My Journey with Hypothyroidism.
This is a subject close to my heart as it was a diagnosis given to me 26 years ago when I had difficulty conceiving a second child.
My primary focus was on finding out why I wasn’t getting pregnant when it had been so easy the first time. It wasn’t until that diagnosis was given to me that I started to join the dots and pay attention to a huge array of other ‘symptoms’ that I had been experiencing as well:-
- steady weight gain, despite no changes to what I was eating.
- increasing dryness to my skin
- Hair getting more brittle & falling out
- Permanent exhaustion no matter how much sleep I got
- Feeling increasingly low in mood, easily driven to tears, a constant feeling of sadness
- No sex drive at all, apart from cognitively because I wanted another child
- Difficulty concentrating or remembering things
- Irritability and impatience especially at home
- A feeling of heaviness, sluggishness in my whole body & particularly in my pelvis
- Constantly feeling cold with sudden flashes of heat
- Craving for sugar & other stimulants like coffee & alcohol
- Periods became much heavier & I was experiencing PMT/PMS for the first time in my life
I was working so hard at the time in a high powered, corporate type job with responsibility for a team of 35 people, undertaking tasks that I found personally very challenging and that conflicted with my Values. I was working long & sometimes unpredictable hours & juggling so much in my personal life, including looking after a 2 year old and a Mother with advancing dementia as well as grieving the recent death of my Father.
There was zero time for me or my needs, I was terrified of screwing up, being found out and felt like an imposter a lot of the time. Naturally this played out destructively in my relationship with my husband and some of my friendships – I just didn’t have any spare energy to ‘play nice’! With hindsight I had been stuck firmly in my masculine energy of go, go. go, get shit done, just do it & the work culture was very much one of you can not say ‘No’. nothing is impossible, find a way……
No wonder I crashed & burned – something had to give, if I couldn’t recognise how running on empty I was then my poor overworked body sure as hell was going to make sure I started listening……
This turned out to be a pivotal time in my self-development journey – a time when I was forced to stop & take stock of my Health & make it a priority. Up until this time it was something I had taken for granted & I just carried on with my Life without any understanding of how my physical, emotional & spiritual Health are all linked & effected by each other – when one goes out of balance they all go out of balance….
Homeopathy to the rescue! To cut a long story short – I was prescribed higher & higher doses of artificial thyroid hormones called Thyroxine in the UK or Eltroxin here in Ireland. But despite the higher & higher doses I had a very muted & unsatisfactory improvement. When I asked about alternatives I was told there was nothing further to do & that I would be reliant on these drugs for Life. But I wasn’t bought up to just accept one perspective or opinion, so I tried other Consultants/Practitioners & eventually was persuaded, reluctantly, to try Homeopathy. Within 2 prescriptions my energy had hugely increased, my sex drive returned & I was less moody & better able to concentrate again. It felt nothing short of miraculous as I had resigned myself to feeling less than forever!
I kept up with the Homeopathy becoming more & more energised, understanding more & more how my own decisions, my chosen career and a lot of suppressed grief around my parents, had played a major part in my thyroid starting to shut down. After a few months I conceived again & gave birth to my delicious son (now 25). I also was using Homeopathy myself at home with both children and amazed with the results – I hungered for more knowledge & was accepted on the 4 year Practitioners training course…….
Within one weekend I knew this was what I was put on this earth to do and we started making plans for an exit strategy that included moving to Ireland. My studies, Graduation, the death of my Mother, The move, setting up in Practice in a foreign country meant once again I put myself & my Health on a back burner…..I was much happier but drifting towards another kind of burn out…..this time I recognised it and reached out for help before the crash, firstly from a Bio energetic Psyco-therapist, which peeled off another layer. I was finally able to acknowledge something extremely traumatic to me that I had buried for decades.
Then I became aware that there were numerous side effects from the artificial hormones I had been taking albeit it at a greatly reduced doseage thanks to Homeopathy. I recognised that many of my remaining symptoms were in line with adrenal fatigue rather than just Thyroid deficiency and adrenal imbalance is a side effect of artificial Thyroid hormones. Many of the symptoms are very similar to Hypo-thyroidism and therefore go undetected in many women. It is also completely in line with my previous life of a highly stressful, Adrenally charged, hyper-vigilant life caring for the needs of others without rest or self-care.
I researched into Natural dessicated thyroid – a non synthetic drug from an organic source (usually pigs), that was used successfully for decades before the synthetic form was invented. It seemed that many, many women sufferers were finding better results using NDT than using the GP prescribed artificial type. I decided to swap over & did so without any ill effects and immediately began to lose weight, feel even more energetic than before and my Menopause symptoms also died down – an added bonus!! At the time the Irish Public Health System refused to recognise NDT as a viable option so I had to use my inate creativity to get hold of it!! A few years ago it became available & now can be prescribed by GP’s, but very few know anything about it and therefore do not offer it as an alternative.
Then Moira Geary came into my life & I was exposed to QTT® (Quantum Thinking Technologies) – a beautiful bundle of talking methods that allow us to bring to light any limiting beliefs, feelings or thoughts that drive behaviours that keep us stuck, keep us going around in circles or create feelings of internal conflict. Once these are bought to light we can then choose whether to transform the energy attached to them so that we no longer have to stay stuck, conflicted or habitually doing behaviours that no longer serve us. Part of what changed for me was understanding that I was firmly stuck in a belief that I was someone who was “Hypo-thyroid” and always would be, that I could tinker with how I managed that but never be free of it. I believed it because that was what I had been told by a ‘Professional Medic’ and despite evidence to the contrary ie my own experience of reducing the meds, changing the meds & feeling so much better, a part of me was clinging on to that belief. After a QTT® session I totally let go of that limiting belief and started reducing my NDT dose steadily but slowly, supporting my thyroid & Adrenals with Homeopathy and more recently my Healy Frequency device using a programme called ‘Thyroid Harmony’. So far so good & today I am on the lowest dose of NDT and feeling better than ever! It won’t be long before I will stop the dose completely as I believe there is nothing wrong with my Thyroid anymore & I do not need to be on medication.
So I share my story as an example of how recovery of ourselves is always multi-faceted & multi-layered, there are seldom magic bullets that transform overnight. I believe each part of my recovery came exactly when I was ready for it, was enabled by everything I had done to that point and that the right ‘tool’ came at the right time to enable another layer to be taken off.
It doesn’t matter how ‘qualified’ any Health Professional is, when they offer a diagnosis or prognosis it is simply from their paradigm or perspective. They can never factor for anything else that we may choose to do or change in our lives, how our choices can transform our energy & enable us to unfold and blossom beyond anything within anyone else’s expectations or experience. We must take these opinions for exactly what they are – opinions, they are not infallible nor is the opinion holder gifted with telling our future.
Everything we choose to do, say, take part in or experience can change the course of our Health and our Lives. All the resources we need to affect meaningful changes are already within us.
I have a second Blog post of resources I have found useful during my journey with Hypothyroidism including some more commonly used Homeopathic remedies. You can read that here.