Lazy? No. Exhausted!

I first realized how unusual my fatigue was when my coworkers would ask how I was and I almost always answered with some variant of, “I’m ok. Just tired.” They would politely inquire as to what I was doing the previous day to make me so tired and I never had a good answer.

I stay home and sleep. Sometimes I go shopping or see a movie and then I sleep more. I can only plan one “activity” a day or I feel the effects for more than a week. This is what a common week for me looks like:

Monday: Stay home. Try to get something done. Rest.

Tuesday: Get ready for work. Sleep. Work.

Wednesday: Work. Sleep.

Thursday: Work. Sleep.

Friday: Work. Sleep.

Saturday: Work. Sleep.

Sunday: Maybe shop or do housework. If so rest the rest of the day.

I fall asleep hard and fast as soon as my head hits the pillow. I also have such a hard time waking up with an alarm clock or even a person trying to wake me. It feels like a layer of lead is pressing me back into bed and pulling my eyes back closed. I set multiple alarms at varying intervals and with different sounds and I still sleep too late to get to work on time every few weeks.

You can see why I got fed up and started asking my doctor for answers. I have no energy for a real life! I’m in my 20s! This is not normal. My coworkers think I’m lazy and so does my mom. My doctor suggested that I might be depressed. Another wants to give me adderall. I’m not depressed. I don’t want a stimulant I want someone to find out what is wrong with me and fix it. How could I get everyone to understand? Sleeping 10-24 hours a day is NOT NORMAL. I want to sleep less so that I can get things done. I want to live my life and not sleep it away.

I’ve tried all those “healthy sleep habits” and even had a sleep study done. I finally resorted to self diagnosis with the help of Dr. Google and it is the best decision that I have ever made. I am not lazy. I have hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue.

Since I have started treating my hypothyroidism I haven’t slept more than 14 hours a day and that alone has been amazing, but I’m greedy. I want to sleep only 7-9 hours a night with no naps and no fatigue. Is that too much to ask?

My low cortisol or adrenal fatigue has been harder to treat, but I think I’ve found a doctor that will help me with it so at least I’m not completely on my own for this chronic battle. I’ve been taking adrenal glandulars and vitamin C and B12 in high doses, but without much effect on my fatigue. He’s added some adaptogens to my regimen (yay. MORE pills.) and is considering starting me on hydrocortizone depending on the results of my second saliva cortisol test.

I’ve been trying to take said test for the past couple of weeks and keep oversleeping past when I should start it or not drinking enough water the day before to help me produce enough spit.

Any advice from personal experiences with adrenal fatigue? What works for you?

 

Until next time,

Mary

Hypothyroidism: The Basics

Delving into research on this topic can be confusing. There are a lot of conflicting sources and it can be a little overwhelming. Here’s a simplified version of what I’ve learned so far:

The thyroid gland helps regulate your metabolism and body temperature, but it has a role in almost every organ system in your body. The two basic types of thyroid disorders are hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. If you are hyper that means your thyroid gland is working too hard and creating too much thyroid hormone and can result in weight loss, anxiety, insomnia, feeling hot, rapid heart rate, etc. Hypo means your thyroid gland is lazy and doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone for your body resulting in fatigue, weight gain, feeling cold, brain fog, depression, etc.

I got the lazy one. Back before the modern blood tests were invented my symptoms alone would have been enough to warrant treatment. Nowadays though the standard test for thyroid disorders is called TSH or Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, but patients and knowledgeable doctors have found that this is test is not enough. To really know how your thyroid is functioning you need a full thyroid panel with TSH, Free T3, Free T4, ReverseT3 and Thyroid Antibodies.

The two most important tests for hypothyroidism are Free T3 and Free T4. Free T3 is the active thyroid hormone, while Free T4 is your thyroid storage hormone. A working thyroid produces T4, converts it to T3 which then activates your thyroid to make it do it’s thing. Optimally you would like both in the top half of their “normal” reference ranges. Low but still technically in range is sometimes referred to as sub-clinical hypothyroidism and unfortunately isn’t treated by most conventional doctors or endocrinologists. I had to beg my doctor to order these tests(she even flat out refused to run Reverse T3), and after they came in showing I was on the low end of my “normal” range she gloated saying she ran every test “six ways to Sunday” and there was no way that I had a thyroid problem.

I searched for an integrative or functional medicine doctor in my area and after seeing a dud I found my current thyroid doctor who is currently treating me with NDT. NDT stands for Natural Desiccated Thyroid and is a thyroid hormone replacement medicine that comes from a pigs thyroid and thus has both T3(active) and T4(storage) in it already. A lot of hypothyroid patients have problems converting T4 into T3 on their own when they are on a T4 only medication like Synthroid (levothyroxine). If your T3 stays low after you are being treated this may be the problem. There are several different brands of NDT with different fillers to note if you have any allergies. Some also do well on a combo of synthetic T4 and T3 meds.

After getting your numbers to optimal you may feel great or that might not be the end of your journey. Often you need to simultaneously treat your adrenals or vitamin deficiencies. I am doing both currently, but that’s another post.

Well, that’s the gist. If you have questions, leave a comment below. Research resources are also available in the widget to the right.

Until next time,

Mary

I Sleep Too Much: An Introduction

I began looking for an answer to my increase in deep oblivious sleep about two years ago. Most of the time if I mention my oversleeping problem I am told something along the lines of, “Wow, that sounds nice!”

I wish it were.

On an average night I sleep anywhere from 10-15 hours a night. If I’ve had a particularly stressful week or done anything physically strenuous that could jump to 15-24. Literally sleeping days away gets old fast. So naturally, I talked to my doctor. She took some blood tests, signed me up for a sleep study, and when none of that showed anything she tried giving me sleeping pills and muscle relaxants to help me sleep “deeper”.

Well, that’s the problem really. I sleep so hard and fast I can usually barely check my email in bed without passing out. When it comes time to wake up I have anywhere from 5-10 alarms in various ringtones and at random intervals to “surprise” myself into waking.

So I was skeptical that the ambien would work but I tried it, and then another brand when I reported no change. Then my doctor seemingly forgot about my “little” sleep problem. She prescribed me medicine for various other problems and if I mentioned my sleep again she assumed that I had trouble sleeping (a more common problem I suppose) and shrugged it off when I reminded her I slept too much.

How can sleeping too much be a problem? Just don’t. Sleep less. Sleep better. Be less lazy. Yet anytime I searched the internet for solutions so that I could just sleep less all I found were various articles saying, “how sleeping too much can kill you” or “sleeping more than 9 hours a night, is bad for your health”. Certainly not encouraging. So I tried better sleep habits, and made myself wake up after 8 or 9 hours only to find myself out of gas and needing a nap in just a few hours.

Finally fed up, I began searching for my own answers. Something is wrong with me. I could not have graduated college much less with a degree in theatre and with honors if this had always been my state of being. Something had changed. I had to be sick somehow. This was a symptom and I was determined to find the cure.

Google and I teamed up and knocked out possibilities one by one. Narcolepsy: no. Ovarian cancer: nope. Some other cancer: nada. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: maybe…. not. Fibromyalgia: not it. Cushings disease: negative. Hypothyroidism… now that fits every one of my symptoms and then some!

I was ecstatic! This was it! My problem had a name and better yet it had a cure. One little cheap pill a day and I would regain years of my life that were heretofore lost to sleep. I asked my doctor for the tests that the internet told me I needed and they came back – normal. But then I remembered something from my hours of research into hypothyroidism: if you are low in the range you could be sub-clinically hypothyroid and still present with symptoms.

I pointed out to my doctor that I was on the low end of normal. She gave me a speech about how treating non-existing thyroid problems can do more harm than good and suggested an antidepressant. I haven’t gone back to see her since.

I saw another doctor recommended on a thyroid website. He ran every test under the sun and told me I’m low on iron and vitamin D. Great. Supplements I can do. When I told him I’d seen no improvement he suggested a muscle relaxant at night and a stimulant during the day. So much for him. I scoured the internet once more for a competent thyroid doctor and when I finally found him he took one look at my thyroid test results and confirmed what I had known for months. I walked out of his office lighter than I’d felt in years and with a natural desiccated prescription in my pocket.

I’m better. I sleep a little less and a stressful week doesn’t knock me off my feet anymore but I still sleep more than I should and more importantly more than I want. I’m selfish. After 3-4 years of excessive sleeping I want to sleep as little as possible to get my life back again. Maybe one day I can work a full work week again. Or go out more than once a weekend and not get burnt out on leaving the house.

This blog is not my success story or a weight loss journey. I’m sharing my story in the hopes to share how common sub-clinical hypothyroidism is and how it’s treated. I also hope to get advice from those who have been down this road before and know more than I do. Either way I hope this blog makes you feel less alone, and less broken. Together we can bend that little butterfly shaped gland to our will and feel like ourselves again.

Until next time,

Mary