Living with Hypothyroidism

                                         

                                     

    

I found out about my under active thyroid condition about six monts ago. Some of the symptoms what I have been suffering with are:-

• cold intolerance ( cold hands and feet) 
• hair fall 
• weight gain 
• dry skin
• slow heart rate
• foggy mind  
• low Basal Body Temperature

My doctor medicated me with a starter dose of 25 mcg of levothyroxine. I was told to take this med first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and to wait till 30 minutes before eating anything. So I went back home feeling determined to battle off this sickness. I read books and blogs about thyroid and its medications. I always feel that knowledge is power. I am no sheep to just follow it's Shepperd blindly. I joined a hypothyroid support group in FB and learn a lot from the Ladies there. Why Ladies? because hypothyroid is mostly common in women.I learnt that you should wait a minimum of 1 hour before food rather than only just 30 mins because that is  just not enough time to digest the medication and many food such as calcium and iron can interfere with the
absorption of Levothyroxine. So it is best to wait at least an hour before food. After six weeks of starting my 25 mcg dosage of levothyroxine, I was scheduled to meet the doctor to see my TSH readings and if I need an increase on my dosage. Well my TSH level was more elevated than the previous reading so she increased my dosage to 50 mcg. So I followed her advice and weeks went by but my symptoms were still there. I don't feel any improvement at all. So I went in for another blood test and this time I also did free T3, free T4 and Ferritin test (thanks to the Hypothyroid support group). My result came back good but not great. My Doctor wants to see a TSH of under 2 and mine was 1.99. She totally don't care about my free T3 and Free T4 readings but I definitely care about it. According to the very knowledgeable group of people in the Fb support group, I found out that my Free T3 and Free T4 is normal but not optimal. So I increased my levo medication dosage to 75 mcg and again the same vicious cycle of never ending symptoms. I am a fitbit user and my resting heart rate always showed around  50-53 bpm. Normal resting BPM for adults are between 60-80. You can only have low resting heart rate if you are an Olympian. But I am definitely not one.

My motivation to fight my symptoms were getting more stronger. In January I started to think that perhaps this medication is just not helping me. Maybe I need something else, something more natural. As most of you already know that Levothyroxine is the synthetic form of T4. T4 is an inactive form of  a thyroid hormone. Your body need to convert the T4 to T3 which is the active form of the thyroid hormone. But not everyone can convert it to T3. Your body strive for T3. Every function in the body needs T3. Without T3, you can just die. So I was thinking that I needed to change my medication to Natural Desiccated Thyroid (NDT), NDT are natural thyroid hormone from the bovine or swine. Most doctors here subscribe only levothyoxine. I was lucky enough to find a NDT from bovine. So while on levo I started to also develope constipation, more hair fall and extreme lower back pain. The back pain were only getting worse as days went by. I have not so much problem with weight loss as I eat a healthy palate like the caveman style that is  grain free, sugar free, dairy free and soy free. I think my lifestyle really helped with my other hypothyroid symptoms such as fatigue, weight loss and brain fog. But I'm still having cold hands and feet, hair fall, slow heart rate and low body temperature. In beginning this month I started on NDT and Follow me on my next blog as I continue the next part of my journey.