Blast to the Past

When I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, I had no idea what to do. Who does? There’s no step-by-step book on what to do next. I just wanted to feel normal again. But normal felt so impossible.

(Back to mid-September 2017)

My mom and I went to the nearest health food store to get all the vitamins in the book that we could. Under the Hypothyroidism list, I got the essentials, Kelp, L-tyrosine, Vitamin B, Charcoal,

and an Iron supplement. 

I took the vitamins for about a week and it felt like it was working, but I wanted to feel better than that. And then we remembered that we have a family friend that specialized in Integrative Medicine.

Integrative Medicine is a healing-oriented medicine that takes in account the entire person and addresses the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences that affect a person’s health. The doctors use functional medicine, which is a practice or treatment that focus on optimal functioning of the body and its organs, usually involving holistic or alternative medicine. They also use chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage therapies to heal the body. So basically, they are doctors that pay attention more to what is going on in your body instead of ignoring your health history and family history to tackle the real issues. (Also, I am not bagging on the medical world for this, I just like having more than one option of medicine to choose from. I often like the option to choose from Herbal medicines over the Pharmaceutical drugs).

So, we made an appointment for the 5thof October. 

My mom and my husband accompanied me to the appointment, so I had a crowd, which was great (I don’t like going to new places alone).

And at that time, I was a living, breathing, zombie. I was completely drained of life, and I already wanted to give up. I wasn’t sleeping or eating and I just walked around in sweatpants and sweatshirts. My skin was pale and my body was shot, I hated getting out of bed. I remember being heartbroken and for no reason at all. I felt so alone in this situation that I broke my own heart, and it hurt everywhere.

When I started to fill out the paperwork, I started to panic when I got to the part where I had to explain my symptoms. There were so many boxes I had to check that my eyes started filling with tears. My new Doctor, just told to me to be as honest as I could about how I felt and checking the boxes.

Then we sat down, all four of us, and talked about everything. 

#Throwback 

Summer 2012:

The Summer that my parents decided to move to the Bay Area. Which was probably the best idea they ever had.  We lived there for four years, and it was glorious. I got to grow as a person, I got to grow without the pressure of my family back in San Diego. I got to go through heartbreak and I got to learn about love. I got to learn about how true happiness felt like and how to relax. The Bay was the best home I ever had. Somedays it wasn’t perfect, but that was the beauty of it. Growth.

Autumn 2013:

In start of my Junior year, I had really bad anxiety, which I never told anyone about because mental illness was never a thing to talk about in my family, so I didn’t. That’s where my family went wrong, they told me that I didn’t have enough credibility as a human being to have a mental illness. Try living like that for a couple of years and being okay. 

Spring 2014:

I developed a stomach ulcer, from stress and anxiety. I didn’t know it was a stomach ulcer until I made an appointment for stomach pain in the Summer (during Ramadan, which is an Islamic Holiday). It was really bad, some night I prayed to die. When I got it checked I had a stomach ulcer and iron deficiency, also known as anemia. (Anemia is when your blood doesn’t have enough healthy blood cells due to the little iron in your body. Your symptoms usually include fatigue, shortness of breath, lightheadedness, dizziness and a fast heartbeat.)

So, that summer I was on a strict diet, no acidic foods like tomatoes or oranges, no spicy foods, no salty foods, no oily foods, and no caffeine. Fun summer, huh? I basically ate bread, bananas, potatoes and yogurt for 4 months. Then for another 2 months just to make sure I was all good. 

My anemia was caused by heavy periods and one in particular that lasted a whole month. So, it basically felt like a slow death, my days were hazy and everything felt like a dream.

When I went to my doctor for this, she prescribed me Birth Control, Prilosec and iron supplements.

To this day I have anemia, so I still can’t fast during Ramadan.

When my senior year started. I didn’t have an ulcer anymore, but I still had anemia and I developed asthma in the first weeks of school during cross country practice. I had my first asthma attack doing laps around the track, it felt like there was fire in my lungs and it felt like I was drowning. So, I collapsed on the inside of the track and I remember lots of people being there, it was in front of all the football and cross-country athletes. Again, super fun. 

I learned to live with it. It makes me work harder for what I want even though I’m slow as hell (still am) and I had really great people in my life cheering me on. I can still faintly hear my high school coach yelling at me to cross the finish line. And I was and still am, okay with it.

Summer 2016:

We moved back to SoCal (was not my decision to move, my dad wanted to). I had to change my doctor, which meant, I had to change my birth control medication. First doctor I went to, gave me the wrong medication which made me bleed 15 days out of the month, and made my anemia worse. The second doctor I went to, gave me a prescription that made me sick all the time, I had terrible nausea and cramps, so it made my condition worse. 

Spring 2017:

I stopped taking all of my medication so that I could give my body a break and to catch up to normal again. Little did I know, I was going to get much worse in the next coming months. 

Taking three different birth controls within a year, messed with my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone. I had too much T3 (Triiodothyronine) and T4 (Thyroxine), which caused me to be anxious, irritable, moody, nervous, sensitive to high temperatures, and shaky. Not to mention the symptoms I had from anemia, on top of that, the extra stress with planning a wedding, and trying to fuse two families.

(the end)

Back to the doctor’s office in October, he gave me a treatment plan that I couldn’t say no to. He made me feel safer than any other doctor out there, and he gave me hope for having a better outcome.

So yes, I have anxiety

Yes, I get panic attacks

Yes, I have some sorts of PTSD

Yes, I have depression 

Yes, I do have moods

Yes, I am very emotional

And I’m getting through it.