My first year of hypo – all the vitamins
After getting my results and a prescription for levothyroxine I started to research. The internet had a million opinions on the diagnosis and I couldn’t find anything consistent. It seemed like as soon as I would find an answer on one website, another website would contradict what the first one said. Meds will change everything for you, meds wont help at all. You have to change your diet, it won’t help changing your diet. You need to take these 27 vitamins every day, you won’t get any help for taking a vitamin. And on and on and on. It was extremely frustrating to have this mystery illness and not know a damn thing about it. And on top of that not be able to get any clear answer!
So I joined a facebook Group….or 6.
The facebook Groups helped but for some reason it took about 6 months post diagnosis to even think about joining one. And then another 6 months of reading posts and asking questions to even begin to start understanding what people were talking about. I would introduce myself and say I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and didn’t know where to start and the amount of questions people would ask me trying to help was amazing. But I felt like I was trying to decode the whole time. This lead to even more defeat and confusion. I just wanted someone to say, ”Hey, this is what you need to do. It’s that easy. Good luck.”
There were a few groups that I ended up leaving. Every time I participated I was told, “This is your new normal, you need to accept it and move on. You aren’t going to ever, not be tired. You are never going to lose the weight. You will always have this problem and the sooner you accept it the better.” Thank god I did not accept that as an answer. I was a year post diagnosis and my quality of life had only slightly improved with taking levothyroxine. But I had gathered enough from these groups and a co worker at the time, to know I needed to start getting a full thyroid lab done regularly. So I scheduled the appointment.
I called the dr that diagnosed me and she referred me to someone else in the building that could help me monitor everything. I went into the appointment almost just as oblivious about what I had as when I was diagnosed. A full year had gone by and I had received no guidance from a doctor on how to care for what I had. Just a prescription. I know now, that was unacceptable.
I can’t even remember everything she tested at that appointment. It all felt very over my head. But I felt good after the appointment knowing she cared enough to test multiple things including vitamin levels, arthritis, fibromyalgia and more.
A week later I got my results back and it felt like I had answers for the first time in a year. I needed my levothyroxine increased to 75mg from 50 and I was “extremely low” on vitamin D, B12, and Iron. I was Given 50,000 of Vitamin D to take weekly for 3 months. I Needed B12 injections once a week for 3 months. (I can’t remember exactly how much it was) And I was given a referral for an iron infusion. I went for my infusion and walked out without it. I was told that I didn’t need it and I only had low iron because I was a menstruating woman and I just needed to go to the grocery store and get some iron to supplement it. After calling my Dr back she Explained that I was actually anemic and needed more than a supplement and was given 325 mg of iron to take 3 times a day for 3 months.
It was a waiting game at this point. I had answers to my questions and hopefully these would become solutions to my problems. I was diagnosed a year prior but this is the point where my life actually started to change.
