I feel so ill and have had enough.

[honeybea22]

Hi everyone, I have had an underactive thyroid for over 20 odd years now...but after fighting breast cancer in 2011, the chemo made my heart go way to fast and it hasn't stopped...each time I go to hospital dr's cannot pin point why my heart does this, so they blame my thyroid meds, every time I go in they say oh it must be them you must reduce them, well they halved my dose in the end and I told them you are only going to make me feel ill again, but they never ever listen, these consultants go off and send you home with a smug smile because they can write on my notes its the thyroid meds causing my heart problems, but it isn't, I keep telling them this time and time again and i'm sick of it. Feel really let down by these dr's as they just don't seem to want to know. One hospital visit they reduced it from 150mg a day to 125mg, next visit down to 100mg, next visit down to 75mg, now I knew this was way too low and I told them straight,, but they didn't want to know.

Anyway here I am, feeling so ill its like i'm going to faint all the time, im so weak sometimes I can't hold myself up I feel so ill, I have other health problems so some of these things im feeling could be down to them. I can't sleep, but im so tired its got to the stage where I could sit down and cry...i'm so weak, but the worst thing I have is overheating, I am burning from the inside out to the stage I feel i'm going to faint. I think this is something to do with the chemo because ive had it since then, its just worse now...I do a bit of housework and ive had it, I actually have to lay down after i'm so weak....this is causing many arguments because i'm not doing the things I normally do, everything is such a great effort to do, its like i'm walking through quicksand, constantly trying to pull myself up but I just can't.

I have had my thyroid blood test and they only told my my TSH level, which was 21.04 I know this is high, but don't know if its super high and will make me feel like this?? Dr has upped my meds from 75mg to 100mg a day, I know that this is still not enough, I need to be nearer to 150mg, but I have to go by what the dr says.

Could this be why I feel so bloody unwell, I feel absolutely terrible.

Thanks

Honey xx

[nightingale-56]

Hi Honeybea I so feel for you as I am going through much the same since an antibiotic compromised my adrenal glands. With the help of a Nutritionist/Doctor I have improved them a bit, but am getting no help from official channels even though letters have been written to relevant bodies. Are all your vitamins and minerals in a good place. Many on this site know more about this than I do, so hope someone more knowledgeable will help you out.

[humanbean]

I am so sorry to hear you feel so ill. The medical profession appear to be torturing you!

The first thing to say...

Your TSH is much too high, so no wonder you feel so awful! Increasing your thyroid medication will lower your TSH and should make you feel better. Most hypothyroid people feel best with a TSH somewhere in the region of 0.5 - 1.5.

As for your heart going too fast...

Have you ever had blood tests done for nutritional deficiencies? If you haven't, please ask your doctor for blood tests for vitamin B12, vitamin D, folate, ferritin and iron (although getting iron tested is rare, so the doctor may refuse). If you can persuade your doctor to do the Active B12 test (which is more accurate) rather than the traditional one, it will help.

Are you taking supplements? If you aren't, then please don't start until AFTER you have had blood tests.

Once the tests have been done, ask for a printout of them including the reference ranges. Without the reference ranges the results are little better than random numbers. If your surgery refuses to give you your results on paper then ask for an appointment to view your medical records. You are legally entitled to get copies of results for a nominal charge, and you are also legally entitled to view your records for free. If surgeries are given this choice they usually prefer to just give you the results, which is what you want anyway.

Once you have the results, post them here.

I suffered problems with tachycardia (fast heart rate) for most of last year. In my case it was cured by fixing my low iron. Since my ferritin (a measure of a person's iron stores) was in range (but very low in range) I was told it wasn't responsible for my problem but the doctors were wrong.

Don't despair. There are things that can be done to help you. Getting sufficient thyroid medication and getting your minerals and vitamins up to the right levels is a good starting point, and there are other things that may need to be done. But I don't think it is a good idea to get too swamped right at the start.

[dwsmith]

Can I ask you how fast your heart was beating before they lowered the meds?

[honeybea22]

Hi everyone, sorry for taking so long to reply.....I ended up becoming very ill just after i wrote the post above, and AGAIN the Dr's would not listen to me....i became ill with a chest infection that got worse and worse, my g.p. said i have pleurisy but it really knocked me off my feet to the stage where i could hardly breathe. Heart still racing but my oxygen levels ( SATS) kept dropping very low! For 6 weeks i went back and forth to my g.p. and my local hospital asking for help, i told the i was suffocating and something had gone wrong in my airways or chest....they sent me home saying i had asthma, the consultant and i almost had a stand up argument because he insisted it was asthma and i insisted it wasn't ...... in the end i could do nothing but sleep on my sofa in an upright position struggling to breathe...i eventually just said to my husband ' get me some help...i'm dying'!!! I got taken back to hospital and i had gone into respiratory distress by now, and couldn't even talk for lack of breath, lots of rushing around and eventually they found i had been asking for help for my breathing because i actually had a blood clot in my leg that had now travelled up through my heart into my lungs, i almost died....i could not even transfer myself from the bed to a standing position. I have been ill for so long now recovering, but still my heart races on . I cannot believe those dr's kept telling me its just an asthma attack, why the bloody hell did they not do more tests just to check, i begged them to help me. Lost all faith in them now.

I am now getting lots of ectopic beats and only last week i took myself off to hospital again as i had had painful ectopics for 5 days solid, all night and all day with out a single break and i was just absolutely exhausted. My chest is getting very sore as the ectopics are hurting and it feels like my heart is being squeezed sometimes, sooo uncomfortable. But they did an ECG which showed all the ectopics but nothing bad, so i was sent home and i guess this is how my life is going to be, some days i feel so bad it takes every ounce of my energy just to get out of bed and get dressed, then going downstairs to do the basic houseworks just knocks me out .....not a very nice way to live but i am grateful i have my life.

Oh one other thing, i wore once of those holter monitors so they could see what my heart was up to.....they said that my heart would beat at 177bpm and this mainly happened when i moved about, so ok yes i'm unfit but i have been ill for the last five years, but it also shows when i'm resting in bed it goes too fast, my resting heart rate is 90/100bpm and thats also with being on beta blockers. But the consultant wrote that my heart goes up to 177bpm and i don't need to see this lady again!!! Well thanks for the help Dr, you try living a normal life when your heart is at 177bpm, i can barely walk let alone do anything else.