Phase Seven: Working on Getting Back to "Normal"

My workplace is awesome.  I am back to work, but they have been very "easy" on me, and have transitioned me back slowly - five hours here, three hours there.  Enough to feel "real" but not enough to be overwhelmed and exhausted by it all right away.  The full-blown caseload resumes after Spring Break, but by then, hopefully I'll be ready.  Right now, I still get fatigued really easily, but I've resumed working out and am TRYING to get back in shape.

I'm still very hypothyrotic.  Don't know if that's a word, or if I just made it up, but thyroid levels still very much out of whack.  I had called my endocrinologist's office the other day about that.  How long does it take to regulate these things?  My goodness!!  The nurse on the phone said "6-12 weeks, because it takes a while for the thyroid to respond".  "Uhhhhh..." I said.  "I don't have a thyroid.  YOU writing a prescription are my thyroid."  "OH," said she.  " I missed that part in your chart.  In that case, let's do some blood work and see what we get!"

So, normal TSH levels are somewhere between 1.0 and 2.0.  They can run as high as 4.0 in some people, and they still feel "normal".  Before I went "hypothyroid" in preparation for radioiodine treatment, my "normal" was 1.6.  And I felt pretty good at that level.  During the "deep plunge", my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (which is produced by the pituitary to stimulate the thyroid in response to a lack of thyroid hormone, so has an inverse relationship to thyroid levels) was 72.  SEVENTY TWO.  So, definitely a bit out of whack, but that's what it's supposed to do when you go off all thyroid medication.  We wanted that TSH high, and darn it... it was HIGH.  To the point of making me miserable.  I did a good job preparing for radiation, that's for sure. 

So now, after being back ON my thyroid medication for 22 days, 3 full weeks after I should be returned to "normal"... my TSH is still 23.  TWENTY THREE, not TWO POINT THREE.  And my normal was 1.6.  So.... still way high.  By a factor of 1500% or so.   Which explains a good deal about why I'm still tired all the time, and still have a hoarse voice, my period is all whacky, and why I'm still apparently gaining weight even when I have virtually no appetite whatsoever and eat usually just one meal a day at lunch time. 

Hopefully, the endocrinologist will adjust my levels here soon.  My primary won't touch it with a 10 foot pole... she emphatically said "we're going to let your endocrinologist handle this."  My endocrinologist just happens to be on a spring break vacation with his family, so hopefully there's SOMEONE who can make adjustments for me.  I'm really trying to get back to normal here, and having hormones at appropriate levels will go a long way to ensuring that happens!!  Phase Seven, which I didn't even think would be a thing (in my head it was Phase Six and DONE.... NORMAL ONCE MORE), is underway.  Re-regulating, and whipping myself back into shape.  Phase seven, "the aftermath".    But I'm getting there!!