April 10: Up to the present date
Dear reader
Today's entry takes us up to the present and will complete the story of how I came to the point where I decided to wean myself off of thyroxine tablets.
Once my blood levels were within the accepted norm I got into the swing of taking thyroxine on a daily basis. Life got pretty much back to normal. Oh, I still suffered mild symtpoms, dry skin, dry, brittle hair, bouts of exhaustion but I could function albeit not quite in the way I would have liked. The constipation never went and continued to be something that distressed me.
I had always felt younger than my years. Now I felt older. While subsequent blood tests showed that supplementation with thyroxine tablets had restored my T4 and TSH to within the "normal" range, what is normal for me and normal for another person are totally different. This is what the medical profession often fails to understand. Some people function best in the middle of the range, some towards the top, others towards the bottom.
Around September 2005, I had a problem with my bone anchored hearing aid site. The skin kept on trying to grow up over the titainium abutment which connected the hearing aid to the implant. The site got infected. I was prescribed amoxycillin and another antibiotic.
A side effect of the antibiotics was an end to my constipation. The tablets made me crap like an elephant. I still had an infection around my implant but at least I could go to the toilet with relative ease. Seven months later I am happy to report my bowel movements are superb.
I went on holiday to Las Vegas in October with my wife and oldest child. I was still fighting the infection which made my skull itch like mad. Then the itching spread all over my body. I was able to bear it until the return flight when, mid-air the rash turned nastier and more itchy and had me scratching like a thousand fleas were doing the fandango all over my body.
A Virgin air stewardess took pity on me and pumped me full of her antihistamines which knocked me out until I got to Heathrow, God bless 'er. The itchy rash stayed with me for about three weeks. My GP was mystified and sent me to have patch testing. No allergies came up apart from sensitivity to a preservative in soap.
The skin specialist suggested the hearing implant might have aggravated my skin and caused the rash but they were shooting in the dark. On December 14 I had the implant removed.
Two and two then started to make four in my mind. I had started to slow down shortly after I had the bone anchored hearing aid implanted. That's where the ill-health started. Could it be that the surgery was related to my thyroid condition? I started to think that somehow it triggered the Hashimoto's antibodies. I have certainly read that what little is known about Hashimoto's, trauma or surgery could be a trigger.
I was very sick after the implant was removed and could hardly get out of bed for about a week. Then on Christmas Day I woke up and threw off the bedcovers like I had been reborn. Suddenly I was bouncing with energy. I can't explain it. I've been bouncing with energy every since, indeed it became too much so and I started getting hyper, anxious and irritable.
I went for a blood test which showed T4 of 18.5 pmol (normal range is 9-19 and TSH of 0.9 mu/L (normal range is 0.35-4.94).
It seemed to me that I was at the upper level of probably what was normal to me.
I went to my consultant and asked him to help wean me off thyroxine. I told him I believed my implant had triggered the antibodies and now that I did not have it anymore, just maybe I could kick-start my thyroid.
We agreed that I would stop taking thyroxine on Sundays for 6 weeks. Then I was to stop taking it on Sunday and Wednesdays for another 6 weeks. We would then see how I felt and what steps to take next.
I bought a book called How I Reversed My Hashimoto's Thyroiditis Hypothyroidism by Robert T. Dirgo and adapted a regimen the writer suceesffully used to heal himself.
A week ago I started a regime of the following nutritional supplements: Klamath Blue Green Wild Algae, 1 500mg capsule once a day; Pro-Biotic Acidophilus, 2 tablets daily, Ultimate Digestive Enzyme Blend, 1 capsule three times a day (150mg each) before meals (contains amylayse, protease, glucoamylase, malt distase, pectinase with phytase, lipase, cellulose, invertase, lactase, bromelain); Kyolic Garlic 600mg (one tablet daily); Coenzyme Q-10 (120mg, 1 a day), Vitamin E495mg and BioCare Bifidobactereum bifidum (1gm daily)
All are free of soy. I have tried to eliminate soy/soya from my diet as much as possible: I have come to realise that, as a strict vegetarian, I have been overdosing on this, eating huge amounts from tofu, to soya mince, to vegetarian burgers on top of all the soya manufacturers use in many basic food stuffs from bread to biscuits. Everything I read suggests soya impedes thyroid function. Even the multivitamin pills I used to take contained soy isoflavones.
I am having weekly acupuncture to boost my immune system and fortnightly spiritual healing. I have created my own meditation technique where I visualise my thyroid as a butterfly and its wings start to move (signifying thyroxine production). I also visualise blue light entering my thyroid. The thyroid relates to the third charka, for those who believe in such things, which I do, and correlates with communication which is interesting for me as communication is what I am all about, as a journalist and writer. Perhaps there is something I am not doing that I should be doing or something I am doing that I should not be doing in the area of self-expression or creativity.
I know this may sound a bit “alternative” but I have nothing to lose. The worse that can happen is that as I wean myself off synthetic thyroxine, I feel dreadful again with the return of the original symptoms. That is easily rectified by returning to synthetic thyroxine which will restore me to a liveable state of health, but one that is a pale in comparison to how I used to feel before hypothyroidism set in.
The lab may say my levels of TSH and T4 are within the “normal” range now that I am taking synthetic thyroxine. However, the levels are not normal for me and for what I need to sustain a quality of life that feel right for me.
On the basis that no one seems to understand why people develop anti-thyroid antibodies in the first place, it seems to me that no one can positively tell me I cannot cure myself of them.
I know there is conjecture that stress, other lifestyle aspects, exposure to certain environmental factors and even surgery can trigger the anti-thyroid antibodies. My reasonable assumption is that several factors have come into play with my own disease:
1)Unresolved grief from the death of my mother when I was 14 came to the surface when my wife and I lost a baby at 20 weeks gestation in 1998 and subsequent therapy I underwent which went deep into this grief and other aspects of my childhood. It opened up a whole well of grief and childhood misery which I had not adequately dealt with up until then.
2)I would then speculate that this left something needing a catalyst to ignite Hashimoto’s. That catalyst may have been surgery to have a bone anchored hearing aid implanted in my skull two years ago. My health went downhill from that point on. I would speculate that the psychological stuff was the petrol and the invasiveness of the implant was the match that ignited the antibodies. There may be other factors at play, but who can know?
Now that the psychological baggage has been successfully worked through and the implant removed, I deduce I have a window of opportunity right now to wean myself off thyroxine.
I could be completely wrong here. I appreciate there is no known scientific basis for any of my suppositions but I owe it to myself to go with this, even if it is only based on a strong hunch.
To all my readers, I would emphasise that what I am doing is something I feel that is right for me. It may not be right for you. You have to find your own way. But I hope that if I am successful in what I am doing, that I will give sufferers of this disease something to aim for.
If you are okay about being on thyroxine for the rest of your life, then fine. Many people accept it. I do not.
If I don't try, I'll never know so I have to give it my best shot.
I've got to try.
I'll keep you posted on how it all goes
Lots of love to you all
Today's entry takes us up to the present and will complete the story of how I came to the point where I decided to wean myself off of thyroxine tablets.
Once my blood levels were within the accepted norm I got into the swing of taking thyroxine on a daily basis. Life got pretty much back to normal. Oh, I still suffered mild symtpoms, dry skin, dry, brittle hair, bouts of exhaustion but I could function albeit not quite in the way I would have liked. The constipation never went and continued to be something that distressed me.
I had always felt younger than my years. Now I felt older. While subsequent blood tests showed that supplementation with thyroxine tablets had restored my T4 and TSH to within the "normal" range, what is normal for me and normal for another person are totally different. This is what the medical profession often fails to understand. Some people function best in the middle of the range, some towards the top, others towards the bottom.
Around September 2005, I had a problem with my bone anchored hearing aid site. The skin kept on trying to grow up over the titainium abutment which connected the hearing aid to the implant. The site got infected. I was prescribed amoxycillin and another antibiotic.
A side effect of the antibiotics was an end to my constipation. The tablets made me crap like an elephant. I still had an infection around my implant but at least I could go to the toilet with relative ease. Seven months later I am happy to report my bowel movements are superb.
I went on holiday to Las Vegas in October with my wife and oldest child. I was still fighting the infection which made my skull itch like mad. Then the itching spread all over my body. I was able to bear it until the return flight when, mid-air the rash turned nastier and more itchy and had me scratching like a thousand fleas were doing the fandango all over my body.
A Virgin air stewardess took pity on me and pumped me full of her antihistamines which knocked me out until I got to Heathrow, God bless 'er. The itchy rash stayed with me for about three weeks. My GP was mystified and sent me to have patch testing. No allergies came up apart from sensitivity to a preservative in soap.
The skin specialist suggested the hearing implant might have aggravated my skin and caused the rash but they were shooting in the dark. On December 14 I had the implant removed.
Two and two then started to make four in my mind. I had started to slow down shortly after I had the bone anchored hearing aid implanted. That's where the ill-health started. Could it be that the surgery was related to my thyroid condition? I started to think that somehow it triggered the Hashimoto's antibodies. I have certainly read that what little is known about Hashimoto's, trauma or surgery could be a trigger.
I was very sick after the implant was removed and could hardly get out of bed for about a week. Then on Christmas Day I woke up and threw off the bedcovers like I had been reborn. Suddenly I was bouncing with energy. I can't explain it. I've been bouncing with energy every since, indeed it became too much so and I started getting hyper, anxious and irritable.
I went for a blood test which showed T4 of 18.5 pmol (normal range is 9-19 and TSH of 0.9 mu/L (normal range is 0.35-4.94).
It seemed to me that I was at the upper level of probably what was normal to me.
I went to my consultant and asked him to help wean me off thyroxine. I told him I believed my implant had triggered the antibodies and now that I did not have it anymore, just maybe I could kick-start my thyroid.
We agreed that I would stop taking thyroxine on Sundays for 6 weeks. Then I was to stop taking it on Sunday and Wednesdays for another 6 weeks. We would then see how I felt and what steps to take next.
I bought a book called How I Reversed My Hashimoto's Thyroiditis Hypothyroidism by Robert T. Dirgo and adapted a regimen the writer suceesffully used to heal himself.
A week ago I started a regime of the following nutritional supplements: Klamath Blue Green Wild Algae, 1 500mg capsule once a day; Pro-Biotic Acidophilus, 2 tablets daily, Ultimate Digestive Enzyme Blend, 1 capsule three times a day (150mg each) before meals (contains amylayse, protease, glucoamylase, malt distase, pectinase with phytase, lipase, cellulose, invertase, lactase, bromelain); Kyolic Garlic 600mg (one tablet daily); Coenzyme Q-10 (120mg, 1 a day), Vitamin E495mg and BioCare Bifidobactereum bifidum (1gm daily)
All are free of soy. I have tried to eliminate soy/soya from my diet as much as possible: I have come to realise that, as a strict vegetarian, I have been overdosing on this, eating huge amounts from tofu, to soya mince, to vegetarian burgers on top of all the soya manufacturers use in many basic food stuffs from bread to biscuits. Everything I read suggests soya impedes thyroid function. Even the multivitamin pills I used to take contained soy isoflavones.
I am having weekly acupuncture to boost my immune system and fortnightly spiritual healing. I have created my own meditation technique where I visualise my thyroid as a butterfly and its wings start to move (signifying thyroxine production). I also visualise blue light entering my thyroid. The thyroid relates to the third charka, for those who believe in such things, which I do, and correlates with communication which is interesting for me as communication is what I am all about, as a journalist and writer. Perhaps there is something I am not doing that I should be doing or something I am doing that I should not be doing in the area of self-expression or creativity.
I know this may sound a bit “alternative” but I have nothing to lose. The worse that can happen is that as I wean myself off synthetic thyroxine, I feel dreadful again with the return of the original symptoms. That is easily rectified by returning to synthetic thyroxine which will restore me to a liveable state of health, but one that is a pale in comparison to how I used to feel before hypothyroidism set in.
The lab may say my levels of TSH and T4 are within the “normal” range now that I am taking synthetic thyroxine. However, the levels are not normal for me and for what I need to sustain a quality of life that feel right for me.
On the basis that no one seems to understand why people develop anti-thyroid antibodies in the first place, it seems to me that no one can positively tell me I cannot cure myself of them.
I know there is conjecture that stress, other lifestyle aspects, exposure to certain environmental factors and even surgery can trigger the anti-thyroid antibodies. My reasonable assumption is that several factors have come into play with my own disease:
1)Unresolved grief from the death of my mother when I was 14 came to the surface when my wife and I lost a baby at 20 weeks gestation in 1998 and subsequent therapy I underwent which went deep into this grief and other aspects of my childhood. It opened up a whole well of grief and childhood misery which I had not adequately dealt with up until then.
2)I would then speculate that this left something needing a catalyst to ignite Hashimoto’s. That catalyst may have been surgery to have a bone anchored hearing aid implanted in my skull two years ago. My health went downhill from that point on. I would speculate that the psychological stuff was the petrol and the invasiveness of the implant was the match that ignited the antibodies. There may be other factors at play, but who can know?
Now that the psychological baggage has been successfully worked through and the implant removed, I deduce I have a window of opportunity right now to wean myself off thyroxine.
I could be completely wrong here. I appreciate there is no known scientific basis for any of my suppositions but I owe it to myself to go with this, even if it is only based on a strong hunch.
To all my readers, I would emphasise that what I am doing is something I feel that is right for me. It may not be right for you. You have to find your own way. But I hope that if I am successful in what I am doing, that I will give sufferers of this disease something to aim for.
If you are okay about being on thyroxine for the rest of your life, then fine. Many people accept it. I do not.
If I don't try, I'll never know so I have to give it my best shot.
I've got to try.
I'll keep you posted on how it all goes
Lots of love to you all
posted by Andrew Don | 10:44 am
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