Thumper Thinks Out Loud

Nuttin’ =twitch= Wrong With Me =twitch=

All right, I had my appointment yesterday but a couple of lab values weren’t back yet; they must have come in this morning, because the doc left a message on my answering machine this afternoon while I was out acknowledging the call of a cheesy rice burrito. My growth hormone levels are now in the normal range, which means I don’t have to increase my daily dose of replacement hormone. My thyroid, while technically normal, shows signs that I’ll need replacement thyroid hormone soon. TSH was high, and free T4 was borderline normal. The range of normal starts at .78 and mine was .78. The Spouse Thingy explained the high TSH as my body is trying to put out useable amounts of hormone, but it’s not quite working out.

I’m not surprised, and neither is he. I’m already symptomatic: I feel cold from the inside out most of the time, can’t lose weight no matter what I seem to do, lately there have been renewed body aches (but not like those of FMS…it’s different, but I don’t know how to explain the difference.) A little tiredness. But mostly, I can’t get warm. We keep the thermostat set at over 80, and I’m still cold. The Spouse Thingy is probably sweating his goodies off, but he’s not complaining about it. On the other hand, I’m complaining loudly, and often, about being cold.

Now, the obvious thing is that I should have told the doc about those symptoms yesterday, but I didn’t. My bad. He’s a damned good doctor—he knows his stuff inside out—but he’s not exactly the approachable kind. During appointments he sits at his computer and looks at it, mumbles a bit, asks a few questions, but I didn’t feel particularly welcome to do much more than answer direct inquiries yesterday. That was my feeling; that doesn’t mean that’s so. He may have very well listened closely if I’d brought the symptoms up…I just didn’t.

Spouse Thingy will probably email him from the hospital Monday, just to let him know, but since the values did fall within normal, even just barely, he’ll probably let it go for another six months, unless my symptoms get worse.

Obviously, they’re not bad. I have a friend with hypothyroidism and when her levels are really low, she feels like total crap. I’m just really really really really cold. And fat.

But… I’m normal.
I have proof!