Living with a Thyroid Disease

My son was born on January 28, 2003 and six months later I was diagnosed with hyperactive thyroid disease called hyperthyroidism. Basically hyperthyroidism is when your thyroid gland is overproducing the thyroid hormone that is necessary to regulate your body's metabolism. In my case, my thyroid was secreting to much of this hormone and causing me to have symptoms of weight gain, tiredness, irregular heartbeats, diarrhea, increased perspiration, anxiety and irregular menstrual cycles. However, these symptoms were the ones that were giving me problems, but there are many more other symptoms known with hyperthyroidism such as increased urination, dryness of the eyes, hand tremors and many more. If you have any of the following symptoms I suggest you research hyperthyroidism further and talk to your personal doctor.

Once the doctor ran numerous amounts of blood tests on me, and given my symptoms he came to the conclusion that my thyroid was hyperactive, and he started me on a herbal vitamin right away. As I took the vitamin he monitored my prognosis and nothing was changing. My symptoms were still there and my thyroid levels were quickly rising. He then placed me on a prescription medicine called Propylthiouracil. At first, for the first month, my levels for my thyroid was decreasing, however, my symptoms were not going away like he wanted them to. By the time the second month rolled around with being on this prescription, I began to notice my body acting in different ways that I was not accustomed to. I was loosing more hair then normal, I felt nauseated from morning to night just like morning sickness while you are pregnant, I was even more tired then I was before and started taking 4 hour naps at a time. I decided to not get the prescription refilled the next month however, I did not tell my doctor either because I wanted to see how not taking any meds would affect me.

It felt like immediately the new symptoms just went away and I started to have more energy then I did before. When I went back to the doctor two months later he asked me how the medicine was working out and I told him that I stopped taking it and why. He was very disappointed, however he drew more blood and checked my levels again. To my surprise and his, my thyroid levels were down 10 points! He told me to just watch my diet, get plenty of rest, and exercise as much as I possibly could and we would see how the levels are within the next 6 months.

The next time I went in for blood work, my thyroid levels were not down anymore, however they did not increase either. He asked if I had been doing what he asked me to do, and of course I hadn't and so I embellished a tad and told him I was trying better.

To this day I get tested regularly for my thyroid and the levels have not increased in over 6 years. My doctor and I have came to the conclusion that the thyroid problem was just a side affect from being pregnant with my first son and after my body had time to adjust after his birth, my body regulated myself back.

I have had one boy since this has all occurred and thankfully no problems have occurred with my thyroid since, however, I do now, watch what I eat and try to eat healthier with more fruits and veggies in my diet, also I get in some exercising, if you want to call chasing around an 18 month old all day exercise (and in my book it does!) and I also have noticed that if I get at least 6 to 7 hours of sleep a night that my symptoms are not as bad. I will not lie to you, I still have all the same symptoms as before, but as long as they do not increase nor do my thyroid hormone levels, then I am going to be just fine!