Life without medication

Some updates about Graves’ disease and the shit I’ve been through lately 💁🏻‍♀️🙆🏻‍♀️

Last year was a rollercoaster of emotions and symptoms. I had real symptoms for the first time since my diagnosis in 2021. Heart palpitations, insomnia, depression, hair loss, anxiety.. It took me forever to get an appointment with a doctor and when I finally got that appointment, she didn’t want to take any risk and told me to see a specialist - which was not a bad thing if you really think about it. But the thing that got me mad is that she didn’t take the time to really listen when I told her I wasn’t going well, when I told her I had heart palpitations and insomnia. “Maybe you think too much”. It’s probably the worst thing you can say to someone going through an auto-immune disease - any disease in fact. Not acknowledging the patient’s symptoms and not listening to what they’re going through is just a terrible thing to do as a health professional. I felt abandoned and completely alone. At that time, I thought I needed to increase my medication (Neo-Mercazole) and go from 5mg to at least 10mg. But I didn’t take that risk and waited. I’m not a doctor after all. So I waited for months and months and did my best to handle all my symptoms on my own. I finally got to see a specialist in December. She finally told me I had to stop taking the medication. My thyroid has been stable for quite some time and taking medication was doing more harm than anything else. I am still taking the Pill to manage my hormones but that’s it. I was a bit shocked when she told me to stop taking my medication. I wasn’t excited or happy. But I wasn’t mad about it. I was a bit confused but I was mostly scared. I didn’t know what to expect. I thought that stopping that medication would be terrible, that it would have some bad consequences on my body. But I was wrong. It all went so well. In fact, I started feeling better. I was actually experiencing side effects because of that medication. Insanity. I’ve never been a fan of medication though. In this case, I thought that this was helping me. I know it helped me in the beginning though. I read and watched a lot of stuff around Graves’ disease and how the medication wasn’t always an option. There are so many layers within this disease and it’s all so complicated. I understand the disease more and more.

My goal right now is to try and keep my thyroid stable without any medication. I’ve been taking magnesium, vitamine D, and a plant called lycopene (phytotherapy or herbalism) which is made to help your thyroid work properly, especially for the ones suffering from hyperthyroidism. I can’t tell you about the positive effects right now because I was taking it while I was on medication and having side effects, so I believe the medication canceled the efficiency of that plant. I started taking it for a few days now. I will let you know how I feel  in a month or two :) 

I have to do blood tests every 6 weeks and see how my thyroid responds and I have an appointment with my specialist in September. My biggest goal this year is to avoid any surgery or taking that radioactive iodine. I want to be able to live without any medication, I want to stop taking that damn Pill, but most of all, I want to be able to live a life without any symptoms. I’m not going to lie. I’m scared and nervous, but whatever happens, happens. I’m just going to do my best. 

So how do I feel today? I feel okay. I still feel my thyroid acting weird at times, I do feel overwhelmed and my heart gets too excited at times, but I do feel better. 

I want this year to be a year of healing. Let’s just do our best.