that didn't take long

On Thursday, I got a prescription for Reglan to help with my gastroparesis. I started it Thursday evening and took the prescribed 4 doses on Friday... and could barely keep my head up.

Thursday I was tired anyway, having been up stupid-late the night before. So Thursday night I went to bed at a decent hour and got plenty of sleep, and still Friday I was like a zombie. A zombie with bizarre emotional reactions, like laughing too long at something that would ordinarily merit a smile or at the most a chuckle.

Needless to say, I quit taking the stuff.

Yesterday's research brought me to a support forum where there was plenty of discussion of gastroparesis, Reglan, and all that jazz. I'd say the majority of people who talked about trying Reglan couldn't deal with the side effects, but some were helped by Domperidone, with fewer side effects.

Gastroparesis is caused either by damage to the vagus nerve*, or by a problem with the muscles that control the stomach's normal churning motions. Many cases are idiopathic, but hypothyroidism is linked to the condition. I even found an abstract that demonstrated that thyca patients who go hypo (become extremely hypothyroid) for their whole body scans develop gastroparesis during their hypo phase. I don't know why it took me so long to put these facts together, but I realized the following that may have something to do with my current condition:

1) I spent a good deal of time last year hypothyroid, because of the great med experiment in which I discontinued my Cytomel, and during which my endocrinologist was strangely loathe to increase my Levoxyl.
2) I had a Thyrogen-stimulated whole body scan in August. It's true that I did not become systemically hypothyroid, but my TSH was outrageous (159!), and I felt off for a while after that. So off, as a matter of fact, that I finally went back on my old Cytomel+Levoxyl regimen in early September.
3) I have no idea what my levels are, since I have yet to see my November thyroid panel results which were run to see how the return to the old regimen was suiting me. For all I know, I've been hypo this whole time. There have certainly been times when I've felt hypo -- cold all the time, skin drier than paper, funky hypo half-brows -- but I'm generally not fatigued, nor am I depressed or brain-fogged... that I've noticed, even though there has been a lot of stress lately.

I'm going tomorrow for bloodwork -- a thyroid panel from my endo, and complete blood work from my g/e doc -- so we'll get a look at what's really going on there. I'm actually seeing my endocrinologist on Friday, and I'm curious as to what my numbers look like, I haven't seen them since August. (She's an idiot about releasing them to her patients through the mail.)

I'm hopeful that the gastropareris is a result of being slightly hypo for many months, and that perhaps it can resolve on its own if I can tweak my levels appropriately.

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* I could also have sustained damage to my vagus nerve during my surgeries; I know that I sustained some damage to my recurrent laryngeal nerve, which is a branch of the vagus. I really don't want to think about that, but it's something I'll discuss with my ENT when I see him on Thursday.