Emma's Hashimoto's Diagnosis, Part 7

The Long Road, continued from Emma's Hashimoto's Diagnosis, Part 6

I apologize for my delay in reporting.  I got to the point where I was sick of talking about sickness.  Because it's been so long, I know there is a lot I have forgotten.  I'll do the best I can to be accurate.

To resume where I left off in Part 6,  Emma did the test to find out which arm of her immune system was dominant.  Taking the TH-1 herbs caused her to go into a depression.  First she started playing some of her favorite Scottish music, the Corries, for me, my sister, and my niece, and didn't want to stop even when it was clear that everyone had grown tired of it and wanted to enjoy conversation.  It was like she lost the ability to detect other people's feelings or she lost the ability to care.  Then she went further downhill and went and stayed in her room and told me that nobody liked her. She stayed in her bed the whole day for this reason.  It was such bizarre behavior for her that it made me want to laugh.  On the other hand, it was really sad because she missed out on a day of visiting with her aunt and cousin.  A few days later she took the TH-2 herbs, and nothing happened.  So we eliminated from her diet all foods/supplements that would support TH-1, including mushrooms, astragalus, and echinacea.  There are others, but I can't remember them right now.  She did the GABA challenge to see if she had a leaky brain barrier.  The results were inconclusive.  Maybe I don't understand it properly, but it would seem to me that if something you eat causes you to get depressed, then you have a leaky brain barrier.  I have since learned that GABA, a neurotransmitter, is a natural relaxer.  I have used it quite a bit with Emma since reading The Diet Cure by Julia Ross.

She became obsessed with the Corries the fall that she was in college.  It's good music, traditional and beautifully rendered.  I like it myself.  I think the obsessiveness came in because of the outstanding harmony.  Her brain was under attack; she couldn't cope with any kind of stress, and this music calmed her.  She has probably a hundred Corries tunes on her iPod, and she listened to that music almost exclusively for nine months.  On bad days she would stay in her room because she said that she felt better in there.  I think that was because the room is painted yellow and she has light from windows on the east and south.  She would sleep and listen to the Corries.

Another example of obsessive behavior was her Amazon wedding registry.  I can't remember exactly when she created it.  I think it was in the Spring.  Anyway, it was almost exclusively cookie cutters!  No dishes.  No pots and pans.  No household appliances.  No linens.  Not only that, the cookie cutters were mostly gingerbread men, gingerbread women, and gingerbread children.  I never checked, but I have wondered whether she didn't have every available gingerbread cookie cutter that Amazon sells.  The only other thing she chose were pieces for a Lenox Nativity set.  I mentioned this to my stylist one day when I was getting a haircut.  She laughed and remarked animatedly in her Texas drawl,  "That Emma, she just wants to bake cookies and see Jesus!" I cracked up!  It was so funny!  I could have just hugged her for that.  Laughter truly is the best medicine, but she went even further and put the situation in a positive light that really did reflect the Emma that she had known for years.  As a caregiver, it can be hard not to get depressed yourself and to forget what it was like when your patient was healthy.  So I appreciated this on several different levels.  I have thought of her remark many times since then, and it always gives me a lift and makes me smile.

Emma had a thyroid panel again in the spring and saw no improvement in thyroid function.  Particularly, her free T3 was still extremely low.  That's the one that actually goes into your cells and affects everything.  She was feeling much better, though, than when we had started.  It's just that there were a lot of relapses.  That was the hardest thing for me to deal with.  She would seem perfectly normal for weeks, and then all of a sudden she would have a major setback.  Eventually we were able to add eggs, dairy, and peanut butter back into her diet.  We rejoiced exceedingly, to say the least.  We continued on GAPS.  So in addition to no gluten-containing grains, no rice, no corn, no oatmeal, no quinoa.  No grains whatsoever.

One issue that had surfaced in January was sickness associated with the onset of her period.  She had been feeling good, and I let her drive across town for an outing with friends.   She got so sick that she had major trouble walking, and she threw up several times.  She stayed in bed for about three days after this incident.  It seemed to sap the life out of her.  This problem has persisted to the present, although now the sickness only lasts the first day.  I consulted the chiropractor we had been seeing about it, and she said that she goes to her gynecologist for such problems.   I thought, and still do, that it is a hormone imbalance caused by the Hashimoto's.  I am guessing that it is a deficiency of progesterone.  I am sure that there are some good gynecologists out there who could probably help.  I am also sure that there are a good number of them who will prescribe the birth control pill to "regulate" the cycle instead of figuring out the cause.  I decided to wait on trying to figure that one out.

Believing that we had reached the limits of this chiropractor's ability to help, last summer I sought out another Kharrazian-protocol chiropractor.  He knew things that the first one didn't.  Emma was still suffering with adrenal fatigue symptoms.  He started Emma on supplements to improve her liver and gall bladder function and added another cream to support her adrenals.  That's when I learned that the cream the first chiropractor gave us was supposed to be used in the morning to help her wake up.  The new one was for bedtime to help her get to sleep.  It was a little upsetting to learn this.  We had been told to use that first cream throughout the day.

I continued to read everything I could about Hashimoto's, depression, and adrenal fatigue.  I found the "Stop the Thyroid Madness" site's information on lab tests and on adrenal fatigue extremely helpful.  I incorporated whatever I thought would help into the Kharrazian protocol.  I think it was last June that I added Houston Tri-Enza digestive enzymes to Emma's regimen.  I read about them on a GAPS site.  So she was taking the enzymes fifteen minutes before each meal and then taking Betaine (stomach acid) halfway through the meal, plus about six Kharrazian supplements, like the liver and gallbladder support formulas and liquid vitamin D.  I also had her take B complex, Omega 3 fish oil, and a multivitamin called Glucobalance designed to help regulate blood sugar.  We found a Chinese herb supplement at our local health food store that helped lessen her menstrual woes.  She had three egg cups full of pills each day, one for each meal.  It was horrible, but during this period she improved dramatically.  We were able to go on vacation and spend our days swimming and tubing and had a fabulous time.  Having low thyroid function slows down all the bodily processes, so the extra help with detoxing and digestion really helped.  She did this for about three months.  It was nearly impossible for her to just relax and enjoy a meal because she had to take pills throughout.  She can't swallow them without food because they get stuck in her throat.  Finally she got sick to death of it all and quit.  I didn't blame her.  I just hoped she could hold on to her gains.