Dawne’s Story – Symptoms After Birth of her Child
So many times I have caught myself saying to other women, “If only my mother or someone else had warned me that at age 40 your body begins a swift spiral downwards.”
Why did it become such a complete shock to me when the symptoms began appearing?
Quite possibly because my symptoms began at age 32, after the birth of my third child things started happening to my body. The most obvious was that my hair was coming out by the handfuls. I could not get out of the shower without first cleaning out the handful and a half of hair that collected in the drain. When I would go to a hair salon, I would hold my breath because I knew what was coming as soon as I sat down for the attendant to wash it. “Honey, you need to see a doctor about all this hair that is coming out in my hand.” I would always joke and say, “ Thank God I have so much to lose.”
Easy for him to say, he wasn’t the one with hair trailing the floor everywhere he went. My husband even joked with me and told me that I could never murder him in bed because I left too much hair on my pillow and in the bed to get away with it. So I endured.
Just when I thought that things could not get any worse, I turned 37. All of a sudden I have gained 17 pounds that will not come off no matter what I did, but of course I was also waking up yawning and feeling like I had just run the marathon. Who has the energy to do anything? I was not sleeping through the night. Do you ever have one of those nights where you wake up every hour, check the clock, and see that it is not time to get up? I was having those nights every night.
I started riding the emotional roller coaster every day. Look at me wrong and I will cry, or I may become confrontational because something has really made me angry. It could be something minute, it didn’t matter. My blood pressure would go sky high. I really new something was wrong when I yelled at a perfect stranger for something stupid. (I don’t even remember what it was). I am not a confrontational person; I will avoid it at all costs. But let me tell you, I was uncontrollable.
I started feeling nervous and jittery and having all the typical menopausal symptoms. I just knew that I was going through menopause. I went to my OB/GYN doctor. He took the blood tests. They were normal. I went to another doctor. She ran the gamut of blood tests. Hormones were in the normal range, but hey, your thyroid levels are wrong. I was told that I had hyperthyroidism and I needed to see an endocrinologist, and by the way, here is an anti-depressant for your nervousness.
My journey takes me to the endocrinologist’s office. I have to have all the radiation tests to check my thyroid. I ask him, “if I have hyperthyroidism, shouldn’t I be losing weight and my hair not fall out?” I was told that you could have those symptoms with hyperthyroidism. Ok. I spend the entire day in the nuclear medicine lab having all the tests you can think of on my thyroid. The results are in, “your thyroid levels are fine.” But what about my hair loss? I was told to use Rogaine.
I resigned myself that I was crazy and there was nothing I could do but live with it.
A miracle happened a few months later. I was in my car listening to talk radio as I went to get lunch. I happened upon Dr. Hotze’s radio program and was listening to a woman describing her symptoms to Dr. Hotze and what he did to help her. Tears streamed down my face because she was describing me, and oh my I was not the freak I thought I was. There is something I can do to stop feeling this way.
At the Hotze Health & Wellness Center, Dr. Sheridan was able to diagnose me with secondary hypothyroidism and estrogen dominance. I was given Armour thyroid and the bio-identical hormones that set me back on the path to normalcy. Within days, I could feel the difference. My family no longer had to walk on eggshells around me. I was sleeping and the menopause symptoms disappeared, and oh yes, I threw the anti-depressants in the garbage.
I thank God everyday that I don’t feel like that crazy person anymore. And I tell every woman I know that there is help. You don’t have to live like that anymore.
Do you have the same symptoms that Dawne did? Contact us to get on the right path to health and wellness today!
