I don’t know about you lovely lot but I often have a few part-started posts in my drafts. Wow try saying “part-started” a few times quickly, what a tongue twister! This morning I thought I would have a quick look and see if there is anything that needs finishing. Well of course there was!

I just discovered the following, I wrote it in April and clearly I wasn’t having the best day of my life! Well my blog is my place for chatting and talking things through so I thought I would share anyway!

I’ve just found out that the reason for me having an underactive thyroid is because I have an auto immune disease called Hashimotos Thyroiditis. As far as I am concerned Hashimotos can do one. I don’t mean to be rude but I do not want it in my life. It was not invited. It was not invited via a friend of a friend but I guess it’s just one of those uninvited guests, like nits, that I will just have to deal with. For the record I don’t have nits! In fact I haven’t had them since my children were small and then I recall only finding two in my hair and being a b s o l u t e l y horrified!

So I am going to look into how I can get Hashimotos Thyroiditis to piss right off to where it came from, or at least send it trembling underneath the nearest rock.

It has made me put weight on, my cholesterol levels are too high, I feel incredibly tired (yet unable to get a decent nights sleep) I get breathless when I walk and feel quite depressed and unable to cope with things that I should be able to cope with. It has also caused me to have aches and pains and a really really itchy bumpy rash on my arms that I have discovered gets worse when I eat certain foods – weird huh! Oh and I now have eczema on my hands, my face is all puffy and my skin and nails look dreadful. I have discovered that often people with Hashimotos can go on to get other auto immune diseases too.

So I am going to endeavour to get ‘me’ back! The me that existed before 6 months ago, the ‘me’ that looks for the positive in every situation – the me that is actually still there I think, somewhere, but it’s gone into hibernation while we are waiting for the summer to arrive!! The me that thrives under pressure and enjoys exercising and life!! That version of me is definitely there and needs revealing again.

I did ask the (locum) doctor what Hashimotos means for me and she just told me to google it. I asked her about the rash and she told me that sun tan lotion will help – can you understand me not having much confidence with that one, I’ve barely seen the sun in months!

So it’s down to me to find out more about this disorder and what I can do to battle it!! I’ll keep you posted!

With regard to the references to summer, remember I wrote the above in April! This post has acted as a reminder that I do need to do something about this for myself. Since writing it, I have visited the doctor a few times and he wanted to DOUBLE my dose of Levothyroxine because my thyroid stimulating hormone levels (TSH) had gone back up again. My concern is that if I have to keep upping my dosage where is it going to stop?

I have been googling and bought a book and it sounds like some people have been successful with altering elements of their diet, particularly going gluten-free. Now I have never followed a gluten-free diet before but I seriously think it is worth giving it a try to see if it will alleviate some of the symptoms I am still getting. I’ve started buying gluten-free pasta which is nicer and gluten-free bread which isn’t really nice at all.

Do you follow a particular diet, maybe you eat gluten-free? Do you have Hashimotos or another thyroid disorder? If anybody has any advice for me I would be really appreciative of it.

Thanks for reading!