22 yearold male with thyroid and adrenal problems: My Story Please Help!!!

[Guest guest]

Hi here let me first off say that I am extremely thankful to have

found out all the information over the internet from a group of

people like yourselves because without all of you guys out there I

dont think I would be around today. The past 9 months of my life have

been hell for me and i'll give ya my story. Basically, back in the

summer of 2006 I was a healthy good looking athletic quick witted 20

yearold guy with the world in front of me. I was ready to start my

junior year of college and also played Division 1 soccer for my

school so I had a lot going for me. Anyway, the only thing that was a

problem for me was a bad case of acne that I had since I had been in

my teens. My face wasn't really a problem as much as my back and

forehead were. So in august of 2006 i finally decided enough was

enough and started taking accutane. I was only on a low dose 20mg the

first two months and then 40mg during the final four months, and

basically I felt fine during the treatment. It was great for the

first time in my life I was acne free and my confidence was sky high

I was extremely happy. However, during November/December 06 things

started to happen that I was concerned about. Firstly, I didn't

notice it as much then as I do now looking back on it, but my face

got slighlty puffier nothing terribly noticeable but somewhat puffier

overall. Then my hair started to do some crazy things. First it was

slighty falling out throughout the treatment which my derm told me

was normal and it would return once I ended treatment, but around

December my hair started to get wirery and just crazy looking. I went

from having thick long straightish hair to this curly mess of wirery

mad scientist hair that started forming. Then towards the end of

December my hair started falling out in clumps upon clumps. The

shedding was particulary bad in the shower and overall I was

concerned because it was just freaking me out. After all there is

little to no history of MPB in my family and no one has ever started

losing hair in their early 20s, my dad is 50 with a full head of hair

so it couldnt be MPB at least not this early. So then anyway I

finally came off the drug in February of 2007 and the hairloss kept

coming and coming and so did the extreme change in texture. It was

just this wirery dry mess. Also over the next couple of months I

would look in the mirror and just thought to myself jesus my face is

just getting puffier and puffier what the hell is going on.

Not knowing what to do at all I went on propecia for the hair loss in

April of 2007 and that's sort of the straw that broke the camel's

back so to speak. I was only the drug for 2-3 weeks because of the

extreme side effects but one day I went to bed at night and then woke

up and knew something was wrong. It was like I had never gone to

sleep the night before it's hard to describe. It was like I was

asleep at night but really wasnt asleep like my body wouldn't shut

off. When I would go to practice in the mornings it was like I was in

this dazed sort of confused state i cant describe it. Anyway because

of that plus the other libido side effects I quit the propecia. All

of my ed sides seemed to reverse themselves within a week or two upon

ending the treatment however my sleep problems only got worse. I just

would wake up every morning feeling tired, drained, and fatigued.

Also it was impossible to sleep for 8 straight hours at night as I

would wake up all the time during the night etc. I was still very

much functional at this point but I just knew something was and

something was different. Over my spring break I had my GP run a basic

blood panel on me and he basically said everything came back in the

normal range and I was fine so I didnt really know what was going on.

Once the semester ended and the summer started things started taking

a turn for the worse. I would get constant bouts of fatigue

throughout the day, where i felt like I couldnt move. I tried working

a job at a pizzeria but it was extremely difficult as I felt so run

down and my energy would crash all the time.

At the same time all of this was going on I was training for our

upcoming soccer season as I always do except this time something was

different as well. I was running my ass off like I usually do and

lifting etc except I was gaining weight somehow, and I dont mean

muscle weight. It was like most of the weight I was gaining seemed to

be in my chest, hip, and midsection areas. At the same time my hair

was still falling out and the texture just kept getting worse and

worse. Also, I noticed that for some reason my skin wasn't tanning

like it used to in the summer. like my body would tan but my face

just wouldn't hold any color. Also my facial area kept getting

puffier, and my eyes looked very sunken in and had black circles

under them. When I came to preseason a week early to work out with my

friend on the team so we would be in top shape for preseason more

stuff kept happening. We ran our asses off everyday running and

running trying to get in better shape and be ready. In the past I

would just get stronger, i mean i was an athlete the more I ran the

better shape I would be in etc etc. However, this time I was getting

weaker and weaker with each day. it was like my body couldn't recover

from exercise adn each day my legs felt more and more tired. Once

preseason started I was physically so exausted that I just couldnt

even run and they cut me from team due to my inability to perform.

At this point I just knew something was wrong with my body, but

nobody would really listen to me not my friends, parents, etc etc.

When the semester started along with classes things only got worse.

As the semester picked up I couldn't keep up with school and my

grades have suffered tremendously. I kept getting these extreme bouts

fo fatigue throughout the day, my face became this moon shaped puffy

orb compared to how it used to look,i look like i've aged like 10

years its ridiculous, my hair has kept falling out and is very much a

mess now, i wasnt able to get deep restoritive sleep and i had

extreme insomnia. Then more things started to happen with me. I

started gaining more and more weight no matter how little I ate, I

had no metabolism anymore, and im having intolerances to the cold

etc. my mental state which had been bad for months kept getting

worse: I was forgeting things, sluring on words, much less social,

didnt have much to say anymore to people or the same outgoing

personality i used to have, i couldnt concentrate anymore for the

life of me etc. So I came across a thing for adrenal fatigue and

pretty much figured wow this sounds like me, and also at the same

time I came time I came across the site stopthethyroidmadness.com,

and thank God for it. It was like I was reading my life story for the

past year or so of my life.

So about a month ago I went to an endo to address my problems hoping

that something would come up on the blood tests this time. She looked

at me the first time I was in and basically said she would run all

the required tests, but just said that I looked perfectly healthy and

that she pretty much thought all the tests would come back normal. I

mean this lady was a quack in every sense of the word. Anyway thank

God for my previous blood tests and Im sure it didnt help that I

couldnt sleep the night before but when I sat down with her a couple

weeks ago she was reviewing my bloodwork with me and my TSH was an

8.9 compared with the 2.7 it had been in april. She said that this

could possibly be hypothyroid and I convinced her to put me on armour

all be it a 30mg low dose and i could work my way up. At the same

time she also said that she thought my lymes test came back positive

(when it really didnt the quack that she is really couldnt even read

the test right) so i went to beth israel hospital in boston to get

that checked out. On the armour I felt slughlty better but it was

really hard to tell because my dose was so low. Anyway, at Beth

Israel the infectious disease doctors looked at me told me what i

already knew, that I didn't have lymes and agreed to listen to my

situation. These guys actually were probably some of the best and

most open doctors and while they couldnt give me much guidance

because it wasn't their speciality they agreed that there most likely

was an endocrine issue and refered me to see the endocrinologists in

the hospital. When i went to see the doctor the following week she

simply had her RN just ask me a bunch of questions came in, looked at

my newer blood work, and told me I didnt have anything wrong with me.

She told me to stop taking the armour thyroid and that it wasn't any

good to begin with. She also said she was sorry she didnt have any

answers for me but that I was probably just depressed. She told me to

go back to the infectious disease clinic and that I should get tested

for HIV and MONO as there was more of a chance I had one of the two

than a thyroid and adrenal disorder. At this point i wanted to run

across the room and start beating her to a pulp but I restrained

myself.

I finally got in touch with doctor by the name of

Lichten who is out of Michigan. He is considered a hormonal expert

and truly understands the situation better than most of the medical

field so I was thrilled to get a consultation with him. Basically,

during my phone consult I went over everything with him and he said

my wake-sleep cycle was disturbed, and put me on a protocol of

vitamins and medicine to get me back to health. He agreed that I

needed armour thyroid, and wanted me to get the dosage up to 60mg and

work my way up. When it came to prescribing hydrocortisone though he

said that my case was easy compared to most and that he didn't feel I

needed it and that I could recover on my own. However, a couple days

ago when I tried to take 6omg of armour for the first time weird

things started to happen. I got very light headed and dizzy, and just

very very tired and run down. I basically just crashed and couldn't

really move or do anything for a good couple of hours, I was just

very much out of it. I'm at a point right now where I'm barely

functional and just a shell of the person I used to be. I think I

need hydrocortisone so I ordered some online yesterday. I know from

stopthethyroidmadness.com that Val and some others are on this board

so I'm hoping some of you guys can answer some of my questions,

concerns, and just give me some advice in general. Anyway, hope to

hear from you guys soon and thanks for your reading. God Bless.

Evan