Update

Okay … where to start?
How about … UGH!?

Dermatologist – as I figured the appointment yesterday was a colossal waste of time. Since I have my rash under control there’s not much they can say other than – “you likely have a-topic dermatitis” – the most generic diagnosis on the planet for red itchy skin. They don’t even really bother asking many questions. She gave the usual mumbo jumbo about not bathing in hot water, double rinsing all of my laundry, moisturizing, bla bla bla … and even told me that Hashimoto’s is an over-active thyroid … so yeah, she’s pretty much a genius – totally confident in her abilities! NOT! She also insisted that the cream I’d been using (though I never told her the name of the prescription) couldn’t possibly have caused swollen lymph nodes and simply  said … “here’s a prescription in case you get itchy again .. use this and call if you need me”. Yeeeeeaaaaah … thanks lady … I’ll pass.

Endocrinologist – I had high hopes for today’s appointment, I was bound and bent that I wouldn’t be putting up with getting the brush off. She was a decent doctor, unimpressed that my GP is not running consistent labs so we can actually compare apples to apples test over test … yeah me either lady!

The gist of the visit is this:

• She feels my body is effectively using the synthetic hormone I’m on, and that it’s converting T4 to T3 just fine – not sure how she determines this based on what I saw in the labs
• She told me that she believes Life Labs has a problem with their T3 results, and that she’s been finding everyone’s T3 readings are low, so she’s not even considering it … which doesn’t help me an awful lot at the moment since that’s a BIG factor in what we’re talking about here with muscle weakness and fatigue
• She feels I may be on TOO MUCH of the synthetic hormone and said that too much can also cause fatigue
• She thinks that my low iron levels need to be addressed and monitored every 3 months properly, but she’s leaving this up to my GP. She said that iron deficiency obviously causes fatigue as well and she’s pointing the finger at that, not my thyroid
• Since she believes I’m getting enough or too much hormone she has prescribed me alternating doses of Synthroid… 88mcg one day and 100mcg the next and so on. She wants me to do that for 3 months and re-run the labs and come back
• She’s open to using desiccated thyroid hormone if I want to try it – that’s a natural hormone, not synthetic, and it’s a combination of T4 & T3 which means my body doesn’t have to do all of the conversion from T4 to T3. She seemed very skeptical that this is what I needed, so I went with her recommendation for the alternating dose as mentioned above, and I’ve got myself some Iron supplements so we can see how that goes … one more pill to add to the regime!

So – not a big update – now we do more of the waiting and seeing … AGAIN.
Completely tired of all the trial and error and just want to find ONE solution.

The supplements I’m on currently are in my opinion RIDICULOUS!! I thought I’d be cutting back on the number of things I’m taking since there’s so much in the liquid supplement, but I’m still having to add more stuff to make sure I’m supporting gut and thyroid and that the supplement doses are sufficient … so it’s big handfuls of supplements at each meal … a real pain in the butt!

My GP said she wanted to see me after the Endocrinologist appointment, but I seriously don’t want to be bothered going back. Such a waste of time! UGH!! I guess I best do it though so I can tell her that she needs to start running consistent labs, and I’ll see if she won’t just give me a standing requisition for every 3 months so I don’t need to do a whole bunch of visits. BLA!

So – that is all. Tired and fed up as usual. Good times.