My Visit with the Endocrinologist

Late last week, I finally had an appointment with the Endocrinologist. I left feeling like the whole visit was a total bust. I was in tears as I explained to her my list of woes: Endometriosis; Infertility; Heavy/Irregular Menstrual Bleeding (until I got on the pill); Anxiety; Keratosis Pilaris skin condition; and now, Chronic Hives.

She did confirm that I have Hashimoto's autoimmune disease, but said that my bloodwork results continue to look good and I have not presenting other key "clinical" symptoms to indicate that my thyroid is dysfunctioning yet. (Those symptoms include hair loss, particularly on the outer eyebrows, weight gain, extremely dry skin, low energy, etc.) She said she would be concerned that with medication, it could make me hyper-thyroid and cause new/more issues. She also said that there is no proven link that chronic hives in the presence of Hashimoto's are treated/resolved through the use of thyroid hormone medications.

My response to her? "I have read the exact opposite." (example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11270265)

I left her office with her saying that while she would not agree to thyroid medication treatment yet, she promised that she would take the next week to research it further. Oh, and they did take blood to run additional thyroid function tests. (I felt like she was throwing me a bone, so that I wouldn't feel it was a totally wasted trip.)

I resolved at that point that it is time to stop my quest for answers, and to just accept and live with these hives. Or at least, work on acceptance.

The next day, she called and got my voice mail while I was in a meeting at work -- she said that she did some reading the night before, and found both outcomes from various medical studies, and that given what she read, she was willing to start me on a low dose to see if that would help. VICTORY!!!

I needed to wait for their nurse to call me early this week, so over the weekend, I just continued on -- maintaining my GF diet, elimination of nightshades, soy, and my known allergen items (nuts and some fruits). And still taking the antihistamine each morning.

I have been hives-free since that appointment, so for one whole week. Even more, my bloodwork results came back as excellent; all of my numbers were not only in normal ranges, but they were numbers at which one wants to be!

When I finally connected with the nurse today, I told her that given the lack of hives for the past week and my bloodwork results, plus I generally feel pretty good, that I would like to postpone starting up the thyroid medication -- instead take a wait-and-see approach. She agreed, and said that if the hives return, or other symptoms, to give them a call right away.

Wouldn't you know it -- a single hive appears on my hand this evening. I forgot to take my antihistamine today! I was going to run out for some on my lunch break, but decided to see if I would be hives free without it. NOPE. It was like a little rap on my door saying, "we're still here!" 

I''m still going to give things a few more weeks and see what happens. But I guess it's back to the daily antihistamine tomorrow, for now.