Health Update

Lost a week of blogging while the docs figured out if my superduperhyperthyroid was in remission or not.

Nope.

Went on a lower dosage of PTU and the beta-blocker for a while, and six pounds disappeared just like that. Heart rate shot back up to the mid-80s at rest. The good news is, those pounds came off my belly and face. But now my standing heart rate is back down to about 40. Ever tried to work out when your heart rate won’t go up above 65?

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So I went back on the triple dose of PTU, and we’ll see if I can keep the pounds off through diet. Diet? ME? When you’ve had an overactive thyroid your whole life, “diet” is not a word you have any connection with.

Then it took a few days to get re-adapted to all the pills — as I discovered the first time around, you feel worse before you feel better. I’m in the “better” stage now.

Next step? I’ll drink some radioactive iodine, and hide in a motel for a few days so I don’t irradiate the baby. Then there’s a 2-6 months-long wait for my thyroid to die off. After that, I’ll take a single Synthroid pill every morning — a nice change from the current 20-pill-a-day regimen.

Sounds weird to kill a vital organ by drinking a radioactive isotope, but this treatment is 50 years old. Although they don’t tell you at first that, for a few days, your urine is radioactive medical waste. And that for a week prior to drinking the glowing stuff, you have to endure an iodine-free diet.

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Try that one at home, I dare you.

Anyway, prognosis is great, feeling great, and eager to get on with it.

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