(Un)Welcome to my home, Hashimoto

I never expected to receive an unwelcome guest who would stay with me for the rest of my life. Heck, I didn’t even know who Hashimoto was. Even when we were introduced I didn’t really think much of Hashimoto from it’s appearance and the brief introduction by my doctor.  We had almost crossed paths years earlier by a different doctor, but that doctor incorrectly told me we didn’t need to meet.

I didn’t realize even after we’d been introduced, how ugly Hashimoto really was on the inside.  How volatile, sensitive, depressing, energy sucking, vile, and really invisible to the rest of my loved ones around me. I have learned over the years of knowing Hashimoto better all the time, Hasimoto is quite lonely and wants me to feel the same way in our relationship.

Even when I told people I have Hashimoto’s, and subsequently found out they do too, our guests Hashimoto don’t seem to have the same personality traits.  Apparently Hashimoto affects each of us differently, we each deal with it differently, some of us are able to simplify it like the general doctors do, some others aren’t able to due to the strong characteristics of our own personal Hashimoto.

My Hashimoto greeted me with a vengence.  Apparently Hashimoto didn’t like to be ignored for any longer. Hashimoto made sure I felt pretty miserable with the most seemingly random symptoms.  It was almost like a ghost from the dead trying so hard to reach out to me, and I continued to explain everything away as something other than what it really was.

The sudden sadness coincidentally once I returned to work after  being home with my kids for 9 years was pretty obvious.  I couldn’t handle being away from my kids.  Crying in my cubicle office daily was easy to explain away. It was also quite the valid reason to quit my job.

Cold? I lived in Minnesota. Cold and MN are equivalent.

The feeling of weakness and lack of energy and motivation, well I was getting older. I guess I should just work out more, but where the heck do I find the energy?!

The restless legs….well I had seen the commercials for sufferers of this and  medication for it (which of course I would not take). I just seemed to accept weird things happen to weird people, and restless legs happened to me for no apparent reason.

The trouble staying asleep….I have seen so many people complain of that on Facebook, so I guess that is a symptom of our aging that we have no choice but to accept.

Teeth grinding became just yet another added symptom of my “stressful life”. I mean, I also had a constant nervous feeling in my stomach most days for years. I would wake up to an immediate anxious feeling. I had experienced some pretty traumatic events in my life, my marriage wasn’t always great (of course THAT couldn’t be due to any of my symptoms like my quite frequent irritability!), I was a super mom to 4 super active daughters.  Of course I was going to have symptoms of anxiety! Back to the sleeping……stressful life to blame possibly too! I felt quite often overwhelmed with life in general (thank God not in a self harming sort of way!), but I just chugged on through.

I felt pretty tired a lot. I even posted on Facebook once asking for advice on how to stop feeling so tired even though I was getting plenty of sleep. Exercise was a suggestion…but again, back to that lack of energy thing.

My daily hair loss, that is the one that took me to the doctor the first time. As apparently Hashimoto wasn’t introduced yet, I just compared myself to an animal shedding excessively.  It seemed dramatically more in spring and summer months so I really was just shedding my extra coat. I could easily wipe up the excessive hair on the bathroom floor with a circular swipe of a tissue, and in the shower hair balls on the ledge greeted my husband daily. Hey, at least I tried not to clog the drain! As far as why, well my mom has pretty thin hair too so genetics just suck (in more ways than I knew then).

The ringing in my ears….now that’s a weird one.  No explanation for that one, but simple enough to ignore.

Weight gain is just supposed to happen as we age, especially as women, and personally a woman who gave birth to 4 children.  At least that is what we are told, and expect to happen.  It is true our metabolisms slow down, and refer back yet again to my loss of energy and motivation, so not enough exercise will certainly contribute to that. Even though I was keeping detailed track of my calories and still watching the scale ever so slightly creep up, I just had to accept I was getting old.  I mean, I was in my late 30s after all (insert eye rolls here). Older=fatter.

The very dry skin in such random places such as my eyelids. Well, I guess I have become super sensitive to eye shadow, and I never really wore much of it anyway, in my “old age”. Simple solution, don’t wear eye shadow.

Pooping and I have never really had a good thing.  Pretty much all of my adult life I have been researching  constipation and trying everything to alleviate it.  I just wanted to poop on a daily basis like they say you should. I had accepted that I just wasn’t a pooper.  Human nature, be damned! I had tried everything recommended, from increasing fiber, supplements, exercise, occasional laxative, you name it.  Pooping just wasn’t much of a thing for me. And that, my dear friends, is a symptom you really don’t discuss with many people, heck no one really, as I am quite the modest girl. So I suffered and just silently rejoiced when an occasional good BM came my way! (Insert the blushed face here)

Headaches are just a part of life.  Who doesn’t get headaches? I didn’t think much of the fact I had multiple types of migraines. Well, actually, I did try to keep a log to discover any triggers, to no avail. I could still function with my many headaches and migraines and I knew so many others have it much worse with debilitating headaches. I just either had a constant pain in the left side of my head and face or I couldn’t see clearly with a visual aura of squibbly (is that a word?) lines in my peripheral vision for about 30 minutes followed by a dull exhausting ache in my head for the rest of the day.  Functional, so just part of my life.

Palpitations are scary. The first time I mentioned them to a doctor I told him I didn’t think it was my heart but a fluttery feeling in my chest. His reply was that  it probably was my heart as palpitations and he was not concerned at all.  Mentally I have always been concerned since it started but reminded myself the doctor was not, even with no additional testing or explanation. (insert wtf here)

Now waking up in the middle of the night with a completely dead numb feeling in right arm was a little freaky.  Only saving grace for my sanity of that is that it was my right arm, and not my left. No explanation could really be found, but I guess for my long term mental state it is a good thing Hashimoto and I were introduced shortly after this crazy scary symptom appeared.  I guess this is when Hashimoto was really starting to try everything in the book to get my attention.

Hashimoto was just sick of being ignored at my house.

The sadness upon waking, to the point of crying before my head even lifted off the pillow didn’t make a lot of sense, but we had just made a big family move.  I knew I was stronger than that though, which I guess made me feel worse….what the hell was going on?!

It wasn’t until the anxiety attacks in the middle of the night did I realize something was definitely wrong.  The feeling of being awoken suddenly with an intense panic and feeling of imminent death (honestly, sat on couch in dark, alone, feeling like I must be dying) finally led me to the doctor again and my introduction to Hashimoto.

Oddly I can say I was somewhat relieved to meet Hashimoto.  I finally had an explanation for so many crazy things that I had been experiencing and feeling in the past couple years. I didn’t learn until more research almost 4 more years even after my introduction that Hashimoto was to blame for so many horrible things. One of those was literally starving my last sweet baby girl as my body couldn’t make sufficient breast milk anymore, no matter I had successfully nursed 3 other children (one of which was just a year prior), and no matter what I did to try and increase production.

Additional symptoms like bloating, acid reflux, eye strain unrelated to vision (verified by an extremely knowledgeable eye doctor), brain fog, sudden onset of intense fatigue randomly, sudden need to cry for no apparent reason even if had just been laughing, rapid heart rate randomly even while resting, low blood pressure, orange peel type texture skin, all appeared even after my introduction to Hashimoto. This was all even while on medication to keep it at bay.

I have learned quite intensely I don’t like Hashimoto. I am sick of all the complication Hashimoto brings to my life and the way it makes me feel. The unwanted guest at my house needs to get the boot.  This is my journey of trying so hard to evict Hashimoto. It is such a lonely journey, but I know finding others that experience even part of what my Hashimoto has brought to me helps in knowing I am not really alone.  I am hoping this does the same for you.

Hashimoto is lonely, but we don’t have to be.