ramblings on hyperthyroidism

two weeks flew by really fast and last thursday afternoon found me once again at the doctor's clinic. thank God he said that i am responding really well to the adjusted medication, faster than the usual. my t3 level went up by .06 but still well within the normal limits while my t4 remained the same, a few points below the minimum normal range. which is what led my doctor to adjust my medication once again which is good, because i am to take it every other day now. i go back to meds tomorrow. and the best part? he gave me a reprieve from all the ban on seafood, dairy and egg yolks! hallelujah! granted, it was just from that day until today, but a reprieve for a few days is better than none at all. so of course the first thing i ate for dinner that day was the spicy seafood aglio olio pasta my bro brought home. it was so delicious, i practically wept tears of joy. breakfast on friday? grilled cheese sandwich and good old fashioned hot chocolate made with real dairy milk and NOT almond milk! my breakfast today was the same although i had some leftover chicken to add to my sandwich. i'd hoped to go out with the boys today because then i'd be able to push it and get me a slice of snr cheese pizza but i opted out. i figured once my doctor gave me the all-clear signal that's what i'll get to celebrate.

at times i still think i'm being a big baby about all my experiences with hyperthyroidism but can't help it, i've never been seriously ill before this except for the occasional fever or colds. before i got officially diagnosed i had lots of excuses for the symptoms i had. difficulty in swallowing? oh, that's because the ent told me i have tonsil stones. i was even coughing so i attributed it to that. sudden weight loss? hey, i've been taking up arnis since last year and i've been gradually losing weight since then.no energy at all/exhaustion? well i've always been exhausted, no surprise there when you reside in metro manila. mood swings? come on, i've always been on that since forever. no appetite? i hate brown rice! besides, i eat a lot on sundays at my tita's house. (but even when we ate out i ate reallllly slowly and practically had no energy to finish my food which is HIGHLY UNLIKELY of moi). so on and so forth. the only symptom i have no excuse for was the nightly two-hour fevers i've been having at the onset. it was finally attributed to a slight infection due to tonsillitis. the cherry on top would be anaemia which i also had thanks to lack of sleep and such. so imagine all the meds i had to take from those times. i hate taking meds, i hate being poked with a needle although i'm not really scared of it. i would never wish this kind of illness, and all others on someone because getting sick of whatever is still no joke.

the fun/bittersweet part of hyperthyroidism is the weight loss. i've gone down from 68 kilos to 58 kilos in less than a month approximately and i looked really sick and not the healthy look of someone who lost that much weight through proper diet and exercise. although my weight in college was about 55-58 kilos so it was ideal for my frame. i've gained back a few pounds since then and i'm hoping to maintain this present weight. i actually bought two new tops and a pair of pants because all my clothes have suddenly become baggy. some people have told me they wished they could lose weight as fast as i had but not in this manner. of course not. like i said, i don't wish for anyone to get sick.

so my takeaway from all this? tell someone right away about what you're feeling. because i never told anyone except for my brother. so for a month and a half i was enduring all the symptoms by myself especially the nightly fevers then and i only chugged biogesic every night. of course the general weakness i felt was eventually noticed by my family as well as everything else and they mentioned different possibilities of what my illness was, diabetes and tuberculosis included. when i finally plucked the courage to consult a doctor he even said it might be dehydration. it was summer and it was still possible to get dehydrated even if i hardly went out. and then it was my mum who pushed me to get a blood test as well for my tsh, ft3 and ft4 levels, in which hyperthyroidism was finally confirmed.

also, listen to what the doctor says. i did. i did it because i wanted to get well, and fast! (think dr. nefario in despicable me hehe). however i wish i didn't do some researching online because when my doctor said that there are several types of thyroid problems, i just had to see what they were. of course the last one i would read was about thyroid cancer. and much like pandora opening that fateful box, i clicked the symptoms for that. coughing is one of them. i was coughing almost nonstop at that time. so just imagine the ice that crept down my spine. for me to say that it only added to my worries is putting it lightly. i already felt very weak from keeping everything to myself for a long time and that piece of information about coughing, well, just intensified my worries until i got my thyroid ultrasound results. so from then on, i only researched for recipes that don't use dairy and whole eggs in them.

speaking of recipes, i had to make a whole lot of adjustments to what i should eat. upon checking the ingredients of most dry goods in our pantry (i know, i'm such a tita already), i discovered that iodised salt is one of the key ingredients. it will be difficult for me to have anything for breakfast so i decided to make everything from scratch, without using iodised salt (i used rock salt and sometimes that super expensive himalayan pink salt), dairy milk and whole eggs. all i had for breakfast for the first few weeks were experiments of sweet potato pancakes, all made with just egg whites, baking powder, flour and coconut milk. once i made banana pancakes. yummy!

sometimes i also had some oatmeal and champorado mixed with almond milk. they taste okay, but nothing beats dairy milk. i went to the point that i made skillet bread and even homemade granola to add variety. and yeah, i also made my own peanut butter which had different results every time. so far i've made three batches. as in i roasted the peanuts myself on a traditional kawali, then pulverised them in a blender and mixed with oil, salt and muscovado syrup which yes, i also made myself since i have some muscovado sugar on hand. now how artisanal is that, eh? haha! and the recipes do not stop there. i even looked for recipes on vegan ice cream that don't require an ice cream maker. i've already enjoyed two batches of coco banana ice cream sprinkled with cacao bits.

savoury cooking was not hard at all because we never use iodised salt at home anyway. but since the packaged tomato sauce has it, i just make my own tomato sauce instead. it wasn't hard to make it since i've done it many times before. my takeaway when it comes to cooking healthy is that why buy expensive health food when you can make it yourself? use ingredients that are readily available in the supermarket and whatever you already have on hand at home. the only "healthy" foodstuff i bought are the non-dairy milks such as almond and rice, and then that himalayan pink salt which i use sparingly since we use the ordinary rock salt too. that's it. i've adjusted to living without butter and cheese and so far, so good. hopefully i still get to try my hand at making vegan butter because the vegan butter i checked out in some health stores around the metro are so freaking expensive. and when i checked for recipes, the ingredients are very easy to come by except for the nutritional yeast which i'm not sure yet where to get it. however, that is not to say that i'm swearing off dairy, or that i'll be turning to the dark side aka veganism, oh, no. nuh-uh. simply put, i'll follow my doctor's orders on what i can and cannot eat. until then, adjustment is the name of the game.

and how could i forget the prayers? it really pays to have a support system who will help you through tough times. i must admit i even had some reservations on sharing my prayer request at first but since God did not create us to be solitary creatures, i went and put everything out there. for the meds to work as they are supposed to, wisdom for the doctor, etc. really grateful to my friends and family who prayed with us. so it's not a surprise when i responded to the meds quite fast from the first time. there were still some bumps along the way but with my current result and doctor's prognosis, all i can say is all the glory and honour belong to our God.  

so i guess that's it for now on my hyperthyroidism story. here's to the next three weeks 'til the next checkup and beyond.