Even though my levels were fine I still felt some of the symptoms and not those that are typical of hypothyroid. I experienced the dry skin, hair, brittle nails, fatigue, muscle weakness which are normal for hypo. But I also had a lot of anxiety and would get hot flashes. I'm talking hot flashes where it felt like an inferno was building inside of me that I just couldn't reach. I've stood outside in the middle of winter before Christmas dinner just to cool myself down. And the flashes would go as quickly as they came.
Around March of this year I noticed that something was off and I made the stupid decision to take myself off of my meds. I was starting this new "going natural" lifestyle and seriously thought that I could just quit the meds cold turkey as long as I ate well. Boy was I wrong! I had the right idea because essentially meds only cure the symptom of a disease but they don't address the cause. Something caused my thyroid to stop functioning. At this point it is probably too late to reverse but I still wanted to fully understand why. I stuck it out with no meds up until the end of September and then finally had to drag myself back to the doctor and tell her what I had done. Needless to say she was not impressed and when my blood work came back, I actually was feeling so bad in March because I needed more thyroid hormone. My doctor bumped my meds to 0.1 mg with the plan to slowly progress to 0.125mg.
Eventually I would like to see a naturopath and get their take on thyroid healing but for the time being I have accepted that I have to be on something. I wanted to be on medication that was more natural and asked my doctor to switch me to Armour. This is made from animal thyroid glands which provides T3 and T4 whereas Synthroid only provides T4. Even though my T3 levels are fine, the majority of blogs and websites show patients feeling a big difference between the two and prefer Armour. It took a bit of convincing and depending on what country you live in, your doctor might not even allow this natural alternative. Luckily my doctor went for it and I've been on this medication for 2 weeks now. My prescription of Synthroid 0.1 mg converted to 60 mg of Armour. The plus side too is that Armour starts to work within an hour after consumption where Synthroid takes up to 4 hours. I will be tested in 2 weeks to see how much more I need to my levels back to normal.
During the process of going back on my meds, I found this book on-line called The Thyroid Solution by Ridha Arem, M.D. and it was such an eye opener to all possible things that could cause thyroid disease such as iodine deficiency, stress and even emotions. Just like it says on the cover of the book, getting control of your thyroid disease is about "regaining your emotional and physical health".
I'm about halfway done this book and there is so much information on things you can do to help promote thyroid health. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who suffers from any type of thyroid or autoimmune disease: hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Hashimoto and Graves disease as well. I just had to share this as I know that I am among many that struggle with this. Medication doesn't mask everything and keeping a healthier lifestyle is so much harder when you can barely get yourself out of bed to workout. That's my struggle right now. I had been on a steady workout routine for 2 years. Me and my Jillian Michaels DVDs kicked some serious butt every morning at 5:45am but and when my thyroid started acting up I could barely wake up for 7am let alone 5:45am. I completely stopped and gained about 20 pounds. For the past month I've managed 2 to 3 workouts a week but it's still bit of a struggle. I'm hoping when my Armour dose is increased that I will find that extra bit of energy that I have been missing for so long. For me workouts have always been mind over matter but when your mindset isn't fully there, it just doesn't work. And just like the title of this post, the thyroid saga continues..... :)
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