Hypothyroidism - Gears Grinding to a Halt

Wow. I have a medical reason for being a fat, lazy slob. Cool!

I just had an appointment with my doctor to follow up on some blood work. It was part of my annual physical, but I put it off for months because I have a thing about needles. He wanted to test my thyroid hormone levels because I had put on weight over a year that hadn't come off and my Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) symptoms have been stronger this year. I just have no energy and I'm more sluggish than usual. He wanted to check if I have diabetes or an iron deficiency.

I was nervous for the last week after booking my appointment, mainly because my doctor's schedule was so open and I'm used to booking appointments farther out. Usually, I need to book at least a week in advance, but the receptionist sounded like I could come in the following day. That didn't work with my schedule, but I kept thinking, 'What's wrong that he can see me right away? He never sees me right away!' I joked about it with Sweetie last night, telling myself "It's not a tumor." Okay, so I can be fatalistic.

When I went in, My test results showed that my cholesterol is a little bit high, but marginally, so adjusting my diet will fix it. My blood, blood sugar and iron levels are all good. Then he dropped the sluggish bomb.

He confirmed that I have hypothyroidism. My thyroid is producing about half the thyroid hormones I need to run my metabolism properly.

Now for the crazy part. I'm looking up hypothyroidism online, and I discover the following symptoms. Look at how many I have (in green):

• Dry, thick skin (check - most of my skin's not thick, but it's been super-dry for about four years)
• Hair thinning
• Painful muscles and joints (check - my shoulder has been giving me pain for about two years)
• Depression (CHECK- that's a big 10-4, buddy! Four years ago I had my worst bout of SAD in two decades and I still haven't recovered fully. It's been pissing me off because it's supposed to lessen as you age.)
• Memory problems (check - I have horrible short-term memory, and it's seemed worse in recent years)
• Constipation
• Goitre
• Heavy, irregular or prolonged menstrual periods
• Low body temperature (below 97.8°F first thing in the morning) (check - I've been checking my basal temperature daily for 6 months)
• Low blood pressure (check - it runs in my family)
• Puffy eyes
• Slow pulse
• Reduced libido (check - for the last few years)
• Fatigue (check - tired when I wake up, drained when I go to sleep, too tired to sleep)
• Chronic sinus infections (check - my whole life)
• Headaches (check - in the last few years I've had fairly regular headaches, but it was problems with my bite/teeth)
• Sweating abnormalities
• Heat and/or cold intolerance (check - I'm a bit of an iceberg)
• Irritability (Shut Up! I mean, check)
• Fluid retention
• Anxiety/panic attacks (check)
• Frequent colds and sore throats (I get sore throats all the time, but only for a day or so)
• Lightheadedness (check - all the time)
• Ringing in the ears (check)
• Decreased concentration (...what? Oh, check.)
• Slow wound healing (check - it takes months for the red spots from even the tiniest sores to heal. Ingrown hairs are the bane of my existence right now.)
• Easy bruising (So my Sweetie says... Not like that!)
• Unhealthy, dry, brittle or ridged nails (check - I've always had a couple of nails with ridges, but the last five years they've gotten worse and more nails have them.)
• Acid Indigestion (check - doctor told me it was acid reflux)
• Cold hands or feet (check - my feet are always freezing cold, but I try to ignore it until I touch other skin to them)
• Inappropriate weight gain (check - no, I won't say how much. Not a lot, but enough for my doctor to wonder)
• Hypoglycemia (sorta check - my baseline blood glucose is normal, but if I go too long between meals, I get extremely irritable and lightheaded)
• Falling asleep during the day
• Itching (check - comes with dry skin, right?)
• High cholesterol (check - Dude!)
• Loss of outside portion of eyebrows (although mine are thinner than they used to be...)

This blew my mind. Most of the oddball things that are wrong with my health are symptoms of low thyroid function! This sounds like a laundry list of woes, but if you think about how much your endocrine system controls your body, it makes sense that systems all over would be affected. The human body is wild.

This is good news because it's a relatively easy fix. From the western medicine side, I can just take a synthetic thyroid supplement, just like taking extra vitamins. He wrote me a prescription for SynThroid and told me that it will take about two weeks to feel the effect, so by Christmas I should be a ball of energy. He also told me to book a six-month follow up. More needles. Great.

I'm not taking this lying down though. A bit of research revealed that from the holistic side, I can take iodine, selenium, and add coconut oil to my diet.

It turns out that too much polyunsaturated fat can inhibit tissue response to thyroid hormones. Coconut oil is a saturated fat, and it promotes increased metabolism. Coconut oil will not cure a sluggish thyroid, but it's like adding high octane fuel to your engine - it improves performance (metabolism). Crazy, huh? That might explain why I ate like a pig in the Dominican Republic and didn't gain a single pound. Lots of pina coladas.

Calling All Canucks: Vitamin D Drive

Check it out! February is Vitamin D month, and GrassrootsHealth in the US setting up a campaign to solve vitamin D deficiency. Daction is a program to generate awareness of the problem and testing. The program will involve testing twice a year over five years to study the effects of Vitamin D levels on the body.

Okay, so I've been accused of being a bit of an earth muffin. But I'm a big believer in the effect of what you ingest affects your overall health. I include vitamin D supplements in my personal battle with seasonal affective disorder.

Vitamin D is the fat-soluble one called the "sunshine vitamin" because it's produced by your body when UV rays contact the skin, and it's not commonly found in foods naturally.

I'm fair-skinned, so my daily use of an SPF 8 reduces vitamin D absorption by 95%, and since I live in Edmonton, there's not enough UVB here for me from October to mid-March. Interestingly, that's when my SAD hits and recedes every year.

There are several diseases which have strong links to vitamin D deficiency. Rickets is the original deficiency disease, but a lack of vitamin D increases risk for high blood pressure, chronic muscle pain, osteoporosis, periodontal disease, type 1 diabetes, cancer, tuberculosis and some autoimmune diseases.

Oxford University released a study this week showing that a form of vitamin D triggers an immune system gene linked to multiple sclerosis. This is especially important to me because a dear friend was recently diagnosed with MS.

Think this doesn't affect you? 97 percent of Canadians are vitamin D deficient at some point in the year, according to University of Calgary research.

The cost to join the Daction project is USD30.00, which includes a health survey and at-home vitamin D blood spot test. The test results will be shipped directly to you, and you are able to make our own changes. This is a really reasonable cost for a five-year program that could make such a big difference to your life. It's a great chance to see what changing your vitamin intake can do to improve your health.

What can you do? "Participate in the study, get tested, get your serum levels to the 40-60 ng/ml range and learn all you can about Vitamin D," said Dr. Vieth of the GrassrootsHealth sponsored testing.

Remember to take your vitamin D supplement with a calcium or magnesium supplement for maximum absorption. Don't worry about overdosing on it; toxicity requires taking more than 100 times the RDA amount for months.

Please join the campaign and tell at least two friends about it.

Props to BodyBeautiful.ca for sending out a call to action for Canadians to join the campaign!

Easy, Now: De-Stressing Tips for Work and School

I've been really stressed at work for the last week or so. I've had additional duties at work assigned to me for an undetermined amount of time to assist another department. I'm still enrolled in two courses of night school, and my annual bout of SAD just kicked in, so I'm feeling pretty overloaded right now.

There are lots of things you can do to keep your stress from overpowering your life. I'm doing what I can to keep my mood up. Here are 10 of my tips:

1) Take daily vitamin supplements to keep my B-complex, C, D, magnesium, iron, calcium, zinc and potassium levels up. Deficiencies in these vitamins and minerals have strong links to depression.

2) Eat lunch away from the office at least three times a week. It doesn't mean eating out; I bring a sandwich or a salad. When I get bogged down in work, it's easy to feel chained to the desk. This gives me a chance to breathe and regroup.

3) Don't skip meals. This is one I struggle with because I tend to skip breakfast. Right now, I make sure I eat breakfast, whether it's a bowl of oatmeal or a breakfast bar.

4) Do stretches at work. I make a point of joining the office in the morning stretching sessions which are part of my company's health & wellness program. This allows me a chance to relax in case I was stressing out on the drive to work. It also gives me a chance to have a laugh with the people I work with, since these are light-hearted sessions.

5) If you have to vent, do it before you get home. Don't vent work-stress once you finish the drive from work. I try to say something good about my day once I get home, so I'm not focusing on the negative parts of my day.

6) Treat yourself once a week. When I can't afford something big like a spa treatment or a shopping spree, I give myself a pedicure or take a relaxation bath.

7) Stop for two minutes to laugh and smile. Smiling is proven as a weird biofeedback thing to improve your mood. An eight-hour work day has 480 minutes; laugh for two of them. I set an alarm, but I take two minutes in my busy workday to joke with a friend.

8) Use a massage tool. You don't need to be a pro. Throw it in a desk drawer and use it on your back or calf muscles while you're on the phone. I found a great body massager at Winners for $8 that is double-sided and feels great.

9) Make a list of the tasks you want to get done for the day, and mark them off when you are done. A five minute list lets me see my accomplishments for the day so I don't feel like I didn't getting anything done.

10) When you are feeling overloaded, talk to someone. Try to talk to your supervisor. You don't need to feel like you are whining if you say what parts are dragging you down, and it gives everyone a chance to evaluate the workload. If you can't talk to your supervisor, ask your HR department if your company has an employee assistance program. Companies put these in place to help, not to judge. I used my company EFAP program to get help with treatment for depression one winter when my SAD was out of control.

When it feels like the world is weighing on your shoulders, just remember to breathe. It's important to think about how things will change from day to day. Stress can produce results, so work through it, and try not to be negative to the people around you. Tomorrow is full of possibilities, and things can improve.

If you can't say something nice, say nothing. Negative attitudes at work are contagious. Apart from spreading the cranky around, you may cross the wrong person. As Sigourney Weaver's character said in Working Girl, "Today's junior prick is tomorrow's senior partner."