I had a follow-up appointment with my new doctor today. I went to see him the first time on November 18th because the E.R. doctors told me it was important to follow up with a primary care doctor within a few days. He confirmed their diagnosis of bronchitis and a broken rib. He said the bronchitis had been caused by the flu. He assumed it was H1N1 due to the severity of my . He gave me some strong cough suppressant pills that almost completely stopped the coughing so my rib could start to heal. He also gave me pain pills and a steroid inhaler to help with the coughing.

I like this doctor. He is thorough, takes his time, and pays attention to what I tell him. Today’s appointment was a follow-up on the bronchitis and also to get the results of the blood and urine tests. Most of the results were good. The UTI cleared up, my A1C (average blood glucose test for the past 2-3 months) was 6.9, which is the same as it was shortly after I was diagnosed with Diabetes in February, my good cholesterol was 202, my bad cholesterol was 120, but he said he thinks the reason it was so high was because my thyroid is too low, which increases the bad cholesterol. He said I have hypothyroidism and gave me a script for Levothyroxine to help stabilize it. Unfortunately, I will have to take it for the rest of the my life. My blood pressure has drastically improved since my mom moved out, but it’s still too high and he prescribed a pill for that too.

I’ve been tested for hypothyroidism in the past, but I didn’t have it. After he told me the common symptoms I realized it probably developed around April of this year. I had overlooked the symptoms because they were subtle and not too bothersome. The symptoms I’ve noticed are fatigue1, 2, gain3, excessive sleepiness4, dry skin5, decreased concentration6, muscle cramps7, abnormal menstrual cycles8 and decreased drive9.

He wants me to come back in six weeks so he can retest my thyroid levels, to ensure he put me on the right medication and dosage. He also said he still wants to have a CT scan done on my kidneys to make sure I don’t have kidney stones and that my kidneys aren’t damaged from the last infection.

Many of the medical conditions I have or had are autoimmune: rheumatic fever, diabetes, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and now hypothyroidism. I’ve come to the conclusion that my immune system is retarded because it feels the need to attack my organs when it doesn’t have something else to fight off.

On this day..

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  1. I assumed it was because [↩]
  2. it was mild compared to my usual depressions and I assumed it was just because I was under so much stress [↩]
  3. I wasn’t sure what was causing this because I haven’t had much of an appetite the past several months [↩]
  4. I figured it was because the depression and fatigue [↩]
  5. I assumed it was because the psoriasis [↩]
  6. I thought this was because I stopped taking the medication for ADHD [↩]
  7. they weren’t too bad so I figured my potassium was low [↩]
  8. I figured it was off because stress [↩]
  9. I thought it was because the depression [↩]