A while ago I went through a battery of annoying, time-consuming, and sometimes painful tests to diagnose why my acid reflux had suddenly become much worse. I was diagnosed with gastroparesis, a condition which means that my stomach doesn't empty properly. If you google the term, you'll see it can be quite serious; my symptoms were never severe, although they were unpleasant.
After trying the typically prescribed meds with disastrous results, I decided to attack the problem from another angle, my thyroid meds. Because while clinically I may be hyperthyroid, I was still running low, at least for me, and hypothyroidism is one of the more common causes of gastroparesis.
So I finally got back on my old meds regimen and the problem went away... until last week. I really noticed it on Sunday, but it has been going on for a while now. I just feel gross, bloated, icky. I've been taking only 7.5 mcg of Cytomel each day for several weeks now, after spending the summer on 10 mcg/day -- but when I got home I felt like I was running a little too fast (my TSH was down to 0.03), and bumped it down...
Anyway, now I've notched it back up to 10 mcg/day for the past 3 or 4 days and so far, no change, I still have the icks. I hope the higher level of T3 kicks in soon, because I really do not want to have to take motility meds for this problem, they are really dreadful.
On the plus side of the ledger, my afternoon headaches are not nearly as frequent or as severe, so whatever got tweaked is apparently healed, I think. I hope. I'll be working with 4-year-olds starting Friday for a couple of weeks, and it will go a lot easier if I don't feel as if my head is going to explode every day.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
even more lately (another list)
Alive and well, just busy. The itchiness that was plaguing me has mostly (mostly) gone away, now that I'm back on all my meds properly (I kept running out of things, and not managing to replace them for a week or two -- not prescription things, but things that help.)
We never heard a peep from anyone after DD's audition, as expected. What surprised me is how completely she forgot all about the whole thing the minute we walked out of the place. She is now obsessed with the idea of getting a turtle for her birthday.
Back on track with my schoolwork, but very annoyed and frustrated by the content (so far)... and that's all I'll say on that.
Work is busy, much more busy than I had anticipated for this time of year. I'm glad to be earning but some days I just want to stay home. I'm doing 2 weeks+ at the end of September in the same classroom, that should be fun. We have only 14 days of school left until Fall Break. Yay!
RE (religious ed) starts Monday, and I have a class of 24 third-graders this year. It's a First Communion/Confirmation class, so most of my material from last year -- when I had a teeny tiny class of fifth- and sixth-graders making Confirmation only -- is out the window. My goal is to do a syllabus and welcome letter before Monday, just so we know what we're doing. I think I've tracked down a good prayer to St. Paul for us to use, too. We'll be studying his life all year, along with learning our prayers, the practice of daily prayer, and everything else they need to know before thy make their First Communions and are confirmed. *whew*
Camera's still broken. (sigh)
Still no word on a location for a more-local thyroid cancer support group, but I've been doing phone support at least once or twice a week all month. It seems as if everything has reverted to the status quo ante, and for now I'm letting that go.
Two observations: I seem much less willing to be deferential, and much more OK with the idea of pissing people off, in expressing my opinion the past month or two. I don't think I'm a total bitch but there's definitely something going on in the attitude department. Second, chronic daily headaches are plaguing me, and the only thing I can link them to was one night, goofing around with DD, she hung her entire weight (about 54 pounds) off my neck, which wasn't good. Ibuprofen takes the edge off, but it's not perfect. I noticed today that carrying any sort of bag or strap over my shoulder (either one) seems to make it worse.
I have various doctor appointments (skin check, annual GYN) coming up, but I'd ditch them in a heartbeat if I could get rid of this headache torment.
The decrepit and dangerous wooden swingset is being dismantled hauled off tomorrow by The Junk Guys. (I was inspired to call them because their ad specifically says you don't have to bring your junk to the curb, they'll get it for you.) It's almost 10 years old to the day, and it really should have lasted longer. I'm pretty sure that's our fault, though, although I thought they said the wood was treated in such a way that it didn't need to be sealed? Way too late now, but it did provide the children a lot of fun times.
We never heard a peep from anyone after DD's audition, as expected. What surprised me is how completely she forgot all about the whole thing the minute we walked out of the place. She is now obsessed with the idea of getting a turtle for her birthday.
Back on track with my schoolwork, but very annoyed and frustrated by the content (so far)... and that's all I'll say on that.
Work is busy, much more busy than I had anticipated for this time of year. I'm glad to be earning but some days I just want to stay home. I'm doing 2 weeks+ at the end of September in the same classroom, that should be fun. We have only 14 days of school left until Fall Break. Yay!
RE (religious ed) starts Monday, and I have a class of 24 third-graders this year. It's a First Communion/Confirmation class, so most of my material from last year -- when I had a teeny tiny class of fifth- and sixth-graders making Confirmation only -- is out the window. My goal is to do a syllabus and welcome letter before Monday, just so we know what we're doing. I think I've tracked down a good prayer to St. Paul for us to use, too. We'll be studying his life all year, along with learning our prayers, the practice of daily prayer, and everything else they need to know before thy make their First Communions and are confirmed. *whew*
Camera's still broken. (sigh)
Still no word on a location for a more-local thyroid cancer support group, but I've been doing phone support at least once or twice a week all month. It seems as if everything has reverted to the status quo ante, and for now I'm letting that go.
Two observations: I seem much less willing to be deferential, and much more OK with the idea of pissing people off, in expressing my opinion the past month or two. I don't think I'm a total bitch but there's definitely something going on in the attitude department. Second, chronic daily headaches are plaguing me, and the only thing I can link them to was one night, goofing around with DD, she hung her entire weight (about 54 pounds) off my neck, which wasn't good. Ibuprofen takes the edge off, but it's not perfect. I noticed today that carrying any sort of bag or strap over my shoulder (either one) seems to make it worse.
I have various doctor appointments (skin check, annual GYN) coming up, but I'd ditch them in a heartbeat if I could get rid of this headache torment.
The decrepit and dangerous wooden swingset is being dismantled hauled off tomorrow by The Junk Guys. (I was inspired to call them because their ad specifically says you don't have to bring your junk to the curb, they'll get it for you.) It's almost 10 years old to the day, and it really should have lasted longer. I'm pretty sure that's our fault, though, although I thought they said the wood was treated in such a way that it didn't need to be sealed? Way too late now, but it did provide the children a lot of fun times.
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