In doing more and more research on Levothyroxine, I’m learning two things. One is that my being led to believe it’s a very safe drug with no side effects is total BS since it DOES indeed have very real side effects. The other thing is how blind the doctors are. Or at least how blind they pretend to be. I still don’t understand their ignorance and refusal to address these side effects when every single site that lists the side effects of drugs says the same things, some even more than others. Do they think these things are there for decoration? The fact that thyroid medication is the number one prescription dispensed is another indication that all these doctors can’t be that stupid.

Some of the side effects I read up on are ones I didn’t even know were side effects, and now it makes me wonder. I’ve noticed I’ve become more heat intolerant, for example, but wrote it off as just being fatter, older, and no longer used to the blazing desert heat. But now I don’t know. This is listed as a side effect along with vision issues and even lightheadedness. So now I’m even more confused as to what could be causing what, and I also realize that this drug may be messing me up more than I realized. It may be doing a lot more to me than just making me anxious.

I love how it says that if you think you’re having any of these side effects, tell your doctor. Why? So they can say it’s not the medication? What’s the point of reaching out to doctors for help if they’re not going to help you? The only so-called help you may get in this case is a referral to a shrink so they can give you drugs to mask the side effects rather than deal with tackling the problem at the source. Yet psych pills can only make things worse if they don’t stop working altogether at some point.

Tom and I both agree that the JSP brand they switched me to has been making things worse. It’s too coincidental that a week after I start the shit, things go to hell after I had been doing the best I’d done in a long time and was about to break records with the anxiety. I went back and combed through last year’s journal and found that I only made 3 skips since the end of August. Tomorrow I will have my old brand back, Sandoz. I will still have some problems on it, just not as ferocious as I have been having. God, I sure hope not anyway!

I appreciate the person who recommended I ask my doctor about Liothyronine, another form of this drug that I’ve never heard of that comes in pills or injections, on an entry I made a few days ago. I see it has some similar but fewer side effects.

I will definitely mention it to whatever doctor I see, and I still don’t know if I’m going to see a new one or not. A part of me thinks it would be a waste of time to keep my old one since I’m not getting anywhere with her, but I figure a new one would just pull the same shit on me. Especially if I’m right about them having this little protocol and it does seem like that’s the case. Therefore, why bother breaking in a new doctor? I would prefer not to do that until I leave the state if I can help it.

I was surprised but glad to hear that Tom’s coworker is doing better. So she may have been anxious for other reasons.

I doubt it but I sometimes wonder if the occasional headaches I get and my rash might also be caused by my meds. Lichen planus is likely a separate thing though, and it actually began before I was even diagnosed.

But do I get light-headed because of my ears or the perimenopause or is it something else? We know my carotid artery isn’t blocked so I don’t know what to think anymore. I just know that this medication has turned my life inside out and upside down and made it a living hell given the physical and psychological torture I’ve endured on and off for the last 4 years, and yes, that’s along with real perimenopause symptoms as well.

Yesterday I had my first obvious hot flash in a while. What’s weird was that I hadn’t had my medication yet I still became anxious for 4 hours after I’d been up 8 hours. If that trend continues I’ve got about 45 minutes of calm left. Going to take some preventive measures by downing a cup of Sleepytime tea. So as I was saying, I had a few hours of anxiety yesterday, took my pill at the end of the day, and then I slept shittily. Not because of the pill but because fucking traffic woke me up twice, and then the neck knockers woke me up because I forgot to do my ear so I had to get up and do that. Initially, I had trouble falling back asleep after the first vehicle woke me up and I took a baby Benadryl to help me sleep better.

The speed bumps are part of the reason traffic is such a nightmare here besides the fact that I’m so close to such a busy road in such a massive park. Fucking UPS crashes right into the speed bumps without even bothering to slow down. But the world is a noisy place. Not going to sleep much better anywhere else.

Today I was afraid to wake up not knowing what kind of torture awaited me. But I dragged myself out of bed and was borderline until Tom got up. We enjoyed pork chops together which has tryptophan in them. Then I had a cup of Sleepytime tea and I’ve felt good ever since. But like I said, I’m about to hit that 8-hour marker. The meat situation sucks because I want it for the calming tryptophan that’s in it, but the cholesterol isn’t good for me. If it’s going to help keep me calmer then I don’t give a shit if my cholesterol goes through the roof.

Before bed yesterday I took a whole pill. It would be strange (though wonderful) not to get anxious after a whole pill after getting anxious from half a pill, but the anxiety can be a bit unpredictable at times.

I read that recent studies show that taking the medication before bed reduces side effects. I have my doubts about that but if anything, it will keep me from eating as much because I have to stop eating a few hours before I take it to empty out my stomach. I’m not going to bother taking one more from this brand since my regular brand will be back tomorrow. Now that I know there are about half a dozen brands of this medication and that some may be worse than others, I can’t help but wonder… What brand, if any, might make me feel even better and less prone to side effects than my usual brand?

I’m really getting as pissed as I am frustrated with this situation. I want to strangle any possible God that may exist and is either making this happen to me or at least allowing it to happen. I see a very scary pattern when I look back in my journals. For years I went on and on about not being able to have this baby I thought I once wanted. Then for years, I went on and on about how broke we were. Now it’s all about how anxious I am with no light at the end of the tunnel for me. Like I said, if this ever does end someday, my next long-term problem is either going to seem like nothing in comparison or it’s going to kill me if it’s any worse than this. When can I go back to my worst problems being noise and shitty sleep? I’d even struggle financially before I continued to feel so bad so much of the time.

Tom will be stopping to look at ovens on the way home from work. Because we don’t cook much and we’re not going to be here forever, we decided to get the cheapest self-cleaning oven we could find. We’re looking at one that does have a fan in it to blow the heat around so that the food cooks evenly like it does in our air fryer. White, silver or tan are my first color choices. Dust shows up on black too easily even when you keep up on things as I do, and colors like brown or olive are ugly.

Last night I dreamed I got a video call from my father who was playing bocce in this really nice-looking park or resort somewhere. I never saw him, just the park.

Then I dreamed we were staying at Miss Perfect’s place and I could sense that she wasn’t too happy to have me around though I pretended not to notice. She walked into the guest room I was changing in while I was topless and I was embarrassed at first until I realized she could have fun being jealous of my full and perky tits, LOL.