Hypothyroidism

I met up for coffee today with a very old, very dear friend and mentioned that another old and dear friend had said that she'd been reading the blog and was worried about me due to my posts. She said that she had been too. So just in case there are friends out there actually reading this and worried about my maudlin don't be, there is an explanation.

I was at a very low ebb this summer, as it seems was apparent. Indeed so much so that I actually went to the doctor because I was getting a bit worried about myself. She did a blood test and discovered that I have hypothyroidism. This sounds very flash and rather scary, but actually is quite straight forward. It means that for some strange reason my body doesn't produce enough thyroxine.

The Internet superhighway tells me that:-

"Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the body lacks sufficient thyroid hormone. Since the main purpose of thyroid hormone is to "run the body's metabolism", it is understandable that people with this condition will have symptoms associated with a slow metabolism. Over five million Americans have this common medical condition. In fact, as many as ten percent of women may have some degree of thyroid hormone deficiency. Hypothyroidism is more common than you would believe...and, millions of people are currently hypothyroid and don't know it!

Symptoms:

Fatigue
Weakness
Weight gain or increased difficulty losing weight
Coarse, dry hair
Dry, rough pale skin
Hair loss
Cold intolerance (can't tolerate the cold like those around you)
Muscle cramps and frequent muscle aches
Constipation
Depression
Irritability
Memory loss
Abnormal menstrual cycles
Decreased libido"

I am tick box on quite a few of these - depression, exhaustion, difficulty loosing weight, feeling the cold etc. but the fantastic thing is that all you need to do is take a pill (each day forever) and then you feel fine.

And I do feel so fine. Amazingly well. It's extraordinary to feel my vitality returning, my energy, my delight in life. And most of all mentally. I had got so worried about how difficult I found it to focus and concentrate. I felt like I was swimming through lead both mentally and physically. And now I don't. It's as though my life has been given back to me.

It makes me think of all the people who suffer from this, or something much worse and aren't able to just go to the doctors and be given a pill and have to suffer on, unknowing.

I am still questioning a lot. About what I want to do with my life, what the right path is. I don't want to just throw it away. I want to be of use to the world. I believe in theatre, but perhaps not for a narrow middle class audience. But what then? It means huge changes and I'm not quite sure what they should be and feel a little scared at the prospect, but excited too. And now I'm buzzing with 75mg I feel capable of almost anything. And I'm not even up to 100mg yet... ahh, drugs. How I love them.

Thank you for the kind thoughts.
xx