Thyroid and Endo Results, Answered Not the Way I was Hoping

Results of my labs came back good for some things and not good for others. From my couple months of consistantly going to the gym, limiting my drinking and obsessively tracking my calories and macros my cholesterol was so much better! It’s always been a little on the higher side (since I was 3 to be exact) and Dr. Endo keeps threatening me to go on statins—which I won’t if I have any say in it. Other tests they do for Diabetics include the A1c for glucose average, liver and kidney functions, which were all normal. My A1c is normally pretty good, running around 7 and under for the last 20 years. I even showed the 2 lb weight loss, wearing clothes!

Per the usual, I have too many lows but am higher during the mid day point, so we adjusted my basal insulin rates and changed my I:C ratio. All pretty normal for an Endo appt. But, the lab result that was super surprising was my Thyroid TSH, which I totally knew was going to be questionable because it just doesn’t feel right. It was at .28 which is below normal and is considered a hyperthyroid level. She seemed non-plussed though…but did lower my Levothyroxin dose a bit. I thought, what the hell? I’m supposed to be around 1.something and higher! Its totally weird though, as I have no symptoms of hyper thyroid, which can be tiredness, WEIGHTLOSS, hair loss, etc. So I was a little confused by her lack of concern for that number.

She did listen to my concerns about not being able to lose any weight and said that I’ve tried doing everything myself, blah blah and maybe should consider medication. She suggested taking Ozempic (which is for type-2 diabetics) and see if that works or she suggested a combination of hard core stimulants! Yikes! So I said I’d think about the Ozempic option and do some research over the weekend. How it works is that it affects the part in your brain that in simple terms, likes food. It also slows down your stomach emptying process, to keep you full longer, so that’s how it helps lower A1c is because it lessens the post-prandial blood glucose rising that requires more insulin. So you won’t like or want to eat anything and many people suffer from nausea, vomiting and headaches.

When weighing the pros and cons, it just seems like you’re taking away the pleasure of eating and socializing this (ah yes, many people can’t handle drinking ANY alcohol while taking this) and then because of the slow food absorption, it’s a bit more dangerous for type-1 diabetics when you have low blood sugar and treating it doesn’t work as fast. And I like to have a drink once in a while. And you have to continue to take it, forever it seems, if you want to maintain any weightloss you may experience. It sorta sounds terrible. I think I just made my decision.

What I want is to work at the source of my issues, the terrible metabolism stemming from my thyroid! I want to be able to help it more naturally, without adding drugs that haven’t even been tested long term. My kidneys and liver work just fine, I’d rather preserve them as long as possible! So, I’ll take the lower levothyroxin dose and I have started taking the Selenium, which is a pretty tame supplement. When I asked my Dr. about it, she literally shrugged her shoulders.

-EDIT: I had mentioned getting Iodine supplements also, but upon more reading I found that people with Hashimoto’s shouldn’t take Iodine. So, not taking that for now.

Oh well. I’ll keep on working out harder making muscles! and see what the TSH does after a couple months. If it is still low and I’m still not losing, I am pretty interested in meeting with a functional medicine doctor, or at least someone will dig into the issues I’m fussing over. A relative reached out sharing about her Thyroid issues and how the more-complete testing that her functional doctor did was very helpful for her in finding a treatment that worked along with some lifestyle changes to support it.

Anyone have similar experiences dealing with their Hashimoto’s thyroid and weight loss issues and how you overcame them?

Everybody’s Auto-Issues

Does everyone now have Thyroid issues?

So, I’ll preface this by saying I’ve been a Type 1 Diabetic for over 30 years and have had Hashimoto’s thyroiditis thyroid disease since my teens. A double-whammy of auto-immune issues. I was very young, ate well and wasn’t exposed to anything “bad” in my environment. My immune system decided to go haywire for some reason. I don’t over-dramatize it or “let it define me” as many Diabetics like to say…as they discuss their dramatic diagnosis story ad nauseam.

But all of a sudden everyone else on the interwebs has thyroid issues too! Maybe it’s the vein of my accounts that I follow that lead to a focus on healthy eating, growing your own food, food as medicine, homesteading dreams, etc. Very well could be. But now all the homesteaders have Thyroid and auto-immune issues. I’m casting a wide net here, so don’t be offended. They’re sharing everything about their lives, so health is one of them. But, I receommend speaking with a doctor and getting yourself tested before any self-diagnosis based upon your favorite YouTube or Instagram stars.

The attention is actually convenient for me right now as I recently had an ultrasound of my thyroid because my neck was literally feeling fat, I kid you not. I do have a slight goiter, but it was feeling tight. So they did an ultrasound in December and found three pesky little nodules on my thyroid, all three were large enough for them to want to do a fine needle aspiration to get some material to biopsy. Let me tell you, it’s not the most fun procedure in the world. They do numb your neck a little, but that does NOT help much, at least in my case—I had to have a second shot of lidocaine, which didn’t seem to help at all—because the Dr. doing the procedure literally takes a little hollow needle and repeatedly jabs it in and out of the same spot. I left with a bruised spot on my neck and a bandaid, so it’s not terribly invasive. And results were all benign, so I just have to have an ultrasound in a year or so.

Dealing with that has made me think twice about my thyroid and how I’m feeling in general. My levels are “fine,” albeit a little lower than they’ve been averaging over the years, but still within range. I take 112 mg of Levothyroxin and have been my whole life. It didn’t even change when I was pregnant. But, now I’m a bit older. I cannot for the life of me, lose weight. I don’t know if its now being over 40, but I have been working out and tracking my food (and macros,) drinking all the water, for a month and a half and have lost a total of 2 lbs. Just two. I’ve done all the calculations for my height/weight and what I should eat for calories. I do a mix of cardio, functional exercises and yoga. I have lessened my alcoholic consumption by a 100-fold it feels like, so I was expecting a nice loss just from less booze! Nope. Super frustrating.

So I’ve been reading. And that’s how I realized that the internet has thyroids on the mind! A couple things I read about were taking some supplements, specifically selenium and iodine, to support your thyroid function even if you’re on Levothyroxin. Another was diet, of course. Some of which was going gluten free, and also making sure to over-cook your cruciferous veggies. Which I find the thought of, just terrible. I’ll cook my veggies properly, thank you. The gluten thing I’ve done before, with no results of change. Currently I don’t eat a lot of gluten things anyways, so we’ll say I’m gluten-light right now. I will not give up my brussels sprouts.

I’m going to try the supplements; I probably don’t get enough iodine like many Americans, I don’t use table salt, I use the fancy stuff, which doesn’t have much iodine in it. Selenium is slated to help with thyroid hormone metabolism and with cancer prevention, which I guess is always a good thing.

I conveniently have an endocrinologist appointment Friday, so I’m going to talk with her about starting those and see what else I can possibly do to shed some lbs. I’m also waiting with bated breath on my lab results to see if things are better since I started my health journey (might as well call it what the cool kids call it) this year! Here’s hoping for some good ideas and suggestions!

I may just have to jump on the online-homesteader-social-media-personality bandwagon and start the carnivore diet. Just kidding, I think inflation is going to kill that diet fad real fast.