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Bastendorf

Crippling Exhaustion - An Update

I've been tired all the time for a long time. I'd wake up every morning fatigued but unable to continue sleeping, I'd be tired throughout most of the day, despite sometimes getting around 10 to 12 hours of sleep, then I'd go to bed and the cycle would repeat. I used to think this was because of my mattress. This issue coincided with the exchange of my childhood mattress 7 years ago. So for the last 7 years, I've been buying mattresses, and none of them, not even a brand new one, solved the problem. It would help, but temporarily.

Over the last two years, my energy has been slipping away steadily, and my drive and determination to do the things I love, along with it. I bought an exercise bike to try to keep last year's super hot summer from keeping me from getting exercise, but when September came, my exhaustion and fatigue only grew worse. So bad, in fact, I could no longer muster up the energy to use my exercise bike. I doubled my efforts to find a good mattress, but my budget just doesn't allow for me to buy a new one any time soon.

On the 21st of December, I went on vacation to visit family. The guest mattress my mom had me using, while I was there, was amazing. It felt just like my childhood mattress, except big enough to fit me. But I realized something that should have gotten my attention at the time: I wasn't getting fantastic sleep like I thought I would be. I expected to feel amazing after a few nights on that mattress. I didn't.

I returned home December 28th. The very next day, my fatigue grew even worse. It was now the worst it's ever been in my entire life. I no longer had the drive to do any of my most beloved activities: draw, write, game development. It was then that I started looking for ways to improve my energy using certain types of food. No effect. (Except maybe my joints hurt less, lately.)

One week later, I happened to be in a chatroom I frequent, and was telling my friends there that if they didn't hear from me again, it's because I'm dead. I'd woken up that morning only to find I didn't have the strength to lift my own body weight to get out of bed. I laid there for 15 minutes waiting until I could muster up the energy to get up. I was so weak that morning, that I couldn't even step over my cats without my knees threatening to give out from my weight. I'm not fat, by the way. I'm 139 lbs. I'm also not wimpy. I'm usually quite strong and sturdy for my stature.

As I was telling them this story, and warning them that I might not live long enough to recover from my fatigue, someone mentioned that it sounded like I had hypothyroid. I was skeptical, but I decided to go to WebMD to see if there was a chance. I had 10 matching symptoms. Hypothyroid was among the top 5 conditions on the list after I filled in my symptoms, and out of all 5 of the top 5, hypothyroid was the absolute closest match by a long shot. I even checked the top 10 conditions it suggested, and hypothyroid stood far and above them all.

But rather than diagnose myself online, I decided to get a third opinion. I ordered a blood test kit through the mail.
Fun anecdote: spring-loaded spikers don't work on tough gamer fingers, so after being unsuccessful in drawing enough blood to fill out the test, I had to dismantle the device, extract the spike, and manually lance myself with it order to draw enough blood to the surface. There were quite a lot of blood spots I had to fill in, though, and I'm not a profuse bleeder, which meant I had to stab myself 5 times total just to bleed enough for the test.

Another fun anecdote: I'm really skittish about pain when I know something's going to hurt, but at the same time, pain doesn't bother me as much as the average person. It took so much mental preparation just to be able to stick the damned spike into my finger the first time, but it wasn't even all that bad when I managed it, and effortlessly reopened the puncture each time, and twisted it around in there just to make sure I got myself bleeding again.

I sent my test back to the lab two days ago. All I have to do is live long enough to get the results back, and then I'll know if that's what it is. If it is hypothyroid, I can figure out how to treat it. If it's not, well fuck. But I can take those results, see a doctor, and show them what the test said. I'm still going to be pissed if it's not hypothyroid, though... that thyroid test kit wasn't cheap. And I had to stab myself repeatedly just to get enough blood for the test. My finger is still sore.

Anyway, what I'm expecting to happen: I get the results, find out I'm hypothyroid positive, I start treatment, I start feeling great again like I haven't felt in a very long time, and go back to doing all the things I love doing, now charged with new energy and drive to do it with.

Fingers crossed.
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Added: 7 years, 2 months ago
 
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