If I haven’t been around here this weekend what have I been doing? I feel like I’ve been watching the Olympics, sleeping, and eating. That’s it. My thyroid has my sleep schedule so off again that it’s hard to really do anything. I’ve been sleeping in shifts of 2-3 hours at a time, waking up with another lump on my throat, laying in bed watching tv for a couple hours, and falling back asleep.

I’ve started the same load of laundry 4 times because I keep falling asleep before I make it to put them in the dryer. Hubby’s two rules in life are that he doesn’t do laundry or mop. I don’t know if it’s my thyroid causing it or just my hormones in general, but I feel like my entire upper body is one big pimple right now. Just when my face and shoulders finally cleared up last week, now I’m in need of some serious blemish acne cream again.

As for my thyroid, I decided not to call my family doctor tomorrow. Instead I’m going to go to another emergency care/I don’t have a regular doctor type clinic that opened up a few months ago closer to me. I haven’t been there yet, and there’s a pretty good chance my neck will swell again sometime during the day since it’s been that way all weekend. If it does I’m going to walk in there while there’s a visible lump, and let’s see what that doctor has to say about it. Maybe he’ll end up being more helpful, maybe not, but at least it’s another option.

I’ll still schedule an appointment with my family doctor if I need to, but I just want to use this to see if I can maybe get yet another opinion, so it’s worth a shot. I’ve also printed out a list of tests that both my normal doctor and the endocrinologist I saw have both failed to run on me. We’ll just see where things go from here.

Now let’s see if I can start that load of laundry again and actually remember to put it in the dryer this time. Somebody…anybody feel free to send me a big ‘ole Twitter message in about 30 minutes reminding me to put the clothes in the dryer! I’m going to set myself an alarm on my cell phone anyway. Let’s hope these clothes actually get dry tonight or Hubby’s going to work in wet shorts.

After what happened last night/early this morning with my thyroid I started thinking of new ways to approach my doctor about getting me on some medication.  I called my sister, and since she goes to another doctor, asked if I could get a copy of her medical history.  I called my dad and asked for the same thing since they both have a thyroid disease.  Of course they’re both going to get that to me asap.

I was planning on waiting until I got that information before making another appointment with my doctor, but now I’ve changed my mind.  After finally getting a few more hours of sleep today (yes Lisa I was really sleeping :-p), I dragged myself out of bed to get dinner with Hubby.  I felt like total crap, so we decided to hit up the LJS drive-thru for the family treasure chest meal, then we took it to his parent’s house to eat.  They live 5 min from LJS…we live almost 30 away.  I at least wanted to eat it while it was hot.

We ate and settled in to watch a bit of Olympic stuff with the in laws, and that’s when I started feeling like my neck was tightening again.  I started coughing, felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I had to take myself outside to catch some air.  After my coughing fit ended I started to feel the lump in my throat again.  It was already getting pretty late, so I told Hubby I thought it was time to head home.  We made it home around 10:30, and I immediately went to the bathroom mirror to check my throat.  Yep, there was a lump on the right side.  By 11pm I had a lump the size of a golf ball.

The way I see it, this has gone way too far.  It’s very well known that the thyroid tests doctors use don’t always indicate things correctly, and there are many many patients who live with thyroid problems that cause problems with their daily lives, yet the doctor’s won’t treat them because the tests don’t show the problem.

I’m ready to basically force my doctor to treat me based on symptoms, or I’m going to find yet another doctor.  My symptoms that can be physically seen with the doctor’s own two eyes and my family history should be enough to start me on a treatment option.

What sucks is there is only one endocrinologist in our area now, and he’s the one who doesn’t want to treat me based on symptoms.  The only other endocrinologist I’ve found is 2 hours away, and he requires that my family doctor give a referral.  I think it’s about time I start begging for that referral.

for waking me up tonight.

I finally got myself back on a normal sleep schedule.  I’ve been going to bed around 10:30 or 11pm and waking up bright and early at 6:30am with Hubby.  Doesn’t look like that’s going to be lasting though.  I went to bed at 11pm last night dead tired.  I tucked myself in, and I was out cold before Hubby came to bed 15 minutes later.  I didn’t even flinch when he came to bed, and he said he even had to move me over to my side of the bed…I was stretched out in the middle.

Fast forward to 3:45am, and I sat up straight wide awake.  Hubby felt me moving around and woke up, which is how I know when he came to bed.  When I sat up I immediately noticed I had an awful cramp in my lower back…the kind you get if you sleep on a bad mattress in the same spot for 8 hours.  I readjusted myself and tried to go back to sleep, but I just laid there wide awake.

Within a few minutes I started feeling that horrible lump in my throat that I absolutely dread.  My thyroid is at it again.  I woke Hubby up and had him feel my neck.  Yep, he could feel the lump, too, so I jumped up and went to the mirror.  It’s big enough tonight to be visible.

There won’t be any running to the doctor in the morning for blood work because that method hasn’t been working.  My levels are back to normal before morning, so now I have to keep a journal of my symptoms, what time of the night the “thyroid attack” occurs, and I have to try to take photos if the lump is visible.

If we can setup a pattern then the endocrinologist can finally set me up with some medication to help it.  The only problem is I don’t really have a pattern right now.  This happens when it wants to, and it comes and goes.  Sometimes I’ll have this happen once a week, then it’ll suddenly stop for months before happening once a week again.

I hate to say it, but sometimes I wish my thyroid would just decide to start working at only 60% or something just so it’s enough to show up on the tests.  At least then I could get the medication I need to regulate it the way it needs to be.