Thyroid

It’s almost amazing how something so miniscule can alter your life and give you hope when you were near hopeless. Throughout my battle with infertility I had my thyroid tested a few times. My results reflected that I was on the absolute lowest value of the “normal range”. I never thought much about it at the time. Like at all. I had covered endocrine system in nursing school, but never really got into it. I just came out knowing that hormone imbalances can affect your physical/mental health greatly if left untreated.. but I was in “normal range”. So I was prescribed that horrid Clomid, and had zero response to it. In fact, my progesterone was so low, my previous RE could barely believe it since I just completed a clomid cycle. I saw my current RE last December and she tested my thyroid again. It came back again on the lowest level of normal range. She mentioned to me that it was fine, but that she likes to see it a little more controlled. She said that the next time I would try fertility drugs, that she was going to couple it with medication to bring my levels up a little.  Since I had no intent of trying to conceive at that time, or anytime soon, I again never gave it a second thought.

For a lot of years, I have continually feel shitty. I’ve had so many “issues” and every test after test comes back negative or inconclusive. My joints swell so bad without reason, I’m tired always, severe headaches for no reason, still don’t ovulate, lack of sex drive, occasional random chest pains, severe dry skin, hair loss, extreme cold sensitivity, depression (not like poor me, but like no drive for anything, not caring if I meet deadlines or clean or look nice.)  I attributed all of these to stress/not the greatest eating habits.

I started looking at hormones, and imbalances recently because I just still don’t understand how my progesterone can continually be so low, why I didn’t respond even slightly to clomid. Barely mentioned in anovulation is low thyroid being a factor. I personally scour the net about the anovulation causes… still convinced its stress/poor diet. I started searching about anovulation and hypothryroid. I don’t find a whole lot on the internet. Most everything is layman’s writing, and it’s hard to find information that I can benefit from that I haven’t learned in school or on my own research. I was at barnes and noble yesterday checking out the medical reference books like I love doing. I started searching for the thyroid section. There were maybe 8 or so books- “Thyroid for dummies” and other stuff I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend $ on to learn what I already know. Then I found a book called “The Thyroid Solution: A Revolutionary Mind-body Program for Regaining Your Emotional and Physical Health” by Ridha Arem, M.D.

I started reading it yesterday. I could barely put it down. I almost wanted to cry cause when I got to the chapter that discusses borderline low thyroid in women and infertility it was almost as if I wrote the book myself. It was so eye opening. The book talks about the depression infertiles get, about the severe PMS, the anger for no reason, the lack of sex drive, and SO many more things I have/currently gone through.

Anyone that has had low thyroid readings or progesterone levels definitely should get this book! I can’t wait to read more of it tonight. I will share more of it later.