About Us
Name: Janet
- Username: ChEMom
- Postion: Children & Thyroid forum
I'm Janet, "Chemical Engineer Mom." An-almost-45 year old homeschooling mother of 5.
I believe my adrenal and thyroid problems have been spiraling down for years. Five years ago when I was pregnant with my youngest son I caught mycoplasma pneumonia from my other 2 sons, during my first trimester. When our son was born, he aspirated meconium and we spent a very stressful week in the hospital with him on oxygen and meds.
About 11 months after my son was born I got the flu, for the first time in years. I lost about 7 lbs. and have never gained it back.
Weight has been an issue for most of my life. I have always been short and "skinny." As a child, I remember the pediatrician pointing at the growth chart and telling my mother not to give me potato chips or dessert because I needed to gain weight - yeah, riiiiggght!
I have to keep my mouth shut about the weight problem because everyone I know is trying to lose weight. It's very frustrating to gain a pound or two only to lose it again.
In 2006 I started charting my BBT's (basal body temps.). I was surprised to see temps. in the 96's and low 97s. During 9 months of charting, I only got above 98.0 ONE time. My regular nurse practioner checked my TSH in May and it was "normal."
My fatigue got worse as the year went on. I was sleeping 10 hours a day and waking up exhausted. I did some research and was suspecting thyroid problems because of my low temps. I found a new family practice doc. He initially was sympathetic and said he would find the cause of my fatigue, but it would take some time. He got off on the "rheumatoid arthritis" tangent. Problem with that is I had no joint pain and no swollen joints. He wrote lab orders, but for thyroid he only wrote TSH. When I got home, I wrote "Free T3, Free T4, Ferritin" on the orders and faxed them back to him. Thankfully, he agreed to my additions.
When my labs came back, the doc didn't even bother to call me, much less schedule a follow-up appointment - he mailed my results to me. And I couldn't believe that he had circled my TSH and wrote "normal." (I was fried, because the lab used old ranges for the TSH - if they had used the 2003 revised ranges, I would have come back HIGH) THEN he circled my fasting glucose and said I should have that checked for possible diabetes. Now, these labs were NON-fasting labs. That's what the rocket-scientist said in his office. So the morning of the blood draw, I drank a whole can of regular Coke to wake up. Gee, think that might have affected the gluocse test, which wasn't even on the lab orders??!! but I digress...
Sooo, back to the Internet, and Bingo! I found STTM! Thank you Janie!! I posted my lab results and Janie immediately agreed I was hypo. I also took the flashlight test, and failed. So I ordered the saliva test, and found out how bad my poor adrenals were.
I found out this year that my aldosterone was almost nonexistent, and my renin was above the high-end of the range. So I started on Florinef. But the problem was I should have noticed that my sodium was mid-to-upper in range, while my potassium was at the bottom of the range. So Florinef raised my sodium more and crashed my potassium. My pulse went up, up, up as did my BP. Now I supplement potassium daily.
I still struggle with a poor appetite, and when I get stressed, my weight drops more. I know my diet needs work, and that's my focus for the rest of this year.
I should mention that in the midst of my health challenges, I, like so many other moms, started looking around at my family and wondering....
My oldest daughter had been struggling with severe depression and fatigue. Of course the pediatrician wrote it all off as "teenage angst." I didn't. After getting her treated for adrenal fatigue and hypothyroid, lo and behold, my happy, smiling daughter returned.
Next came my husband. I had him do the saliva test. He came back with stage 4 fatigue and Hashimoto's.
Now I am looking at my oldest son, who was officially diagnosed last year with ADHD. And I'm looking to get him tested for adrenals and thyroid as soon as we have the money. He breaks my heart. He is such a wonderful boy, but without meds, his impulsive behavior hurts others.
So that's my story, for now...