The introduction continued… (part two)
*** This blog is not to be prescriptive nor give you advice, merely to show you my way of navigating true health in a jungle of advice and pharmaceutical pressure. Please do your own research, ask your own specialists or contact those I have used if you wish to find out more about your personal condition and symptoms. To your very best health. ***
Part two, part one here.
Since being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and reading up about the disease and the ongoing health concerns of untreated auto immunity (AI) I realised that despite my protestations that I’d been fine before, I was recognising several symptoms that I’d never considered were linked or even a ‘thing’.
- Constipation. Despite my diet, my digestive system has been struggling since I was a child. It goes from absolutely awful (7 days at a time) to perfectly normal 1-2 a day.
- Cold hands and feet. I work outside a lot, I get cold a lot, but my hands and feet are generally always cold. I am sitting writing this with socks and slippers on and my feet are freezing.
- Reynauds Syndome. This is known as white-finger too. It’s a circulatory condition that I get when cold and especially when I’ve not eaten or a while.
- Enlarged tongue. For as long as I can remember the edges of my tongue are scalloped. I don’t know why I didn’t think this was a thing, but I didn’t This is when the tongue gets too large for the mouth and pushes against the teeth creating the scalloped look.
- Losing hair. I have a lot of hair, so this one took some time to be noticed. But I started to see lots of hair on the floor where I dry my hair each day, more than before.
- Insidious weight gain. I don’t weigh myself, it’s a rule of mine for a happy life but I had noticed that I seemed a bit more fleshy around the middle, trousers were a touch tighter and I put it down to being less active. I had infact gained about 1.5 stone despite my good diet.
- Tired. Now I put this down to working for myself and being responsible for keeping the business going. I do work long hours and I do work long weeks, so it seemed natural to think that was the reason. But fighting the urge for a nap in the day started to become more frequent.
- Thinning eyebrows. It’s a thing. If the outside edges if your eyebrows are finer than the rest, chances are you may have a compromised thyroid,
- Lack of libido.
- Trouble swallowing at times or chocking on my own saliva (so classy!)
- Lack of oomph.
Since then I’ve learned about these other fascinating symptoms…
- Previously good handwriting gone to the wall (mine has)
- Brain fog
- Dry skin
- Compromised gut health
And then I learned about the other side effects of untreated AI conditions.
- If you have one auto immune condition, chances are you’ll have another.
- Chances of being a coeliac are increased.
- AI can’t be ‘made better’, but you can take it into remission.
- The chances of brain health issues like Alzheimer’s, dementia and Parkinson’s are increased.
- Cardiovascular conditions.
It was around this time that I read an old blog post I’d written some years before that made me realise I had to get over my phobia of taking the medicine, and remember that it didn’t have to be forever despite what my GP said. Here’s what I wrote on my Friday with Heidi blog that day.
I was in the system.
Since then I have been through the following tests to see what to work on first to get my health to an acceptable place.
- Stool test. That’s all you need to know. 🙂
- Thyroflex test from Dr T who invented and designed it. My thyroid by now was causing my metabolism to run at about 450 calories a day slower than it should for my height and weight. No wonder weight gain was easy.
- Antibodies blood test to see which foods are causing my body to build antibodies.
- Learned about Dr Datis Kharrazian and his AIP
- Started his AIP which I am recording as a weekly food diary here
So there you have it.
A summary of how I got here.
This blog will record my research, findings and how I react to them as I work to lower that antibody reading to something nearer 0. I have no idea how long this will take. But I am giving myself a year to see what impact I can make in 12 months.
Find out what the AIP is all about here.
Week One Reflection
