From Misdiagnosed to Miscarriages
I was first diagnosed with hypothyroidism at age 28 after 4 miscarriages. It was such a relief to have an answer to these symptoms that had plagued me as long as I could remember. Throughout high school, I was tested for mono and iron deficiencies due to unusual lethargy. My family and friends would call it my coma sleep. No amount of sleep would make me feel rested. I would actually feel sick when I woke up and one doctor told me that was from too much sleep. I was also falsely diagnosed with sleep apnea and told that I was carrying too much fat around my abdomen by another doctor. At that time, I was 23 and weighed 123 lbs. Even I knew that was a stretch of a diagnosis. What I wouldn't give to be 123 lbs today!
A Simple Blood Test Changed My Life
I was skeptical that any of my prior diagnoses were accurate, but didn't have much choice than to believe that I was an overweight 23 year old with sleep apnea. Now here I was at 28 and never correlated the miscarriages with my exhaustion, puffiness, paleness or thinning hair. I just thought I was a victim of poor genes. I now know that I am luckier than most women dealing with infertility. This was a relatively short amount of agony and I was diagnosed fairly quickly. The good news was I knew I could get pregnant, I just couldn't stay pregnant. My OB ran some simple blood tests and found that my TSH was 5.9. She put me on a low dose of Synthroid and some Progesterone suppositories and voila, I was pregnant. Of course, I was scared to death because I had been pregnant several times before but lost each pregnancy before I was 20 weeks along. My OB thought that this was a sufficient course of action, however, I did not want to lose another pregnancy so I went to work learning everything I could about hypothyroidism and pregnancy.
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