MY POSTPARTUM HASHIMOTO'S - Story of My Health

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We all have had uphill battles.

Those times when no matter how hard you push, it feels like you are unable to make any progress. Usually, after you bang your head against the wall enough times, you try a new direction. During my postpartum Hashimoto’s experience, I eventually found a new direction on this thyroid journey (my thyroid journey begins here).

In the beginning, my Endocrinologist started me on Armour thyroid medication (more about that here) and we finally were able to get my thyroid numbers looking mostly normal (my T3 was still low). After about 4.5 months, I told my doctor that my husband and I were ready to begin trying for another baby. She insisted that I switch my medication to levothyroxine or she would not follow me through the pregnancy.

In response to this, I discussed with my husband switching to a Functional Medicine Doctor (ND) for treating my Hashimoto’s, but it was scary to him to go through the pregnancy without being with an Endocrinologist (MD). I had to respect his decision- it was his baby too. So I stayed with my Endo and finally switched to levothyroxine.

GETTING PREGNANT WITH HASHIMOTO’S

I did ok on levothyroxine- not great. I didn’t have quite as much energy and I gained another 15 lbs- which was horrifying to me. We got pregnant right away, however, it ended in miscarriage very early – it was extremely upsetting. The next month we tried again and also got pregnant right away- thankfully this one stuck.

In the first trimester of my pregnancy, my TSH went quite low (0.20 uIU/mL, lab range 0.34 – 4.82 uIU/mL- you can find more about labs here) and I started having very uncomfortable heart palpitations. This evened out in the following trimester and then we had several more episodes of bleeding throughout the pregnancy that were quite scary. In the end, we were very lucky to have another healthy baby girl!

My new baby girl and her big sister. — Photo credit to Denise Lewinski at www.willowbabyphotography.com

FINDING A NEW THYROID DOCTOR

My husband had promised me after giving birth that he would support my desire to switch my thyroid doctor and I did so immediately. I found a Functional Medical doctor (ND) recommended from the good doctor list on Stop the Thyroid Maddness Yahoo group. She was expensive and did not take insurance, but I was so fed up with feeling 75% of myself that we found a way to make it work. My husband could see my misery.

When I started with my new thyroid doctor she immediately switched me from taking any levothyroxine to taking WP Thyroid. WP Thyroid has no fillers in the medication- some people can have an allergy to these fillers and be completely unaware of it. Some medications even include gluten (more about that later!). I was happy to hear this and felt good about the switch.

HASHIMOTO’S INSOMNIA AND BLOOD SUGAR

Life after our second little girl was TOUGH. I found myself having blood sugar issues and tortured with insomnia nightly. I would spend hours awake in bed trying to fall asleep only to wake up an hour later to nurse the baby and not be able to get back to sleep. I was exhausted, but could not sleep- it was one of THE WORST EXPERIENCES OF MY LIFE.

At several points I thought I was going crazy. When I was able to get some sleep, I would wake up drenched in night sweats. Over-the-counter sleeping pills weren’t working to help me sleep. It took some research, but I realized that my blood sugar was spiking, then dropping low. This would cause my adrenals to kick in adrenaline to push my blood sugar back up. This would also cause me to wake up.

I would have night sweats when my blood sugar dropped too low. If I ate protein before going to bed I found I was able to fall asleep and stay asleep. This mostly helped my sleeping although the blood sugar issues continued in other ways. On the days I worked out, sleeping came much easier.

POSTPARTUM HASHIMOTO’S FLARE

About 6 months postpartum, my TSH went high again while on the medication (you can find more about labs in Part 2: What Do You Mean My thyroid is Broken?). My immune system was coming back from being suppressed during the pregnancy. My Anti-Thyroid Peroxidase Antibody (TPO) and Anti-Thyroglobulin Antibody (Tg) test results went up as well.

Thyroid Test	Thyroid Test Result	Lab Range
TPO (Anti-Thyroid Peroxidase Antibody) (IU/mL)	188 IU/mL	< 34 IU/mL
Tg (Anti-Thyroglobulin Antibody) (IU/mL)	574 IU/mL	<115 IU/mL

Now, I understand this sounds low in comparison to some people who have antibodies in the thousands, but the number of antibodies does not equate to the amount of thyroid damage. We upped my medicine several times and eventually I was on FULL thyroid replacement before I felt somewhat good again.

This was shocking to me! I was taking medication twice a day because my thyroid was NOT functioning. This combined with the blood sugar issues and weight gain was too much. I had enough of following this model of treatment. I couldn’t believe this was the only answer.

FINDING A NEW DIRECTION

I was very scared because I didn’t see this getting any better and, in fact, it was getting worse. I started researching again. I had read that going gluten free was suppose to help with Hashimoto’s, but I didn’t understand why and it was a big change to implement. Knowing ‘Why?’ is big- I need to know why I am making a change.

Finally, one day I googled “Hashimoto’s Remission” and found several posts of women that had succeeded in putting their Hashimoto’s autoimmune diseases into remission. All of them- except one -said they needed to go gluten free to be successful. NOW I UNDERSTOOD WHY!! It was the first step I needed to take to begin to fix my broken immune system.

I will talk about the gluten connection more in my next post. You can follow my thyroid journey below.