Tomorrow marks month two of being on synthroid, and I'm pretty happy to say that my hair has stopped falling out, except for the expected shedding that I consider to be normal, and I'm getting that groovy crew-cut length regrowth poking out all over my scalp. HAWT. Some of the other symptoms continue on without improvement (hello lack of sex drive!) and my skin is still scaly.

My doctor has ordered a retest for me to check my thyroid levels, so I'm going to head to the lab tomorrow to see what kind of improvement has been made.

I've been sort of off food for a few weeks - I'm eating small meals, but the balance has been sort of whack, and my weird poop issues were getting worse and worse. I canNOT believe I'm sharing this, but my poop was light colored and floating, and generally not, um, well-formed. This is usually a symptom of malabsorption or consumption of too much fat, and I've been careful not to eat too much fat. This has been going on off and on for months.

I thought thyroid - but the medicine didn't fix it.
I thought maybe dairy - but eliminating dairy didn't fix it.
I thought maybe gluten - but removing gluten just made me angry and on edge.
And then I realized that I've been eating more nuts as a part of my healthier diet this year. Since January, I've typically had a small handful of raw nuts of some variety almost every day. Sometimes almonds or walnuts, but sometimes macadamia nuts or my favorite, cashews.

After eating a generous number (say, 25 or 30 nuts) of macadamia nuts in early August, I had some pretty awful stomach cramping and icky poo the next day. I chocked it up to too many s'mores while camping and continued to eat nuts. The weird poo continued.

Around the middle of August, I made a really yummy coconut rice with cilantro, lime juice and toasted cashews. I didn't make the connection then, but my stomach was really unhappy the next day.

Last Tuesday, I ate about 15 cashews chopped with apple and mixed with greek yogurt. I probably ate another 15 as a snack in the late afternoon. By Wednesday morning, I was in the grips of an evil, evil stomach cramping illness that felt like food poisoning.

I spent the early morning rushing in and out of the bathroom. I had a doctor's visit for my sleep apnea (more on that later) at Kaiser, which turned out to be a 2 hour class. About 15 minutes into the class, I had to excuse myself and sprint to the restroom. I spent about 30 minutes in a cold sweat, clutching the support bar in the handicapped stall with my face resting on the cold tiles of the wall. I have rarely been so sick.

I had already waiting a month and a half for this appointment - I was missing work, and I was determined to not "waste" this time. I splashed some cold water on my face, and went back to the classroom. I made it another 30 minutes, before having to rush back to the bathroom. This time, I did the unthinkable and actually lay down on the cold tile floor, wracked with cold sweats and shaking like a leaf. After 20 minutes, I was able to get back up, splashed on some more cold water and headed back to finish out the class. I made, it, but barely, and was shaking and sweating as I drove myself home. I called in sick, and curled up in bed for the duration. I lost an entire day to these horrific stomach woes.

It was the cashews. I know it was the cashews. And I don't know what to do, besides not eat them again. Should I be tested formally for an allergy?

It has been a week since I've eaten any raw nuts - although I had a little peanut butter today, maybe a teaspoon. I don't think that it will be a problem. And as soon as my poor body got over purging the crap out of me (literally) my poop has been normal. Not floating. Not pale. My poop has been your standard, textbook version of poop.

You would think that it would take more than that to get me excited, but hoo boy. We're living large over here.

I had hoped in a very small, stupid part of my brain that there would be some sort of mystical rainbows shooting out of my rear or something after a month on these meds, and aside from some improvement in the weird poo department, which I GUESS you could consider mystical, if you haven't changed your eating patterns or diet one iota and yet your number two is differentish, things are pretty much the same.

BUT! And this is not exactly a breakthrough - but I think my closet office setup is a major factor in my swelling legs. The chair I am using doesn't allow me to place my feet flat on the floor, and the direction I twist my torso when I'm working (to see my second monitor) corresponds to the worst swelling. I'm going to get a new chair, and try repositioning my monitor and laptop and see if that gives me some relief from the weird swelling.

I'm soldiering on with my 300 Calorie photos. I'm not taking a picture of every single bite or beverage that goes in my mouth because COME ON. You don't need to see photos of every mug of decaffeinated coffee or whatever. As I said earlier, the goal right now is to just identify what I'm eating - so that my claims of having a healthy, balanced, fairly low-calorie diet can be fine-tuned. I already can see that I need more protein and more whole grains, less breads and pizza and muffins.

The final part of this puzzle is exercise. I DO NOT FEEL LIKE IT. I am tired and cranky and sore and achy and I just don't want to go do it. I know I need it. I feel better when I do it. But I'm just not getting it done.

And I need to Get It Done.

image via

And the thing is? I do all that stuff. And yet I got the hairy eyeball when I told my doctor that I typically don't consume more than 1,500 calories a day, and while I do have the occasional hamburger or cookie, most of my meals are pretty well balanced and healthy.

He looked at my overflowing cup of a body and suggested a weight loss class. I wanted to cry.

Hypothyroid people's bodies are already prone to hoarding calories, so low calorie diets aren't the best idea, even when trying to shed pounds.

The best way to help your metabolism is daily exercise, with an emphasis on building muscle, and to eat five or six small meals a day.

I've pretty much given up snacking, and have been focusing on having three solid meals a day, so this is a whole new thing for me. At this point, I'm just recording what I eat, and then after I have a few weeks of "data" I will start refining my diet, to correct any obvious missing foods or whatever.

The biggest problem so far? Trying to eat 5 meals a day. I'm just not that hungry. I had a good breakfast, and I wasn't hungry mid-morning, so I ate a nice lunch, and had a snack around 4pm, and then ate dinner at around 6 pm, and that's still only four "meals."

We'll see if I can get that fifth meal in there tomorrow. It's also sort of fun to see what exactly you can eat that totals out to about 300 calories.

And here I am, two years later, with an additional 15 pounds on my frame, and a new host of symptoms that have me frustrated. Swelling legs, hair falling out, weird heart racing baloney, fatigue... don't even get me started.

This last weekend, I uploaded my photos from BlogHer 09 - and here's where I'm at now:

Okay, yeah, I know neither of these photos are particularly attractive, but I think it is a pretty good indicator of how puffy and misshapen my face has become, not to mention the rest of me. It isn't a vanity thing, although there's always that part of it, too.

No - I've got a oh-so-slightly out of whack thyroid, and if I'm to believe the note I got from my doctor's office, obstructive sleep apnea, too. On July 9th, I started taking the lowest dosage of synthroid, and despite my doctor's firm - THIS IS NOT A DIET PILL, I sort of hoped that there would be at least a boost of energy, like the very nice pharmacist claimed.

So far, I'm not seeing or feeling any difference. And that is why I'm reviving this blog. I am looking at yet another learning curve on how to work towards a healthy weight, and I need a place to keep track of my progress, or lack thereof. I'm also open to hearing stories or advice on how you're managing your weight while on thyroid medicine and how you treat sleep apnea - especially if you have been able to control it without a CPAP machine because that does NOT sound like it is going to make me a happy camper.

I've got a few books on order, and a rough game plan to follow, and I'm looking forward to taking Small Slice along for the ride.