I must report this good news about
my wife: I have been in heaven for a few months since she finally listened to me and dared to ask her doctor about
something he was treating her for. You must understand: my wife and I both were RNs. But I went on for additional years for anesthesia training(CRNA), while she was an OB nurse, birthing those babies. And we in fact met when I put an epidural in one of her patients in labor for child birth. But we have always been very different in our attitudes towards doctors. I think part of that comes from the difference in men and women(based on what I and others have observed over those decades) and also my additional training and experience. IOW, like a lot(NOT all) female RNs, she was a lot more prone than me to accept a doctors word as the final word, without questioning it, for whatever reasons.
So, between 15 and 20 years ago, I got a call that my wife was in the ER with what turned out to be a hyperthyroid crises. Her thyroid gland was producing way to much thyroid hormone, and her BP and pulse rate were through the roof, along with some other symptoms. So, the docs went in and destroyed her thyroid with some radioactive iodine(thyroid glands suck up iodine). After a while she was now severely hypothyroid(as expected) with all of those symptoms, like lethargy and feeling extremely cold even when the house was 72 degrees or higher. So then they started her on a lifetime of thyroid replacement pills, to make up for what her body could no longer produce. But she never got over being cold. Never. Always freezing while I was just fine.
So I begged her to ask her doctor if she might not need a bit more thyroid. She just wouldn't do it, said her doctor was perfectly happy with her Thyroid Stimulating Hormone(TSH) so therefore so was she. I would argue "but you have major symptoms of a hypo(low) thyroid condition, the labs be darned!" The so called normal range varied over a factor of 10, from .4 to 4.5(the higher the number of this hormone that stimulates thyroid production, th lower your actual amount of thyroid). She was somewhere in the upper middle of that range, sometime 3+. I kept asking her "if the normal is .4 to 4, how the heck do you know what you were BEFORE they killed your thyroid gland? What if you ran a .5? That would still have been in the normal range and cause no alarm. If you were, and you are now 3+, then you are running 6 times over your norm. Please, ask the man". But she refused, probably unwilling to possibly insult him by questioning his decision. Then I gave up and to avoid the argument and frustration it caused in me, I just put up with he constant complaints of being cold.
The one day recently, after all these years, she came home from an check up and said "Oh, BTW, I asked the doctor if it was possible I might be low on thyroid because I have some symptoms, and is it possible to bump me up a smidgen. He said 'Sure, why not, you run on the high end of TSH anyway, no problem" and he bumped her dose up maybe 50%. Oh, miracle of miracles, within a couple of weeks and she is NEVER cold anymore! Not unless it is appropriate to be cold, like when outside and the temps are actually cold and almost every one else is cold also. But even then, now she can put on a coat and be OK! This is just wonderful! It only took about
15 years to get er done, but now I am in heaven.
Now, I realize I may be hijacking my own thread, as this has nothing to do with prediabetes that I know of. But it does have to do with the importance of being educated and our own health advocates when dealing with our doctors. They are not perfect, and sometimes they get it wrong. Or at least they need some more info from us(if they didn't ask us for this info in the first place), something like "hey, I have been near hypothermic ever since you killed my thyroid gland. Is it possible you should give me a bit more thyroid?".
Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 11/16/2019 9:47:50 AM (GMT-7)