Rant

So it's been a month since I last posted in my blog and sorry about that.  On January 7th, I started up my spring semester and this time I think I over did it with my classes as I have four classes with each having three credit hours.  My classes for this semester are Cultural Anthropology, Foundation of Business, English 2, and Computer Concepts and Applications.  Lately I haven't had much me time, especially since last week and this week I'm visiting family while I have a lot of homework.  I should be reading right now, but figured I let people know that read this that I am still here and alive. 

So... what's been going on with my health lately?  Last month I went to see my Endocrinologist for the first time and also went to my ENT to see my results from my blood work.  My TSH was at .026, so my ENT lowered my synthroid to 150 mcg and the chest pains have lessen, but I'm still having breathing issues and I can't take deep breaths without it hurting.  My Thyroglobulin went from .4 in November to .5 in December, which isn't a huge worry since sometimes they will miss thyroid tissues that try to rebuild and also I swear I have a thyroglossal duct cyst under my chin, which might be making the numbers go up.  I got a copy of my pathology report from my surgery and turns out they don't know exactly what kind of cancer I had, but narrowed it down to four rare and uncommon types with one of them being Tall-cell thyroid cancer.  Tall-cell doesn't always react to Radioactive Iodine (RAI) treatment, which isn't good, of course, but because there's a chance of it my Endo wants me to have RAI (though she kept saying my numbers are good).  I was told I didn't need to worry about my thyroglobulin numbers until they hit 1 or 2, so I'm not doing RAI until that happens.

Oh... and one thing that pissed me off about my Endo... She was talking about doing TSH and Free T4 tests on me and I asked her about Free T3 and Reverse T3 testing.  Her answer to T3 was that cancer patients don't need T3.  WTF!?  I had to explain to her that 125, 175, and 150 of the synthroid were doing nothing for me and they all felt the same.  She was surprised and gave me a small dosage, 5 mcg, of Cytomel, which I'm supposed to take once a day, and still wouldn't do a blood test.  The problem with T3 medication is that it only lasts you for four hours a day and then after that, you are just relying on your body.  I can feel the difference when my body has the T3 medication in it, especially at the two hour mark, but once it's gone I feel horrible.  I know the 5 mcg is too low for me since there isn't as big of a difference between how I'm now normally am and when I have the medication.  Also when I brought up T3 right away she said she wouldn't put me on Armour... so red flag there, so I'm going to be looking for a new Endo and when I talk to the front desk my first question is 'are they known for giving out Armour or do they refuse to give people that?'

I see my ENT in March, so I'll be asking him to do a Free T3 and Reverse T3 blood test and if he won't I will go to my PCP since I know she'll do it for me.  Oh speaking of blood tests... I've been trying to get my mom and sister to check out their thyroids since they have a lot of signs and issues that can be related to the thyroid.  Well my sister goes to see her doctor, but I guess, she saw the nurse practitioner instead... my sister asked about checking her thyroid and the NP just gave her a request for the lab to do TSH.  I got angry.  I think I was yelling about it outside of the building over it.  TSH alone does crap to see if there is a thyroid issue and that's basic common sense for doctors even my PCP and her nurse know that.  The results from TSH, Free T3, and Free T4 are compared to find out for sure what's wrong with a patient or if they need more testing done for like auto-immune diseases.  Justin understood why I was so angry, but my mom and sister were like 'If something shows up on the TSH test they will probably do more testing'... I kept trying to explain to them that's not how it works since TSH is NOT checking the thyroid, but the pituitary gland and its reactions to the how much of your hormones the thyroid is producing and even this test alone can show things are okay when they aren't.

Okay.. I think that's enough for today as I really, really need to do school work.