Fe

Well, just had the latest test results back from new wholistic doctor and discovered that while my thyroid isn't too bad (for once) my iron levels are very low, particularly my iron saturation levels. So, have started on Hemagenics Intensive care iron and vitamin B supplement (among other supplements including liquid zinc which tastes absolutely foul) prescribed by the doctor and almost immediately have started to feel less tired and more human. Wonders will never cease.

I think that perhaps the 20 or so blood tests I had last year may have contributed to my iron deficiency and may not have contributed a great deal in terms of knowledge as to what was actually wrong. As a result, I have also decided not to see two of the doctors I have been seeing - kind of doctor sacking by stealth I guess ...

So, perhaps blog posts will increase in the next little while. I certainly feel more able to manage things and hopefully will have more time in which I actually feel like doing more of the things I want to like my ABA Counsellor Training, writing my blog, reading, cooking, gardening and sewing. For the past little while life has mostly been about doing what is most important and what I can which has been looking after Chet and going to work and doing the stuff required to keep a house reasonably clean and it's occupants reasonably well fed. Can't say I have been doing a bang-up job, but passable I guess. So, here's to things looking up I say!

Happy pills

I picked up my new lot of thyroid pills from the compounding chemist last week and they were purple. It made my day. Purple makes me happy, so purple pills that also help my thyroid work better have got to be a winner. The old ones were small and white and were slowly making me more and more depressed. Within a day of switching back to the thyroid extract the thin veil of depression that was hovering over my head had just disappeared. It may have been a placebo affect due to me feeling that I was taking control of my body by changing by thyroid medication but I think not.

Here are the purple pills nestling with part of my purple glass collection, purple on purple on purple. Reminds me of that famous poem from the '60s by Jenny Joseph which is actually entitled Warning but starts with "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple". Not only am I collecting purple glass and wearing the occasional bit of purple but I am even swallowing purple pills. Practising to be an eccentric old woman perhaps?

It's my thyroid

For a couple of years now every time I have had some kind of health issue I have blamed my thyroid - and it is true, my thyroid has been responsible for weight gain, excessive tiredness, hair thinning, eyebrow thinning (bizarrely), brain fog, dry skin and possibly some of the aches and pains I have had in my wrists and feet. But now, joy oh rapture, I possibly have another autoimmune disease to add to the mix - rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

I saw a rheumatologist last week who said that she thought that there was probably some kind of autoimmune thing going on with me and that it was probably rheumatoid arthritis. They don't like to go out on a limb diagnosing these things unnecessarily which I guess is fair enough. Better to err on the side of caution than to diagnose prematurely. However, the pains I have had in my hands and feet would indicate RA as would a range of other things including having had a miscarriage. So perhaps I have been unfair in blaming my thyroid.

So, two chronic illness which basically involve the body attacking itself. Hashimoto's thyroiditis is where the body attacks the thyroid and with RA the body attacks the lining of the joints. With autoimmune disease, for some reason, something causes the immune system to see the body's own tissues as foreign invaders. In pregnancy, the immune system is suppressed so that the body doesn't attack the baby and I think that this is why I felt so good when I was pregnant as my immune system also wasn't attacking my thyroid. And I guess why I have been feeling fairly crappy of late - my immune system has kicked into overdrive. The RA symptoms started appearing about 2 months after Chet was born - apparently not uncommonly with this form of arthritis.

So, I am trying to work out a personal plan of attack for this without feeling too depressed about it all. It is fairly tedious and I certianly don't want it to be the only thing I can think about. I have a small boy to attend to and I would rather be enjoying watching him grow up and experience the world than thinking about how my hands hurt. None of this is a death sentence and really just needs to be managed effectively but some days are better than others that's for sure. Some nights I can hardly pick Chet up and some mornings when I get up all I can manage is a particularly attractive crone-like shuffle. However, at this stage it is not debilitating and I hope that it won't be. So, back to acupuncture and a wheat-free diet for me. Possibly a dairy free diet (luckily I have been eating a lot of cheese lately, hopefully I won't miss it too much). It is time, in the words of my favourite thyroid blog, to kick the arse of this godamn immune system.