Well, it’s been a hectic few weeks, what with moving house, MRIs, CTs, bloods… all that stuff…. that I have neglected my blogs. I thought I had better update everyone here, seeing as I am asked a lot how it’s going.

So, I had an MRI of my Pituitary Gland. And I had a CT scan of my Adrenal glands. But by the time I had finally gotten in to have them, my mind had somewhat shifted… because I received my blood results back.

I am Iron Deficient.
I am Vitamin D deficient.
I am Vitamin B12 deficient.
My TPO Antibodies are 4 times too high.
My Free T3 is in the upper normal range.
My Free T4 is in the low-normal range.
My TSH was 3.02.
My Potassium is looking high, but needs retesting.
My Reproductive hormones are not consistent with my cycle dates (possibly to do with my tubal last year).

When you add this to the other symptoms, it points towards Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis with possible Coeliac Disease.

So it looks like I am a plain old horse.

To be clear, I have in no way self-diagnosed this and I am working with my new GP to pin down a formal diagnosis, but in my travels I learned a few things:

1. Amphetamine use can artificially mask TSH bloods to look better than they are.
2. Metformin use can artificially mask TSH bloods the same way.

I have been on both drugs over a period of years to treat the vague symptoms associated with what now appears to be a screwed up thyroid. The “normal” TSH was always the puzzling part, but learning the subtleties of Thyroid blood tests means that I now know a whole lot more than I used to. And I know that those? Well, they are some rather abnormal bloods.

Cushing’s is certainly not off the table 100% yet, but it makes a lot of sense. Especially seeing as:

1) I have a strong family history of autoimmune thyroid disease, both Grave’s and Hashimoto’s
2) Strong family history of other autoimmune disease, including “irritable bowel” and “rheumatism” (those lovely generic terms the older generations use :))
3) When I was 9 and first started to feel severe fatigue and unwell, I had a large mysterious lump appear on my neck. Well, yes, that might be because it was a GOITER? That bit I can’t prove, but hey, it adds to the picture, right?
4) My crazy list of chronic symptoms that very much mirror cyclical Cushing’s, can also be explained by HYPERthyroid and HYPOthyroid phases that have happened recently in response to an increasing autoimmune attack on my thyroid.
5) I’ve been on thyroid meds before and they helped.

The Coeliac thing? Well, that’s because of lots of gross reasons noone needs to know about… but let’s just say, I have always suspected that I am intolerant of… well…. FOOD. But have never been able to pinpoint it. And the deficiencies and quite common association between the 2 diseases accounts for about… 99% of my symptoms.

And the other 1%? Well, maybe I am just a bit fat and womany and tubal-y.

I am going to the Doctor tomorrow and will be discussing this with him and hoping that we trial thyroid meds to see if it helps with the symptoms.

I still, obviously, have a failed Dex suppression test and Adrenal style crashes… but I am going to wait and see how we go.

NEIGH.

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