Another underdiagnosed fatigue disease

[nancylebov]

Important note if anyone is reading fast. This is from haikujaguar, NOT ME.

http://haikujaguar.livejournal.com/547779.html

What I have is subclinical hypoadrenia, which Wikipedia laughingly calls a quack diagnosis even though doctors have been aware of and documenting cases of it for over a hundred years; it's only in the past forty or so that it's fallen out of the medical mind for reasons I cynically think have to do with it not being treatable with a patented drug. Severe hypoadrenia has a name: Addison's disease. I am entirely unimpressed by anyone who thinks hypoadrenia isn't serious until it crosses some arbitrary numerical threshold and becomes life-threatening. I'd rather not wait that long, thanks.

*******

...And I no longer have cortisol reserves, nor are my adrenals producing much of it. My endocrine system is so exhausted I no longer get that shock of adrenaline that life-or-death situations inspire. I still remember the car that almost rammed into me and my body's entirely blase reaction to it. There was just nothing left to spike my bloodstream.

For about a month, I've been on a vitamin and hormone supplement regimen. I noticed a difference within days of starting it: my body was still exhausted, but it was easier to think. I could do simple math without struggling. I could remember things without consulting notes. I felt clear-headed. Since these supplements are only supposed to restore my reserves, not take the place of my own adrenal function, I'm on a very low dose and I'll coast off them within a year. I'm hoping within a few months that my body will catch up with my brain and I'll be able to run and fence and dance as well as calculate tip on a bill... right now, most exercise is beyond my reach. I can feel it using me up. We'll see how it goes.

Important note if anyone is reading fast. That is from haikujaguar, NOT ME.

A while ago, I posted this:

The normal range for thyroid hormone levels in the past have been based on statistical norms (called2 standard deviations). This means that out of every 100 people, those with the two highest and lowest scores are considered abnormal and everyone else is defined as normal. That means if a problem affects over 2% of the population (and as many as 24% of women over 60 are hypothyroid and 12% of the population have abnormal antibodies attacking their thyroid), then our testing system will still miss most of them. In addition, our testing system does not take biological individuality into account.

The article I'm quoting from says that this is more likely to happen with diseases that mostly afflict women. I'm not so sure-- it's been a long hard fight for veterans to get PTSD and the aftereffects of Agent Orange taken seriously.

The article also mentions that low thyroid increases the risk of heart attacks. Here's more. The cute thing is that heart disease is blamed on people being so irresponsible as to get fat. Fatness is a symptom of hypothyroidism.

I'm comprehensively sick of the human race, so I suppose my adrenals are functioning.

Comments

[avram]

You've heard of the Long Tail, and similar theories about how we're entering an golden age for producers and consumers of niche products?

It's just occurred to me that centralized control of medical research and practice (by the AMA and FDA) are probably keeping people with obscure medical needs from benefiting from the modern niche-based economy.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The problem isn't just rare diseases-- hypothyroidism isn't especially rare. It's also diseases that there's a bias against.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Not a disease? Isn't that what robbed us of getting any more Jane Austen books? And wasn't it also doing a job on JFK?