I Didn’t Expect This After 90 Days With Hashimoto’s
On the surface, today might look like any other day. I’m sitting on my bed, watching my kids have “quiet time” in each of their rooms though the monitor, while also trying to write. But today is different, and honestly incredibly unreal. I don’t even know how to start this post.
On May 11th, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s. This disease causes the TPO antibodies in your body to attack and damage your thyroid, sending your hormones all over the place. Just a few of the symptoms I was experiencing: chilled to the bone at night to the point of needing a heat pad, waking up feeling hung over without any alcohol, brain fog, fatigue, memory loss, issues sleeping, consistently feeling lower than low… And if all of that isn’t bad enough, once you’re diagnosed with one autoimmune disease, your chances of getting another go up by 30%.
My diagnosis caught me completely off guard, but it also answered so many questions. I walked away from that appointment knowing that I needed to go gluten free, I’d be on medication called LDN for the next year, and that autoimmune diseases can lead to other autoimmune diseases. That was about all I had to go off of for the most part. And while it was incredibly daunting, I had a motivator that many people do not: I had lost a friend to Lupus.
Experiencing the loss of a good friend, and someone who inspired immensely, pass away back in 2014 due to complications due to Lupus – after she had to suffer through so many symptoms for over a decade – was my biggest motivation in all of this. For the entirety of these last three months, I could almost hear Maddie (Madison Pearce) telling me to move every step of the way. Every time I found another thing that had gluten in it that I’d previously loved to eat, every time I questioned how hard it will be to lose weight now, every night I was consuming a different dinner than my family… she was all the reminder I needed.
So I found a highly rated book, The 90-Day Hashimoto’s Protocol, I did the 30-day detox, and I continued to stay gluten free through August. I was also supplementing magnesium, vitamin D, and omega 3s. (You can read more about that here.)
When I went to reschedule with my doctor, I asked her if we would retest at 90 days. This was something I’d read about and was hoping would give me additional motivation. She was hesitant. Often times people don’t see any results until the 9 month mark; autoimmune diseases are slow. I pressed and reassured her that my motivation to put this into remission would not waiver even if the results weren’t what I’d hoped, and we scheduled the blood test.
To say that I was nervous through all of it would be an understatement. Walking into the testing center, getting the bloodwork done, waiting over a week for the results (and calling to ask them about it twice)… I was on edge. I’d felt like I’d given this every effort I had aside from consistently working out (need to work on that one).
The results arrived in my email mid-day last Saturday, as I was standing next to my husband at our dining room table. I both wanted to see the results and didn’t want to, and I’d even made a list of all of the things I’d felt improved in my life since the diagnosis to protect myself a little in case the result wasn’t what I’d wanted.
• No longer using the heat pad to fall asleep three nights a week.
• Brain fog minimal
• Memory recovering
• Better sleep
• Reduced stress
• Happier than I’ve been in a long time
• No longer waking up feeling hung over
Something was improving, clearly, so who cares what the results say… right? So I opened my eyes and I scrolled down the page. The TPO antibodies that were once at 146 were – no joke – down to 13.
Let me repeat that. One hundred and forty six now down to THIRTEEN. (The “normal range” is 0-34)
I immediately started crying and celebrating. My husband was hugging me and I was trying to calm down. Then I did something totally me and started over thinking it. What if this wasn’t real? What if there was a mistake? Was I originally misdiagnosed? Were my new test results switched? Cue me looking at the legal name on each report, Googling things that might cause a misdiagnosis. And that is also part of the reason why you’re only hearing about this now… I needed my doctor to confirm this. I needed someone to tell me that I’d actually put myself into remission in just three months.
Today I confirmed that I’m in remission.
It’s surreal.
There is something very clear that I need to stress here. I was one of the lucky few who was able to catch her Hashimoto’s early. My TPO’s were only at 146, and not in the thousands that they can be. My thyroid had not yet been damaged. But what’s also important here is that it’s possible. So for anyone out there facing Hashimoto’s; anyone who’s struggling and isn’t sure what foot to put forward, I cannot urge you enough to take advantage of the amazing resources that we have available to us today.
You can do this. Truly, you can.
See you,
Amy