Ugh Sinus Infection? Mild Flu?

My husband had some flu-like sinus bug for a few days and I thought I was lucky and completely dodged it. Well yesterday I woke up and my sinuses were clogged, throat was hurting from all the drainage and I just felt really out of it. DARN! I was really hoping that I'd missed this one. I don't feel achy or anything like that. Just clogged up, no taste, no smell and my ears are popping when I yawn. I took some extra HC and I think I'll be stress dosing slightly until I feel better. I did a lot of shoveling the night before I got sick. Maybe that's not a coincidence?

It could be a lot worse, but maybe it hasn't completely hit me yet...hahah

I forgot to mention...

...that I went to the eye doc last week some time. I got really sick of this light being stuck in my vision. The one lasted nearly 4 days. I finally found someone online that has this exact same thing as me, but sadly this thread was from 2007 and no one found anything wrong with his eyes. These lights only started AFTER I was diagnosed with the posterior vitreous detachment, so one would think there's a connection.

I saw the retina specialist I had seen originally who diagnosed the White Without Pressure and an impending vitreous detachment. This time he told me that the White Without Pressure looks really odd and it's not something he's ever seen before...Um. thanks? haha Now he wants me to see one of the more experienced retina specialists who has "25 years more experience than me". He said that since he's never seen this before, that he wanted someone else to take a look to see what we should do. He said that if this other doctor thinks it's necessary, then they may want to do pre-emptive laser surgery on it. I'm not exactly sure what is weird about it. He just said that it looks really odd, shiny, and very iridescent? These are the best, most recommended ophthalmologists in this area, so if he hasn't seen something then this definitely needs checked out. This doctor probably sees at least hundreds of eyes every week! He said that once he hears from the other doctor, then in 25 years when another case of whatever I have comes through the door, he'll know what to do...wtf? No one really has this? haha

The doc said that the lights I'm seeing may not be related to the White Without Pressure, but since I'm having some problems it's all the more reason to be seen. My appointment is February 15th.

Too Much Snow

We got A LOT of snow. It looks like up to 2 feet is outside right now and I have NO IDEA how we are going to shovel it all. Last time I tried to shovel snow, my heart rate nearly hit 200, I began to shake and I thought I was going to vomit and collapse. It took me nearly an hour to recover and that was only 10 inches of snow!

I took my beta blocker already, so that when I go out it should be working. I'm going to stress dose for this too with the HC and see what happens. I do not recommend anyone do what I'm doing... I'm just absolutely nuts/insane and don't want to see my husband do all the work. We both have "heart problems" now and I hate to see him get stuck with this.

Update: Shoveling went really really well. My heart was definitely up there, but I did not feel so fatigued,short of breath and faint. We still have another round or 2 to go, but I'll be okay. I did better than my husband...It HAS to be the beta-blocker. There is nothing else that is different and HC has never helped my heart problems.

Here are my blood pressures Sitting. 105/73 HR 89 Standing 117/69 HR 92 What a difference!

How'd that happen?

I noticed my pants were feeling kind of loose, so I jumped on the scale today. I've lost like 10 pounds in approximately 2 weeks or less. Holy cow...This is not good though as it is a sign that I'm ready to crash or something. Maybe it's my adrenals? Maybe it's all the emotional stress I've been under? I haven't weighed this "little" since before hormone replacement.

I guess I'll just enjoy it while it lasts because I know it will all be back sooner than later. My appetite has been pretty awful lately, so I bet it's that. I'd love to stay at this weight, but it's not going to happen and technically I'm underweight too...

Weird Bumps On My Foot

Yesterday morning I woke up with 2 really weird looking shiny, red bumps on my left foot. Now there must be a connection to what happened the night prior. I was getting dinner ready when suddenly I had a huge hive form on my lip. It was so big that it was actually difficult to talk and eat without hitting it! I thought it was really odd, but went to sleep and then woke up to the bumps on my foot...LOL

We will see what happens here. They are not itchy at all, but I guess slightly painful and they look really really shiny. If they dont' go away within a week I'll be calling that dermatologist I saw a few years back for my hair. She sucked, but at least she knows her stuff and can give me a proper diagnosis. I'm hoping it's just a fungus or something stupid that will go away with some cream.

My Sickness/Life Timeline...

This is a little timeline of how things progressed with me personally and my poor health. There are a lot of correlations with what was happening to me personally and with my health deteriorating.

I'm starting as far back as 4th grade because I already started to show signs that something wasn't quite right.


4th grade--Anxiety. Terrible anxiety. I would go to the guidance counselor every morning and cry. I still (to this day) have NO idea what I was scared of. I told the lady that I was always so stressed out feeling and that if I had any homework due that day, I was nervous I didn't do it right. I also had a male teacher and my counselor thought maybe that was my problem, but I never thought so...

5th grade--Completely fine. No anxiety about school except in math! haha

6th grade--Anxiety again. My grandmother died during the school year and I had a lot of trouble grieving. I would just bust out in tears during the middle of class if she gave us a hard homework assignment. I could not handle any type of stress whatsoever. This is also the year your body starts to change and I was not developing like the other girls in school. I had zero breasts and did not even need a bra, but I bought them anyway...


7th grade--This was an interesting year. I started to make new friends as all the schools come together in this grade. I ate very poorly during lunch (1 choco crunch ice cream bar every day) and I gained A TON of weight. At my heaviest I was about 150 and a size 10-12. Prior to this I was always VERY skinny and could eat anything I really wanted without worrying about the waist/butt growing. Not anymore after this year. I started working out with Taebo and I lost about 15 pounds! I looked good too.

I believe I got my cycle this year, but I cannot remember...lol It was either 7th or 8th grade.

8th grade--Nothing notable here.

9th grade--I really started to become a woman finally. Dang I was a late bloomer I think or something. This was the first time when I finally was attracted to the opposite sex. It's odd because other girls in 6th grade had C cup breasts, having sex and were WAY more developed than me 3 years later....

I got contacts this year and no longer had ugly, hideous glasses I was hiding behind. I hate those things! Why do parents give their children ugly glasses?

10th grade--I started to date people very casually. My first BF broke my heart and dumped me after 2 weeks. (haha) Then I started dating his friend a few months later and we were together for a little while, but nothing of substance ever came out of it (we were what 15? lol). I remember struggling with my weight in this grade a little more, but I was a lot better choosing foods rather than buying an ice cream sandwich every day.

The summer going into 11th grade is when I decided to join marching band. I had to go to band camp for 2 weeks. I almost died every single day there. Seriously. No exaggeration at all. I felt so ill and would almost faint every damn day because it was SOO hot. The only thing that kept me going was carrying a water bottle on my shoulder and I would sip on it all day long. I brought a HUGE water cooler (yes a cooler) and then filled my water bottle up from that. I had to drink ICE cold water or I didn't want it. The water from the fountains was not cold enough... haha

11th grade--This is where my life starts to take a bad turn. Lots of TERRIBLE things happened to me this year. I had multiple people take advantage of me or treat me like dirt while dating them. The anorexia and ephedra abuse started after one of these events and it was my way of trying to gain control of my life. I know it. One boyfriend was very controlling who only ever wanted me to give him head/hand jobs. I was just a piece of meat to this jerk. When I tried to finally break up with him, he told me he was going to kill himself. /sigh That was really stressful and he made my life a living hell for a long time.

As this was going on, a person very close, whom I trusted took advantage of me in the worst way, which was more than I could handle. I would have rather dealt with the controlling, crazy, insane boyfriend.

I also started to go "goth", but not really. I wore regular clothes, but just wore a bunch of chains around my neck and dyed the front part of my hair blonde (like Rogue from Xmen). I think this was my way of telling people to leave me the hell alone. I also did this so that if someone actually wanted to date me, they'd have to accept me for me (with chains). haha


Most of 11th grade was me trying to deal with the severe lightheadedness I experienced on a daily basis. Walking to class was a chore. I'd feel like I was going to fall down all the time, but once I was sitting, I would always recover. I think I took the ephedra because it actually made me feel better since it raises blood pressure. There were a few nights I thought I was going to die from the intense headaches it gave me on occasion. They were so bad I would bang my head on the wall...

Eventually my periods went AWOL. I went into premature menopause from not eating. I did not get them back until my senior year and I cannot even fully remember when that happened. My friends thought I was pregnant as I was drinking and peeing so much. Nope..not pregnant. I was just really freaking messed up.

In June, I had to go to prom with one of my ex's because we had planned to go together while we were still dating. I was in very poor shape and had lost A LOT of weight (from not eating). It took all my energy to make it through that night and through the after prom (which I should have skipped).

Then one day I woke up and decided I no longer wanted to wear the chains. I dyed my hair very dark red and started to dress nice. I bought nicer jeans and shirts.

I think it was the summer into my 12th grade year that I nearly died at an amusement park. I seriously CANNOT remember if it was going into my senior year or if it was the summer after I graduated... At this amusement park, I fell down and blacked out. My entire body turned blue and I could not hear or see anything. I was looking at myself, looking at myself. I can still picture my face plastered against the storm drain on the asphalt.

We went to the first aid station and my BP was 60/40 and I was so very ill. The lady there said that I must be really dehydrated and to take it easy. I took like a 4 hour nap and did not even realize I had slept at all. Even after all that rest, I continued to faint over and over again and I called my parents to come get me. I was VERY thin then. I think I was fitting into a size 2 very easily.

12th grade (Senior Year)--I remember coming back to school and everyone was amazed by how much weight I had lost. Damn! I started to get A LOT of attention from guys, but I really wasn't that interested. I did not date many people during high school. More weird stuff happened to me though which seems to be inevitable these days. I had someone take advantage of me while I had been drinking a little bit too much vodka, which is why I now hate to drink at parties or in restaurants etc. I don't like to feel out of control.

No one wanted to take me to homecoming or prom. Sad huh? I made a shirt that said, "I need a homecoming date" , but had no takers. How pathetic! I begged someone I met at a Sevendust concert to come to my homecoming and he did. I never went to my prom because you weren't allowed to go solo! /sigh I was not ugly either, so I'm not sure why no one wanted to take me. I don't think I have any pictures uploaded on my computer of myself when I was in high school or I'd put one up here. I looked damn good for homecoming...haha

My health was NOT good. I was still going through periods where I'd eat and then not eat. This was really hard on my body and anytime it would get food, I'd put on so much weight it was not funny.

I hated myself so much during this year and would have break downs in the bathroom on a regular basis. Anytime I had any stress, I'd just collapse.

I did go on to win 1st place in the school's literature magazine for a poem I written. I was doing A LOT of writing during these past few years as I was struggling to understand why certain things happened to me in my life. Some of those poems are dark as hell and would make for absolutely amazing songs. Some day that will happen.

I finished school with a 3.8 GPA. I always did really well in school even with all these health problems.

After high school--My parents forced me to go to college, so I decided to just go to community college. I did not even try to get into any large colleges as I did not want to go. I did not fill out a SINGLE college app...haha

I started meeting new people from school/work and continued to date and get into more serious relationships. I always dated older guys, somehow thinking they were more mature...LOL Some of them were good, some of them were just flat-out stupid and some of them were bad, bad, bad. haha

I also started to work full time at a cell phone company. It was out of my comfort zone yet I really wanted to try it out. Even though my boss was a jerk, it was one of the best things I ever did. I didn't think I could succeed at it, but I absolutely kicked butt at selling phones. I was top in sales almost every month. I was making quite a bit of money considering I was single and still living at home. After stupid relationship, after stupid relationship, I met my to-be husband. All that dating finally worked as I met the man I was supposed to be with for the rest of my life! That is what I was looking for all along and I think that scared most of the men I dated away.

We got married very quickly.

My health started to get much worse. I could no longer work because standing up for long periods of time was next to impossible. Retail jobs were killing me and I quit working.

A few months after quitting work, my sister found out she had a malignant brain tumor and I went into a dark depression for months. I did not want to eat, talk or even leave the house. Only after she was given a good prognosis, did I come out of my shell. This had such a huge affect on me as I thought I was going to lose my sister. My sister and I had been through A LOT because we shared a room our entire lives from age 6 until I moved out when I got married at 19.

I believe that brings us to speed to where this blog started and it should give everyone a better understanding of how things progressed with my health. I've been sick for A LONG TIME. This is not something new which is why I think I have something seriously wrong with me. I am not old (25) and for someone to be sick as young as me, there has to be an explanation for all of this. I just haven't been able to figure it out just yet. One day..One day..

Beta-Blockers, Norepinephrine and POTS

The EP I saw for POTS (Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) gave me a prescription for Metoprolol ER 25mg tabs. I haven't been taking them because I was a little afraid to. Well one day I just about had it and decided to try it.

It took about 30-45 minutes for it to kick in, but when it did I felt so much calmer. My heart chilled out and I could actually function. I was good for the next few days and didn't bother taking the beta-blocker.

There was another day where I took it and once again, it not only makes my heart feel better, but I feel much more relaxed overall.

Today I knew almost as soon as I woke up, it was going to be a bad "POTS" day. I took the beta blocker and once again, I feel sooooo much calmer. My husband asked me if I feel any different when I take it and I told him ABSOLUTELY. It not only calms my heart way down, but I just have a better generalized feeling about life. It's odd! Then he told me that beta-blockers block norepinephrine, which may be what is causing BOTH my POTS and the anxiety. HOLY COW! Maybe he is right.

My first google search leads me to a musician website where people take beta-blockers before performances, solo recitals, concerts etc. I've always been unable to handle stress NO MATTER WHAT dose of HC I've been on. When I used to play 1st and 2nd trumpet in the high school ensemble and jazz ensemble, I was always a wreck before performances especially when I had solos or a very difficult part to play! I still suffer from a lot of the symptoms most would call "low cortisol" symptoms, such as being startled easily, nausea, loss of appetite, tremors and a general "on the edge" feeling anytime I need to do something out of my comfort zone.

Maybe I have very high plasma levels of norepinephrine running through my body causing both this anxiety and the tachycardia upon standing. Hyperadrenergic one of the known causes of POTS, so this isn't too far off.

I'll need to do a bit more research into this, but I think it's rather interesting! Another thing I've noticed while on the beta-blocker is that I do not feel faint when I stand up even though my blood pressure has been dreadfully low lately. I have no idea why, but it is a rather interesting observation.

Maybe, just maybe there is hope?

I'm Disgusted

I'm just so disgusted with myself lately. The past 8 months? or so has been the worst roller coaster ride ever and I want off. I'm so sick of feeling like 265 different emotions every single day with no hope that this will ever end!

I have no friends, so this doesn't help and this is just too much for my husband to handle now. Who do I talk to? How do I communicate when I'm unable to?

I feel trapped and I have no idea how I'm going to make things better.

Started the cytomel (T3)

Yesterday I started the cytomel. My doctor said to take 5mcg, twice daily. /sigh I'm wondering if this is too much for it at all once. I might try taking just 5mcg tomorrow to see how I feel. It has definitely improved my mood, but I feel a bit out of sorts. My temps are perfect at 98.6, but my heart seems aggravated. Sadly I just can't use that as a reference though since my heart is normally quite pissed off to say it nicely. haha

Today though my heart seemed real bad. I was just walking around my house and it clocked in at 158. Then I actually wanted to get some stuff done around the house and it was 173. Basically for the rest of the day I've been sitting on my butt. I'm not proud of that, but it's the only thing that calms my heart. Right now my heart rate is 90, but if I stand up to do anything it will shoot up through the roof.

Even with my heart as insane as it is, I got our Christmas tree down. I'm not usually the type to rush in taking the decorations down. In fact, I think last year we kept our tree up well into January. So what made me take it down early? Our newest addition to the household, Vegas our 8 month old kitten! hahah Yesterday and today he finally managed to knock the tree completely over and it just looked like hell. Rather than fix it, we both decided it was just time to pack it up. Taking the tree down was quite hellish for me, but I survived!

One thing I want to note for future reference...lol Today my husband seems the most depressed I've seen for some time. I can tell when he's hiding it, but today he cannot even hide it. He's been spending a lot of time to himself just staring. /sadface I hope all is well with him.

What Should I Do Now?

It's no big secret that I've been rather frustrated these past months. Looking at my posts, I haven't exactly been in a good mood. Sorry about that folks. I tend to use this blog as a way to vent my frustrations because I don't have any close friends to talk to about all of this.

Emotionally I have been a wreck, but thanks to some EFT counseling I am doing much much better. I'm not 100% better, but day-to-day my anxiety has made a huge improvement. I also think getting off the Armour was helpful as it was converting to RT3, essentially making me more and more hypo. Anxiety and depression is a huge hypothyroid symptom.

Now that yet another year rolls around and I still have not found a fix for all of my problems, I need to stop and figure out what to do next. Do I just give up and realize that I will always have this heart problem? Do I just start to chelate again? Do I keep searching for more answers and risk the chance of being in the exact same spot next year at this time?

I thought going to this new EP was going to be "the breakthrough" like with so many other doctors and yet, here I am, looking back realizing how much of a waste it was. I emailed Dinet.org and told them I was not impressed at all with this doctor. He's no more a POTS expert than my regular primary care doctor. He was listed on their website as a doctor who dealt specifically with POTS.

Here's the direction I am heading next and this will likely be what I'll be dealing with into the next year.

What if the "POTS" was simply a mineral deficiency? I have been quite deficient in Vitamin D, ferritin and Vitamin B12 at certain points in my life. What if there are other more obscure mineral deficiencies that I haven't even tested. With all the natural doctors I've been to, none of them have done a comprehensive nutritional panel on me. Does anyone else see a problem with this?

My wonderful husband who spends HOURS researching for both of us, came across this very interesting post from a lady on Dinet.org. In this post, she was found to have a severe vitamin B1 deficiency. She was placed on a specific fat soluble type of vitamin B1 and noticed a huge increase in symptoms for the first few weeks. Then after that, she was practically CURED of POTS.

About 2 weeks ago I started using this cream and noticed a significant increase in my symptoms including gastrointestinal. I haven't felt this bad during a winter month for as long as I can remember. It got so bad, that I discontinued the cream about 4 days ago and oddly enough I am feeling a touch better... Now I am looking to get these vitamins tested, so I can decide what I need to do from here. Her post was very encouraging because she now holds a busy schedule/job.

I am now looking at yet ANOTHER DOCTOR that looks specifically at nutrition and also prescribes bioidentical HRT. That's about as good as it gets in my opinion. I can't give up. I'm only 25 years old and if I ever wish to have a family, I've got to get this heart rate under control.

So there you have it. We'll see what this year brings. 2009 was probably one of the hardest on me emotionally. Lots of up's and down's, but I made it through!

NOOO!!!!

Today is a sad day in my world. I got my catecholamines back and they tell me absolutely nothing.

Epinephrine, U, 24hr 4 (0-32)
Norepinephrine, U, 24hr 27 (0-140)
Dompaine, Ur, 24hr 241 (65-610)

Yeah, so I guess I'm just doomed for the rest of my life like this? I mean this is unf$%#ingbelieveable to me. I hate to swear, but I have no life when I'm like this and sadly winter hasn't made me any better.

No one wants to help me unless I'm willing to take xanax or adderall and I'll be DAMNED if I take those stupid pills.

Tested My Catecholamines

On Sunday I collected my urine for a full 24 hours to see what my catecholamines are doing. Is this why I have POTS (Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) ?

There are several different types of POTS. One is when your catecholamines are high and one where they are low. I suspect that mine are high, but we'll just have to wait and see what the test shows. I doubt I'll see the results until after Christmas, but it may be as soon as tomorrow.

If the results do show something, I'll be contacting my EP. He's a total idiot and should have ordered these HIMSELF or collected them during the damn tilt table test like what most POTS "specialists" are supposed to do. The only reason why he was a "specialist" is because he's HEARD OF POTS. Whip dee doo! I'm going to contact Dinet.org and tell them that he did not do any diagnostic testing other than the tilt-table. I guess he's a good doctor if you don't mind taking prozac, xanax, and adderall! Then again if you were on all 3 of those drugs, I doubt you'd care about much of anything.

Stomach is Hurting WHY?

My stomach has been out of control. It always hurts anymore at least a little bit and I've been getting sick a lot. I'm always sick first thing in the morning and even sometimes like an hour afterward. This has been getting worse since going gluten free, egg free, strawberry, tomato and dairy-free (unless it's the raw milk).

This is what I ate today in no particular order:

Whole Chicken leg with no seasoning or sauce
1/2 cup of ground beef with salt
Rice with butter/salt
Mixed veggies with salt
Celery sticks with peanut butter
Enjoy Life chocolate chips hehehe
Chai tea (red tea) with 3 tbls of raw milk
1/2 cup of coffee
2 Oranges
1 banana

Where am I going wrong here? Why is my stomach hurting tonight. Why am I bloated?! It is really starting to drive me crazy because I just can't figure this out now. I had quite a few high carb foods today, but I just don't know. I'm not itchy tonight though, so go figure?! I'm thinking about doing the stool test from Enterolab to see what is going on with my stomach. They can test for a whole bunch of things. I just don't have the money for it, but when I do, I think it's a sure thing for me.

I think I have a lot of food allergies

I really think this is part of my problem and why I'm just not feeling any better no matter what I do. I know that there is something still bothering me because that DAMN itchiness on my legs has NEVER gone away. I am soo sick of it and it gets so bad sometimes that I have to take zyrtec. There is no way around it.

Looking at my food allergy results there is one thing that I haven't cut out yet and that is Baker's Yeast. My cousin, Chelle told me that having an allergy to Baker's Yeast can be just as bad as an allergy to wheat, gluten, eggs or even dairy. So I decided to start doing my own research and she is absolutely correct!

60-85% of people with Crohn's Disease will test positive to Baker's Yeast antibodies. The medical term for antibodies to Baker's Yeast is anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae mannan antibodies. It is thought that your body starts to confuse your body's natural yeast for this Saccharomyces cerevisiae mannan and that's why you get Crohn's Diease...In addition to this scary find, one of the companies (Enterolab) that does genetic testing for Celiac also says that if you test positive for Baker's Yeast that there is high likelihood you have Crohn's Disease....Great so that's two reputable labs/medical studies that are saying the same thing. Obviously I need to stop eating Baker's Yeast. Now the interesting thing on my test is that I am NOT allergic to Brewer's Yeast. That makes things a lot easier as Brewer's Yeast and Baker's Yeast are used in a ton of foods.

Here's a list that includes BOTH brewers and baker's yeast foods.
http://www.allergy-details.com/106-foods-contain-yeast

Even though I'm already gluten free, I was still making GF bread for us that has yeast in it, so I need to cut that out for sure. I'll have to do some more research to see if I need to cut out all those foods on that list above. Even though I tested okay for Brewer's Yeast should I still cut it out too? I have no idea right now. I am still trying to sift through all this information.

Credit goes to this lovely little blog for a lot of the information in my post.
http://mrsedsresearchandrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/05/bakers-yeast-allergy-asca-lesser-known.html

Yep I Have RT3 Dominance

Well it is official now for sure. I have RT3 dominance even WITHOUT armour. NO wonder I felt so terrible on that crap. This is why doctors need to test this before you even go on Armour no matter what your numbers look like! If your doctor is not testing Reverse T3 before putting you on Armour, you need to set them straight so you don't suffer for months like I have.

There were my labs-
TSH 1.590 (0.450-4.50)
FT3 3.2 (2.0-4.4)
FT4 1.32 (0.82-1.77)

Now my numbers here don't look so bad. Most docs would send me on my way or say that a little bit of armour might do the trick....But look at my Reverse T3!

RT3 362 (90-350) High

...And there it is. My problem. My body can't convert it's own T4 into T3 so how can I expect it to convert Armour? Essentially I am functionally Hypothyroid. My thyroid is making enough hormone, but a lot of RT3 is bound in the T3 receptor sites, which does not allow T3 into the receptors to do their job. I am running around hypothyroid WITH thyroid hormone in my blood! The treatment for this is to go on T3 only. Every doctor has their own method.

This doctor wants me to start off with 10mcg of T3/day, dosing it 5mcg in the AM, then 5mcg at dinner. I am supposed to work my way up pretty quickly to 20mcg, dosing it 10mcg in the AM, then 10mcg at dinner time. I have not started this yet, but hope to do so soon.

I'll be sure to keep everyone posted!

Lots of changes

No longer seeing that lady doctor. We made the journey back out to see the other doctor and got back today. I am pretty pleased with my treatment and have realized that no one is ever going to fix my heart problem. NO ONE. I can't get too upset about it and will just have to learn to deal with it for the rest of my life.

The EP told me to try a small dose of a beta blocker, so that's the next step. If this doesn't work, then I really am out of options and am SOL.

The hormone doctor has ordered me a whole bunch of new labs to get done since I just stopped the armour. I hate armour. It did absolutely nothing but make me feel even worse. I had daily headaches and just felt so blah on it. I don't know what my doc will do but I think I want to try a small dose of cytomel to see what happens.

I also saw another hormone doctor I used to see a long time ago and he thinks I have a reverse T3 problem. He does the labs a little different than most people and uses T3 rather than FT3 to calculate the ratio. I don't know who the hell is right anymore because everyone has their own unique method to this stuff!

I had my sex hormones tested and while the numbers look good, some people might say that I am "estrogen dominant" because my ratio isn't high enough. My hormone doctor doesn't like to see estrogen any lower than 150 and mine was 198. He said my progesterone was excellent at 19.9. I dunno about these ratio things...

So now I just continue on the HC and DHEA and get these new labs done to see what my thyroid is doing on its own. I've never had my RT3 checked when not on armour, so it will be interesting to see nonetheless.

That's all for now.

New Doc Is Fired

I really thought that I'd be able to get some help from the new doctor. But after the fiasco they put me through yesterday and with how poorly the phone consult went, I am just moving on once again. There's no reason to waste my time with a doc who won't do anything for 6 weeks in between phone calls. She's not changing ANYTHING. I mean what the heck?

Yesterday I was supposed to have my phone consult and they called me 45 minutes late telling me they were going to be late. Oh really, you think? You are already 45 minutes late. They said it would be another 45 minutes. Well another HOUR goes by and I actually had plans last night and could not sit around any longer, so I canceled on them. They didn't seem apologetic or anything.

Well I get a phone call today out of the blue and it's the doctor. She's extremely difficult to talk to on the phone. There were moments of complete silence and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to say something or not. /shrug Basically she is blaming everything that is wrong with me on Epstein-Barr Virus. Oh yes. I love these psychotic doctors who do this. You give them one thing they can blame EVERYTHING on and that's what they do. Even though my antibodies for a recent infection are NEGATIVE, she told me that that is my problem and to take supplements to "knock the virus out". Uh hello I got EBV when I was 17, I don't think there's any knocking this thing out of me. In fact it's not possible because it stays in your body forever. The fact that my present antibodies were below the lowest detectable titer tells me that's really good. I was actually pretty happy to see that, but that's not enough for this lady.

She said that the thyroid labs were weird because "Oh did you take your thyroid meds before the test". Yeah dummy I told you that in the office and you said that's WHAT YOUR OFFICE RECOMMENDS. I mean am I going insane here or what!? My GOODNESS.

So I just nodded and agreed with everything she said because you cannot have a discussion with her on the phone. She is not a phone person at all. Basically she left it as I change absolutely nothing, I know nothing about what my thyroid is doing now and that my TSH is too low. [Oh great you are one of those types of doctors? Are you kidding me?]. I told her that my TSH has never been reliable and that we cannot go by that since it's been NON-DETECTABLE when I was not on any medication.

To say that today's phone consult went bad is a serious understatement. I'll probably just call them in a few weeks and say that I wasn't too happy and that's that. Why spend money on a doctor that is so difficult to work with? The phone conversation was so awkward and rigid.

I didn't get these feelings from her in the office, so that just shows you the first visit with a doc means nothing. Great I get to stay on 1 grain of armour for another 6 weeks! It's already been 6 weeks at this dose and it's just unbelievable to me. This lady was recommended by a very well-known doc I won't even mention here. I hope that my husband has better luck.

The Tilt-Table Test

Today I had my tilt-table test and it was quite an experience. I was a little nervous for it for several reasons. 1). I was hoping that my heart would "do it's thang" even though I was nervous. 2). I was afraid of going into an adrenal crisis during the test 3). I hate hospitals!

I got there. Got registered and had some blood taken. Just an electrolyte panel and a pregnancy test in case they wanted to use nitroglycerin during the tilt-table exam.

Then I got all hooked up with a saline IV and was strapped to a table that looked like a torture device. All of the nurses were REALLY friendly and none of them were crabby or complaining which was great. I HATE IT when nurses complain to me about other patients.

As soon as the nurse tilted me up, I was like...whoa holy moly! I immediately felt the blood rush from my head. They raised me up to 70 degrees and kept me there for about 20 minutes. I had to tell them exactly what I was feeling at every given moment. The first few minutes were terrible. I felt very lightheaded, dizzy, near faint, but then I normalized. That feeling went away (for the most part) yet my heart rate just kept climbing. I could not believe it! And all this time I thought my tachycardia was because of low blood pressure. There were a few moments where I'd feel faint again, but then I'd be okay.

I asked the nurse what my pulse was running (I could hear the beeps) and he said it was at about 134. Wow! That is simply me just being tilted up. Not walking around or anything.

The doctor came in and even he was pretty shocked with the response. Then he decided to lay me back down supine and give 1/2 a nitroglycerin tab under the tongue. They tilted me back up and all hell broke loose. I felt TERRIBLE. My vision started to get really fuzzy. I felt faint, dizzy, nauseous. They didn't keep me tilted for long and I was not complaining. My heart was beating so very fast and I just wanted to lay down.

During the middle of it, I told them I felt this extreme "terribleness". The nurse kind of laughed at that word I made up at the moment. When my heart starts to go this fast, I told them this is usually when I lay down and don't get up for a while. I wanted nothing more than to unstrap myself from that stupid table and lay down on the nearest bed. haha My heart hit 178 bp from the combination of nitroglyercin and simply being tilted up at a 70 degree angle.

This is what I have to deal with on a daily basis.

I have no answers right now, but it was interesting to see the vital signs during the test. I'll get a more official report later on. The nice nurse was kind enough to print me the vital signs, but said she wasn't allowed to give more than that. That's really all I care about to be honest. I guess it would be good to know if I had any PVC's or other abnormalities, but I didn't feel any.

These are the vital signs. I'll try to put this in an easy to read format for all of you. They took vitals every minute.

Start of Test (SUPINE)==> BP 112/65 HR 82
Tilting==> Each BP/HR represents 1 minute of tilting unless otherwise stated
BP 130/83 HR 85
BP 130/97 HR 112
BP -------- HR 117
BP 137/88 HR 117
BP -------- HR 120
BP 117/71 HR 121
BP -------- HR 116
BP 112/90 HR 119
BP -------- HR 120
BP 110/80 HR 124
BP -------- HR 125
BP 128/88 HR 126
BP -------- HR 133
BP -------- HR 133
BP 123/83 HR 133
BP 123/80 HR 133
BP -------- HR 136
BP 118/81 HR 134
BP -------- HR 134
BP 128/90 HR 147
BP -------- HR 143
BP 129/80 HR 142
BP -------- HR 137
Started tilting back down for the Nitroglycerin==>
BP 128/76 HR 113
BP -------- HR 109
Tilting Back Up With Nitroglycerin==>
BP 124/65 HR 145
BP 97/55 HR 164
BP 108/70 HR 169
BP 99/49 HR 175
BP 95/58 HR 175
BP 140/80 HR 173
Starting Tilting me back down===>
BP 140/77 HR 137
BP -------- HR 113
Test Complete. PHEW

Okay I'm Giving This Diet A Go!

I hate to even call it a diet because it is not. It's another lifestyle change.

My husband is on board with me, so that makes it SOOOO much easier!

Here are the foods we will be excluding for the next few weeks to see if I feel any different. I am only excluding foods that were classified as a 2 or 3.

Egg White/Yolk
Gluten
Milk
Strawberry
Tomato
Wheat
Yogurt

Almond
Kidney Bean
Lima Bean
Barley

I can eat cheese, almond, kidney bean, lima bean and barley (no response), but my husband's allergy test showed his response pretty high. Therefore I'm just excluding it from my diet to remove any possible contamination.

That means we have to throw out all opened jars. Jellies, mustard, relish etc. There is most definitely pieces of wheat or gluten in ALL of those jars. I think I'm going to throw out our collander too and get a new one just to be safe. Although I'm not even sure why I'd need to use it if we aren't eating pasta.

No tomatoes really hits me hard. I can't make stuffed peppers anymore! I can't put tomatoes on chicken breasts to spice it up a bit... I can't eat any type of pasta sauce anymore. AHHH! I can't even put tomatoes on my salads and a lot of the canned beans I used to buy have tomatoes in them. There goes a lot of meals we used to eat on a regular basis.

I had a metabolic panel done on Saturday and these are the results!

Glucose 82 (65-99)
BUN 12 (5-26)
Creatinine 0.82 (0.57-1.00)
GFR >59 (>59)
Bun/Creat Ratio 15 (8-27)
Sodium 138 (135-145)
Potassium 4.7 (3.5-5.2) WOOHOO! The new diet and supping IS working!
Chloride 103 (97-108)
Carbon Dioxide 24 (20-32)
Calcium 9.6 (8.5-10.6)
Protein 6.8 (6-8.5)
Albumin 4.6 (3.5-5.5)
Globulin 2.2 (1.5-4.5)
A/G Ratio 2.1 (1.1-2.5)
Bilirubin 0.3 (0.1-1.2)
Alk Phos 53 (25-150)
AST 17 (0-40)
ALT 18 (0-40)

Sadly this tells me that my heart problem IS NOT electrolytes.

Tomorrow is the Tilt-Table test!

More Thyroid Labs

Here are the labs from another hormone doctor. Yes I have a few on-hand...LOL

These labs make even less sense to me. They were done almost exactly 2 weeks later and look at the huge difference.

Note these are NOT free thyroid labs. This doctor doesn't check frees for whatever dumb reason.
T4 6.0 (4.5-12.0)
T3 92 (83-200)
Reverse T3 233 (90-350)

I've never had a Total T3 checked before, so I'm not sure exactly how to interpret this. However usually you want your Free T3 to be near the top of the range and I'm really close to the bottom of the range here. The doctor that ordered this, I'm not sure I am actually going to schedule to see him. I dunno. I'm torn about the whole idea. He has helped me in the past, but money is getting tight with all these medical expenses.

Vitamin D 21.1 (32-100) LOW
Ferritin 33 (10-291) Too low

Taking armour has made both of these tank. I am now supping these hardcore to get them up higher. Ferritin is supposed to be at like 70-90 in order to use thyroid meds properly. /sigh

Glucose 85 (65-99)
BUN 8 (5-26)
Ceratinine 0.80 (0.57-1.00)
eGFR >59 (>59)
BUN/Creat ratio 10 (8-27)
Sodium 141 (135-145)
Potassium 3.7 (3.5-5.2)
Chloride 106 (97-108)
Carbon Dioxide 21 (20-32)
Calcium 9.7 (8.5-10.6)