Last Edit October 6, 1996

I don't have a thyroid. At least, not all of it. I have 5% to be exact. Because some hot-shot doctor convinced my mother that a 12 year old was better served having radium pellets shoved up her nose to reduce her adenoids instead of having surgery. Again.

It was the 50's. Nuclear medicine. Nuclear bombs. Peaceful uses for the atom and all that. And the government and the medical community were experimenting with the citizens. And not telling them everything. Like side effects. Like, "we don't really know what we're doing but let's try this".

So they tried this. And 18 years later they got around to discovering that I had hyperthyroidism. I was running my metabolism at so high a speed I was aging faster and dying. It took 18 years to discover this. After all, a girl who faints in the hallways at 18 years of age must be pregnant. Why bother to check if she is even ovulating?

And someone who sleeps once a week is just pushing too hard. Must be stress. Why check further?

And, if you are putting a husband through law school, take the pill. Routine. Why check if you're ovulating? After all, I had a period. It showed up once a year. Usually at Christmas. Ho Hum.

So it took 18 years and a gynecologist to determine that I had a problem. It took 6 months to decide to perform surgery. And a year to figure out what thyroid substitute level I should be on. They never told me they thought I might have had cancer. Not 'till I was groggy in the recovery room. How thoughtful.

Not that everything was fine.

I always had to watch my weight. I always had to diet. I would climb to 145lbs and at 5'5" I didn't like that so I would take it back to 125lbs. Over the years I accepted 135lbs. But I never ate breakfast or lunch. Slimfast, Reduce, Instant Breakfast became watchwords. I survive at 1200 calories. I diet at 600-800 calories a day.

There was one time I could not keep the weight down. When I was pregnant.

I gained 50lbs with the first child - and he was born at 7mos. A five pound premie. If I hadn't been heavy, he would not have been able to survive. This was before all those machines were invented. They did use a pressure hood and drained his lungs. And he made it. And I went back to 122lbs.

I gained really fast the second time I was pregnant. It wasn't that I ate more. I just ate 3 meals a day. Usually, I can only eat one. The second child did not make it - the pregnancy lasted 4 months. I had gained 30 lbs.

Frightening.

The third time, I reached 195lbs at delivery time. Ye gods. I was ready to sit on a knitting needle. This one made it full term. I was 40 years old.

And I carried the aftermath for months. Try years. I never got below 145lbs. And I had to fight to reach that. (He's 15 and 180lbs and 6 feet tall and growing. No wonder.)

So I went to a plastic surgeon to have my thighs sucked. Instead, he fixed the rupture. Seems being pregnant had torn open an old rupture stem to stern which made me look even worse. I fought the weight and kept losing the war. Seems the gynecologist and the Internist and everyone else had missed that little defect.

I went on Medifast- the doctor's version. I reached 132lbs. And could not hold my body temperature. I went critically hyperthermic at the beach one day - took four hours to stabilize. Thank god for Boy Scouts since my kids and I were both trained to recognize symptoms and to treat them.

To prevent a repeat, 140lbs. became the weight I lived at. I never went back to the beach.

By now, they finally decided, after I had an air conditioner built in over my bed, that I was probably menopausal. That reaction I had been having to coffee for the past few years was a hot flash. Those ice cold feet and inability to hold my body temperature were probably hormonal.

Great. Just what I needed.

So, they decided to reduce my thyroid (0.175) and put me on Estrogen (0.625) and Progesterone (10mg) in a 30-day cycle. Estrogen for 25 days, Progesterone for 10 days, etc. You know the drill.

Stopped the hot flashes.

But, I began gaining weight. My breasts got huge. I can breast-feed twins. I lost my waist. (When they fixed the rupture, they did a tummy tuck and liposuctioned the abdomen. Forgot to tell me that the remaining fat cells in your body do everything possible to avenge the death of their comrades. I lost my waistline.)

My dress size went from 12 to 14 to 16 to 18 to 20 to 1X. In 18 months. I have bras in every size from 34B to 42C and counting. (My first husband thought my breasts were too small. Maybe I'll have these removed and sent to him.)

Not good.

I has taken me two years and several doctors to get explanations for the dosages.

It goes like this.

It seems that every doctor is trying lower thyroid dosages so we will live longer. (They did this to my mother. Her feet froze. She got dizzy. She got her dosage raised back to what it had been. Sounds familiar.) They are worried about heart attacks. But I have had this dosage for 26 years! let us not the forget the previous 18 years with a runaway thyroid. The damage is done boys and girls.

0.175 Synthroid puts me face down at my desk by 3PM. Still. ("Try it. You'll adjust." Fat chance! "Well, the higher dosage was keeping your weight down." No kidding! "Stop eating so much." I have no answer. "Exercise." Gee, digging up the front lawn, painting the house and hiking with boy scouts is really inactive...) And 0.20mg of Synthroid, now I have Estrogen, puts me on the ceiling. A happy medium? Oh, "they don't make one". So I take 0.2mg one day, 0.175 the next.....

Estrogen makes my body think it is pregnant. Obviously. My body thinks I am pregnant and is fighting me when I diet. After all, it thinks I should be eating for two. Or three. And it thinks I should curl up and sleep all the time just like every pregnant woman should. Not taking Estrogen gives me hot flashes. ("Those will stop after 2-3 years." Really? Try 10 and counting. And this house doesn't have an air conditioner over the bed.)

So they tried 0.3mg of Estrogen. They cut the Progesterone from 10.0 to 5.0 and then to 2.5mg. Because Progesterone causes blood pressure to climb, PMS and bloating. Cute side efffects. And the doage range looks like they're guessing.

Now they want me on Estrogen (back at 0.625) and Progesterone (2.5) 30 days out of 30. Both pills. So I can be bloated every day. Seems they "have no data for lower dosages". Am I surprized? PMS 365 days a year?

But I found Medifast (see Fat Girl on the web) and I have the 1200 calorie a day plan. The non doctor-supervised plan. (The other one is 800 calories a day.)

I am trying again to regain control.

One other thing, Estrogen causes depression. They haven't discussed that with me. If I find myself curled up in a ball after work again, I may decide that a new air conditioner and three glasses of milk a day is a better option.

Just think, after all this trial and error, they now know more about the effects of radiation on the human thyroid. Namely, you shouldn't expose it. The people in Chernoble will be delighted I am sure.