I have now taken this little purple pill for, what, 4 days now I guess, and things have been looking up. My hair falls out less and less. It does not come out when I run my fingers through my hair (getting over the terror I used to feel whenever my own hand or someone else's approaches my head is another story, however), and fewer and fewer strands come out in the shower. Cleaning off the hair brush Dickson and I share, the blonde tangle of hairs that I'd have to remove every few days has considerably reduced in size, and the knot is composed of more of Dickson's thick brown hairs and fewer of my fine blonde ones.
Looking at that photo of myself that I had mentioned before - the one where I'm armwrestling my friend Kim at the brewery in Denver, CO, and the top of my head is visible exposing the thinning hair - I'm able to feel less horrified by it. I mean, the hair loss is bad, or at least it looks bad to me (to others, I'm sure it would look like I am overreacting), but now that things are improving, I can look at this photo, this little image of myself in July, with a sense of distance so I'm no longer as afraid. Both me and my head have moved on. This must be what looking at old x-rays of the tumor feels like to a cancer patient who is either recovered or is on their way there.
(Yes, I realize that comparing treatable hair loss associated with hypothyroidism with cancer is, at the very least, an unfair comparison, and this isn't meant to make anyone currently or previously battling the disease feel belittled - it was just the first metaphor that came to mind. I should probably erase that whole paragraph. Oh well.)
So as the hair begins to improve, how else has taking 75 MCG of Levothyroxine (the generic form of Synthroid - what a cute name! Synthetic Thyroid = Synthroid! But I opted for generic since I'm cheap) a day done to me? I don't know why I hadn't googled the name of the medication before, but it seems that other side effects I can potentially expect include:
- weight loss
- tremor
- headache
- nausea
- vomiting
- diarrhea
- stomach cramps
- nervousness
- irritability
- insomnia
- excessive sweating
- increased appetite
- fever
- changes in menstrual cycle
- sensitivity to heat
- temporary hair loss, particularly in children during the first month of therapy
Being a woman in the United States, I would not be opposed to any form of weight loss, particularly drastic and/or transformative, but as far as the other side effects are concerned, this is what I'm feeling: I do wake up every morning with a slight headache. Now, the problem is that I just had a pretty fun weekend, in which I consumed some drinks. Could the headaches be caused by drinking, as opposed to the drug? This is a possibility, and today is my control day to test the theory. As school is right around the corner, I will no longer allow myself to drink on weeknights (one glass of wine or one beer is acceptable), saving any really intensive drinking (multiple glasses of wine, etc) for the weekend. Tonight I will most likely not have any wine at all, since I've had my fill this weekend. If I wake up tomorrow morning with a headache, I'll know that this slightly stuffy, sort of hung-over-y feeling that I wake up with nearly every day is caused by my little purple pills, not my unattractive habit of drinking too much red wine.
It's the other side effect that caught my eye: insomnia. My entire life, I have NEVER had a problem sleeping. Falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up on time, and, more recently, sleeping too much - none of these things were ever issues. I can fall asleep quickly, sleep soundly, and wake up fairly refreshed. And, of course, in the past few months I was sleeping a lot, including taking a nap most afternoons.
My sleep cycle hasn't been drastically affected so far. I'm still getting between 7 and 8 hours a night (usually 8). Generally, I still fall asleep quickly, and stay asleep all night. When the alarm clock goes off, I get up. Save for the muffled headaches I've been experiencing, I wake up feeling pretty good.
The problem (well, maybe 'problem' is too strong a word) is that I'm constantly buzzed now that I'm on the meds. I have maybe too much energy. I feel the way I did when I was young, and the way I felt when I first started working out every day: that constant stream, or source, or something, of energy that runs through me all the time. Right now, for example, at noon, I'm actually kind of tired. I went to bed late last night after binging on Season 3 of 'Lost' (I finished the DVDs and watched three episodes after Dickson went to sleep) and then googling a bunch of things I wanted to know more about. I probably crawled into bed at 12:30am, and laid there until 8am, even though when my alarm went off at 7, I was actually able to get up. I just knew that my body needed rest and I forced myself to lay there until 8. I dozed a bit but my mind was already running. I started thinking about what I had to do that day, how Dickson might have used all the quarters to do his laundry and I'd have to get change from the bank to do mine. How I needed to get to the grocery and I desperately needed to stop putting off writing another section of this paper and just get my ass in gear and finish it. And start reading for comps. And do all this other stuff. This is what my mind was doing when I was laying in bed on a cool pleasant late-summer morning, trying to "sleep."
I am no longer tired anymore, really ever. But sometimes I can feel that my body is tired. I worked out hard this morning, and I worked out hard yesterday. And then I just keep going after I work out, accomplishing whatever needs to be finished during the day. And my mind is constantly running. So even though I feel a vague and distant sensation that I might be "tired," I can't do anything about it. Instead, I read for class, or vacuum. What would have knocked me out for an hour before is now seen as just another task to get finished before I move on to the next thing.
Is this a blessing, or a curse?
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