Hypothyroid Medication Being Upped

Before I was diagnosed as hypothyroid, I thought I just had signs of "getting older." I was tired more often and couldn't pull all-nighters for tests and work like I used to.  I'd always been cold sensitive.  In fact, the only reason I hate taking showers is because I know I'm going to lock up when I step out from the warm water.  I've always had my husband walk my dog in the winter because the freezing temps are just unbearable.  I've also always had dry skin, mostly because I have psoriasis.  I didn't give any of those much thought.

The first thing I noticed was weigh gain.  Of course, I'd barely moved out of my parents' house two years prior and it was only natural, I thought.  What I didn't realize, since I'd never been very involved in checking on my weight, was that I'd ballooned from 145ish up to 190ish in a little under two years.  How terrifying.

The second thing I noticed was my hair.  In fact, I can pinpoint the very moment I began to actually suspect there was something wrong.  I was reviewing pictures from our trip to Chicago in late 2009 when I pointed a picture out to my husband.  "Does that look like I'm going bald?"

"Nah, it's just the lighting."
"But... you can see inches into my hairline."
"Marietta, you're beautiful," he said, and turned back to his game.

I officially resolved at that moment to get bangs.  I still look at this picture in amazement that I didn't do something right then and there.  But of course, I couldn't.  When my husband and I decided we wanted to get married, we reviewed both of our jobs.  He was working a steady job at good pay with health insurance availability.  We figured out that we could put me on the health insurance in May, which is partially why, when he proposed in January of 2008, I wanted to get married by May.  His parents put a stop to that.

"Are you pregnant?"
"No."
"Other people will think you're pregnant."

Despite my argument, I felt practically backed in a corner to change the date.  It ended up being September 20th.  And then my husband got laid off the following February.  So no health insurance for me.

As a freelancer, there aren't a lot of options for me in the health insurance range.  Most insurances for individual artists out there are one word short of frightening.  I've always been fairly reliant on my husband to find health insurance.  Unfortunately, his next job wasn't even full time.  And then, when his job did get full time, they only offered a single plan or a family plan - no couples plan.  We couldn't afford the family plan.  He would then be laid off again.  We'd find him a night-shift job with no benefits.  And then he found his recent job, but again, we simply couldn't afford the $400 a month insurance.  Aaron's always been able to get health insurance since his jobs usually cover him for a minimal fee - this one for $5 - but when it comes to adding me, it's a whole different ballgame.

And the longer I went without health insurance, the worse the symptoms got.  My senior year of college in 2010-2011 was probably the hardest year when it came to the symptoms I experienced.  All I wanted to do was sleep and I would always be exceedingly frustrated that I couldn't.  When I needed to stay up late to study, I'd fall asleep on my study material and wake up 12 hours later with no progress made.  I lost more hair.  I got sick often.  I was depressed.  My jaw began to lock up often and I'd lose my voice.  Not to mention the nagging depression I always felt and my sudden inability to remember even the smallest of things.

Honestly, I was glad that I'd switched from a standard 9-5 (... 3-12? ... sometimes 12 -10?  12-12?  God I was all over the place).  I started freelancing full-time in February of 2011.  If I hadn't, I don't know if I could have maintained a standard job.  Sometimes I'd sleep 36-48 hours without even noticing it.  No amount of alarms or my husband shaking me would wake me up.  I was so tired when I was awake and I couldn't keep track of anything.  I still use the system I used when I was originally taking commissions during this period just in case.  That system involved writing commissioning information down in multiple places, including having e-mail records, using Microsoft Access, Sticky Notes, a marker board calendar and a planner, plus a waiting list with detailed instructions in Word.  Sometimes I'd even compile commission information into large images with all the information written on it in ease.  If I somehow missed a detail, it wasn't because I was having problems remembering; it's because the commissioner legitimately did not give it to me.  Still, I'm surprised I functioned.

Finally, my parents gifted me health insurance for a single year and the first thing I did was got my blood tested to try to figure out why I felt so bad.

Normal TSH levels are (arguably) 0.5-5.  Levels lower than that mean your thyroid is overactive, causing hyperthyroidism while levels higher indicate hypothyroidism.  My initial test came back at a whopping 22.

Of course I got on the medication.  I ended up with hives, a common problem in hypothyroids, and was sent to a derm.  I battled that for most of the duration of the insurance.  When it ran out, I'd just barely been leveled out.  I tried to continue the meds, but then 2012 happened.  It was awful and I ended up discontinuing the meds for a few months towards the end.

But I held on to a few bottles.  I knew I'd need to get tested again and that levothyroxine was a lifelong medication for me.  I began taking the bottles again a couple months ago and waited until the last possible minute to get my blood work done.

My levels came back at 30 despite being back on the meds for few months.  Even though I came off of the medication for a few months, there's really no reason for my TSH levels to be worse than when I was first tested.  My doctor urged me to see an endocrinologist but I'm not on insurance and can't afford it.  I can't even really afford to go in and talk with my doctor to find out more about what's going on, if they even know any more.

What I do know is that they're upping my medication an extra 25 mcg and want me to come back in for a lab and a doctor's appointment in three months.  That's fine; I'll have to come in around then anyway for women stuff.

One of the biggest points of this whole story is the havoc that hypothyroidism has wrecked on my life.  While it's a common disease and there are many people out there who don't even know they have it, it became a very prominent problem in my life that could have left me jobless and without a degree had things not aligned when they did.  I simply got lucky.  And now that I'm back on top of it, I'm finding out that the reason I struggled through 2012 despite being on medication for the majority of it was because my thyroid was still doing me a disservice.  Honestly, that might account for the three months of depression I had between March and May last year.

2012 was bad, but maybe it wasn't as bad as I felt it was.  Maybe my thyroid was just narrowing my field of view.

PS: Anyone out there with hypothyroidism?  Please share your stories in the comment section, particularly if your TSH levels continued to rise despite being on medication.  Did you see an endo?  What happened?