And we have yet another chapter in the life of my underactive thyroid: Mrs Hypothyoidism aka Mrs Myxoedema.
Now I'm told my results are TSH 3.8 (still high) and the T4 up at 23 (should be no higher than 19, 11 or 26 depending on whose scale you use! the scale they use here is 19). Confusing? yes isn't it? What a palaver.
Went to the hospital today expecting to have an ultrasound of the neck as this is what the doctor had told me I was getting, but she looked blankly back at me when I said I was having that done. I go trolling off to the ultrasound department to check and they also have the blank look lurgy thing going on. So come home and ring in to be told that if the doctor had thought it necessary she would have done it in the consult as she has one of these little ultrasound things in the consulting room. If I hadn't been told about it, I wouldn't have expected to have had it, what a complete nonsense eh? Now I'm discharged! How can I be discharged when they haven't even checked to see if the nodules are gone, what about follow ups??? I have no choice but to wait for the 'after consult letter' to come out and see what it says, in the meantime they would like me to stay on 100mcg but my heart is racing away so they will agree to drop it to 75mcg. Problem here is as my thyroxine maker doesn't supply a tablet in this dosage, they do 25, 50 or 100 only. So I'll have to end up having one 50mcg tablet and one 25mcg tablet for the next 8 weeks when I'm to have another blood test (which I will have done at the hospital next time as the practice nurse at my GP's surgery has bruised my veins badly this time and the arm is very sore almost a week later) this will show where I am with the hormones. If it wasn't for the racing heartbeat 100mcg is where they would like me to be but other people I speak to in the health service agree 100mcg is quite a high dose. My consultant tells me that some women like to stay on a high dose as it gives them more energy. Good for them I say because they probably don't know about the damage that too much T4 does to the body, things like bone density reducing (not good for me if it happens because of my spine issues) heart damage and a raft of other things I won't bore you with. If the 75mcg does work I'd be happy but I have my doubts as my last results of TSH at 51 and T4 at 15 when I was taking 50mcg compared with TSH at 3.8 and T4 at 23 on 100mcg is worrying. 3.8 is still high and has been linked with cholesterol problems which I really don't need because there is a history of heart problems and stroke in my family so it's something that should be alerting the medics here but isn't.
I really thought I had found a decent service in the hospital with this thyroid doctor but it seems they are just like every other department. I asked about having the T3 levels checked at the next bloodtest because not everyone can convert the T4 into T3 which is the important hormone. I was told I can have it done but it's not usually done as, wait for it, yes that's right - IT COSTS TOO MUCH. Sad that we have to put a price on health eh? perhaps if our NHS became just that, the NATIONAL Health Service and stopped trying to treat the whole world for free we would get better results, that and if the government stopped messing about with it! We are not the IHS (that's International Health Service) but doctors won't be immigration officials and who can blame them.
© silversapphire 2010
All rights reserved. No part of the publications, or of this website may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means without the express prior written permission of the Author
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.