My Battle for Better Health: You Deserve a Tiara!

1/22/2016 House of Geekiness 1 Comments

I've been spiraling downward for the past few months. The latest fibromyalgia / antidepressant gave me chest pain and heart palpitations, and going off of it left me with even worse off than when I started it.

A bad cold/flu bug in November turned into a horrible sinus infection and messed with my sleep schedule. Since then, I've had very few nights of solid sleep. I'm usually wide awake until 3-5 am no matter what I do (sleep hygiene, relaxation, exercise....)

My weight has been going up and down (mostly up), as has my appetite. There are days when I could never eat enough (especially chocolate), days where even the thought of food makes me nauseated, and normal days in between. I lost 8 lbs in a few weeks, then gained 12.

I've been trying to get by, just sticking to the basics: didn't decorate much for Christmas (other than setting up the tree), keep focusing on getting just each day's emergencies/basic house keeping/laundry done, taking it easy with work, and having lots of snuggles with the kids.

Despite it all, I've been getting worse. I'm always tired but have a terrible time getting to sleep, low energy, temperature intolerance (I've been wearing sandals, short sleeves, skirts/capris all winter while my family bundles up--even in the house), terrible memory and concentration, restlessness, depression, anxiety, daily episodes where I get lightheadedness, muscle weakness, nausea, and exhaustion.... So yeah, not much fun.

All this has been accompanied by my usual guilt that the house is a mess, my family needs more from me, and I'm hardly getting any work done.

Erik finally dragged me in for another thyroid check yesterday. I don't avoid them because of the needles (I'm used to tests), but because they usually don't make a difference.

Even after they had to take my thyroid out (Hashimoto's), doctors have treated me like a hypochondriac. They'll act dedicated and interested in helping my health improve at first, then, when tests come back "within acceptable range" or their first/second line of treatment doesn't work, it's all in my head.

So, I've avoided going in to be seen for a while and tried to just live with it.... Didn't work either.

Thyroid results came back low today. At least there's some explanation behind all this. Hope adjusting the meds helps this time.

Obviously feeling a bit down here, but relieved that there's proof for once that I'm not crazy.

When I laid down a few minutes ago, my daughter brought me her tiara. She put it on my head and

said, "You deserve this. You're the best mom in the universe!"

My health is still yucky, but I'm thankful for my sweet daughter and the reminder that I'm special. :)