Nutrition is medicine...

A few weeks ago I had a really bad night with my hyperthyroid. Of course it happened the night after I saw the doctor. I was miserable. I was having a lot of nervous/anxious feelings and lots of problems with my eyes. My heart rate was up in the 120's and no I hadn't been exercising, just laying in my bed trying to sleep. Since I couldn't sleep anyway I got on the computer and read everything I could find on thyroid disorders. My mom had sent me a book about the disorder and I just hadn't picked it up to look at it yet. The next day I started reading it. Guess what I found out about thyroid issues? Women tend to get them more than men. (ok, I'm a woman. check) Left handed people are more prone to this disorder (I am left handed, check) many times if you have this problem it will show up after a pregnancy (remember all my issues after I had Jakob? Triple check). I feel very blessed that I've never had the racing heart until now. A racing pulse is pretty scary feeling even if it's not a big deal (at least that's how the Dr. acts about it) I read in the book and online how important diet is when you have this stuff going on. I had already cut out caffeine hoping that maybe it would help slow down my heart rate. I started drinking at least 64oz of water a day (and yes I measure it, I am that obsessive about some things). I don't know about y'all but 64oz seems like a lot of water! Some days I don't quite make the whole amount. The water helps to flush out some of the extra TSH my body is over-producing. I also read in the book how bad aspartame can be especially when you have a hyperthyroid. I was drinking sweet-n-low in my coffee in the morning, 2 coke zero's during the day, sometimes some crystal lite too. I cut out aspartame completely. I have started drinking naturally decaffeinated green tea but I can only drink it during the day. If I drink it at night it keeps me up even though it's decaf. They recommend that you eat a "low carbohydrate" diet meaning that you cut out white bread, pasta, white sugar, most processed foods. I was o.k. on that front because we'd been eating that way for at least a month or two again. I found a really great health food store in Fort Myers where I can buy my xylitol. We used to eat sugar free ice cream for dessert a lot, now I've switched to fruit. One of the first desserts I learned to make after we started eating low carb is 2Tbsp of cream cheese and 1Tbsp of heavy whipping cream, 1 tsp xylitol, a little vanilla, a little cinnamon and some strawberries or blueberries. It pretty much tastes like cheescake, it's so good. We eat apples and organic peanut butter (I got this at the healthfood store also. It's the best I've found). They had cookies made with xylitol. We ate them all so I don't know the brand but seriously whole wheat flour, xylitol, almonds, there were only 5 or 6 ingredients in them and they were delicious. I saw on somebodys blog -maybe skinnytaste- these black bean chips (instead of corn chips) and I had a recipe for homemade salsa. I can't believe I made better salsa than any mexican restaurant in my town, but I did :) Anyways, I don't want to be one of those annoying food people but I am loving eating basic food (with only two or three ingredients in it). The peanut butter is just peanuts and oil. The chips are black beans, brown rice and sunflower oil. I have been hesitant to really admit that I'm feeling a lot better because I'm always nervous that as soon as I say it I will have a relapse and I know they are going to come, but it just makes me more thankful for the days when I feel good. I still have a lot of fatigue some days, exercise is basically out of the question right now. I get tired very easily, and it doesn't take much to get my heart going so fast that I have to sit down, but I am hoping to get on some good vitamins and (eventually) find a doctor who deals with nutrition and who is willing to help me get all my hormones and vitamins/minerals in order. I have had one or two feelings of anxiety or nervousness in the last 2 weeks (when I say anxiety it's not about anything in particular, they just hit all of a sudden for no reason and I want to escape my own body.) but it came and passed fairly quickly and I didn't have any feelings of needing to run around the block at 10:00 at night or anything like that. I think kicking the caffeine to the curb has helped. Sometimes when people hear that we eat low carb they say "how can you do that?" or "I could never do that" and I would just tell them that it helped us lose weight (i'm down to 118!) and it's not so bad. Now it's so much more than that for me. It's being healthy. Believe me if I didn't have these issues I'd be eating bread and pasta with the best of them, but this is what is working for me and as long as it works I am willing to do it. Feeling good is worth it.