My Bad And My Apology

Mea culpa, mea culpa (Photo credit: VanessaO)

Yesterday I posted a blog (“Worried Sick-One Crazy Ass Blog Post”) that not only scared me but many of my followers and one in particular, a friend I haven’t met named Mike C. First, THANK YOU for caring.  I figured out exactly what happened and I was a complete jerk. I am on the medicine Synthroid for an underactive thyroid, (and an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis for which I take Synthroid. We were away for a few days at our daughter’s orientation to college and in the hotel I had no idea if I had taken my Synthroid in the middle of the night as I usually do at home. In the morning, when I woke up the pill was still there. I vaguely remember taking it in the middle of the night but…I wasn’t a hundred percent sure so I played doctor. Mea Culpa.

Stupid me, as it turns out TOOK IT…AGAIN, double the normal dose. I was off kilter all day and had no idea why. Yes, I was super-duper anxious and fearful but couldn’t imagine why everything felt so wrong and intense. I apologize to all of you who were concerned and I apologize for making you concerned. I only realized at the end of the night that was what happened and yes, I felt like the stupidest person on earth.

This dear, as yet unknown, Mike was worried about me. My friend Judith and Wendy and others were worried about me as well and I’m so sorry. I am not denying that I don’t get anxious at times, I do but yesterday was like an anxiety bonanza. I could have been the poster child for Buspar or Xanax or perhaps a new drug called “Scared-out-of-my-nutty-head.”. Also, while I feared (in my panic mode of all future imagined illnesses) I never said I felt the symptoms. It was an endocrine mind game that truly put me off my game and frankly I should have been given a “Do Not Stop Go” to the Emergency Room.

Thanks to Mike C. he reminded me of how I USED to be funny and I used to enjoy writing Pop Cop and being sarcastic and witty and sentimental and all the other things I used to write about. It’s been a very rough year, that I can’t deny. I’m trying to look forward to not let the major (and they were major) stressors of last year stay with me. I hope to get back to writing on a variety of topics too. And yes, hopefully I’ll be funny too.

Thank you readers, for caring. We just got home from our seven hour trip but I refused to rest until I sent this out to you. You don’t know how much your comments meant to me. I am fine, I do have meds and I do see a doctor so please don’t worry. Just give me a virtual kick in the pants and tell me, like you did yesterday. I love you all.

Again, I dearly apologize for causing anyone any stress, but I can’t tell you how touched I am that you cared enough to write me back.  Hugs, kisses, pizza with jelly (sorry, Mo),  orange carrot cake and honey baked corn bread with a glass of cold milk for us all. Cheers, to friendship!

Love, Laurie aka hibernationnow

PFAM: You Call Them: CURVEBALLS?

To me, a new symptom is a curveball, it’s a nice term for something that feels so bad. I feel them as gut-wrenching hits to my stomach that makes pain reverberate everywhere. Shocks, starting one place in my body, going through my body.

Here is how it all began: my body fell apart in my late forties and crashed at age fifty with menopause. It wasn’t a horror story or a deep, high-pitched scream of severe decline. I had a few anxiety attacks here and there, a little more intense than PMS and hot flashes more frequent than before but not much drama, no sweaty sheets, no wringing tee-shirts.

In an annual check-up I got the eagerly anticipated diagnosis of an under-active thyroid. Didn’t this mean I could eat what I wanted and the extra pounds would melt away? I thought so, but unfortunately not. I was prescribed Synthroid. I took it for weeks and weeks with no change. I was sleeping all day and everything hurt: my teeth, muscles, joints and nails. But, as I was told, thyroid symptoms need time to adjust and so I was a good patient and waited for it to go away. It didn’t.

Three months later I still had aches and pains all over; I described it as having the flu without the temperature. I was back in my Internist‘s office weeping on the table, unable to swing my legs to a seated position; telling her I felt horrible. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t walk, all I did was sleep and ache, non-stop. My Internist looked straight through me,  as if there weren’t tears dripping through my swollen green eyes. She turned away, clicked on her fashionable high heels and left the room saying under her breath yet still audible” I can’t do anything more for you.” My friend and I call her The Ice Princess.

She sent me to see a Rheumatologist in her big medical group ( factory). This doctor told me I had scoliosis (the one thing I do not have) and that I had an auto-immune disease which would lead me wide open to catch all other auto-immune diseases so I went home and googled it. I did indeed have an auto-immune disease of the thyroid called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis: the solution?  Synthroid. I was on it already so why was I still so tired, and in pain every waking moment. I couldn’t sleep deeply either anymore. Nothing made sense to me, all the doctors said completely different things and no one, no one, acknowledged my pain.

I then went to three other Rheumatologists before finally one of them came up with a disease called Fibromyalgia. “I believe you have been misdiagnosed” the second Rheumatologist said.  A chill of joy went up my supposedly not-s0-straight-spine. A new diagnosis? A new cure? YES!!! I will be cured. Thank you! I was deliriously happy for a few moments until she then told me there was no cure. Curveball? How about complete devastation?  And so, it started again, new drugs, all different kinds, some helped a little, some almost killed me, some were radical and only used to save organs when a transplant was required  others were benign but NOT helpful at all. One kept me in a bathroom for two straight months unable to leave my house.

With the firm diagnosis of Fibromyalgia I knew I was in a whole, new world of chronic pain and no cure. New symptoms would appear from time to time and I would consider those the worst curveballs of all. I would groan when my legs starting hurting so badly I cried out in pain; some were illnesses that were old yet I had never associated them together, others were new and I would groan and moan at yet another symptom of some elusive yet particularly painful, widespread disease. I had always had a small bladder so I never thought about the fact that I had to pee often until the diagnosis of Interstitial Cystitis was given to me, hair loss, body aches, muscle aches and those pesky stomach aches I used to get time after time? The ones that made me get all cramped and bloated and then doubled over with intense pain?  IBS, also listed under  symptoms of Fibromyalgia. Each individual symptom that I thought lived alone, now lived within a deeper, bigger context.

As strange as it may seem, having a chronic illness composed of all these connected parts made me feel better mentally if not physically. I thought I was an outcast  but now, the diagnosis of all these links put together and given a name made me feel more credible. When I get a new pain, a curveball, if you will, first, I fight. Then, sometimes I cry. After that I do some research and realize yes, this is part of that huge family called Fibromyalgia. Then I understand and accept. Fighting back at the curveballs, the new symptoms, in the long run, doesn’t help. Trust me, I know.

Think of us as strong weeping willow trees that lean and sway with the strength of the wind. We don’t break from the force, we learn, as hard as it is, to lean in and go on.

REPOST: FOR INVISIBLE ILLNESS WEEK:Thyroid Disease And Fibromyalgia With A Touch Of Menopause

Image by quinn.anya via Flickr

I am NOT a Doctor. I may see a lot of Doctors but in no way am I one. I don’t pretend to be one. However, I am a patient, a chronic pain patient and I believe I know a whole lot more, personally, about these subjects than some Doctors do. Sorry, but it is true. This is only what I THINK, only what I FEEL and only what I have EXPERIENCED. For those who have read earlier posts about my dealings with Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Menopause, this is different; I’ve never once put my own theories down on (computer) paper. Also, for the young woman who responded to a post saying she will check out Fibromyalgia even though her Doctor said “He didn’t believe in it”  YOU GO GIRL!

I hope this will take the five or more years of suffering that I had to go through and help someone; HELPING just one person would make me extremely happy. I mean that from my heart. I think there is a correlation with the above- mentioned diseases/changes, at least for me there was, especially with Thyroid Disease and Fibromyalgia.

I went through Menopause about five years ago, it wasn’t too bad, I had the usual symptoms but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t bare. I think that Menopause was the catalyst to all these (bad) changes in my body. After being in menopause, I went to my annual physical where my Internist did the usual blood work. When the results came back, for the first time in my life, I had an underactive thyroid. (Thyroid disease DOES run in my family, both my mother and sister have it.) I was put on Synthroid (my opinion ONLY: I use brand name, NOT the generic.)  My symptoms were chronic pain, muscle pain, severe aches and pain, and extreme fatigue.  My own quote: ” I felt like I had the flu without the fever.” That is what I felt like day in and day out. I thought the Synthroid  (for my underactive thyroid) would help but it never did. For months I was in bed feeling worse and worse, my said Internist said “there is nothing further I can do for you” and walked out of the room leaving me inside, on the examining table, sobbing. True story.

She finally referred me to a Rheumatologist who looked at me and said I had “Scoliosis” and that with my thyroid disease (an auto-immune disease: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis) I should be prepared to get OTHER auto-immune diseases. Gee, thanks. There was no mention of Fibromyalgia and since when did I have Scoliosis? Whatever.

I felt horrible, chronic pain, muscle pain, joint pain, I could barely get out of bed. I won’t even mention the doctor ( he gets lower case on purpose!) that I went to who treated me with very DANGEROUS drugs, I will spare you that. I have Fibromyalgia and I really do think, there may be a connection between Thyroid disease and Fibromyalgia. AGAIN, I am not a doctor. However, I recently read about a new study where they are trying to see if T3 levels are linked to Fibromyalgia. (Promising!?)

Please, if you are experiencing all the symptoms I mentioned, don’t let an ignorant doctor make you feel like a fool. You know YOUR body best. Keep fighting, keep researching and, go to a good Rheumatologist, this is the Doctor that you need for Fibromyalgia. I have a friend who has a Thyroid condition like me (Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis) and a severe case of Fibromyalgia and she only goes to an Endocrinologist. Big Mistake but she will not listen to me. Don’t be like her. I just want to help. If you do see a Doctor that scoffs at Fibromyalgia and doesn’t believe in it: leave, do not stay. Check out your Doctor on-line, I chose mine from a list that said he believed in Fibromyalgia, treated it and patients loved him. I am one of his biggest fans. You deserve this too. Good luck.