Monday, November 7, 2011

The Jury Is Still Out

It's now just over a week that I've been taking the thyroxine and I have indeed noticed some changes.  I'm just not sure they can all be attributed to the pills.


One thing that has been somewhat of an annoyance over a prolonged period of time has been the inability to regulate my body temperature properly.  I've felt the cold when those around me have resorted to t-shirts and my dependence on thermals to keep my body temp up has well and truly lost its appeal.  Sure, I understand my body has been through a lot and is still settling down, but enough already.  So, the fact that I have been thermal-free for a week now is indeed cause for celebration.


This is where the conflict starts you see, because I started the thyroxine at basically the same time that the spring temperatures also finally decided to step up a gear.


I am however going to give the kudos to the drugs.  When we've had warm spells before, it hasn't come close to enabling me to put the thermals away in the drawer.  This time is different.  Even with the slightly cooler days (like today where the wind knocked a few degrees off) I'm still comfortable sans-thermals.


Moving on to my metabolism / hunger.  Well, things seem to be changing there as well.  I do seem to have stopped snacking as much and after my meals, I'm not still feeling hungry and craving more food.  In fact, I'm now making the conscious effort to break that snacking cycle - it has become somewhat of a normality that I need to break the cycle of.


And rounding out the picture, my weight is also staying static - no weight losses / gains from the drugs.


That really only leaves the lack of stamina / energy to discuss.  Well, that might have just started to pick up as well.  I went for a quite demanding walk over the weekend - it was over an hour and 1/4 all up and at dusk as well (just to test the body temp thing out).  I came back feeling pretty good and ended up feeling warmer than when I left (what I'd consider a normal reaction) whereas in the past I'd have been rugged up like it was the middle of winter, and come back basically the same as when I'd left.  This was of course a lot longer walk than normal as well.


So, it would seem that the score is 4-0 to the pills over the low thyroid symptoms.  But, I'm still not prepared to totally buy into it yet.  It is still early days and I'm picking the weather changes due over the next couple of days will test my ability to continue with my new found "nakedness".


One thing I have noticed is I'm drinking more water  and the throat is definitely feeling drier more often.  This could be a weather related change, or it could be a side-effect of the pills.  Time will tell.  My vision issues as mentioned in the last post as a potential thyroid related condition have not corrected themselves yet either and that will remain under review.  And, my sleep patterns are a bit screwed up as well.  I'm waking up 20 minutes earlier than normal.  Going to bed later doesn't overcome the problem, so just something else to watch.


Don't get me wrong.  If things settle down nicely and the cost of that is taking a pill everyday for the rest of my life, I think that is a bloody good deal and fully subscribe to it. It's just that I don't want to raise my hopes on the strength of only one week.  The gang of seven said it would probably take a full 3 months dosage to turn things around, so as I'm only a week in, I'm happy to sit back and enjoy the ride.







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