When success isn’t a habit

They say the habit of success creates more success.

What if you don’t have a habit of success?

My weight loss has currently stalled, and it’s messing with my head.

When I was in my early 20s, I did Optifast. Very unhealthy, but I didn’t know that then. I don’t have any records, but I’m pretty sure I lost around 100 lbs. I do know I ended up as a size 18, 2 sizes smaller than I wore at my HS graduation. Unfortunately, while Optifast was great for fast weight loss, they don’t teach you anything about dealing with any emotions that might affect your eating, nor do they actually teach you much about how you actually need to eat going forward. At least, that’s how it was in 1990.

In 2005 I went on the Atkins diet and I lost 100 lbs in 9 months. Unfortunately, I didn’t do it in a really healthy way. I didn’t know I was allergic to soy, which is in absolutely everything (salad dressing in particular) and it made me throw up a lot. I was intentionally eating low carb and unintentionally also really low calorie. I got down that 100 lbs and then I was stuck. I have journals from that period. I was not cheating. I was not over eating for my weight at the time. I was diligent, obsessive, and really, really frustrated.

In 2007 I developed another hernia and the surgeon told me that if I didn’t lose more weight they couldn’t fix it and I would die. So I stuck to low carb and got a little crazy with the calories and I lost another 20 lbs. I also lost my hair, my libido, my energy, my tolerance to cold, and my menstrual cycle went insane, but my TSH was still fine, so it couldn’t possible be a thyroid problem.

In 2011 I finally paid out of pocket for a Reverse T3 test and was not even slightly shocked to see that is was really, really out of range. So then I paid out of pocket to see an Integrative medicine specialist (the doctors who have an MD, but have also studied holistics, herbals, and non standard treatments.) He finally diagnosed my very low thyroid. He diagnosed my trashed adrenals (too many years of extreme dieting, another not-surprise). He diagnosed my trashed gut biome. That was kind of a new thing in 2011.

Then we moved unexpectedly and I lost access to my great new doctor. My weight ballooned with stress and bad eating. My hormones went insane. It was a nightmare. I tried several diets and got absolutely nowhere. Not even the 20 or so lbs I should have been able to count on just from water weight.

Utterly demoralizing.

So I studied more. I fixed my food sensitivities. I lived on homemade soup for about a year trying to solve nutritional deficiencies. I got my thyroid properly propped up. I sorted out my adrenal issues and support as necessary. I spent an entire summer focusing on fixing my gut biome.

I have high hopes that I have fixed the basic non-food issues that caused my problems in the first place.

But what if I didn’t?

My early Weight Watchers results have been good, but I’m now at a set point I’ve been to at least twice in the past. This is the weight I was when low carb stopped working. This is the weight I was when I first did Optifast.

I am absolutely panicked that this is the best I’ll get.

Intellectually I know that isn’t likely. I know that plateaus and stalls are normal. I know that my body is reshaping itself because my clothes are fitting differently. I know that I’m weighing and measuring and following the program. I know there is absolutely no reason that it should stop working right now.

But what if I’m wrong?

I tried telling myself that this new place is better, much better, than where I started. That isn’t helping in the slightest.

So I’m working out my panic in a blog. Because that’s what bloggers do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ironing out a few things.

I always associate canker sores with stress. When my mouth was suddenly covered in them even though nothing really exciting was going on, I turned to Dr. Google. Where I discovered that nutritional deficiencies can cause them. Particularly iron and B12.

Well, B12 should have been fine because I’d recently had a conversation with a friend who mentioned that metformin causes B12 malabsorption. Really? ‘Cause I’ve been on metformin over a year and I don’t recall anyone mentioning it to me. I did my research and have both a liquid and a spray. I think it helped my energy levels some.

Iron though. I’ve never had any trouble giving blood and I’ve always eaten plenty of red meat, so my iron levels were probably fine. Right? Not so much.Iron can also be a cause of peeling flaking nails, which I’d suddenly come down with too. Hmm. My favorite thyroid site has a lot to say about iron. Specifically ferritin vs serum iron. I talked with my usual group of fellow sufferers and got myself an iron supplement.

Wow.

Talk about flipping a switch. Nothing has made that big a difference since I found selenium. Which, by the way, is also much discussed by my favorite thyroid site.

Before selenium, I just hurt, everywhere, all the time. Life was a lot better once I started supplementing. I’ve leveled off at about once per week. But I was still pretty limp and my default state was something I call ‘couch zombie’. A state where I had things to do, and I’d sort of like to do them, but it just isn’t possible to find forward motion, or even to sustain it once moving. It was fairly horrible. Iron is the key to defeating the couch zombie. Who knew? It isn’t in the apocalyptical literature. But it’s helped me a lot. My canker sores went away almost immediately. My nails have stopped shredding. But moving past couch zombie has been huge.

If nothing else, I’m certainly blogging more regularly!

I’m not where I’d like to be, but I no longer feeling like I’m traveling the road of life on a cart with square wheels. Time to work on picking up some speed!

Positive outlook, positive outcome.

That’s what they say. Attitude is everything. Create your reality. You get what you expect.

Well, here’s my chance to prove that. I recently got a letter saying that the doctor I like and trust and worked so hard to find is leaving practice to spend more time raising her children. I completely respect her choice. But my first reaction to that letter was panic. It took me 5 tries to find her.

I could continue to panic. To rehearse in my mind all the various problems that I’ve had in the past. How much trouble others have had.

Or.

Or I can take this as an opportunity to walk my talk. I can trust that I’ll be given what I need. I can believe that this is an opportunity to improve my situation, rather than an irredeemable tragedy.

I’d like to think I deserve better health care than ‘pleasant’ and ‘non-obstructionist’. This could be my opportunity to find someone who will invest in working with me to figure out how to optimize my health, rather than just keep it from deteriorating. Dare I say, someone I can trust to actually know more than I do about what is currently not functioning correctly?

I am definitely up for something better.

An unexpected pleasure

After all the years of combative and distrustful relationships with my physicians, every pleasant encounter with my current doctor is a surprise. It shouldn’t be, really, after 3 years, but it takes time to get over the past I guess.

I drive 45 minutes each way (assuming no traffic problems) to see this woman. And it is worth every minute. She respects me. She listens to me. She believes in patients who participate in their own care. It’s really too bad that it took me so long to find someone like that.

It isn’t that I wanted anything radical. I asked for some specific blood tests so my other care provider, an acupuncturist, could have some specific numbers for reference. I asked to try another small increase in my thyroid meds. That’s it. Yet there are so very many doctors who would make you fight for every test, like it was going to come put of their personal pocket or cause the downfall of civilization. So many who make you fight for every mg of thyroid med like it was an illegal drug. I had to wait until I was nearly 40 when things changed and you started to be able to order your own blood tests to even get the test that properly identified my problem, and I had to pay for it out of pocket. Why?

Why does it feel like current medical standards have a vested interest in keeping people under treated for thyroid? I don’t really think it’s a conspiracy, but I’m at a loss to understand what it is. I have so many friends who can’t get a full thyroid blood panel because their doctor just won’t order it. So many who are stuck with not enough synthroid, or stuck with synthroid when it obviously isn’t working for them.

How did the system get so fouled up?

I started this piece to be all happy about my wonderful doctor, but I guess there is still too much wrong with the industry to just leave it with that.

She’s amazing. I’m glad I searched as long as I did to find her. I’m really really glad I’m one of the lucky ones.

I’m just really angry that getting good health care requires luck.

What if depression isn’t in your head?

This morning I came across a fascinating article from The Guardian discussing a new theory about depression. What if depression is a side effect of inflammation?

The answer to that seems to be yes, and the best candidate so far is inflammation – a part of the immune system that acts as a burglar alarm to close wounds and call other parts of the immune system into action. A family of proteins called cytokines sets off inflammation in the body, and switches the brain into sickness mode.

There are a number of experiences in my own life that make me really, really want to see more research on this possibility.

In my early 20’s I had a horribly stressful job with a crazy boss. I spent several years on anti-depressants.

I have always had a tendency towards depression. At some level, I was able to manage this without additional medication by watching my diet and supplementing regularly with Vit B6 and Vit D both of which are known for an anti-inflammatory effect.

Everything got much, much better once I got my thyroid properly treated, and inflammation is both a cause and an affect of low thyroid.

Food allergies and possibly one of the biggest and most misunderstood and undertreated causes of inflammation in my opinion. I only have to go a little overboard on dairy to start sniffling and wheezing again, and asthma is a leukotrine inflammation response, among other things.

Stanford Professor Robert Sapolsky gave an amazing lecture on depression which is available on YouTube in which he discusses a lot of diseases that cause or are associated with depression. A quick review shows that many of those conditions are also associated with inflammation.

Obviously it’s too soon to say anything for certain, but I can say that this one rat is going to spend the rest of the dreary dark season experimenting with increased use of turmeric and staying carefully on top of my vitamins.

 

Return of the spoon

My last post was about Spoon Theory. I am pleased to announce a remarkable improvement in my number of spoons, thanks to my new best friend metformin. Generally metformin is a drug for type 2 diabetes, but as it is increasing insulin sensitivity it is a wonderful solution for those of us who have insulin resistance that won’t come under control with a controlled carb diet. I read this interesting article on the best site on thyroid treatment Stop the Thyroid Madness.

Insulin is very important, but our bodies are just not designed for a life of refined carbohydrates, so insulin can get out of control very easily. Insulin is both pro-weight gain and pro-inflammation. Some of both is necessary for human survival, but too much is a problem.

It’s nice to believe that proper diet and exercise can solve most health problems, and for most people it has a profound effect, but sometimes things are just broken and need some extra support to actually heal.

Let me tell you about my friend A. A was chubby most of her life. Then she found low carb and lost about a person’s worth of weight, and she became an athlete who runs marathons and works out as regularly as I change my socks. And yet despite being draconic with her regimen and never, ever eating things she shouldn’t, her weight would not remain stable, and her hormones were a complete mess that made her miserable. Enter metformin. After only a few months what she refers to as Hormonal Hell has been reduced to the usual amount of annoyance that nearly every woman deals with. Her weight and moods have stabilized, and she is keeping her weight stable easily, rather than by the skin of her teeth.

Her tremendous success led me to ask my doctor for metformin. Which my doctor thought would probably be an excellent idea. She did do the ac-1 blood test which showed me only 1 point over the range into pre-diabetes. But I got my prescription. And despite eating poorly while moving house, and adding an adult beverage to my life many evenings due to that same moving house, I have lost a significant amount of weight. Enough for others to notice, and enough to dramatically increase my spoon count.

Feeling better is AMAZING.

Happy Spring

It’s been quite a while since I posted anything. I didn’t wander off and get distracted. I just haven’t had anything positive to say.

Back in November, I posted about a medication change that went horribly wrong. In 3 weeks (I have notes) I gained so much weight that I crossed the weight limit on my scale, needed to purchase new clothes in a bigger size, and felt practically immobilized. Wait, cross off ‘practically’. It’s very fortunate that none of the endocrinologists who say that adrenal fatigue isn’t really a problem crossed my path. It wouldn’t have been pretty. Or at least it would have been  very loud.

If you don’t have cortisol, you don’t have thyroid hormone uptake. If your thyroid quits, you gain weight. If you’ve ever seen a website that talks about ‘sudden weight gain’ as a sign of thyroid issues, I bet you don’t think in the range of 50 lbs or so. I can’t say for sure, as I mentioned, I exceeded the limit on my scale, so it’s all guesswork.

It was really and truly awful, and also scary how quickly I crashed, how hard I crashed, and how long it’s taken me to feel decent again. I distinctly remember a conversation with a very dear friend who called one day and asked “so how are you?” In the usual fashion of friends. And because she is a very dear friend, I answered completely honestly “I feel as though I’ve been beaten and left for dead, thanks for asking. How are you?”

It’s taken me most of 4 months to get my weight back to what it was in October. (A number up 30 lbs from my previous longtime steady weight.) I still haven’t regained the strength I lost, and I’m still having crazy problems with insulin resistance, which I recognize from a diagnosis I got in 2006.

I’m back on a pretty strict, controlled carb paleo diet. It’s boring, but it doesn’t make me feel bad.

I’ve been going to the pool, but I think I’m finally to the point where I can get back on the elliptical, even if I can only do it in 3 minute bursts, which is where I started back in 2007. I think I can also do some basic weights. I need to build up my muscles, both for ease of movement and because that’s the best way to reverse insulin resistance. That and controlling insulin in the first place with a controlled carbohydrate intake.

My allopathic doctor wasn’t helpful. I found an acupuncturist who also uses a lot of really non-traditional modalities that seem to be helping.

So in case anyone noticed I was gone, that’s where I’ve been. Limp and tired and hurting and despondent about my poor health. I had nothing positive to say, so I thought I’d keep it to myself.

But now recovery is definitely in place and progressing, and we’ve turned the corner to spring even though we in the DC area are expecting more snow this week. I’m feeling optimistic, so let’s get back to the things I love to do, like helping people raise a fuss about health.

Are you sad?

Something I don’t hear a lot of discussion on is sadness vs depression. You’d think in a country where they dispense anti-depressants like tic-tacs that more people would be concerned about the real problem. Oh, wait, never mind. There is no real interest in the problem, only income generating solutions.

Here’s my take. Sadness happens where there is a reason. When my cat died last year, I was sad. (Ok, I’m still sad…) There was a reason. When your grandpa dies, you move across country, break up with a friend, all those things are genuine, external reasons to be sad.

We don’t take enough time to be sad. It’s an important emotion, to recognize a loss and a change to your environment. We’re encouraged to ‘cheer up’ much too quickly in my opinion. Some times things are just sad, and we should be ok feeling our feelings. But that isn’t encouraged.

Depression, in my personal lexicon, is something completely different. Depression has no particular ‘reason’. Nothing is interesting, nothing is important, nothing really matters…it’s all just too much trouble for words, but there is no reason. It just is. And if it just is, then the chances are excellent that it is chemical, not situational.

The next question becomes, how to fix it. If you’re sad, then there isn’t really anything to be fixed, and only time will help. If you’re depressed, you can go to the doctor and get the candy-solution of the week. Or, you can look at your diet, and check your thyroid, and look into nutritional deficiencies…

I think we make a big mistake in most of health care by treating the symptom rather than the problem. I’ve spent most of the last 2 years being either or both, sad or depressed. That’s why I made a study of the difference. If you read my post about happiness this spring you’ll note that I mention T1 and T2 as part of the thyroid treatment I’m getting. This week when I started feeling depressed again, I looked at my treatment and thought about what could have changed. This week, I think I haven’t been taking enough cortisol, so I’m not absorbing enough thyroid properly, so I’m not generating the chemicals I need.

I think it’s really, really important to understand the differences here. I truly believe that depression is a huge problem, but it’s a problem that we could actually fix, if only we stopped worrying quite so much about the symptoms and thought through to the cause. Sure, serotonin uptake is the ’cause’, but what causes the trouble with serotonin in the first place? Why aren’t we looking past the broken spot to figure out why it broke in the first place?

Why don’t we think things through any more?

Constant Vigilance!

Yes, I’m a Harry Potter fan. I also think that if there are things out in the world trying to kill you, you should pay extra special attention.

Not actively trying to kill me, I admit, but life with food allergies does not allow for sloppy habits and you have to be completely aware of what you take in.

Recently I tripped up. I have really excellent insurance, I believe I’m mentioned. During my last doctor’s appointment I got a prescription for hydrocortisone to replace the over the counter product I’d been taking. The OTC worked very well but it’s pricey and a prescription covered by my insurance is not.

Now I had a problem with a different supplement that we prescribed and that caused some estrogen dominance issues that I’ve already written about. It made me feel limp and foggy-brained. While I was limp and foggy-brained, I didn’t notice that I was also starting to have stomach issues and feel weak and sore. Once my head cleared, I didn’t really notice that I still physically felt pretty poor until I started having issues with muscle weakness that caused problems climbing stairs. I live in a house with 3 floors, so that I noticed pretty quickly. I got on the scale and discovered that I’d put on 15 lbs in about 5 weeks. That certainly got my attention.

I thought about my eating habits, because that’s always the first place we want to blame in weight gain. Nothing there had changed in 5 weeks. Google suggested that muscle weakness goes back to adrenal fatigue, so I upped the dose of my new meds just a little. With an over the counter supplement that your body has to convert to an active hormone, there isn’t any way to know for certain exactly how much you’re getting, so maybe the dose wasn’t quite right. Oh, hey, that made things worse! So back to Google I went.

After some searching and asking around on the patient advocacy groups I frequent, I found my answer. My new medication is actually poisonous. Ok, not exactly poison, it’s made with corn starch, to which I am very sensitive. It was causing a serious feedback loop where I was getting my adrenal support, but also needing more to combat the allergic reaction, which caused me to need more cortisol…plus the actual reaction to the corn, which is digestive distress, oh, and an all over body ache and muscle weakness.

Aren’t I lucky that I still had a bunch of my OTC cortisol on hand? 2 days off the prescription and I was feeling much better. Now it’s a week later and I’m almost back to feeling the energy and enthusiasm I felt right after I got on the new thyroid meds. So after an 8 week detour, I’m back on track and making forward progress.

My point here is, do you research, pay attention, and don’t trust anything without checking it. Seriously.

And we’re waiting…

Sometimes I think the hardest part of having health problems isn’t the actually feeling bad part. That’s very draining, but you learn to deal with it and it becomes an unpleasant constant.  What is really hard is the waiting.

I spent a lot of time waiting until I could find someone who would diagnose and treat me. Then I waited to see how the treatment would work. There was more waiting after I moved to find the right new doctor who was more interested in health and well being than test numbers.

With every doctor’s visit and blood test and medication change there is a hope that this time maybe things will be changing and feeling better might be just around the corner.

Sometimes it is, but often I find that no, that was another tiny but inconclusive step. Or sometimes it is a step backwards.

Right now I’m waiting for my body to recover from the corn starch in one of the medicines I hoped would make me better but made me worse instead. I forgot for a minute that I have to check everything, all the time, and I got caught. Something new. Not just body aches and an unhappy gut, but this time the inflammation caused tendonitis in my elbows of all things, usually only a problem for tennis players, which you might guess I am not.

I see very clearly why modern medicine has become so focused on the quick fix. I know it doesn’t work that way, but I really, really want one. Cold medicines that mask all symptoms, a pill for every headache, it just lets you get on with your life. There isn’t a whole lot of discussion of possible side effects. That advil is hard on your kidneys and disrupts your potassium balance. That not resting your body when it feels ill stresses your immune system that is already fighting to keep up. There is almost no attention given to what might have caused the problem in the first place.

I’m not really going anywhere in particular with this today. I was just sitting at my computer, planning my day around sore elbows and wondering how much energy I’ll have to get things done and thought I’d share some thoughts.

I’ve learned a lot about patience. I learned resourcefulness. I’ve learned tenacity. I’m not quite sure why I need quite so much of all those traits. I’m sure they’re all very valuable and will serve me well.

But some days, many days, I’d trade it all to feel joyful and energetic and strong.

I hope I’m on the right path to that, even though I seem to be taking the scenic route.