Sarah Wilson

300 “typical” thyroid symptoms (yep, that many!)

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As many of you know, I have thyroid disease. I’ve been meaning to compile a list of various symptoms linked to thyroid issues for a while, in part to highlight just how multifaceted, unpredictable and nebulous the disease is.

Image via Favim.com
Image via Favim.com

It’s worth remembering that every cell in our body has thyroid receptors (the only other substance with receptors on every cell is Vitamin D). This really does explain why a dodgy thyroid can manifest in so many different ways. It’s an illness of the entire body.

It also explains why autoimmune thyroid disease, or Hashimotos, is so often misdiagnosed as 93847 other conditions and why so many Hashi sufferers finally arrive at the correct diagnosis exhausted from trying all kinds of different supplements and treatments for 93847 unrelated conditions. Oh, and it explains why we can be left feeling like a crazy hypochondriac. Right?

When I reflect on the sheer number of symptoms linked to Hashimotos  it reminds me just how fruitless it is to try  fix symptoms (which would take several lifetimes even if such fixes existed) and that focusing on a broad healing is far more productive. This is what I do now. I steer my efforts to modulating my stress. This is the core “fix”.

I’ve since seen an extensive list on Hypothyroidmom.com and Dana has kindly given me permission to share it with you kids (I recently shared one of her posts on constipation which you can explore at your leisure. Good toot reading!).

You can catch up on the peculiar and nebulous symptoms from some previous posts I’ve written on hashimotos disease.

Also, Dana provides a few interesting points stemming from how confused people get by the knotted cluster of symptoms thyroid disease presents:

If you’ve got constipation, it could be thyroid disease.

If you’ve suffered a miscarriage, your thyroid could be to blame.

But now to the list. I don’t suggest you start a comparathon here, nor self-diagnose based on having a few of the symptoms below. Nor get alarmed, especially when you get to the list of cancers at the bottom.  This list is more to comfort those with the illness who feel entirely ridiculous about “always having something wrong” with them. It’s not you, it’s your thyroid!! That said, if your undiagnosed

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Please. Turn back the bread.

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Want to get me cranky? Over order in restaurant and leave a ton of perfectly good stuff on your plate to be chucked out. Oh, and then not see this as an issue.

A food wastage poster from World War 1.
A food wastage poster from World War 1.

I’m really rather myopic about food wastage. Just to drum it: The biggest pollution issue on the planet is food wastage (surpassing industry and car emissions). And the biggest contributors to food wastage? Consumers (not manufacturers or restaurants or farmers).

Just because I’m a little cranky today, I’m going to outline a few ways folk can do the right thing in this regard, and in regards to wastage in general. Mostly it’s about communicating – voicing up.

Say “no bread thank you” when you place your order if you tend to pick your poached eggs off your sourdough. Or “only one piece of bread”, if that’s your fancy.

Ditto, when the bread basket and oil arrives. Reject it before the waiter plonks it (if you’re not going to eat it). If you don’t, and you let it sit there while you eat, the waiter will have to chuck it when they clear your plates.

Order on the stingy side when doing little shared plates. Then add to it, rather than over-ordering.  Apply this to sides

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With family, we revert to age 12

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Family hurts. They are the hardest reminders of the gnarliest, unprettiest bits of ourselves. They hold up the rawest reflections. No smoke, just mirrors.

Family dinner wine and accompaniment hustle
Dinner with my wonderful family last weekend

And so we revert to our 12-year-old selves in defensive response. I don’t know about you. I was 12 when I really started to hurt. I was 12 when I was first really bludgeoned with the realization, “Holy shit, my parents might just be wrong”…in their outlook, their values, their take on life.  This was a lonely feeling.  (I was also 12 when I started my first business and took up my “investigation of God”, trialing a different church every Sunday.)

I was 12 when I really felt abandoned, left on my own to define myself. And my reference point was my family.

Last weekend I was in Canberra visiting my large, raucous family. It’s not often all eight of us are in the same place at the same time. We tell ablutions jokes (me: “When we’re 70 what do you think we’ll talk about? Them, in unison: “Fart jokes”) , pay each other out, test each others patience, wrestle and compete physically (to climb trees, ride faster, jump rocks). You

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Really know (and trust life from there)

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This is a nice little tale I hope you’ll enjoy. You might have noticed a few weeks back an I Quit Sugar social media call out looking for a mural artist who’d like to get expressive with the big blank wall on the deck of our new office (which we move into today!).

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Tamara with her mural at IQS HQ

I have made it a policy since I began this whole “sugar quitting e-xperience to e-business” journey to recruit within our crew. I generally find the right answer (to most things) is always closer to hand than you think. I like to keep things close. As this tale illustrates.

We had hundreds of applications for the gig. But one entry jumped out. Both Jo and I agreed straight away: “We like Tamara”. Yep, we just liked her and her application. We couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. But it didn’t matter; we just knew.

And so Gold Coast artist, mum and part-time teacher Tamara Armstrong got charged with our blank wall. And this is how it unfolded.

Tamara's design mock up
Tamara’s design mock up

Tamara sent in her design. We couldn’t fault it. It was perfect. The colours were perfect. We’d been umming and aghhing (read: consulting Feng Shui expert Lizzie Wiggins) about the right colours for the space. Suddenly we had our colour palate right here – closer to hand than we thought – with Tamara’s mock-up.

Tamara flew down with her husband Matt and three month old baby Thea and got to work. It was done! dusted! in a few days. We still couldn’t fault it. And didn’t. We knew.

It was the same with the ridiculously impressive Richie Northcott – the Fresh Prince – who offered to build a hanging

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A slow food and hiking guide to Mudgee, NSW

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This is a nice quick post, to be told mostly in pictures. I like to eat and hike, both mindfully. Both ground and enliven me. Thus, I devote a lot of my energies heading off to explore (often) far-flung places in the bush/country/wilds that are also peppered with surprising real and whole foodie finds. If you, too, like to do this, you might want to check out my previous trips here. Or follow my hashtags on Instagram #bushhike #bushexcursion.

I'm here. Happy. On a rock.

This trip I went west on a road trip to the Mudgee Region. It’s about 3 1/2 hours from Sydney, over the Blue Mountains, past Mount Victoria at the top and then inland to dead-set farming territory. The area, though, is also surrounded by wonderful National Parks with a good variety of moderate walks. There I am above at Castle Rock in the Munghorn Gap Park, about 40 minutes out of Mudgee, showing off/terrifying my friends. This was an 8km return hike.

Country food in #Mudgee at 3 Deg C #roadtrip #newsouthwales (Market Street Cafe)

We left Sydney at 3pm and got into Mudgee in time for dinner. Night one we ate country food at Market Street Cafe. There are only three (locally sourced) items on the menu (chicken, steak, pork) and a handful of local wines. A gorgeous, simple

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When we let our masks slip

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Sometimes a line in a book just sticks. A while back I was reading comedian and prolific tweeter Stephen Fry’s memoir The Fry Chronicles and came across his confession that behind “the mask of security, ease, confidence and assurance I wear (so easily that its features often lift in to a smirk that looks like complacency and smugness)…is the real condition of anxiety, self-doubt, self-disgust and fear in which much of my life is lived.”

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Image via Favim.com

Many others have made similar statements in various memoirs and interviews. Michelle Pfieffer once told a journalist, “I still think people will find out that I’m really not very talented.  I’m really not very good.  It’s all been a big sham.” Fraud complex, hey. I’ve written about it before. I used to have a gnarly case of it and a particularly rigid mask, too.

We all waltz about in masks and yet few of us knows what we’re doing. As in truly knows. But all of us wants to know we’re not alone in our non-knowing. We put up these seductive fronts, while trying to find chinks in other people’s, so we can see their truth and compare and cross-reference and feel less alone in our blundering-alongness. It’s why we love it when celebrities stuff up a marriage or make a bad business decision or we see pictures of them on the beach in bikinis looking, well, like us.

I don’t reckon it’s anything too nasty, nor is it schadenfreude. I think it’s relieved connection.

I don’t know what I’m doing. But as I’ve let my mask slip on this front (really, only in the past two years or so) I’ve got

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my daily health routine…since you asked for it

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Gosh, we’re really getting down to the rats and mice of my life here…but I’ve been getting too many emails from you asking how I order my wellness habits to ignore the topic much longer. I’m no expert (on anything much), but I have taken consulting of experts on this topic to pedantic levels and have a thing or two I can share with you. As always I share as an invite, not as a didactic instruction!

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Jumping into my day (awkwardly) with 20-40 minutes of exercise (outdoors as often as possible).

I’m a big fan of having very regular morning movements. (Ablution entendres not really intended.) I’ve written about the benefits of having a morning routine before. It’s the one thing about 80 per cent of the health experts I’ve interviewed, from HH The Dalai Lama to Oprah’s life coach, have in common.

1. When I wake up

* I wake at 6.30am or so… naturally. I scrape my tongue (an Ayurvedic practice) and clean my teeth.

* I drink 1 litre hot water with lemon juice while I make my breakfast and lunch.

* I take my thyroxin and then I potter (listening to news radio) while I drink…and, let’s be frank, hang about until nature calls.

* I drink 100ml of kombucha. This gives me a little spark to get through until breakfast.

* I tend to ablutions and head straight out the door to do exercise.

2. Exercise and meditation

Exercise

* Me, I do something every day, even on thyroidy days and days when I’ve had no sleep. I just scale it back if I’m feeling crap. The “doing it every day” bit is what counts. Deciding whether I should exercise or not is not an option; less options in the morning is very key. Studies show we have limited decision-making energy and that it’s best to “auto pilot” our mornings as much as possible so we can eliminate as many angsty choices.

* I don’t do fuss. I carry only a key – down my bra or in a small pocket in my shorts. Equipment just bogs you down and acts as a disincentive (“Where’s my water bottle?! Oh, darn, look, now I don’t have time to go for a jog”).

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Are you future-anxious or a past-fretter?

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I have a theory. There are two types of people in this world: those whose anxiety is primarily based around fretting about what has been, and those who worry about what’s yet to come.

Image via Favim.com
Image via Favim.com

The former suffer from regrets, remorse and obsess over what they should have done. They hang on and find it hard to move on.

The latter can let the past go (“what is done is done”), but tie themselves up in knots over all the things they need to do and whether they’re doing enough. They’re forever trying to map out – and preempt – all possible scenarios. They grasp at certainties and obsess about the unknown.

Me, I’m firmly in the latter camp. I think this tendency sets you up to be more anxious, as opposed to depressed. I think future-anxiety creates agitation – there’s nothing to “anchor” your angst to. It’s like bobbing for apples – all grasping forward, fretting, flaying about. The certainties we try to grasp, of course, simply don’t exist, or shape-shift as soon as we grasp at them.

In contrast, I know lots of people who are past-fretters and they tend to get very heavy with their fretting. Looking back slows you down, and depression can easily follow.

Now, in general I tend to veer toward a Kierkegaardian framework for anxiety. I do, in fact, see it as tied up in a broader existential search for meaning. As with all human predicaments, I believe anxiety serves a social or evolutionary purpose. Kierkegaard sees anxiety as the very human condition that moves us forward from being mere animals. Worrying about the future has seen us form contingencies and improve

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How to deal with AutoImmune Disease: Hypothyroid Mum tackles constipation!

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You might call me a coward for handing this particularly sticky subject over to someone else to cover. I promise it’s not shame. It’s more that this particular blogger – Dana Trentini at Hypothyroidmom.com – has done such a great job of covering it that it made sense. OK? Dana lost her unborn baby to hypothyroidism and set out on a mission to build awareness on the topic. Her blog tackles all the fun tricky stuff. Like constipation.

Screen Shot 2014-06-17 at 9.41.35 AM
Image via Favim.com

The interesting thing is that, in hindsight, it was her constipation that signalled her thyroid disorder and Dana’s big message today is that if you have chronic constipation you need to get your thyroid tested. And you need to get on top of your constipation. Her suggestion comes with a warning – at 33, following her Dad’s colon cancer diagnosis (routine colonoscopies are not advised until we’re over 50), she went in for a colonoscopy herself. They found a huge polyp, diverticulosis pouches in the wall of her colon and an internal haemorrhoid, all caused by lifelong constipation, all caused by thyroid issues. Although which comes first is hard to say. For me, it doesn’t too much matter as the management plan is the same for both.

While we’re talking about me… I, too, suffer from the same affliction and was lucky enough to undergo a colonoscopy last year that found – and removed – a cancerous polyp. I now know I need to test for (and tackle) this health issue. It’s pretty much the last frontier of my ongoing management of my thyroid issues. I’ll write more on this soon, just as I’ve promised to write more on my menstrual issues. All of which will definitely help my dating prospects!! For now, some wisdoms from the most cerebrally unclogged Dana…

The hypothyroidism and constipation connect

Constipation is one of the classic signs of an under-active thyroid. Without enough thyroid hormones many of the body’s functions slow down. Muscles line the digestive tract, including the small and large intestines. Theses muscles contract to move the stool through the intestine to the rectum. Hypothyroidism can weaken the contraction of these muscles causing the stool to move too slowly.

Looking back I’ve suffered from hypothyroidism symptoms including chronic constipation ever since I can remember. When I landed in the emergency room during a vacation from severe constipation, my thyroid was NOT tested. Even when my colon

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Do you do this too?

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I think the reason we’re all plonked on this planet is to connect. At a cellular level, we are but a flurry of connections. Our greatest sense of purpose comes from intimacy and sharing.

Image via Favim
Image via Favim

Hilariously, despite our most arrogant efforts to impress each other with Big Important Things, most of us find that the greatest connection comes via life’s minutiae – sharing mending tips over the back fence, looking at each other’s cat pictures on Instagram, realising other people wake at exactly 3am each night, too.

I think it’s at this manageable, micro level we are best able to get still and grounded enough to be able to truly see each other. And, thus, to recognise ourselves in each other. It’s away from the Big Important Things that we have the space and quietness to see the vulnerability and humanness in others, and ourselves. And the space to appreciate the comforting banality of life.

Speaking of which, today’s post is simply a sharing of some really banal stuff that only plays out in the ridiculous privacy of my own head, for the sole purpose of connecting. I’d love to see if others have had the same experience. I’m after the me too! factor from everyone. I’d also love to hear about some small, vulnerable moments from

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