Well it is now 6 weeks since I had my thyroid removed and it has been a mixed experience. I am still waiting for the very last of the swelling to go down but I do have 95% of my voice back, but I still cannot shout.
I have been on 100 Levo for 5 weeks and when I went to see my Endo a week ago I explained to her that I am still suffering from almost constant aches and pains, somewhere on my body and that my energy levels were too low to be any use at all. I hope she realised that this dry haired, pale faced person before her was not my 'normal'. Anyhow she was reluctant to increase the dose too much so soon but did agree to putting this up to 112.5. I had had a full blood test before I went to see her and she was happy with my B12 and Vit D. She did prescribe me with a vit/min/probiotic/ginseng/etc etc. supplement.
She did mention that my blood sugar level was too high, and that I needed to watch now the amount of sugar and fat in my diet. This was a huge shock as although since switching from hyper to hypo I have put on some weight, I do have a relatively (for an exhausted poorly person) good diet. All I could see was that she was trying to stop me from enjoying my bread and marmite (one of the last pleasures left at the moment). I was so depressed - now she was talking about diabetes!
My GP had asked me to call in at the surgery on the way home from the hospital but I was so down - I guess I was hoping for a bigger dose increase and an end to the symptoms and not to be told that I had to punish myself even further, so I just went home. I got home at lunchtime and simply went to bed. I spent the weekend feeling so low and depressed and then went to see my GP on Monday. What a relief! He told me that it was far too soon to be worrying about the sugar levels and that the only thing to worry about now was getting to feel well again and getting happy. He told me that as soon as I am happy and well everything else will fall into place. He was so right - this made me feel much happier and a happier person does not just 'go to bed'.
As I left the surgery he told me firmly to now go to the bakers and chose myself the prettiest cake in there, to then take it home and sit in the sunshine and enjoy it with a cup of tea (the French think we do nothing but drink tea - but he is sort of right). He told me to do what made me feel better and happy and to be as kind to myself as possible. I cannot tell you how much better this has made me feel. My GP is a holistic doctor and is also able to prescribe homoeopathic cures over the years he has been a complete rock. The main thing is that he listens and the average consultation is between 45 mins and an hour (the waiting room is full of happy people with their novels, no one minds the wait as they know that it is due to extreme care being taken). Anyway he has said that he rarely guarantees anything medicinal but in this case he guarantees that he will make sure I get back to being even better than I was before. Fingers crossed - but it is nice to feel someone else is assuming some real responsibility for this.
Something else I learnt was that the sugar results were probably not accurate as I had eaten before the test. When I have been for my purely thyroid tests the nurses always ask me to eat plenty before I go as they have such trouble finding blood when I am starved. So next time I am tested (in a couple of months) I am going to starve myself for 12 hours and get this sugar thing knocked on the head.
I do feel a bit better this week, I assume this is too soon for the slightly increased dose but it could be the supplements. The main thing is that I am trying to be kind to me and not deny myself things (being denied things makes you crave them anyhow). I don't (luckily) go to work and so I can rest up in the morning. I do write from home - and I have started to try and get a little more order to this and achieve a bit more than I have been doing.
So I just hope that I can carve out a life for now and wait until my dose can be raised (as I am sure it will have to be) even if it has to be at a steady rate of increase.
I know it is very early days - but clearly the 'being kind to yourself' has been the best advice I have had and I just hope that everyone out there can just remember amongst all the pain, anguish, frustration and sadness, to look for something to just make themselves feel a bit better, even for a short while. As my doctor says - it is 'moral' that will lead the cure.
I hope everyone has a better day - and if nothing else I recommend a cake in the sunshine!
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