Tips for managing the 'condition', please ... ?

Hello!

This experience forum (just discovered) is so interesting and useful, but I have difficulty concentrating so have been struggling to try to absorb the information here ... so apologies for taking the lazy way and posting a new experience requesting information, but I'm sure you will probably all understand & sympathise. Skip the next two paragraphs and go to the last one if you just want to read my question/s - any and all suggestions greatly appreciated ...

I was diagnosed with underactive thyroid over a year ago and have been on levothyroxine at 100mcg a day ever since. I believe I had the condition for up to a year or more before this as I'd been suffering for a long time and was too scared to go to the doctor in case it turned out to be some fatal cancer or something (backward thinking I know, but I have a bit of a phobia..). My symptoms were tiredness, obviously, & low mood; loss of ability to concentrate/poor memory; aches and pains I had almost come to believe were early-onset arthritis; sometimes pins and needles in fingers & hands; occasional dizzy spells; very poor hearing; dry skin and hair; ver intolerant of the cold (and possibly a couple more I've temporarily forgotten about). The last 6 I had had for quite some time, and the last 3 pretty much all my life so I feel this probably somewhat masked the fact my thryoid had packed up. I also suffer problems with my eyes - I have blurry vision; floaters; they are very slow to focus; and sometimes they hurt a lot after a long day at work.

My symptoms never improved and on returning to the doctor I was repeatedly told it was my diet that was to blame (I admit this consists of lots of junk foods etc). I was also told that the dizziness was unconnected to the thyroid problem and yet this is perhaps the one symptom that has improved with the medication. I find it very difficult to improve my diet and cook healthy meals when I am so tired all the time, it is all I can do to get myself to work and back each day (and sometimes I sit at my desk virtually pretending to work because my concentration is so bad!) Eventually I was offered a low dose of an antidepressant, which for a short time I thought was helping improve my mood but now I have gone back the other way again and actually feeling more exhausted than ever (and wondering if thyroid has packed up some more and could do with an increased dose of thyroxine). Obviously if I am depressed then exercise should help it but I can't even attempt exercise, the 6 minute walk to the train station for work in the morning is now taking me 10 and is exhausting. It isn't right that my entire life consists of desperately trying just to hang onto my job and having no social life or other outside interests - I can barely keep on top of the household chores, and at times I don't get them all done (and the place looking like a bomb-site makes me feel even more depressed).

I haven't the courage to go back to a doctor again yet as I've just moved house and changed surgeries but I'm pretty sure that my old surgery wrote in my notes that I'm a hyperchondriac and I don't want to create the wrong impression with the new surgery.

My question is as follows:- [b:3317ef173f]is there anything I can do to help myself?[/b:3317ef173f] I read that taking the tablet 1/2 hour to an hour before breakfast might help (although one doctor said 10 mins would do) - what about how much water to take it with, big glass to wash it down or will this just dilute it too much? Should I just see if a referral to an endochrineologist is a possibility? Are there foods I should avoid? Has anyone been recommended a healthy balanced diet to follow that they can share here? I really really hope some of you can offer some help - typing this all out has actually made me realise how much this has been getting me down...

Thanks in advance - Sazz

0 likes, 16 replies