Category:

Hashimoto’s

Logging your symptoms

by Kathy Joy June 17, 2019

When I first hit menopause, the doctor told me, “This is how it is going to be. Get used to it. ” They offered all kinds of pills for all kinds of symptoms. Allergy pills, pain pills, sleeping pills, anxiety pills. They all had side effects and they offer more pills or creams for the side effects.

Here is what I found. To get real clarity as to what is going on in your body, you need to make a log of all your symptoms. Different hormones affect separate systems and you have to treat the systems one at a time. It has been over 2 years but I am feeling better than ever. Not like when I was 40, but I am getting there. So first, log all your symptoms with the date at the top. Start at the top of your head and go down to your toes. I had 39 symptoms. Across from each symptom put a number from 1 to 10 on how much it bothers you. I realized that some of my symptoms were a 9 or 10 while others were only a minor nuisance of 1 or 2. Write them all down. Don’t forget to include how you feel. Here is an example of when I first started compared to a year later. By scoring them with numbers, you can get a better idea of your progress of lack thereof. Remember to put the date at the top. It helps when you go back and review.

Some symptoms are directly related to your gut like allergies, bloating, constipation, or diarrhea. Other symptoms are related to your liver or thyroid like tiredness, dry skin, hair loss. Starting with one system at a time can be a gentler way of healing. There are specific ways of detoxing and healing for each of those systems. It is also important to eliminate foods for a period of time and/or add healing foods for a particular system. Example was that my gut couldn’t handle lemon juice while it was healing but it was very important for detoxing the liver which I did after I got the gut under control.

I found that eliminating all alcohol, dairy and grains helped to fast track the gut healing. Some tests I could get the doctors to order and others, like the 3 day poop test, I had to find a lab that would allow me to pay out of pocket. Cost a couple hundred bucks but once I had the lab test results, the doctor agreed to prescribe the cure. I tested for bacterial, parasites and viral. Don’t believe every test result due to false negatives. This has happened several times. I had both H Pylori (didn’t show up on the 1 day test but did on the 3 day test) and parasites. Once treated for those, my energy increased like a missile being fired. The headaches started going away. I started feeling good again.

After each treatment, log your symptoms again. Little by little, they start falling off. The headaches are not as frequent or as severe. Your hands, knees or feet stop feeling so achy or maybe the arthritis is not as bad. Maybe like me, the body stops attacking the thyroid. After the gut healing, the liver detox was next along with detoxing the skin with a nice soft dry brush every 2-3 days. I got this brush at the horse store. I like the one they use to brush the little horse’s face. It is nice and soft on my skin but removes all the dead skin. I moved toxic chemicals out of my house. Vinegar and baking soda became my favorite products. I am now working on balancing my adrenals to stop the cravings and the blood sugar racing up and down like a rollercoaster. I wish you luck with this journey and want you to know I am here if you need someone to talk to. Let’s dream of a day when we don’t have symptoms and just feel great. Till then, my friend.

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Another Lab Test this morning………..

by Kathy Joy May 6, 2019

written by Kathy Joy

Get up while it is still dark, throw on whatever clothes are hanging on the hook, grab sneakers and my blood work papers. Hopefully, I can get there before the line is out the door on a Monday morning. At least my hair is combed.

I always wait until after they draw my blood to take my thyroid pill. They say it doesn’t matter but I wonder how a fresh pill in the bloodstream wouldn’t throw off the results. We are doing T3, T4, TSH and D. Why not TG and TPO antibodies?? My levels on the last blood test exceeded 900 which is the highest they test, so could they be 3000, 10,000? Who knows. Elevated TG and TPO antibodies is a sign of hashimotos. Isn’t it the antibodies that attack the thyroid and why we have so many symptoms? Why don’t they track it?? I was told, “It is because of reliability of the test and there isn’t a treatment for hashimoto. It is a condition, not a disease.” My response, “BS”.

There is a little voice inside me that says there is an answer to the root cause of all of this. I have been doing a lot of research and have learned a lot over the last two plus years. Dr. Izabella Wentz is a pharmacologist that also has hashimotos and she has a lot of great information for free. Special thanks to her, I have reduced a lot of my symptoms by following some of her suggestions. Here are a few that I do. I am NOT recommending anyone else do this because I am not a doctor. LOL.

NAC to help alleviate allergies when they flare up. Digestive enzymes if you see big food particles in your poopy. The better you digest your food, the better you feel. Baking soda is a great scrub for your teeth, skin, face, etc. Once you get used to the taste, you look forward to how clean you feel afterwards. And last but not least, get up an move every day. Even if it is walking in circles in the bedroom. MOVE.

Well, that is all for today. I am tired from getting up so early. Time for a 10 minute nap. Oh, and don’t take a nap longer than 20 minutes or you will be up at 2am…haha

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Popsicle Toes to Sweaty Elbows

by Kathy Joy May 2, 2019

written by Kathy Joy

Did you know that an elbow could sweat? All of a sudden, I look down and there is water dripping from my elbows. What is going on here? I have to change my shirt again. As I look towards the door, I see Niles and Charlie looking at me patiently as the clock keeps moving forward hoping I won’t be late.

For the last 30 years, I have been diagnosed as borderline hypothyroid with a small nodule on the thyroid. No treatment necessary. The worst symptom was that my hands and feet were always COLD. I wore a sweater in Florida all summer long. The trainer at the gym would work me even harder because he could never make me sweat. My feet were so cold that my sweetie used to tell me to cover those “popsicle toes” with socks in bed.

Until, the day when menopause reared it’s head in my life. My hormones went out of wack, which threw my thyroid out of wack and I ended up in bed for 5 months with my hair falling out all over the house. Allergies so bad that it took a box of tissues every night. By the way, how can you be stuffy and the nose runs at the same time? The good part was with menopause my hands and feet were warm like everyone else. Now I sweat at the gym, in bed, all around the house. Even my elbows sweat. Figure that out!!

So in 30 years I went from popsicle nose and toes to peeling off all my clothes and sitting in front of the refrigerator to get cool. Poor sweetie, now I toss and turn and throw off all the covers and he is the cold one. At least Niles, the frog butler, and Charlie, my stuffed furr baby, are very patient with me and don’t say a word. LOL

Me in the cool waters of the smokey mountains.

“Every problem has an answer”

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Why didn’t my grandmother tell me this?

by Kathy Joy April 22, 2019

written by Kathy Joy

As I have reached middle age I have noticed some major changes in my life. Changes that I never would have guessed when I was in my 30’s. I saw my mother get old. I saw my grandmother get old. I noticed the weight gain, the wrinkles and the grey hair. All of the visible things. That was what I thought getting old was all about.

I was so naive! Talk about a fart in a blizzard. I looked at life so simply and I only saw the visible. Well the blizzard is in full swirl now. Now that I am over 50, I get to experience all of the “INVISIBLE” things that we go through.

….Things like all of a sudden when you get really sweaty that it seems like you are melting like the witch in the Wizard of Oz.

……When you can’t remember what you had yesterday for lunch but remember the dress you wore to the prom. ……When you feel your body getting all soft and flabby and you have to buy a spanx to keep it all together.

……When you can’t hear what other people are saying OR you can hear them, but it is all mumbled. Maybe when people say you are talking too loud.

……The topper to all of this is when your hair is falling out so much that you start to notice the scalp of all the old woman in the checkout line in front of you. Then you wonder if the person behind you is looking at your scalp.

So now you get this vision of a soft, wet, half-bald person wandering around the grocery store saying what? what? Where is the bread?

IS THIS WHAT GETTING OLD IS ALL ABOUT??? I refuse to accept it!

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