Chronic Rants

I just got a test result back and it was only a bit over 10 times higher than it should be!  Yay!

My guess is that most “healthy” people don’t understand why this is cause for celebration.  From my interactions, it seems that their world consists of healthy or not healthy and nothing in between.  But for those of us with chronic illnesses, there’s a huge spectrum, and I’m thrilled to be moving along mine in the right direction.

I got diagnosed with an autoimmune condition at age 23.  My hypothyroid diagnosis came at age 25.  After a lot of research, now I know that many hypothyroid cases are autoimmune and people should be tested for that, but that someone with a history of autoimmune disease should definitely be for Hashimoto’s Disease, which is an autoimmune thyroid condition.  Unfortunately, I only did this research in the last year, and none of my doctors thought to test me for thyroid antibodies until I was 31.  Yep, it took six years for anyone to think of testing me for something that was incredibly likely.  That’s just another in the long list of errors made by my doctors.

Anyway, the point is that they did finally run the test.  On a “normal” scale of 0-35, my score was over 400.  Not good.  The next year it was over 600.  Even worse.  My doctor told me that the only treatment was the pill that I was currently taking, but through my own research I determined that wasn’t the case.  I went on a gluten-free diet.  I started seeing a naturopath.  I made more dietary changes.  I began taking supplements.  I did whatever I felt was right to fix my body.

For a long time, none of my doctors tested my thyroid antibody levels.  Why bother, when there was nothing they could do anyway?  But at my (and my naturopath’s) request, a doctor ran the test last month.  I got the results this week: on a scale of 0-35 my level was 375!  Wow!

The real question is, what does this number really mean?  After all, it’s just a number, just a lab test.  This doesn’t change how I feel.  I feel the same today as I did last week, before getting the result.  But now I know that the hard work, the experimenting, the huge expenses, are all worth it.  Because of all of that, I’m heading in the right direction.  I knew this, of course, because I was feeling better, but there was the nagging worry that maybe my feeling better was the result of a placebo affect, or maybe it was only a random, temporary blip that wouldn’t last much longer.  Of course, these things could still be true, but now it also looks like I’m getting better.  I may never get those antibodies into the “normal” range, but the closer they are, the better I should be feeling.

So for only having my thyroid antibodies at a ridiculously high level, instead of a super ridiculously high level, I’m CELEBRATING!!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2013 at 5:58 pm and is filed under Educating, Expectations, Healthcare, Milestones, Raves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.