I began taking Armour Thyroid this past week, and today I feel different. It has taken a week, but something is distinctively different. If this is working like it feels it is working, then I am going to have to fight the anger that will surface over the wasted years of trying (I should say fighting) to be well.
First, I notice I don't crave carbohydrates. I also don't crave wine to relax me for sleep. (I guess this means I won't need it for sex either...) My mental fog seems better. My body doesn't ache, including my back. But oddly the most distinguishable change is I am having REM sleep. I am dreaming, and dreaming a lot. Somewhere in all these years of dealing with this disease I stopped dreaming. Last night I had six different dreams. I woke up laughing this morning at the thought that if dreams are where our "teachers or spirit guides" try and communicate with us, then I must be pissing them off. Now that I am having REM sleep I guess they feel the need to catch up with a monsoon of dreams. If you knew how bizarre, you'd probably run now...
Many of you know that if you don't have REM sleep, you don't wake up feeling rested. Today I feel rested. I feel normal (as normal as a redhead can be, which is one step up from abnormal). It is strange to attempt to make people understand what thyroid sufferers feel like every day. Personally, I think we deserve some badge of honor. Make mine pink please - wait breast cancer has that - then make mine cinnamon. We thyroid sufferers could use some spice.
Thanks to Donna, a reader who sent me a link to others like me on Yahoo. I was directed to the following site:
http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/my-story/ (<---CLICK HERE)
where Janie, the owner of the site shares her story. I froze as I read her words. She is my twin. I have felt exactly the same way. Others can read her story and begin to see what we go through with this disease. This disease seems to go after people who have a vibrant lust for life. The one way we tell we are still suffering is in our lack of interest in our own lives. A non-vibrant or non-vibrating redhead is a sad, sad thing indeed...
I used to believe that we have complete control over our thoughts and our lives. If you believe all the "new-age" declamations, then one might conclude that we control our thoughts which create our lives. Now, I am not so sure. If a change in chemicals (hormones) changes the way one feels and thinks, and by feeling bad, our lives begin to crumble - who is responsible? No amount of positive thinking is going to make my thyroid function well enough to give my body what it needs. Something in a failing thyroid, which drops hormone levels, affects our thoughts. Is it the chicken or the egg...?
Stress overwhelms us and causes our mind and bodies to shut down. My mind would often race with thoughts of depression because I was too exhausted to crawl into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I have laid on my floor to perform countless functions before the doctors prescribed T3. No, it wasn't sex. Yet, change my meds to mimic natural thyroid function and my thoughts and body change with it. Do we really have as much control as we think? Can certain thoughts we are having indicate underneath it all we are becoming ill?
If I become my old self through taking Armour, the heavens help me for how angry I will be at the doctors who have contributed to the loss of so much of my life. Not to mention robbing Brian of a mother who fights to be a 100 percent in his world. This has been going on for four years now. But how many years prior to 2002 was it slowly happening before the symptoms knocked me to the floor? It is time I can't get back. During which time I probably bought a European vacation for a doctor or two...
I suppose it should motivate me to LIVE LIVE LIVE (or slap a doctor)
if Armour is the answer to my prayers.
Until next time-
C
