Schlumpin' around.

I'll admit it. I'm kind of depressed. On second thought, I don't know if you can be kind of depressed. Is it like being a little bit pregnant? (I'm not pregnant, that's for sure.) Maybe you just are depressed or you aren't. At any rate I'm definitely cranky and anxious.

I've got an endo appointment on November 2. Yes, I am the brilliant diabetic who scheduled to see my blood-sugar-stuff doctor the Monday after Halloween. Looks like I'm going to have to blame white coat syndrome on my wonky blood glucose readings again. (Seriously, that happens to me EVERY TIME. High or low, never in range when I see my endo. She probably thinks I'm a lying liar who lies when I say I test, I swear I test! And I don't live on cotton candy! But I wish I did! But now that I think of it, why do endos bother with that in-office test? One test in a day doesn't provide any valuable information, except for possibly, "Ha! Caught you being diabetic!" Or maybe the endo can console him or herself by saying, "Well, at least my patient tests once every three months. That I know for sure!") Oh and also due to the kind of depression and general sense of apathy I've been eating like...I don't know, like a six year old would eat if no one forced them to eat things with chlorophyll. Pop Tarts, cereal, peanut butter and jelly, ice cream, fast food...I'm scared of what my LDL is going to be. NOOOO, STATINS DO NOT WANT! Thankfully my blood sugars have been okay-ish despite the steady diet of junk, but I do have to own up to hitting "HI" on the meter one day after my pump tubing was sliced and I didn't realize it until 10:30 that evening. I was out of town and just kept bolusing, hoping I could get back in range...because surely it couldn't be my pump because I hadn't changed my site and it just worked an hour ago and ARGGGH! The pump has not been my friend lately; due to a handful of bad sites combined with my new horrid testing habits I've seen more than my fair share of 300s, 400s, and even a couple of 500s. This is not like me. Or maybe it's the new and unimproved me. One day I'll test fifteen times and the next day I'll test once.

Anyway, back to being kind of depressed, because the internet is for complaining. Since my hypothyroid diagnosis I've definitely noticed a distinct, increasing feeling of crapola. Maybe it's psychosomatic, but symptoms, I haz them. My laundry list includes ~*~TMI~*~ fatigue, chronic constipation, what is this strange concept that you call libido, fatigue, feeling like ass, and more fatigue. A fellow Type I & hypothyroid combo friend posted on DM about a book that claims to answer the question of why one still has thyroid symptoms when one is on thyroid hormone replacement medication AND one's lab values are in range. You know what, man? I really don't want to read that book. It's going to delve into the alternative medicine universe of "lifestyle chaaaaanges" that basically mean you can't eat pears ever again and you must take 50 herbal supplements and lol guess what, six months later nothing will have changed and you still feel like crap. And you probably have another health problem now, too! Go you.

Now I know I'm being cynical. I know. But really what I'm avoiding is that rising gall feeling that I know reading the book will give me because the main message is really this: I have an autoimmune problem. Doctors and conventional medicine are not addressing my autoimmune problem. My immune system is seriously, seriously pissed off. Something is pissing it off. It is this something that is causing me to feel like crap, not necessarily diabetes or hypothyroidism. They are fancy symptoms of the larger something. If someone could tell me, succinctly, that they could help me stop the something (and it'd be nice if they actually had a quantifiable success rate) I would be totally on board. But I'm so not feeling the 50 herbal supplements and not eating pears. Maybe I'm just whining about no magic bullet again, but seriously guys. I am so tired of autoimmune disease. I am tired of feeling 105 when I am 25. I want someone to figure this stuff out already.

I want to be able to go into my doctor's office and tell her, "Doc, I don't feel so good" and instead of having her go, "Hm, well, your TSH is fine and your A1C is fine so...? What do you want me to do with you?" I want her to go, "Yeah, you are suffering from autoimmune disease and we should really start doing something about that instead of putting fancy bandaids on your fancy symptoms." I have a feeling that's about as likely as a cure for diabetes in the next five to ten years. So instead when she asks me how I'm doing I'm just going to say, "Okay." And then I'm going to ask for updated prescriptions for my diabetes supplies and my Synthroid and come home and feel like crap some more.

Maybe I'm blaming my garden-variety kinda depression on autoimmune disease, though, and instead of my endo I really need to see a therapist. :{ Not another doctor...!

TSH = 5.77

My birthday present to myself is hypothyroidism. (Actual diagnosis date 2/17/09.) My Hashimoto's thyroiditis finally kicked in full force...after a postpartum bought of hyperthyroidism, I'm at the other end. Burn out and then fade away, right? My Synthroid prescription is in the mail and I've got Living Well With Hypothyroidism on my Amazon wishlist. I am extremely tired, but I didn't really notice being distinctly MORE tired than usual. I've been exhausted since late May of 2008. So what else is new.

I don't know if I'm super bummed out or not. Maybe a little nervous is more like it. Compared to Type 1 diabetes this additional physical failing of mine is a walk in the park, but still. It's another autoimmune issue. I hope this is the last "thing" I get as far as autoimmunity...to me it's such a red flag. We spend so much energy talking about a cure for diabetes. What we really need is a cure for immune systems run amok. Knocking on wood against lupus, M.S., arthritis...the list is long and scary.

So. I've survived a quarter of a century (thank you, modern medicine?) and I've got two autoimmune diseases under my belt. Guess I'll just keep rolling with the punches. What other choice do I have?

Manageability

So my new boss just rushed out of the office with a stricken look on her face. Her 20-something stepdaughter has some sort of nebulous autoimmune disease that causes her to have seizures on a semi-regular basis, and today she woke up slurring her speech...they think she made have had a stroke.

I don't know much about autoimmune diseases outside of my own, but my impression is that her stepdaughter's disease is its own animal and the symptoms are hard to prevent or treat. It's lupus-like, but it's not lupus...and it came out of nowhere a few years ago. That coming out of nowhere part sounds familiar, but the not knowing what you're dealing with part FREAKS ME OUT and makes me have that weird sensation of being...glad? relieved?...that I have diabetes. At least diabetes is (relatively) straightforward enough that I can help myself. At least it's common enough that doctors have some idea of how to help me. I can live, and live well, with this disease 99.9% of the time. Yeah, that other .1% is horrid, but on the whole I would describe diabetes as manageable. I know I forget to be thankful for that! The thought of staring into the yawning black hole of the unknown and being helpless is terrifying...