2013 – Year of Transformation

In December, I decided to start seeking out a cause of an issue and finally get it taken care of.

While reviewing a few videos at work of some staff interactions which I was a part of, I really took notice of my eyes.  Ever since I was younger, doctors have always been like “hey… have you gotten your thyroid checked?” and I would just regularly reply “no, my eyes are just big.”  When I was younger, I thought  that was it – incredibly “big” eyes were tell tale for thyroid defect.  But I learned that “big” wasn’t it.  It was “bulgy”.  The eyes just seemed to sit a little too far out for lack of a better word.   I remember being in a car with a former friend and her associate and he says her (with me right in the back seat and totally in earshot), “doesn’t she look like the woman who can pop out her eyeballs?”  I tried to chalk it up to perception.   Some folks like it… others don’t.   I remember being on the train with my brother mid college / end of college, and this guy gets on the train with his friend who was a woman and I kid you not… from Woodside Station straight through to 90th street, this cat gushed (at full volume mind you) about how gorgeous my eyes were.  On and on and on.  Only stopping half way through to ensure that Domi wasn’t my boyfriend and apologizing for making him uncomfortable if he was.   So I’ve had both sides of the spectrum.  And I thought I knew what I was seeing in the mirror when I looked.  I felt fine.  I felt that I looked fine.

Then I saw those videos.

And I found myself siding with my former friends colleague.    My eyeballs were just… so over exposed.  So overly prominent.  And not because I was trying to over emphasize them.  I was in the misdts of regular activity and there they were… SUPER EYEBALLS.   It made me think that folks must think i look crazy.  Time to check it out.   Although I’d had generalists look at my blood levels and see if they could ascertain some abnormality with my thyroid function and it always came back “normal” I think it merited seeing a specialist.   I did some searching around the web and found one.    On the internet, he seemed to come highly recommended by the patients that had taken time to review him.  So gave it a shot.  On Christmas Eve, i trekked to his Columbus Circle office and  met him for the first time.  Before I could really get any words out about why I was there, he was quick to tell me that there was DEFINITELY something wrong and we needed to start running tests immediately.  All coupled with the quacky promise that “we’ll fix you right up”.  I don’t know why? but I HATE when doctors say crap like that.  Makes them sound like snake oil salesmen.  I don’t really believe that true defect can be “fixed right up” – it’s a process.  It has to be.  In the office that day, they took a sonogram of my thyroid and cranium, performed a wacky nerve test that I HATED and also did a weird ocular test tracking my eyes ability to track.  He sent me home with some tests to get administered at Quest Diagnostics as well as 2 “at-home” tests to take myself – an iodine resistance test for which I had to collect 24 hours of urine (un-fun) and an adrenal test that I had to collect 24 hrs of spit (even LESS fun).  I had a month to get it all done and come back to him on the 25th of January.

Yesterday was the follow up and the results were as follows:  I’m insulin resistant.  But he would not label me “diabetic” (not sure why) and he says it may be all the reasons losing weight has been more difficult than it should fo rme.  For that he’s prescribed Metformin for me (which I KNOW to be a med to treat Diabetes Type II, but he maintained that he was just giving it to me to manage my insulin resistance… not that I was diabetic).  My thyroid is “low”  so he’s placed me on Armour Thyroid as treatment to increase my thyroid function.  The bulging eyes are a sign of “hyper”thyroid or overactive thyroid – so not sure if that will be resolved by treating my hypothyroid (or underactive thyroid).  My adrenals are low so he prescribed something called Adren-All natural supplement to assist with my adrenal function.  Because my hormones are so out of whack,  I’ve stopped ovulating.  He didn’t really go into detail on that one, but I will and seek additional assistance there.  Just “not” ovulating is super not good from my point of view.  Then he told me stuff I already knew – my Vitamin D is super low, my Iron is always low.  So he gave me a Vitamin D supplement and an Iron supplement to help out  I have an appt with him in 2 months to follow up.  He told me to let him know about how much easier it will have been to lose weight by that time.  Not sure what he meant by that, but I guess it’s just going to start dropping off then.  Or not.   Most alarming finding was that there is a 1cm nodule on my thyroid gland.   The doctor says he is 99% positive that it’s nothing, but is sending me to get it bioposied to be on the safe side.  The words “nodule” and “biopsy” alone are enough to send me into a full on panic.  But I’m not.  What would that solve right now?  I’ll just go get it checked out, man up and wait for the response.

Either way, I’m glad to have this stuff addressed finally.  I’m a still a touch tentative at the extreme lack of detail in some of these diagnoses.  But I suppose if I take these supplements for the 2 month period and feel no difference in my energy or ability, then I’ll take to the web again and research someone new.  My dearest Icy said to me upon hearing all of this through my worries ensured “How awesome will you be in a month?”   She’s right.  The fact that this is getting addressed at all is great.  I wish I had realized that there was something wrong earlier and not just though that this was me getting old.    I look forward to being the “brand new woman” that the doctor promised – with or without his intervention.

Here’s to a transformative 2013.

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