When Your Health Turns On You: #Hypothyroidism –– 1: Symptoms

It’s been a while. A long while. In the past two years no books have been launched, no books have been written; not even a short story. Life turned on me. To be precise, my health turned on me, and I’m writing this series of daily posts because if you don’t recognise the signs yours could turn on you. I don’t recommend it.

If you’ve not called by before, a pointer: I’m British and live in the UK. We have a National Health Service, free at the point of access, paid for via our taxes. Your mileage may differ, even if you live in the UK.

Back in the summer of 2017 (yes, 2017 – it’s horrific to think of it) I was launching Pilgrims of the Pool, the final novel of the Torc of Moonlight trilogy. I was bushed. It had come in later than planned because I was working slower [flag]; couldn’t focus for decent lengths of time [flag]; had to fight for the particular word I needed [flag]; and found myself nodding over my keyboard [big flag]. There were probably other symptoms but these are the ones I recall. Like we do, I rationalised: it’s been a busy year / life’s not been exactly smooth / stress…

The Torc of Moonlight trilogy was subsequently launched as a boxed set, Christmas prep loomed, but I was running on empty. Whereas at one time I could keep ten plates spinning in the air, I recognised that it was difficult to keep three going. My memory was failing me [flag], my short-term memory was full of holes [flag]. A rest over Christmas and New Year would do me good. It didn’t.

At this point should I have visited my General Practitioner? (GP-1 – there ends up being a few.) Yes, but what was I going to say? I’m tired? I’m not functioning properly? I’d only had an appointment in the October for my annual blood tests – I’ve been on high blood pressure medication for years [flag] – and when I asked about the results all I’d been told was the usual They’re fine.

             Note: this does not mean what we lay-people take it to mean; They’re fine means the tests

             are “within range”. As I was to discover, you can be very ill but your blood tests can 

             return “within range”. However, I’m getting ahead of myself…

By the end of January 2018 I had returned to writing, choosing a Western novella to cleanse my brain of the complicated multi-layers and dual time-lines of the Torc trilogy. It’s a straight story of revenge and redemption, something I should have completed, polished and proofed in a couple of months, three at most. It was like wringing blood from a stone.

I had to face facts, there was something seriously wrong with me. With my blood tests coming back fine, I feared it was the early onset of dementia. Both my parents suffered with this disease. I was unofficial carer for my mother in her 80s, but hindsight had shown that she had started in her early 70s. I’m in my late 60s. Shit.

How was I going to convey this to the GP without gaining a dismissal? Despite getting a good night’s sleep I was still wanting to nod off at odd times during the day, but now particularly after I’d eaten [flag], even a single sandwich. It was as if my body was shutting down functions it didn’t consider a priority so it could digest the simplest of foods. I dare not drive far at any time of the day in case I nodded off at the wheel.

Then in early April 2018 I awoke to find a swelling on the right side of my neck the size of a large egg split lengthways. It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t inflamed, it was just there. I visited GP-2 as mine was away. I was given antibiotics for a skin infection, despite my querying this diagnosis. By the time I collected the prescription I had a raging sore throat [flag], within a day my voice had turned husky [flag], and then one evening my husband told me I was slurring my words [huge flag]. I began Googling, settled on the thyroid, but my brain was incapable of registering the information I was attempting to read.

After completing the course of antibiotics I returned to GP-2, this time with written notes because I knew I’d never remember what I needed to ask. Blood was taken and I was sent for an emergency ultrasound scan on my neck as GP-2 feared a lymphoma (not that I was told such). Two days later I was having my neck gelled by a very pleasant operative at one of the city hospitals:  Oh, you’ve a swelling on your thyroid. It’s nothing to worry about. Lots of ladies get them.

Note the dismissal: It’s nothing to worry about. Lots of ladies get them.  
So that makes it okay, does it?

1 in 20 people suffer from a thyroid disorder.
After middle-age that can rise to 1 in 4.
It can ruin your life, no matter your age.

The Thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland sitting across the base of everyone’s throat. It secretes hormones necessary to the balanced function of a person’s metabolism and their immune system.

 

I returned to GP-2 for my blood results. I could hardly string three words together to make a phrase, never mind a sentence. Your bloods are well within range, but you’re interesting: you have antibodies! You could develop hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, but it might be in six months, or six years, or sixty years. And if it is, who’s going to care! LOL!

I kid you not. And not once was I prompted for symptoms.

I was told to return in three months for more blood tests to see whether I was moving towards hypothyroidism (underactive metabolism) or hyperthyroidism (overactive metabolism). I was just relieved it wasn’t early onset dementia [flag].

But three months? If I couldn’t function now, what was I going to be like in three months? And what if the blood tests again returned “within range”?  I could see my writing closing down for good. It was an appalling consideration. There had to be something I could do.

And of course, there was. Just about every illness known has either a charity or a support group, or both, dedicated to it. All I had to do was initiate an internet search and find one.

The response was more than I could cope with. Even the simple search request ‘thyroid problems’ pulled up 80.6m results. ‘Thyroid charity’ produced 3.2m results. The most comprehensive for the lay-person I found to be http://www.thyroiduk.org/ and it remains my go-to website, but the state I was in I couldn’t understand its detailed information.

Then while I was following links I hit a piece of luck. A website – I was so mentally out of it I never made a note of its URL and have never re-found it – suggested that eating six Brazil and almond nuts per day might help symptoms. I am not allergic to nuts. Feeling the way I did, what did I have to lose?

August 2018 I walked back into the office of GP-2 a different woman. I certainly wasn’t “cured”, I still fought for words – I still do – but I could now hold a conversation and ask relevant questions. Brazil and almond nuts contain, among others, the mineral Selenium needed for the thyroid to function, and contain it in massive amounts. I also knew something else: I did have Hypothyroidism – I ticked 31 out of the 112 symptoms listed on the Thyroid-UK website – and, as the antibody count illustrated, it was Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism, an autoimmune disorder.

An autoimmune disorder, however mild it is considered, should never be dismissed.

Once one takes hold the person becomes a magnet for others: 

Type 1 diabetes, coeliac disease, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, 

rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus...

GP-2 stared open-mouthed when confronted. This I came to realise is the normal state of affairs. If blood tests don’t return the necessary result, the patient isn’t suffering from the condition. Dare I say it? Yes, I dare: the attitude, if not the actual words, is that it’s all in the patient’s mind. Grudgingly, GP-2 accepted that six Brazil and almond nuts a day “won’t do you any harm”.

I left on a high, I was making progress!

But it was a false high. The question soon became If my body is missing Selenium, what else is it missing? And why?

When Your Health Turns On You #Hypothyroidism series:

1: Symptoms
2: Vitamins & Minerals
3: Blood Tests
4: Vitamin Co-Factors & the Microbiome
5: Functional Medicine & YouTube 
6: Covid-19 Coronavirus
7: Covid-19 and Vitamin D  

8: Vitamin D - The Results!

9: Covid-19 & Vitamin D - Jan 2021 Update 

Happy New Year!

Sending good wishes for the coming year to all my readers, both of this blog and of my fiction and non-fiction. You are very much appreciated.

May the New Year bring comfort for those suffering ill health, joy for those who are lonely, and clear thinking for those who need it - which I guess embraces us all.

Let's spare a moment in our busy lives to stand and really look at our surroundings, to feel wonder at the depth of blue of the sky, to listen for the distinct songs of birds, and be grateful for what we have.

Linda

All Things Father Christmas, including Santa and NORAD

Here I am, back again, with my  traditional Christmas article, because, as with all good Traditions, it has the right amount of fact while not taking itself too seriously.

Let it raise a smile as snippets are retold over a glass of something warming and yet another mince pie.

Wishing all my readers, of this blog and of my books, a wonderful festive season, whatever your beliefs.

Who will be dropping gifts at your hearth? Or will it be you leaving them? 

Here in the UK it is definitely Father Christmas who will be visiting, and despite his title he has nothing to do with Christianity, or parenthood, or even humans. It is the spirit of Mid-Winter, a personification clothed in evergreen, wrapped in holly and ivy, and garlanded in red berries and mistletoe. It is a jovial spirit, come at the solstice to partake in the mid-winter’s frivolities. The people welcomed it with entertainment, plied it with food and alcoholic beverages, and gave offerings so that it might not linger too long but instead beat smooth a path for an early spring.

Not a terrible lot changed when the Roman Legions made a home in these lands. They brought with them Saturnalia, a festival of light accompanied by a good deal of partying under the watchful eye of the god Saturn, often depicted with a scythe. So far so good.

Enter Christianity and a need by the early church to leverage ‘Jesus the Christ’ against entrenched Paganism. No one knew Jesus’ birth date, so the Pope of the time decided Jesus should be given one. The Pagan equinox celebrations of spring and autumn had already been coveted, so why not align the day to the biggest celebration of them all? A bishop from the Middle East, recently raised to sainthood for his good works, was also pressed into action: Nicholas (more or less). In the face of such worthiness the Brits remained steadfastedly wedded to their eat, drink and make merry.

The Romans assimiliated or left, and the Saxons and Jutes invaded, bringing along their Woden and winter’s Father Time. They also believed in eat, drink and make merry. A later invasion by the Norse and Danes (Vikings) – who also believed in eat, drink and make merry (can you see a pattern developing?) – brought along their Odin, who during mid-winter took on the manifestation of Jul – Yule – in that he was portly, white-bearded (signifying age), had the ability to see into people’s minds and know if they’d been good or not-so-good, and rode a horse, Sleipnir, which travelled at terrifying speed due to it having eight legs. Father Christmas as we know it was beginning to coalesce.

Saint Nicholas didn’t truly put in an appearance on British shores until the islands were invaded yet again, this time in 1066 by ex-Vikings, the Normans. However, no matter how the populace was “encouraged” to be pious, once out of the church doors after celebrating Jesus’ birthday, eat, drink and make merry remained the national stance. Not even the Puritans, who in the mid-17th century took the field and the country during the English Civil War, could fully ban Christmastide – ie the eat, drink and make merry – and Father Christmas, as he was by then known, made appearances in Mummer’s Plays, basically to raise a glass [ie two fingers] to the Puritan Parliament. And what happened to the Puritans? We happily waved them off to America (more or less).

It was there, after the War of Independence in the 18th century, that the populace began to embrace a Sinter Klaas from the Dutch tradition, doubtless because it wasn’t English (ungrateful individuals). In 1810 the New York Historical Society held a dinner in honour of Saint Nicholas, and twelve years later Clement Moore, drawing on Norse and Germanic folklore, wrote a poem A Visit from St Nicholas which was subsequently published as The Night Before Christmas. Thus Santa Claus came into his own, wearing the vestiges of Father Christmas/Jul. Even the reindeer and sled mentioned in the poem came from the Sammi people of Lapland, who the Viking peoples to the south of them firmly believed were ‘magicians’.

The Coca-Cola Company? Bah humbug! Late to the party. Santa Claus and even Father Christmas were wearing red before it showed up with its non-alcoholic beverage. But it had, and still has if its vivid red pantechnicon is anything to go by, damned good copywriters.

Which finally brings me to NORAD. Yes, I do mean the North American Aerospace Defence Command based in Colorado Springs. In 1955 Sears Roebuck & Company, also based in Colorado Springs, placed an advertisement in the press inviting children to phone Santa. Except the phone number was misprinted. Guess who was inundated with phone calls? CONAD – the Continental Air Defence Command and forerunner of NORAD. Despite being in the grips of the Cold War and it supposedly watching for in-coming missiles from you-know-where, the Defence Command put diplomacy to the fore and gave radar updates to children on the progress of Santa from the North Pole.

And thanks to the late Colonel Harry Shoup, Director of Operations at the time, it still does. Check on Santa’s progress at https://www.noradsanta.org/
 

So wherever you are, and whatever spirit of Nature you believe in, be sure to eat, drink and make merry this festive season.

With grateful thanks to Wikipaedia, History Today, Time-Travel Britain, Museum of UnNatural Mystery, and NORAD for their assistance in producing this tongue-firmly-in-cheek blogpost.

Go #Gothic

The East Riding of Yorkshire’s Festival of Words, just finished, covered a multitude of delightful literary sins, from Hitler’s British Isles with Duncan Barrett to The Age of Elegance: from Downton to the Mitfords with Jessica Fellowes, which culminated in that most English of preoccupations, indulging in tea and cakes.

For me, though, the event which hit the spot was the Gothic Thrillers panel on ‘Murder Day’.  Jess Kidd (Things in Jars), Chris Simms (Sing Me To Sleep) and Amanda Mason (Wayward Girls), ably facilitated by crime-writing host Nick Quantrill, kept the 100+ attendees entranced with their insights and discussion.

As the distinction between genres continues to blur, the Gothic, beloved of Victorian melodrama, has reinvented itself for the 21st Century. It flows darkly between Horror and Historical, Psychological Thriller and Contemporary Crime, often acting as a thread in itself or facilitating a sub-plot. It’s twin foundations are a setting both immersive and atmospheric, and a central character or characters haunted by themselves, the past, by whatever catalyst intrigues the novelist. Yet it is the character or characters, who lead the storyline to its compelling, often unsettling, denouement, which may, or may not, be an actual ending. There’s a lot of scope.

As I listened I realised my Torc of Moonlight trilogy, which has never fitted neatly into either Fantasy or Paranormal, joins all the dots. 

 

Mmm… a re-brand may well be on the cards. Tarot cards, obviously.