From There and Fat Again: A Hypothyroid's Tale

Hello all.

I've been obese since I was a teenager and it was always kinda inexplicable. I ate more healthfully than any other teenager I knew, and certainly more healthfully than my family. I was active: involved in cheerleading, drama, marching band, and choir (as well as secretly doing cardio workouts at home). But there was no other way to slice it, I was obese. I even had a doctor once ask me if I had trouble getting out of a car. (Ironically less than an hour after I'd finished my last tumbling pass at cheer practice.) Everybody just kinda looked at my overweight mother and assumed what so many people always assume... she must just be lazy, she must eat too much, you must never have taught her any self-control, I mean, look at you.

It wasn't until I was in my late twenties as I spoke to a new obgyn about my polycystic ovarian syndrome (something that wasn't diagnosed until I was 21, and by a spinal surgeon of all people), when she mentioned that she didn't see any signs of hirsutism and I admitted that actually my hair falls out in clumps, that someone finally said "Has anyone ever checked your thyroid?" No. Not in almost two decades of being overweight/obese had any doctor ever checked. And when this doctor finally did we discovered why my body had never matched my habits: my thyroid barely functioned.

I started treatment with synthetic thyroid hormone and it was like magic. Suddenly what I ate and the activity I did actually made a difference! I ended up losing 150lbs. But all those years had taken a toll on my psyche and I still hated my body. I still looked in the mirror and saw my 300+ self from before. (All the loose skin that I not-so-affectionately called my 'deflated fat girl suit' didn't help matters.) It also didn't help that I moved away from my doctors who had been treating me so well and started with a new one in a different state.

He was nice enough. I still intend to use him as my general practitioner for things like sinus infections and regular check-ups, etc. But he really REALLY didn't know how to treat someone with hypothyroid. He would order bloodwork every six months, but no matter what the results he would never adjust my dosage higher (he did adjust it down once). I started to gain weight, just a little at first. I chalked it up to having a new job and a new schedule; like so many of us, I blamed myself because that's what we're trained to do. But then my mother suffered an emergency, was admitted to the ICU, and when she got out she required 24hr care for awhile. When I next saw my physician my thyroid numbers were way off and I knew they had to be because I'd gained close to 60lbs in those six months. He didn't adjust my meds. He told me to try a vegetarian diet and to get more exercise.

It took three years and every one of those hard-won 150lbs coming back, plus being absolutely exhausted ALL THE TIME, for me to be completely done going back to my doctor. Instead I scheduled my very first visit to an endocrinologist. I am so glad that I did. That initial visit lasted at least 45mins and she really seemed to be listening to me. I had my first series of tests and, lo and behold, my thyroid function (which I already knew was off earlier in the year) was even worse despite being medicated. She automatically bumped me up two dosage levels to try to get me where I need to be. I've got appointments with her every three months for the next year and more tests to come because she's actually trying to get to the bottom of everything and see which treatments work best for me.

So here I am, back at over 300lbs (328 at my last update) but at least there's some hope that with healthy eating and sweating at the gym I will lose it again. And this time I want to appreciate my lighter body. I'm 6ft tall. I'm never going to be a tiny woman. But I WILL be thinner, stronger, and healthier. And I WILL see my own beauty because I worked for it.



This is terribly long for an introduction. lol Sorry about that!