Sometimes, only your mates can tell it like it is... "you look like you've been smacked in the face in the Bigg Market but without the bruises." And you know what? My mate is right. I look a mess. My face is so swollen I can barely open my eyes. It's just something else to add to the ever growing list of things that seem to be going wrong with my health. Only this time it's not related to my Diabetes, I believe it's my thyroid that's causing the problems.
I found out in January 2012 I had an overactive thyroid. More specifically I had what was called Graves Disease. Not the best name for an illness, granted, but it was named after the man who founded it, rather than it's prognosis (thank God). I'd been suffering with what I thought were hypo symptoms for a few weeks - hot flushes, palpitations, hand tremors, as well as an anxious feeling and weight loss. A routine blood pressure check with the practice nurse showed an increased heartbeat. I mentioned my pulse had been high at my last Diabetes appointment and after a short chat she suggested I have a blood test to check my thyroid. Sure enough, the tests came back showing it was overactive - basically it was producing too much of the hormone thyroxine which was why I'd been having all the symptoms I've just mentioned.
What I learned in the next couple of days about the the thyroid is quite remarkable. Now I am no doctor so my explanations are in simple terms for all to understand. It's a small butterfly shaped gland that sits neatly in your neck and produces hormones, one of them being thyroxine, and it does so much you wouldn't actually believe it. It's responsible for everything from regulating your heartrate to the way your hair and nails grow. If you produce too much thyroxine then things in your body speed up - metabolism, heartrate, appetite etc - and this is what had happened to me. The diagnosis of Grave's Disease came about as I am a text book case - a woman in her thirties with an underlying auto immune illness. Normally the symptoms can be treated with beta blockers which will take away the tremours and fluttering heart, but as those symptoms are also the symptoms of a hypo, it was decided that it would be too dangerous for me to take them. If I went hypo during the night and had no symptoms then I might not wake up. So my course of medication was a tablet to stop the thyroid from producing thyroxine altogether, and eventually take it into an underactive state, in order for me to have a type of treatment called Radioiodine.
Now this treatment isn't as bad as it may sound, infact it's been around for quite a number of years. This treatment stops the thyroid from producing too much thyroxine and involves taking a small pill containing radioactive iodine.... and, well that's it! You're radioactive for around two weeks, so there's to be no contact with babies, or pregnant women, and no sharing a bed with a partner. There are a few other things to avoid but they are minor. After the two weeks, normal service can be resumed. As for the side effects, well this is why I am sat here now writing this.
At first I felt nothing, maybe just a dry throat. But the purpose of the radioiodine is to ultimately take the thyroid into an underactive state so that a tablet can be taken every day for life, to replace the missing hormone. I am now in that underactive state and struggling. I'm not yet taking that tablet to replace the missing thyroxine so everyday tasks have become mammoth. I mentioned earier that the thyroid affects metabolism, which for a diabetic means it will also affect how the body uses insulin. My sugar levels are erratic and I am literally living life one meal at a time as I don't know what my body is going to do next. But today just sucked. And I mean sucked.
I woke at 5.45am after having around 2 hour's sleep, and most of that was drenched in a cold sweat. As if waking up at that awful time wasn't bad enough, I was hypo... oh and it was Monday! After the obligatory glass of Lucozade and Weetabix, I dragged myself off into the shower hoping it would give me the pick me up I needed. The pick me up never came. Most of you reading this might wonder why I didn't just crawl back into bed, but I'm in a relatively new job and the last thing I want is a bad attendance record. So I sat infront of the mirror, ready to continue with the morning routine, and barely recognised the person looking back at me. In the space of two weeks I've aged ten years. My face is swollen, my body is bloated and my energy levels are close to zero. Although I'm training I've put on weight and I'm feeling low most of the time. But I did what a lot of women in the world do and put on my make up, straightened my hair and more or less crawled into work.
I'll be honest, I didn't last long at at work. Numbers looked like letters, letters looked like symbols and a task that would normally take an hour, took all morning. Luckily I have an understanding boss who had no problem in me going home. I packed up my desk and did what every little girl does when she's poorly... called her mum. Lunch was waiting for me, as was my favourite blanket on the sofa. And that's where I've spent the afternoon. I have my follow up appointment on Thursday with my consultant where hopefully I'll get started on Thyroxine and begin to feel more human. Until then I think bed and the sofa is best place for me, not least so I don't scare the kids with my hideously bloated face.
K x
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