kiya

Today is apparently the ninth anniversary of my Hashimoto's diagnosis.

I have feelings about this, in complex ways.

But. I have a story about it, and soon there will be TOC and then I can announce it properly.


(Also, up to 21 submissions on the year, I want to build up to 10 out.)

(I'm wondering now if I do this more at the moment because of the relapse.) But in any case, one of the things that loops in my head on and off is "How to talk to the doctor about how I feel."

One of the phrases that keeps popping up in search of refinement is, roughly, "artan_eter put me on the standard herbal treatments for this in TCM. This has helped me a lot, so I am merely tired, cranky, forgetful, and in a lot of pain." (artan_eter commented that he would consider "this is a vast improvement, bringing me up to barely functional" to be important medical data as a health care practitioner....)

The interesting/frustrating/undescribable thing about the relapse is, okay. A lot of this stuff I thought was basically normal, that I was just not good at dealing with the normal price of being an embodied entity. That other people just didn't want to complain about the aches like I did, because they had some higher level of stoicism or endurance or something. That other people just Protestant Work Ethicked their way out of the exhaustion and the memory lapses and other stuff.

And a more-or-less year with none of this being a significant issue means that I have had a vision of a world where this crap isn't actually normal. Which means that it's worth being angry about the pain, about the mind fog, about the everything, because I don't have to live this way.

Other people aren't just not wusses about how hard it is to stand up, some of them actually have working knees. Other people actually can remember things they need to do for more than a minute per reminder, even. It's not just that I'm a special-snowflake self-absorbed flaky jerk, it's that these are symptoms of the sort of nonconsensually suicidal body I have.

I am all full of italics. But.

Using this page as a reference, hypothyroidism section:

Stuff I have known was part of hypothyroid conditions for some time that I have:
Fatigue
Brain fog
Low basal temperature
Cold hands/feet
Tendency to feel cold
Constipation
Goiter/swollen thyroid gland
Brittle hair/nails
Depression

Stuff I'm not surprised by but which I hadn't been thinking about specifically as related:
Poor memory and concentration
Severe PMS symptoms
Long, heavy, brutal menstrual cycles
Dry skin
Allergies (immune disorders are more likely related than not)
(Putting 'migraine' here though I actually think that's not related since my triggers don't appear to be hormonal and I haven't been dealing with them often of late even though the immune condition is clearly worsening)

Stuff that I was kind of freaked out about that cleared up when I got on thyroid meds and thus appears related:
Lump in throat
Palpitations and other cardiac irregularities
(Fortunately these have not recurred because they terrified me in ways that I was completely incompetent to tell anyone about.)

Stuff I have learned is almost certainly linked to my version of the condition because it's coming back all at once after my nonconsensual medication change:
Muscle weakness and completely fucked endurance
Pain and stiffness in muscles or joints ESPECIALLY MY DAMN KNEES
Shortness of breath on exertion (not to mention the 'now I will sit down for an hour to recover' bit)
BACK PAIN
Breast tenderness
"Digestive disturbances", what a lovely euphemism
Stiff neck and shoulders (also stress-linked, so I will never be free of this one)
Irritability, though frankly with all this crap coming up again who wouldn't be cranky?

I think I will not have to Google "Hashimoto's [symptom]" now to see if it goes on this list. I think that is everything.

... I feel the need to set my mood to 'irritated', because irritated.

Fucking bingo.

It would be really nice if, now that I'm having my actual health taken seriously and thus have a lot of medical bills, my health insurance company would actually fucking pay them.

I mean, there was one that was - for one of the diagnostic tests - rejected outright with a "Since this didn't matter to your eventual diagnosis, fuck you". (My doctor was actively offended by that, and had a lovely political rant before noticing that this might be inappropriate doctor-patient relationship. I like my doctor.)

This new bill is less bad, being merely, "So, our negotiations with your health care provider means that we only accept being billed for about a fifth of your care. By the way? Your deductible? About a fifth."

This feels so ... iconic right now. And I feel very "Oh, I'm so sorry that my actually finally getting appropriate care means that I might theoretically have a relationship with you other than captive cash cow" about it. (I mean, yes, a $120 bill is less than the initial $550 bill, but the gap between the two just vanished, none of that money was paid to anyone. It's just the don't-have-insurance tax.)

I'm so tired. I'm not sinking into the horrible depression I've had the last eighteen hours or so because I've had a Boston playlist going for a bit, and that's bouyant for me. I'm just, too much of everything is health insurance. And there's no way to think about health insurance or things resembling it without existential horror.

I have been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder: Hashimoto's.

I am non-sarcastically thrilled.

( Explanation follows. )


In unrelated but still semi-medical notes, meanwhile, I would like to draw the attention of particularly fierceawakening and miz_evolution to Dresden Codak's Cyborg Pride T-Shirts, because regardless of anything else in the universe I suspect that you will be pleased to know that such a thing exists.