Went swimming and the pool was both deserted and gorgeous on what turned out to be a 106° day. Very hot and dry with only 14% humidity. The water felt cool at first, then perfect, then slightly warm after I got out for a second, then dove back in.

Getting excited with August right around the corner! Definitely onto something with the brand and the dose. Just don’t know how much of the dose is a factor these days but brand…definitely!

The only thing that bothers me is what if I never figured this out? How long would it have been before any doctor told me to question and experiment with brands?

Tom was telling me about an article he read where everyone in this guy’s family, including him, would be so dizzy that they would be bedridden. The doctors did all kinds of tests, including testing his thyroid and looking for tumors yet found nothing. Eventually, they gave up on him and told him to go to a shrink. In the end, he had to be his own doctor in order to figure out what was wrong with him. Through research, he learned that the tip of one of his adrenal glands was enlarged. But because the tissue wasn’t abnormal but just more of what was normal, it didn’t show up during testing.

I also remember this movie I saw where this girl started doing crazy things and she too, was referred to a shrink when it turned out she had a rare autoimmune disease that affected her brain. One doctor who actually cared and wasn’t too lazy to do the work of figuring it out, discovered it.

It really does bother me and even pissed me off when I think of all these so-called experts that fail to consider other possibilities. I realize they can’t always be perfect and they don’t always know it all and get it right, but the number of doctors that prefer to take the easy way out and write something off as simple anxiety or whatever is a bit frightening. There’s no excuse for that! We have lost so, so much time and money on anxiety-related appointments that could have been prevented.

Same with the lady rash I had. If Alyssa had just fucking diagnosed me correctly, I never would have gone through the intense burning and itching of steroids and suffered 4 years when all I had to do was switch to all-cotton undies, change them a few times a day, use free and clear soaps and detergents, and get a bidet. It just seems like any doctor should be smart enough to have been able to diagnose and tell me these things the first time around. So Amy is definitely my hero, and Tom confirms that everything looks normal again down there. :-)

I do admit that Dr. O didn’t brush my entire case off as me just being anxious and that she did tell me and explain about pocket flares in the thyroid, which probably had a hand in the booming heart episodes I was having.

Also, when I was telling my GYN what happened she did say, “Oh, yeah, Levothyroxine can have some pretty scary consequences.” She didn’t say, “Anxiety isn’t even a side effect,” like Dr. A did.

Alyssa also did tell me it could make my heart race but for the most part, she blamed it on severe anxiety. Yeah, I had severe anxiety, all right, but it was mostly the medication at that time and some perimenopause. Sometimes she would kind of acknowledge this but Dr. A has always completely denied the medication as having a hand in it. This doesn’t mean I think Dr. A’s a bad doctor. She’s fine with everything else and I’ve seen her for half a decade now so I’m comfortable with her. From the research I’ve done and other stories I’ve heard, sadly, it’s common for patients with problems with Levothyroxine to be written off as simple anxiety cases because most people don’t have problems with the drug and it’s easier for the doctors that way. The less work they have to do to figure things out and look at other alternatives, the easier their jobs are.

I won’t even begin to get into the joke of an endo I first had with the other medical group. Amazing how she had a shitload of negative reviews when she lived here, but then she goes down to SoCal and everybody just loves her. Yeah, right! Fuck you, Doc D.

This isn’t to say I won’t ever be anxious again. I’m not postmenopausal yet and I’m still on this very strong and sometimes finicky drug. But in four months I’ve had only nine anxious days, most of which were mild and short-lived compared to the relentless, kickass anxiety I suffered for so long I wished I would die. Hopefully, it will continue to remain few and far between and short-lived if it doesn’t completely go away, but if anyone knows what it’s like to have the carpet yanked out from under her, it’s me. So I know there’s still a possibility it could come back full force as unlikely as it seems. I think as long as I stay on this brand and then cut my dose back down again if I try 75s and have problems again, I should be okay.

Still paying off things, though. Tom’s almost done paying off his MRI, and my ENT appointment was $250, we just learned. The biopsy is going to be at least $500, so we’re always in medical debt at least until we’re 65.

I wish I could be my own doctor again and figure out my weight so I could lower my risk of heart disease and other things even though it’s only 30 extra pounds, but there’s nothing to “figure out” in that case. I’m just older with shitty genetics. I don’t think being able to tolerate my medication to the point where I had perfect numbers would help either because Tom’s numbers have always been perfect yet his metabolism is even slower than mine. Most guys his height can have over 2,000 calories a day and still lose weight. He has to go to 1600 or lower.

I can’t get under 153 pounds without going under 1200 calories but that’s just too hard. Less than 1200 leaves me tired, grumpy, and hungry as hell. It’s just part of aging. If most older people could just lose weight, they would. I’m just glad my problem isn’t a lot worse as opposed to poor Tom. He has about 100 pounds to lose. We’re definite proof, though, that you don’t have to eat like a pig and sit on your ass all the time to be fat. I don’t even know if I can stay in the 150s all my life (even though I agree with those who say I look more like I’m 120 to 130 since I’m muscular) but I decided that when he’s 80, that’s it, LOL. I’m going to eat whatever whenever at that time since we won’t have that many years left anyway by then.

Purse stealing seems to be a common dream with me. Again, I got my purse stolen in my dreams when I was in this bus station and placed my hot pink purse down on the counter next to me. I only turned my head in the opposite direction for a split second and then it was gone.

This dream took place back in Springfield and I didn’t even know Tom. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get on the bus now that I didn’t have my purse and money to pay for the fare.

I sat down on a bench and a younger woman with long dark hair (OMG, every time I voice type my pigs start chatting, LOL) sat down next to me and seemed very friendly.

I don’t know how I got home but now I knew Tom, and an older woman that might have been my mom tried to call him at work about my stolen purse. She talked to somebody briefly, hung up, and said he was home. Then, sure enough, Tom walked into the place and I told him immediately about what happened.

The other dream seemed to be in Florida. They made a pool out of a small lake. Parts of it had a cement retaining wall and there were ladders like you would find in a pool. I stuck a foot in it and found the water to be nice and warm.