Thyroid problems...Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? I did. Here's how I solved the problem

After my niece nagged at me and told me I wasn't the aunt Lisa she knew anymore, I went to see my doctor, well actually, a quick care doctor. She sat and talked with me and I gave her the run down on my symptoms.

I had extreme fatigue, lack of motivation. I had weight gain I couldn’t control. I didn’t feel like going to work and I love my job, when I got home I didn’t feel like moving from the couch even to make dinner or anything. I lost interest in my pets, hobbies and family and friends.

I thought I had some form of deep depression. My hair was falling out; my skin was dry and flaky in patches. I didn’t sleep well either. I woke up at odd hours not being able to go back to sleep even when I was so tired I couldn’t do much else. Some times when I woke up I would be drenched in sweat.

She listened and made notes, ordered a blood test that covered the many functions of the organs in my body. She then set me up with an Internist (doctor), an appointment she made herself and made me promise to keep. Later that evening she called me and told me that the results of my blood test came back and that everything was fine except for a couple of things that she was very concerned about and reiterated the NEED to follow up with the internist. I promised I would and thanked her for being so kind and thoughtful to call me at home.

When I went to my appointment with the internist, my new doctor, he discussed my past medical history with me, which I was very careful to complete with total accuracy and honesty. Then he talked about my blood test results.

All of my test results were normal except for four things, however, the four things that weren’t considered normal were the exact things causing all my problems.

First let’s start with the fact that the test showed that my kidneys were strained and that the salt in my blood was lower than it should be. This scared me because I’ve known people with renal (kidney) failure and it’s not pretty, it leads to possible dialysis among other things. We decided this could be part of the cause of fatigue, dehydration, and I need to drink a LOT more water.

I also need to stop eating a no sodium diet because we all need salt to survive, which could also add to the fact that I was dehydrated. I have been craving salty things which aren’t normal for me, plain potato chips etc. This doesn’t mean that I should go out and indulge in high sodium foods; it just means I need to add some salt to my diet. I should have been listening to my body, my desire for salt, and added some.

The next part of the test was my TSH and T4 hormone levels in my blood. I have a thyroid that no longer works. Considering that the thyroid hormones are so important to every cell in your body this is not good. Here is what I learned about TSH and T4.

TSH is the hormone produced by the pituitary gland in your brain. Your pituitary gland monitors your blood for the T4 hormone produced by the thyroid and when it senses there isn’t enough it produces TSH telling your thyroid the body needs more T4. In my case my TSH level is 141, normal TSH levels should be 0.3 – 3.04, you can see mine are really off. My pituitary gland has been sending out these warnings to my thyroid which has, for some unknown reason, been ignoring it. This TSH hormone has been building up and building up in my system over some time.

T4 is the hormone that is released by the thyroid that controls your metabolism; again, it also controls the health of ALL the cells in the body. My T4 level was .2 and this is not good since the normal level should be somewhere between 4.5 – 12.5. My metabolism is not working and my entire body is at risk because of this lack of T4 hormone. This was very bad news to me.

Here’s the good news. Hormone replacement therapy for this T4 hormone is easy and very cheap. It’s also NOTHING like hormone replacements that have all the bad side effects. It doesn’t cause blood clots or heart disease; it doesn’t cause strokes or anything bad. This hormone replacement has only good and better side effects as long as you allow your doctor to monitor it on a regular basis so you are not getting too little or too much.

So in a nutshell my advice to ANYBODY with fatigue or any of the symptoms I’ve mentioned that I have, go to a doctor and get a simple blood test. It could save your life in the long term, in the short term it could make your life happier and more productive.