I am a 26 y/o f and I have been very sick for some time and wonder if it is thyroid related:
* In December 2009, I went to bed with a mild knee pain, and woke up bedridden with excruciating pain in both knees. My knees weren't weak, they were just hurting a lot. Months and years following December 2009, doctors did a series of tests, but all of them came back inconclusive, though I am still unable to walk despite some improvements. The doctors don't think it is an infection, an auto-immune disease or reactive arthritis (No Lupus, RA, FMF, etc.). They have also checked for bunch of STD's all of which were negative.
* In May 2012, my wrists started hurting just as randomly as knees did, and never fully healed.
* In October 2012, I got into a car accident that was not very serious at all, but I hurt my back as a result and it never fully healed.
* In May 2013, my hips started hurting out of nowhere just like my knees and wrists, never fully healed.
* Also In May 2103, both my eyes got some sort of infection that never fully went away (the doctor says there is nothing wrong with them other than mild allergy), but my eyes still hurt/itch pretty often and I can't wear contacts. I never had an eye infection since I started wearing contacts in 2001.
* In December 2013, my ears became very sensitive to noise -especially high-pitched, and they hurt.
* The pain is never just located in the joints. It's mostly the muscles. For instance, when my knees hurt, it's the entire frontal knee and the IT band and some other leg muscles. When wrists hurt, it's the wrists and certain muscles in my forearms.
* Sometimes small areas like my thumbs or my toes hurt for a while and then the pain mostly goes away.
* There is never any swelling or redness. All X-rays, MRI's, etc. are normal
* I often (at least once a month) get migraine-like headaches that last anywhere from six hours to two weeks.
* I used to get chronic vaginal yeast infections (first started in 2007) --but I stopped getting them since I was put on a very restrictive diet in July 2011 (no dairy, gluten, sugar, fruits, nuts, soy, caffeine, mushrooms, vinegar, yeast, alcohol)
* I used to get bloated quite often but stopped since I started my boring restrictive diet.
* I have had skin lesions since I was in elementary school.
* In February 2012, I saw a chiropractor who thought I have yeast overgrowth. The herbal supplements he put me on improved my life significantly, but has not resolved my issues completely.
* I am very sensitive to medication in general, and often show severe side effects which scares me.
* I had TB, chicken pox, measles, onset of pneumonia, and a UTI as a child. I also had two other UTI's since I've become an adult - meaning I was exposed to a lot of antibiotics.
* I had Hep B and HPV vaccinations.
* I have started taking probiotics because one of the tests showed that my gut has almost zero lactobacillus and bifidobacterium.
* For some time, I have been wondering if my issues can be thyroid related. My thyroid levels are slightly not normal. My new doctor (since November 2013) told me that given my symptoms even though my thyroid levels are not too crazy, she wants to put me on thyroid medicine. I would love to hear what other people with thyroid issues think about this. Do you think that's a good idea? Did/Does anyone have a similar story to mine? Do you have any questions and/or suggestions? If I take the medicine for a while, will I become dependent on it? The new doctor says my body can learn how to make its own hormones if we introduce some hormone therapy to guide it and then I can be off the medicine.
Below is a list of TSH, Free T3, and some other thyroid related test results and dates.
10-Jun-2010: TSH 1.86 (0.4-4..0)
30-Dec-201: TSH 3.23 (0.27-4.2)
22-Dec-2012: TSH 4.62 (0.27-4.2) / Free T3 2.94 (2.0-4.4) / Free T4 1.08 (0.93-1.70) / TPO 17.05 (0-34) / Thyroglobulin 45.65 (0-115) / Parathormone 39.63 (15-65)
8-Aug-2013: Free T3 3 (2.3-4.2) / TPO 36 (<35) / TSI <89% (<140%)
7-Oct-2013: TSH 1.74 (0.4-4.5) / Free T4 1.1 (0.8-1.8)
25-Nov-2013: 3.77 (.45-4.5) / TPO 41 (0-34) / Thyroglobulin 3.8 (0-0.9)
The past four years has been like trying to find my way in pitch dark. I would appreciate any and all insights, tips, opinions on this. Thanks for reading!
1) A diet that supports overgrowth (you know that already)
2) Taking antibiotics with out probiotics (minimum 3 hours apart)
3) Having a generally low immune system - which can happen from other illness or overall body infections. This is why many people with tic borne illness which lowers the immune system (Quest and Labcorp can test this) also have internal yeast overgrowth - their immune efficiency is low.