Finally got my butt moving!

Yep don't all keel from the shock, but yesterday I actually did some significant exercise and even more amazingly I quite enjoyed it!

First of all I stuck my new DVD of 'The Tudors' in the player and walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes and this definitely helped the time go faster.

Then I mowed our yard (for the first time ever) with a big self-propelled but walk behind gas mower and that took me the best part of 2 hours, as we have a big yard. It might be self-propelled but it still requires walking and effort to turn it, arm work and I was pretty tired by the last section. It was a gorgeous day, I got fresh air, a tan and apart from the last 20 minutes I did enjoy it!

Why did I suddenly get moving, well despite the medication increase last week my BP is still slightly on the climb. So I decided okay I need to get moving and improve my fitness and maybe that will help too.

So I intend to at the very least walk 30 mins most days and I am also going to bike and lift some light weights too.

Hyper' again!

As many of you already know, I have Graves Disease, which is an auto-immune Thyroid disease where you basically swing back and forth between being Hyper/Hypothyroid and the ultimate aim is to get you Euthyroid (remission).

I was diagnosed initially March 30 2007 on the verge of a full thyroid storm and since then have been taking Anti-Thyroid Drug therapy as treatment. Zapping my thyroid with a high dose of radiation (the common treatment here) is not an option, as I am in the 25% of Graves patients with the added complication of Graves Opthamology eye disease. Surgery is also not the best option because of this, as they often take too much away and then the eye disease, which manifests itself as bulgy eyes can get very bad. Having the eye disease also gives you a much lower % chance of remission, but I refuse to give up hope.

So I have regular bloodwork and have learned in the past year to be acutely aware of my body changing and the symptoms; I can tell when I am going off without the bloodwork usually.

For the past 3 weeks my resting BP and Heart Rate and have been steadily rising daily, plus I can eat anything and not gain (the only positive), my nails and hair are on hyperspeed growth, I am covered in bruises, much more jittery/anxious and warmer all of a sudden, when usually I am always cold! So I went for bloodwork last week and found out today I am Hyperthyroid once again and back where I was aprox' last May/June.

I won't bore you with the actual bloodwork (for those who posted last time though, I did get and am waiting on a TSI result), but there are certain levels we have figured out I feel best at and they are all skewed again. We have been steadily decreasing my meds, but it seems it was too fast and so my Dr has increased them all upwards again. Now I go a month and get the tests run and we will see whether the increase has been enough to reverse the slide and get me back in range shortly. Apart from the symptoms I listed above, I am actually doing ok and can work if I don't push myself too hard.

This past year has been an interesting experience for me and has really taught me that nobody knows your body better than you do. I told my Dr today if the tests had not comeback as they did, I'd have called the Lab' a liar I was that certain!

So if you feel things are changing in your body, but not hugely or seriously, maybe just a feeling you have - then please listen to those signs and see your Dr. Last year if I had waited another 48hrs I could have gone into a full thyroid storm which is deadly serious and in extreme cases can be fatal.

So here we go again, but I will keep plugging away and eventually I will get this beat or at the very least get off this up/down rollercoaster!

Back on the rollercoaster

I spent most of today after going blonde again, running around getting tests done for my Graves Disease.

Over the past 10 days I have suspected I was going back into hyperthyroidism and my mum told me I looked like I was, after seeing me on the webcam Friday. I also have Graves Opthamology which is the eye disease, the most apparent symptom being big or protruding eyes.

So today I went to the Optician who took one look at me and said 'yep you're hyper'. Well my eyes aren't protruding yet but they are bigger and the right one more so. But it's something that is very hard to tell yourself, when you see your eyes everyday! So he took a few measurements and confirmed what we both knew already, I have slid too far.

So then off to my Dr, who drew blood and has sent it off for a full thyroid panel & TSH. These will be back tomorrow and then he will call me to increase my medications again and we will try to get me back in range. This will automatically shrink my eyes, lower my BP again and decrease the anxiety that has returned.

This is just life with Graves Disease. I was diagnosed 11 months ago and now know the warning signs of both hyper and hypothyroidism, as with this disease you swing both ways!

So unfortunately I won't be level by my 1 year anniversary, but I will at least be hopefully back in normal range. The problem as we are finding out, is how to keep me there!

Normal at last!

Some of you may argue this point.....but I refer to my thyroid levels not my persona!

After almost 11 months of trying to normalise my thyroid levels following my diagnosis with Graves Disease, my Dr confirmed yesterday 2/3 of the tests are finally normal :-) The best part is they are the important 2 tests, one just scraped in on the bottom rung but it's a great moment and explains why I have been feeling so much better. The other test has now stayed in normal range for 5 weeks and this has given me confidence that the medication is better than the drastic radiation/surgery alternatives.

It seems my healthier diet and many vitamin supplements, are all combining with the med's to make me stronger every month. It also helps having a Dr who believes in the conservative approach and has a personal interest in my disease, I struck lucky the day he took me on.

So the med's are reduced again and this time I will go 6 weeks until the next blood work and hope the levels continue to stabilise.