A few questions...

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

I don't ever get to post anywhere because I am not online at home (haven't been

for

years- very rural area I live in)

I have been wanting to post a few questions for you, so finally broke down and

had my

daughter do it for me. LOL I'll try to be as concise as possible.

I am 39 yrs old , and used to be a type-A person. Happy, busy (non-stop), thin

and fit,

even after 2 kids, very smart, etc. Well, as you can imagine- all that is gone

now. HA!

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Disease about 4 years ago, but I had been

undiagnosed

for about 4 years before that, and after years of thyroid research I now believe

I had been

Hyperthyroid for years before that. In 2 years I gained 60 lbs and I don't know

what to do

to get it off! I really, really, really would like to lose the weight, and

hopefully I can, with

some of the answers to my questions… (I look like a dumpy-frumpy cow! I am still

young

and should not look like this. Sigh.)

While my endo was doing a scan of my thyroid last month, he (not meanly – he's

really

nice and we joke around a lot) said, " You have an ugly thyroid! " . LOL He showed

me the

scan compared to the nurse's (who is normal), and our thyroids look NOTHING

alike! Mine

is two or three times the size it should be, and it is completely quote:

" moth-eaten " . I also

have 2 fairly large nodules on either side of both lobes that the doctor said

he had never

seen the like of before, so he said he wanted to do a biopsy to make sure the

lumps

weren't cancer. Last month he did an FNA on my thyroid and the results came back

benign, but we still don't know exactly what they are. He thinks it is inflamed

rotted tissue

due to my hashis. He said that I have obviously been sick a very long time!

He said we might talk about taking it out, but he did not tell me that I need

to have it

done. I assume he is leaving that up to me if I want to or not.

My question is: What seems to be the consensus of people who have had their

thyroid

removed? Are you better-off? I'm tired of having Hashi's attacks – I'm sure you

all know

how it goes, but I'll feel fine for 2 or 3 days and then for days or sometimes a

week or so I

feel like crud again and sometimes I can hardly get off the couch during the

day. My

antibodies are still in the 570s, and I am taking T3 and T4 right now with

Levoxyl and

Cytomel. My endo is great about T3. He knows I have to have it- he put me on it

at my

very first visit to him and told me that I should have been on it waaay sooner!

(I had tried

but you know how that goes down! The usual `no you don't need that drug'. `No, I

don't

believe in that'. `Not necessary for good thyroid health/feeelings', etc.)

I saw immediate mental results from the T3.

Also, I'm curious about Amour, the natural thyroid replacement. What are the

pros/cons,

and do you think I could lose any of my weight if I use the natural kind? And

are there any

doctors in the DFW Metroplex that will prescribe Armour?

And one more thing I've recently looked into: Celiac Disease? Has anyone had

luck on a

Gluten-free diet with their Hashimoto's/Thyroid disease? I found a good number

of

articles online about the connection between the two, but I was just curious if

anyone has

tried that, as well (any other suggestions are welcome!).

Thanks in advance.

~K