For this year’s Bar-A-Thon I have decided to chronicle my ongoing battle with Thyroid and decided to call it ThyroScare. I guess you could call it a marathon of sorts to overcome this disease.
You can read the first post here
My story
It all began when I started to swell up like Aunt Marge. [And no, I don’t have Harry Potter for a nephew and even if I did, I wouldn’t be so mean to him.] I just meant that I finally understand what she must have felt like. [Ok so I didn’t float up to the ceiling and neither did the ministry of magic dispatch anyone to un-swell me! Oh no sir, I most definitely assure you that, that didn’t happen.]
Oh but I digress!
So, my mom was down in the Gaon on a visit to me and mentioned that I am looking quite chubby than norm. Now my mom always says that whenever she sees me, so I dismissed it with some disturbed grumblings to the inner self.
The uneasiness
But as the day wore down, I began to note a faint uneasiness and my clothes felt a little tight too. I especially had trouble taking off my rings and bracelet in the evening. Then came the breathlessness. I was walking to the apartment block with mom when I realised that climbing up to the first floor has left me gasping for breath. Weird!
After dinner, I couldnt sit down and kept feeling all the food was stuck all the way up to my throat. I started pacing in the apartment in a bid to let off some “air” for I thought I had a touch of acidity. I started to munch on some “churan”. A while later I took a pudin-hara – my rambaan cure to all stomach ills. No effect whatsoever.
Thats when I also realised that I havent been going to the loo as often as I do. I was drinking plenty of fluids but felt no urge to urinate. Hot Damn! what was wrong with me.
Popping Pills
I called up my cousin who is a whiz dietician and on hearing my symptoms, she asked me to lower salt intake and also advised a diuretic to make me pee. Since it was evening, she told me I should be prepared to be up whole night as soon as the meds will kick in.
Nope! Nada! nothing of that sort happened.
Well I am a google-generation so quickly hopped over to it next morning and figured that I have a massive case of bloating. Yes by now my ankles were swollen too. There was a huge list of foods to make it go down including tomatoes, cherries, cranberries, etc. I made some salad with raw tomatoes and hogged it all down. Would you believe it – two helping later, I felt a little lighter. I also munched my way through a bag of cranberries; got loosies in the process and Voila problem solved …………………. or so I thought. 😉
Joint Pains
While I wrestled with the bloating issue, life went on. Next week my bestie was in town for some work in her daughter’s college and yes she also commented I looked bloated up. I assured her I am going to a doc in a couple of days.
That evening my right wrist started hurting and by night the bicep and shoulder was hurting too. Next morning, I discovered that the pain was now in the back of the neck and a little lower down the back.
I am going to see an orthopedic doc – I declared to her as she was leaving that day! . By nightfall the pain travelled to the left shoulder. I rubbed Volini all over, applied some cold packs, did some Reiki and took a pain-killer.
Next morning the pain in my left forearm was excruciating. I was howling and rubbing Volini – nothing worked! I put a knee guard through my elbow for support, cradled my arm to my chest and called the hospital. The ortho was busy for a week; but my crying must have melted his PA’s heart for she asked me to come in as a walk-in.
The first “specialist” – The Ortho!!!
Two hours of waiting and wailing later, the doc saw me. He was astounded by the knee guard; heard me out patiently and then bent every joint every which way – no pain. He kneaded my shoulders, causing me to remark that he is an amazing masseuse (I think it was the pain meds). He laughed and told me there is nothing wrong anywhere so gave me a multi vitamin as he suspected weakness, a pain-killer as I was in obvious pain and asked to get my thyroid levels and Vitamin D checked.
The second “specialist” – The Gynaec!!!
Next morning, I got all the levels checked – haemoglobin, sugar, lipids, cholesterol and thyroid. I also made an appointment with my Gynaec as the bloating was scaring me. The painkiller did its work and pain was gone. The gynaec recommended a full abdomen ultrasound as she could see my upper body was heavily bloated though she could see no edema in my ankles. She also suspected Thyroid.
Ultrasound Test
One of my doc (cardiologist) friend’s wife is a radiologists and I ended up making an appointment with her for the US. She confirmed heavy fluid retention all over the upper body including some in/around the heart! A quick call to her husband who immediately put me on a heavy diuretic and ordered me to see him after 4 days.
BTW my thyroid test results were out and I had hypothyroidism as my readings were ……………………….
My TSH was 238; normal levels range between 0.4-5.0
Ever since I came to know I have thyroid, I seem to be talking to a lot of peeps in my social circle who too suffer from it. Guess what – none of them to date have had a reading like mine. It was way off the charts and was perhaps the reason behind the massive bout of bloating up.
I would love to hear from others who suffer from Thyroid – if you feel comfortable, please do share your initial TSH levels with me.
Another informative post on the pre symptoms of thyroid. Thank you shalz
Thanks for stopping by Deep 🙂
That was a really scary scenario. I’m waiting to read the next post in your series as I know many people in my circle who have thyroid.
Yup it sure was scary- thankfully all under control but the journey was an uphill one for that. I will be so happy to hear that my posts have helped others – please do share with your circle 🙂
238! That is some crazy shit! But, can this condition have such a sudden onset? My MIL has now this condition at such a late moment in her life but it is quite mild.
Yes its quite crazy. Recently someone in my social circle has had TSH of 277 and is in the acute throws of Thyroid – so apparently it can bloat up to this level without any warnings!
Did not know that! Scary
I hear you!!!
238 as compared to the normal of 0.4 -5!! OMG!! That’s truly scary! Hope the TSH levels are back to normal now. Thanks for sharing your experience, have no clue about this ‘thyroscare’. Take care, girl!
Thanks so much Shilpa- yeah I am now down to 3.4 which is in between the range and quite happy to be there.
238 !!!!!!!! First I thought it must be 23.8 and was some typo. But after reading other comments, oh my God. That’s really really high. Mine was nothing compared to this. Good to know it is in range now. Take Care.
Thanks Nami- it was weird to see that high numbers and get no reaction from the doctors – I am also very happy that things are getting back to normal now!! 🙂
You’ve probably just recovered from a big blow, Shalini. Thanks for sharing your Thyroid experience in detail. I’m sharing this so that as many people could extract a bit of awareness from it. It’s good that your TSH is under control now. I can understand what you would have undergone then.
Thanks so much Ash and its awesome that you would be sharing this as I am hoping it will give answers to people like me who had no info to work on from and just couldnt get a fix of this at all.
omg! thats scary high! i am so glad you have found remedies to deal with this. i cant imagine the pain or the fear. hugs.
Thanks for the love Ishieta
Yes thankfully it’s now under control and I am sharing my experiences with others, hopefully to help them out
This must have been tough. And scary. I was diagnosed with Thyroid this february but none of my symptoms are anywhere as drastic as yours. Maybe it’s because mine is just a borderline thing.
I had no idea initially how abnormal this was. I am glad yours wasn’t this high. do take good care of your diet n fitness. that’s what helps to alleviate the symptoms n let one live am easy life with it.
omg that sounded very scary. Glad you are okay now.
Thanks Suzy. Am much better and in better control of things.
Sounds really scary, especially when at first you didn’t know what was wrong and what was causing it. I’m glad you were able to get the medical help you needed and able to get those levels down.
Thanks Raney… I am glad too for the levels to get down and my sanity back. It’s been a crazy past one year for me. Just getting back on track and am so grateful for it.
As I am reading all what happened to you, I am so scared of this. I am glad you had good people around and the diagnosis went right.
It was scary especially as there was no understanding of what was happening. It took a while but finally things are moving in the right direction.
I am so happy to know that. May things get better for you.
OMG! It was so high. Glad to know that you are back to normal Shalini.
Thanks Shilpa
Wow! That reading is way too high! My sister’s was between 7 and 8 and my MIL had a reading of 12. Even with that high reading they faced a lot of problems. I can’t even imagine your pain, Shalini! Glad you got the test and started treatment.
Ouch!!! Thyroid is seeming to be everywhere. I have been hearing everyone telling me about their relatives, friends and colleagues in the same boat. Its most astonishing to see it so widely spread. And each case is weird and weirder. I have had some chats and messages from peeps about their conditions and its left me pretty bamboozled.