Do you change anything when you’re ill?

[Murphysmum]

It’s occurred to me before, probably as a result of something my diabetic dad said to me many years ago.

So I have a sore throat. Not any sore throat, oh no. This is the mother of all strep throats. Entirely unsurprising after a year of not being exposed to anything or anyone - the first bug my system encounters was gonna be a biggie. Thank goodness it’s only a sore throat.

Anyway, I feel mince. Rubbish. Something is properly working on me. Years ago, my no longer with us dad said to me that he knew when he was going to get ill as his glucose levels went all over the place. This got me wondering, does our energy requirement go up when we’re ill?

Since the start of my problems, I have a new found dread of getting sick. Like, properly sick. Flu etc. It worries me like never before because I know how bad I can feel ‘normally’, let alone with a serious illness.

I’m on T3 only and I notice the dips far more than I ever did. It worries me that if i were really ill ( and possibly not able to keep things down) how would I cope with that?

Does anyone have any experience of being very unwell (aside from thyroid issues obvs, we’ve all shared that pain!)?

Did you alter doses? Should you?

Just curious 😊

[Cooper27]

It'd make some sense. When I'm really sick I usually don't want to eat anything but easy carbs! Probably the worst thing you could eat really, but it's something that lets you get all the energy without too much work to break it down first.

[cazmania7]

I can’t answer your question but just to say that Diflam spray really helped me with thjs week with sore throat!

[Murphysmum in reply to cazmania7]

Ooh thanks. Will get some at the chemist!

[cazmania7 in reply to Murphysmum]

I used to live on strepsils. Diflam spray has saved my life on several occasions since finding it

[Murphysmum in reply to cazmania7]

I’m headed to Boots now... 😂

[greygoose]

Last time I had a really bad sore throat - November 2019 - I couldn't even swallow my own saliva, let alone pills! So, I didn't take anything for a week or more. But, I survived. Yeah, I was pretty ill - flu? Don't know. But, I've never had a throat quite as bad as that, before or since.

In nature, being ill like that - or even less - affects our conversion, so that we have less T3 available for use by the body, forcing the body to rest. So, missing a few doses of T3 would have very much the same effect. So, I wouldn't worry too much about that, if I were you. Just go with the flow, so to speak.

[Murphysmum in reply to greygoose]

Thanks greygoose

It’s not because of the current sore throat especially, more just that it got me thinking.

If I were to be really ill, as in flu, would my T3 requirements go up. But then I see the correlation between being ill and needing to rest, therefore going with the flow! Makes total sense 😊

[greygoose in reply to Murphysmum]

[Lotika in reply to Murphysmum]

Yeah, at risk of sounding like I’m making an 80s (or was it 90s?) film reference, I’m with the Goose! My understanding (it’s limited, I’m still learning!) is that when we are unwell, the healthy thyroid would help out by converting hormones into rT3 to conserve metabolism so that we’re not running around hunting and gathering when we need to be resting and letting the body heal. On a similar note, my cat likes to hunt her teddy bear before she eats. I think she experiences hunger and then has the (natural) urge to “hunt” as a response. Being siamese, she doesn’t want to get her paws dirty so she yells at me to dangle a teddy bear on a string for a while so that she can kick its ass before yowling by her food bowl... very odd, but I feel like I’m observing a direct link between hunger and hunting instinct. And if we are full of rT3, we won’t have the hunger which sends us off to hunt or gather!

[Murphysmum in reply to Lotika]

Ok, 1. It was definitely the 80s 😳2. You’re right, I’ve read that somewhere and again it makes sense

And 3. That’s cool but I definitely didn’t lose the urge to eat when my rT3 was high! Sadly 😂