealing with this has made it extreme. Problems with my teeth and gums. All of these symptoms run the same lines with both diagnoses. Including icy feeling in my legs- this was so extreme that I would almost cry. It felt like I had frost-bite on the inside...the only thing that helped was resting my legs in almost scalding water to even feel warm. My throat area would throb and pulsate and I would think my blood pressure was up, so I would check and it wouldn't be, in fact it would be perfect (that was thyroid gland I found out and isn't listed as a usual symptom).
This has been my life for the past 4 years. Actually longer since it took an extreme cycle of this to force me to go to the Dr. I got on thyroid meds (NP Thyroid) immediately and started taking iron. I would love it if my symptoms had gone away after that, but they didn't. They improved somewhat, but I was still cycling the exhaustion, memory lapses and symptoms. This even affected relationships and how my thought processes went as well.
In December of 2019 my grandmother was on hospice and so she had different nurses that would come and give her meds and monitor her. There was one specific male nurse that came that believed in a holistic way of life. He was so knowledgeable and so I began asking him questions about thyroid issues and if there were natural remedies to help. He began giving me some information that has sent me on a journey to healthiness. This has been in addition to the thyroid medication that I take religiously.
I am in no way a Dr., Nurse, Expert or anything on this subject. I just wanted to see what this did for me. It has helped me tremendously get my energy back, my memory is getting better and I can focus better than I have in several years. This approach is holistic, natural, hippie-fied whatever you want to call it, but it is a journey I am glad I have started. Join me on this journey and the craziness that is life...
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