How To Find Joy In Your Life, Don’t Allow Thyroid Disease To Keep You Miserable

I had someone comment on a social media post, that I looked very happy when I was sick.  Most photos of me sick were on special occasions, birthdays, Christmas, vacations etc.  But I also tried to LOOK okay, trust me, I was sick, in pain and absolutely miserable.  The photo on the left was my birthday and the day our daughter graduated from High School; it was a very special day.

Life was not always easy for me, in fact every day felt like a struggle to simply survive from about age 9 to age 45.  My parents had no idea what was wrong, I was depressed, I was exhausted, when I ate or drank anything I was bloated, I was constipated my whole life.  I had developmental delays, and brain fog was normal to me. The depression at age 9 triggered a trip to a Psychologist and antidepressants, that helped, therapy helped, with the mental aspects.  But one problem, was that my own Mother had Hashimoto’s and Hypothyroid (I am adopted, so this was not my biological Mother).  So many of my lifelong symptoms, seemed normal to her!  She also had no idea that children could get Hashimotos, so it never occurred to her to ask the pediatrician to test me.  I tended towards pessimism, from the time I could talk, often telling my parents at bedtime “It’s been a good day, so far” as if some horrible thing would happen to destroy it all at or after bedtime!

I married my High School sweetheart when I turned 20, he had joined the Navy and we began our marriage of moving all over the country for the first 10 years.  5 months after we married, I had a terrible bout of severe and suicidal depression, at that time, I also had a HUGE goiter appear out of nowhere on my neck.  I was diagnosed with Hashimotos and with Bipolar disorder at that time.  It would be another 25 years before we discovered that Bipolar diagnosis was wrong, that my moods were following my thyroid hormones, up and down as my body attacked my thyroid.  Not one doctor during this time suggested I could lower my antibodies to stop the attack and preserve my thyroid gland (antibodies were being tested each time we moved, and I had a new Endocrinologist or PCP, but they could not get an actual amount, as 900 is as high as they can test, and mine were over that for both TPO and TgAb antibodies).
As my disease progressed I had more and more symptoms, a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, breast tumors with every 3-month ultrasounds, multiple lumpectomies, huge struggles to maintain weight, I could easily gain 7 pounds in a day if I had a sweet treat.  I turned to alcohol to deal with the pain.  The exhaustion was so overwhelming, that a Doctor prescribed me medication to stay awake on my drive home from my part time job.  By age 38 I was sober, exhausted, in pain and had gained 70 pounds in a month.  I was diagnosed with gastroparesis during this time as well. STILL, nobody had suggested lowering antibodies to stop the attack on my thyroid, to preserve my thyroid.  The general consensus from every doctor that I saw was to wait until my body destroyed my thyroid and then I would take Synthroid and go on with my life.

That was not how my story went.  Doctors were only testing my TSH, a pituitary hormone that tells the thyroid to make thyroid hormones.  This does NOT show you wat thyroid hormones were actually made.  Many people have minor pituitary issues that affect this test, and there are many things that can affect this test, from time of day drawn, to smoking.  So, despite all of my symptoms, my TSH never went above 3.

When I was about 40, after many Endocrinologists over the past 2 years, I found a very kind endocrinologist who actually listed to me with great care.  He told me despite my labs not being bad, I clearly had many symptoms of hypothyroidism, and he would put me on Synthroid.  I walked out of there feeling on top of the world, a rare feeling for me!  I was so sure this was the answer, and soon I would feel great and lose weight.  I was wrong.  I was exercising, I was eating healthy foods, lower carb, higher fat, etc.  And the 200 pounds on my 5’ 1” frame were not budging.  I was still napping daily, speaking in full sentences became extremely problematic, as I could no longer remember words, and it was very obvious to me, that other people I knew, did not feel like I did.

My final appointment at that kind endocrinologist’s office was life changing for me.  When I presented my handwritten list of 2 pages of symptoms to him, he said “Elaine, you have to learn to live with this disease, try to find joy in every day”.  I walked out of there sobbing, angry, hurt and absolutely positive, that I was not meant to suffer my whole life!  Beginning the next morning, I started jotting down things that brought me joy each day, in the beginning, it was just my morning coffee, but it was true joy! One of the things I did was to look in the mirror each morning and said, “You are pretty, you are worthy, you are funny, and I love you”.  Sounds corny, I know!  But this also helped me as I slowly built up to be the person who would fight back against the establishment and get well, for the first time in my life! 

This began to change the way I viewed things, and I truly went from a pessimist to an optimist. During that transition, I was able to muster up some strength, to research. I could never remember what I researched, so I started writing everything down. I started learning about the thyroid hormones T1, T2, T3, T4 and Reverse T3.

I took my research to my Primary Care Doctor, prepared to beg for Natural Desiccated Thyroid (NDT), that I ​needed some T3.  I was shocked when she said “Yes” before I presented ANY of my information!  She not only said “Yes”, but she also said, “I have watched you and many other of my patients DECLINE when I referred you out to Endocrinologists”.  And there began my journey to actually being able to LIVE my life. 
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​Once my thyroid hormones were close to optimal (and this took about a year, it turns out I don’t convert T4 to the active hormone T3, so I needed a low dose of the T4 in my NDT and the rest in direct T3 medication), things I could not do growing up in school, were suddenly so easy for me, I remembered EVERYTHING, math was a breeze, I could recite back medical studies, weight was coming off and I had not changed anything, I was happy, thriving and truly living my life!  I had much work to do on my gut, my vitamins and minerals, my fatty acids, adrenals, but now I COULD do all of that!

Don’t discount trying to find joy in every day and writing it down and talking to yourself in a positive and kind way, that truly propelled me forward from being stuck for so very long.  I HIGHLY recommend it as a FIRST step!  When your mindset is in the right place, it truly is amazing what you can do, even when in terrible shape, exhausted, not functioning, or able to complete sentences!  Find joy in your life, don’t live with the disease making you miserable, you don’t have to.