My New Diagnosis

I had my yearly physical on Thursday and there were a couple problems. I haven't been taking my supplements the past few months like I'm supposed to so I got a wrist slap for that. When you are taking six-seven medications a day, some of them more than once, it's easy to say I don't want to take any more pills so I'm going to stop these. They can't be as important since they aren't a prescription, right? Wrong. They are important they just won't do as much damage if you take them when you don't need them or something so they are available over the counter. One of them she said if my blood work doesn't improve in six months I'm going to have to go on a prescription so just take the supplement already. I got a pill reminder box so when I go to take my meds at night they are already there and I can't convince myself not to take them or conveniently forget.

The big news though is my thyroid. My TSH levels are 11.75 when normal range is 0.04 - 4.50. They have always been normal before but I think they may have been on the higher end of normal last year. What caused such a big jump? We don't know. After doing some research I may have developed Hashimoto's which is an autoimmune disease. Basically your immune system attacks your thyroid preventing it from doing what it's supposed to. I already have an autoimmune disease and if you have one there's a good chance you will have or get another. So I have to go on another prescription for that (which you have to take on an empty stomach at least 30 minutes before breakfast).

The worst part about this is how it affects TTC. We were hoping to do a donated embryo transfer around June after my lupron shot wore off. That has now been officially canceled. Hypothyroidism can cause the FET to fail or a lot of bad things to happen if it's successful. Miscarriage, pre-e, stillbirth, heart failure, anemia, low birth weight, or brain and nervous system birth defects. You can have a healthy pregnancy but you have to be very on top of it and have your levels checked every 6 weeks. Due to my other health problems I'd probably already be high risk and this just adds to it.

At the very least we have to wait until my levels are checked again at the end of May. If they come back normal I'll be cleared and we can start making arrangements for a cycle which would take another couple months. If they don't come back normal we'll adjust my meds and wait a few more months and check again. Going by my health history this is what I'm predicting will happen. Even if I'm cleared in May I'm not sure I feel comfortable moving forward with this being such a big deal. I think I would feel more comfortable having at least two normal blood tests under my belt so I know it's not a fluke and has leveled out. So now I'm thinking late fall/early winter transfer at the very earliest, if nothing else happens to push it back. We've had a couple quiet hurricane seasons so who knows we could take a direct hit or something.

The good news (if there is such a thing) is a lot of the problems I've been having lately could be because of this. Fatigue, joint and muscle pain, depression, weakness, weight gain, sensitivity to cold (seriously I'm normally always hot but the last few months I've been super cold! I'm bundled up in my Tardis blanket right now!), thinning eyebrows (weird symptom but Josh says I have that), paleness (Josh says my paleness is unrelated lol), memory problems and having trouble thinking, dry skin, constipation, all sorts of lovely things. I could start feeling better in as little as three weeks which is a lot better than the three months I thought it would be with lupron. Of course it could take like a year but hopefully it doesn't.

It really sucks having another diagnosis, another health problem, another medication. I've already been having a bad week partly due to the symptoms above and some personal problems so my mental health has definitely suffered. I just feel so terrible, you know? But I'm glad I know now so we can at least start treating it.