Doctor Visit Today

Originally posted to Livejournal on May 1, 2007.

Warning: The following post will deal with matters of a physical nature and is brought to you by the words "gynecological", "thyroid", and a few numbers. Please feel free to skip it. Heck, I would. It's of no interst to anyone but me, but I need to get it out or else I'll sit around and rehash it with anyone willing to sit still long enough. And even those who don't want to, but have the misfortune of being related (or married!) to me. :) So, feel free to skip it. Unless you're particularly interested in thyroid function. Woo hoo, what a topic.
My ob-gyn has had me on a 1500 calorie, diabetic diet. Which I have to say, can work wonders. IF you want to eat that much food. Which I don't. At all. So, you'd think I'd be losing weight like a mad woman, right? Wrong. I've stayed the same some months, gained others, lost about 4 pounds right before the wedding. Which means that going in there every 1 1/2 to 3 months has been horrible and has allowed me to feel like an abject failure on a regular basis. Cause I need help with that?
Last time I was in was around January. We've switched to every six months to avoid killing the bank account with co-pays. Forget the fact that our new insurance isn't local and no one here takes it, so after June it's a crap-shoot. But, I digress. I went in sometime in January. Slush (my cool doc) informed me that she would be referring me to an endochronologist in May....the link can let you know what that is, if you don't have the extreme privilege of needing one of these in your collection of doctors. Basically to me, that's admitting failure. That's saying that my body is so messed up, and is so mis-constructed, that I need to go to UVA to get someone to figure it out. Now, don't get me wrong. The minute I need an endo in order to get preggo, I'm THERE. With bells on and my clothes off. No prob Bob. But not yet. I'm not ready to be that broken. But, something is just not working. Let's run down the list of things we do right around here:
1. everything is low fat, fat free, low sugar, or sugar free. We use sucanot instead of any other sugar or substitute so as to avoid the nasty side effects of those
2. we limit soy, as it is evil to your thyroid.
3. we use home-milled grain for the health benefits (and it's far yummier than dead wheat)
4. we use as much organic stuff as possible to avoid additives and high fructose corn syrup
5. we use only the leanest beef I can find, like Laura's Lean Beef, which is 96% fat free
6. we follow the ADA 1500 calorie diabetic diet
7. occasionally, my fat self moves a little
8. sodas are a no-no, and most caffiene is, too. I drink copious amounts of green tea.

Um, what am I doing wrong? No endo, please. I don't want to be that broken.

SOOOOO, today I return to Slush. So she can do the pap shhhmear dance with my cervix. Love that, really. I informed her that Yasmin is evil and I refuse to continue taking it on the basis that it is ruining my already pretty messed up body. No problem, back to my favorite BCP, Desogen. And the angels sang Hallelujah..... Then, I told her that I wanted my TSH panel retested to find out if my thyroid had moved out and gotten it's own apartment or what. And I asked if it was possible to aggressively treat hypothyroidism even if I'm "borderline", which I was last time. Since I have like 90% of the symptoms and all.... She said sure, and that she actually prescribes synthroid to anyone whose TSH is above a 3.

Apparently .3 - 3.0 is considered fine, and anything above 3 is hypothyroidism. But that number is also up for debate, as they think maybe the standards (up to 6, not 3) were too high and people were missing the synthroid boat. So, if I'm at 3, we'll add yet another drug to my body so that I can get knocked up without taking Clomid, a drug.....Does this make sense? Nah, but let's do it. I'm game.

Well, she checked my chart, and whaddaya know. I was 2.9 last time. Um, THAT'S THREE, isn't it??? How have I been a year without retest or treatment if I was practically AT treatable levels before?!!?! This is a great doc, don't get me wrong. I love this woman for what she has done and will do for me. She ROCKS. But, 2.9?!?! Eesh. No wonder I feel so swell. Seriously, read the symptoms. Welcome to my life. FUN stuff, man.

So, I promptly went to the lab, gave them a vial of Andrea's finest, and off I went, feeling justified. Had a rockin' day, actually. Sad to be hoping for a high TSH because I think I'll feel better with this fixed. Hm. Keep ya posted.

Now, off to Verizon to find out why a phone I spent $250 on exactly a month ago won't boot up. Fun stuff. Thank you for reading, and we know return you to your regularly scheduled surfing......