Yet Another Dr. Switch…
So, after a year with my ‘new’ doctor, who gave me the Armour “take as much as you need to” prescription I’d been looking for, I accidentally missed my annual checkup appointment. At this office, there’s usually a 2-3 month wait for a new appointment, but I thought I had enough Armour to last until an appointment opened up (and I thought if I ran out, I could just get an easy refill!).
So, I ran out of Armour on a Saturday, and called the Dr’s office on Monday (already feeling pretty run down after a couple days with no meds), and discovered a major problem: Office policy was to never refill a prescription without an office visit. I tried to explain to the assistant that I wasn’t one of his sub-clinical thyroid patients, and taking Armour wasn’t an optional thing for me, but the “best [she] could do” was to squeeze me in at 7:30am, three weeks away.
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Diet tips for hypothyroid patients
As I mentioned in my last post, my new doctor specialized in both treating hypothyroidism with Armour thyroid and weight loss, which was exactly what I was looking for. Of course, any self-respecting doctor isn’t just going to throw a bunch of Armour at you and try to give you diet pills without giving you the information you need to help lose weight in a healthy way. So, given that, on top of the list of recommended supplements he sent me home with, he also gave me a lesson on dietary don’ts to keep in mind if I really wanted to lose weight.
I was pretty happy to hear they were all mostly guidelines I already followed in my own eating habits, but still, some of his tips definitely ran counter to the “typical American” idea of how to diet:
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Thyroidstory returns (with a new vitamin list)
Sure, the name is a little different, but it’s the same content (going all the way back to the beginning), and the same author, so let’s get back to the story…
As I posted last, I had an appointment with a local doctor who specializes in hypothyroid treatment with Armour Thyroid, and weight loss (kind of a holy grail combination for hypothyroid patients)! I did indeed go see him, and the first thing he did was bump my Armour dose from 105mg a day to 240mg a day. I was instructed to start off taking one 60mg pill in the morning and one in the afternoon, then add one more in the morning after a couple weeks, and one more in the afternoon a couple weeks later, if I felt I needed it.
This was astounding. I didn’t have to convince him it was OK to raise my dose. He even explained to me that my earlier theory about why suppressing TSH with Armour is perfectly OK was actually completely correct, and the only numbers you really need to track are free T3, blood pressure and heart rate (the last two are to ensure you’re not actually hyperthyroid on your current dose).
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Medical non-Update
Part of the reason I haven’t updated the site in so long? (Besides laziness that is …) There has been no news. I mostly feel OK, I guess. Hands and feet not cold, sleeping reasonably well, not depressed, energy levels OK most of the time. Still at the 105mg/day Armour dose. However, I also have not lost any weight. In fact, I have gained back all the weight I lost while I was on the 120mg/day prescription. I have tried dieting (1500cal/day … moderate low carb/whole grain diet), and succeeded in losing some water weight. Which, of course, came back as soon as my period hit. When I started exercising and generally being more physically active over the winter, I gained weight. As far as I can tell, I gained muscle mass, and did not lost one. fucking. ounce. of fat.
This is, no doubt, not an unfamiliar story for most of you reading this site.
So, I was faced with a decision: 1. arm myself with my own theory about why suppressing TSH is not a bad thing with Armour*, and hope she believed me. However, I was getting really tired of trying to sell my doctor on how to do her job. 2. Suck it up and hope things changed, or that I could find an extra supplement that would tip the balance back in my weight loss favor. 3. Find another doctor.
So … finally … next week I go see a new doctor. Who prescribes Armour by preference, and who’s practice specialties are hormone balancing and weight loss. I am SO excited, I can’t even properly explain it. I am daydreaming about getting back into a shape I recognize for the first time in almost 8 years … stay tuned!
Latest tests are in … Looking good!
Almost exactly a year after my first blood tests (Sept 27, 2005–Sept 29, 2006), I went in for the most recent round. I’ve been feeling pretty good on my current prescription (105mg Armour Thyroid: 60mg early afternoon, 45mg at bedtime), plus Thyromine and vitamins in the morning.
So, I was optimistic that my blood levels had dropped enough from last time (when my T4 and T3 was acceptable to the PhA, but my TSH was 10Xs lower than the bottom end of normal, and she wasn’t comfortable with that, so she lowered my dose from 120mg/day to 105mg), that the doc would be willing to renew my current prescription.
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