The Early Warnings

The body is one heck of a complex interconnected machine.  Think about it. After God made man, He looked at us and said ‘very good’. Everything else was good but man was ‘very good.’ God built a system with checks and balances, safeguards, and warning mechanisms to let us know when things go awry.

Your hair will fall off when you are stressed. Your throat will dry when you are dehydrated. Your eyes will give different discolorations depending on what is happening inside your body. Your urine color gives indications. Different headaches are telling signs of different issues. God is a master builder.

Hair Loss- A Signal of Underlying Stress

3 years earlier, I noticed the hair in my head’s middle section was falling out. I was born with hair like a lion’s mane. Thick, long, healthy. Over the years, I began to develop auto-immune conditions.  The dermatologist called it a ‘degenerative follicular disorder’ caused by chemical relaxers and stress. He recommended no braids, no harsh combing, and scalp cream. The first line of action was to ditch hair relaxers. For health reasons, I went natural. My hair grew steadily and healthy, but you could tell that the middle part was still struggling.

Unraveling auto-immune conditions

2014, my ovarian function had also shut down from using a hormonal IUD. I had used the non-hormonal one for 5 years, but the bleeding was unbearable. On switching to the hormonal IUD, two things happened. I plunged into a cyclical depression every winter. From November to February, my body would go into severe mood swings. I would have no energy, no motivation.

Sometimes, I just sat at home for days doing nothing, including showering. It was that bad. I had a way of masking it, so not many folks knew. Not even my husband.  Then my period stopped flowing totally. I complained to my former ob-gyn but she felt that the IUD was not the reason for the signs and symptoms. She did not think it was the cause since millions of other women, in her words, did ‘perfectly fine’ on the Mirena. Um, I am not millions of other women. My body is not similar to that of the next woman.

Fast forward to August 2016. I had just had a good meal of ‘7 souls moin-moin’. Moin-moin is a bean tamale. 7-souls means it is stuffed with other goodies (boiled eggs, shrimp, tuna, corn-beef, etc). Right after eating, I began to experience terrible acid reflux. I had never refluxed before, not even during pregnancy. I ate bean products regularly as part of my diet. This was very unusual.

Acid reflux and thyroid troubles

The acid reflux was bad. It was so bad I felt it in my ears and the roof of my mouth. The burning sensation went as far as my nostrils. At first, I was self-medicating and trying to treat it with antacids. After 2 weeks, it continued to worsen. At that point, I visited my primary care doctor. He prescribed Nexium (which was later denied by my insurance). He then switched to Pantoprazole. I took it for 30 days. It gave some form of relief. My doctor also wanted to be sure all was well, so he ordered blood work. From the blood work, It was discovered that my thyroid was over-active.

Further tests showed that I had developed Graves Disease, another auto-immune disorder.  It felt like my body was shutting down. The endocrinologist had two options; kill my thyroid and put me on synthetic thyroid for life or try an anti-thyroid med to see if my thyroid and pituitary glands would respond to normal function. Endocrinology has always been fascinating to me. No offense to endo doctors but they seem quick to destroy the glands and put you on synthetic meds for life. I chose the latter option. He started me on a low dose of Methimazole.

After 30 days of acid reflux medication, I took a break. A week into my break, I was taking the anti-thyroid medication. I am unsure if it triggered the reflux but it came back more severe; with a vengeance. My vocal cords were being affected. I could no longer minister in the choir. I had to take a break. Based on my senior pastor’s recommendation, I pressed my primary care doctor to test for H.pyroli. The test returned positive and I was put on triple therapy for 14 days.

It was an intense therapy of two antibiotics and a protonic; 8 tablets daily, including the anti-thyroid medication. For me, 9 tablets a day was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was not the medication-guzzling type. The highest I took was Tylenol for headaches. 9 tablets a day did not sit right with me.

Importance of a Patient-centric Approach

I was unhappy with how my primary care doctor treated my case. I had to call and press for results before they were released constantly. I had to remind him to send my prescription order. I pressed for an endoscopy to ensure that all was well in my GI tract. Why would he enjoy prescribing more drugs without getting to the root cause?  He would not give me a referral to a gastroenterologist either. I fired him after almost 15 years of trusting him with my care. There was no love lost. It was time to cut ties if my doctor could not go the extra mile to ensure my safety and comfort. 

I fired my old ob-gyn, and saw a new ob-gyn too. I just wanted to ensure that my reproductive health was okay and intact. This was how I became Dr. N’s patient. She gave me a clean bill of health in October 2016. My pap smear returned negative, the pelvic exam was good, and every test showed a healthy woman. She even mentioned that I could keep the Mirena for 2 years. 

I continued to treat the acid reflux and the Graves. By early January 2017, my thyroid began to respond, but according to the endocrinologist, my pituitary gland was still ‘sleeping’. I had to continue taking the anti-thyroid meds until the pituitary gland corrected itself.

Seeking Answers and Challenging the Status Quo

I woke up every morning not comfortable with my situation. What triggered these conditions? How did I get here? 9 pills a day for 2 weeks? The possibility of my thyroid being ablated and taking synthetic thyroid medications for the rest of my life loomed. I was only 35 years old.

Why was my health suddenly failing me? Was I that stressed? The past ten years had been tough in my marriage. It had been one challenge after the other; short-term immigration separation, job losses, narrow home loss, financial crunch, marital strains, name it!

Was my body reeling from the stress and emotional trauma?

Life’s struggles were many, but I knew I had the strength to fight. I believed God would deliver me from this battle. I followed the medical advice and embraced the good fight.