I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I actually initially found the diagnosis myself. I was having a severe flare up and nothing that usually treated the symptoms was working. I sat there at night in the middle of my symptoms thinking; at times the symptoms are worse than others, they’ve been going on for 23 years, my lymph nodes have been chronically swollen and enlarged since the age of 14. This has got to be auto-immune. I know i have an auto-immune disorder. I just dont know what it is. So i stayed up all night and researched every auto-immune disorder known to man and none of them appeared to fit all of my symptoms or even half of them, until i read about Hashimoto’s. it explained my puzzling blood test results, my puzzling pee test results, why it always appears im deathly low on estrogen and have way too much progesterone but the moment they try to give me estrogen my body reacts as if ive given it cyanide. Why doctors dont believe me when i tell them i dont want any estrogen because it makes everything ten times worse and then they try to sneak it in telling me they’re just giving me progesterone when in actuality they’re giving me both, and i can only assume they think i wont notice because they think im wrong about estrogen making things worse. Hashimotos is mean in that unless you have the word “hashimotos” you wont know whats going on because it looks like you dont have enough estrogen when in actuality you have too much. It looks like your thyroid hormone levels are fine when in actuality your thyroid is under performing and your body’s own immune system is attacking it. You’ll end up with endometriosis, pcos, full body arthritis, chronic fatigue, depression, hand tremors, cold intolerance, swollen lymph nodes, muscle and joint aches, brain fog, chronic constipation, anxiety, periods of bradycardia and tachycardia, weight gain, dry and brittle hair and skin, liver problems, heart problems, puffy eyes, memory problems, heavy or irregular periods, decreased libido and infertility. Save for my ingrown toe nails and adhd, the article highlighted my entire existence on a piece of paper. I read article after article until i was sure i was on the right track and then reached out to an immediate family member to see if we had any relatives that had Hashimoto’s, knowing thyroid issues ran in the family on my mother’s side. As it turned out somebody did. I couldnt believe it had been right under my nose the entire time and for 23 years i had doctors tell me that i had all these things independent of each other and nobody ever connected the dots that they were related. Well its nice that no-one can ever tell me “estrogen is the answer” or “just take birth control and it will go away” or “you dont have arthritis, you’re too young for that, it’s all in your head” again. I do have these things. They are not random. They are a documented and connected set of symptoms that fall under the umbrella of an auto-immune disorder named Hashimoto’s in which your body attacks your thyroid and wreaks havoc on one, some, or all of your organs. It is progressive and gets worse over time. You can also have flare ups in which symptoms temporarily become severe. The thing that sent me looking for a diagnosis was the worst flare up i had ever experienced in life. I had just had covid twice in one year pretty much back to back. I work in healthcare. If they’re sick and you’re taking care of them, you’re going to be sick. Then things picked up at work and i was driving two hours a day, taking an hour long lunch, and working 9.5 hours on the clock. Thats 12.5 hours away from the house each day. I knew i would be tired, but this was a different tired. This was fatigue like i had never experienced before. I was having to clock out and go sleep in the car ten minutes at a time, frequently, so that i didnt nod off in the swivel chair while supervising the weight reps i had just given somebody or waiting for them to get done toileting and be ready to wipe and transfer. Any time i was not moving i was immediately eyes closed and pretty near asleep. No amount of sleep helped. You wake up feeling like you’ve been hit by a mack truck no matter what. You are just always exhausted even when you have a weekend and you get sleep, it puts no dent in the fatigue so crippling that you think you will surely die. The constipation increased four fold. It was insane. I was eating half a bag of prunes every day. I couldnt consume enough to make a dent in the problem. The only gummies that helped move things along regularly were $300 for two months so i was not buying any more so i just dealt with chronic uncomfortable constipation. Most of what i eat is fruit. Why on earth am i making pebbles, i thought? The depression, im used to that. Ive dealt with differing levels of depression for the last 23 years, but now i had treatment resistant depression that would not respond to anything. Nothing would make a dent in it. Those ketamine commercials started to look good to me. I wasnt sure why the people needed to tuck the square into their cheek like they were chewing tobacco. Did it absorb through the lip or what? But those people in the commercials said it helped them with their depression and after a while, knowing how addictive ketamine was touted to be, knowing i wasnt someone who wanted to be dependent on a substance, i was just so desperate for anything to put a dent in the relentless heavy curtain of despair that was ever present, ever lingering, and unmoving. I started to consider it as an option. I did not move forward with it, but the presence of treatment resistant depression told me something new was going on. The joint pain was as bad as it had been right after covid in 2020. My fingers hurt. Opening water bottles was now endlessly frustrating for me because between the joint pain and the hand tremors i always dropped the lid and i was beyond frustrated with this because the floor was dirty. The part that scared me the most was the presence of the worst brain fog i’d ever experienced. I felt like i didnt know myself or i didnt recognize myself, and maybe that was a combination of brain fog and depression, but i’d be driving to work and i’d be in the car and then i’d realize i was driving. And i’d have the thought, “oh, im driving.” And then i’d think, “wait, if im leaving the house, did i get everything? Did i pack a lunch? Did i lock the door? Did i put on my shoes? Did i remember to change from pajama pants to scrub pants? Did i put on makeup? Did i remember blush? Am i wearing my name tag?” It was as if id be walking or driving and then id suddenly remember that i existed and i was doing a task and id find myself in the middle of it and have to figure out if i was doing it right and if i remembered everything needed to carry it out, or how much of it i’d done and how much of it was left. The amount of times i asked myself, “im wearing scrub pants right?” Scared me. I knew i was out of it if i had to ask myself that question every day multiple times each morning. I just had this underlying feeling that things were happening and i was not quite on top of them start to finish. At some point i’d be driving to work and i’d have the thought, “i dont feel like myself”. I knew myself to be a very driven decisive person and i was now a person who was so overwhelmed by tasks that required energy and everything including fixing a meal seemed too complicated and too time consuming. Who i was usually just seemed out of reach and i was stuck there looking in the mirror and seeing that it was my face and my body but i didnt feel right. It didnt feel familiar. I didnt feel like myself. Unbeknownst to me i was having the worst flare up of an autoimmune disorder i didnt know i had brought on by an increased work load, even less time to sleep, two bouts of back to back covid, and stress over a number of things but mainly how i was going to manually dig 7 holes through straight rock for 7 trees to get planted before winter and how i was going to keep the lawn mowed without ruining the mower blades by cutting it on a 3, meaning the lawn had to be continuously mowed in patches indefinitely each day and i was never done because by the time i finished it was time to mow the first patch again. I adopted a new kitten which eventually had to be rehomed because she wanted to be outdoors and was drawing blood to the point of needing stitches at one point. She split my lip and split my fingers third knuckle to tip, so deep that it took two weeks to close up because i refused to go to hospital cuz i dont have insurance. (They want $10,000 a year and they wont let me use it for anything…and i do mean anything…so i cancelled it). I think the kitten was probably a huge part of the flare up if im thinking about it because i didnt want her to get eaten by coyotes which all the outdoor cats in this town have been, and so i wanted her to live inside, but she didnt want that. And i was very stressed about what to do. I sent her to be an outdoor barn cat in the city where i work with two of her litter mates (they have way less coyotes there). She is thriving and playing with the other cats and is finally hunting, which is what she wanted to do. She is a beautiful cat and remains in my daily prayers and in my heart as one of my babies but as i should remember, cats dont work out here. That was a lot of stress trying to meet her needs, socialize her, and not bleed in the process. While im on this topic…if we clip the cats claws, somebody tell me why we provide them devices to sharpen them on. It doesnt make sense. If we’re going to provide such devices, why are we clipping them? It seems like a special brand of insanity.
Anyways, im on bovine thyroid hormones. Im on an anti-inflammatory diet. Ive added seaweed, blueberries, and pineapple. Im supposed to sleep and avoid stress. I cant do the last two things. Im just going to have to live in agony. Because to do those things id have to swear off homesteading and swear off working in healthcare, and i cant do any of that. My neighbor pointed out, “well you’ve been doing good so far…” he’s right. Ive been living this way 23 years. If i could live with the symptoms thus far, i can do it some more. Im not giving up the things that make life worth while or meaningful or give it purpose. Im going to keep doing what im doing. I just may have to change the way i talk to myself when chronic fatigue or other things i cant control get in the way. I cant handle the ten hour days at work. The case load does need to be shortened because maybe someone my age should be able to do that but i cant. And if i need to sleep ten minutes in the car during shift, thank God im part of a profession where you can clock in and out as you please because you dont have a set shift. Take the nap and then get shit done. And i need to not bring cats home and i need to try to limit the amount of future projects i take on, like the veggie boxes that need to be constructed that are currently in cardboard boxes in the yard under a tarp. I need to consider that i am not well and stop taking on projects like 7 trees to plant in one year. Probably two trees a year is a better limit. I wish there was a pill to take to make Hashimoto’s go away but it doesnt sound like there is. It sounds like you take thyroid hormones, eat an anti-inflammatory diet, get sleep, avoid stresss and weather flare ups. Well, even though i didnt have the word for what it was, ive been doing half of that for 23 years, and the other half is impossible. To avoid stress i’d have to quit my job, get rid of everything i own, and move into a family members house and just be a dependent. What life is that? I refuse. I will just enjoy what i can as i am. Im not thrilled theres not a more turn-key way to manage this auto-immune disorder but it could always be worse. There are worse disorders to have. You only get one life and you make the best of it. You do what you can while you’re here.