One year after my Thyroid & Graves' disease relapse, living with gratitude and embracing a high vibrational Vibe in life!

Here's a little graves update. I haven't written a post since my thyroid disease re-diagnosis back in May 2024. I have vowed this year to keep up with my blog posts, stay on track with my health and update you on this journey in the hope of inspiring, uplifting and supporting others living along a similar path. I would love to create a little community and safe place where I can share my little tips, plans and ideas to help support immunity, reduce inflammation around my body and create the healthiest environment for growth and strength to thrive!

A quick recap, and where am I now?

So back in the summer of '24, some of my thyroid blood results were dangerously low, and others were off the charts. The doctor couldn't even believe that I could walk into my appointment. I was told that I needed to start medication immediately, otherwise my health was going to start deteriorating, and my heart would struggle. Let's not switch one problem for another. Since my last blog back in July last year, I took some time to heal, implemented changes and concentrated on my health, and it does nearly always get worse before it gets better. In the weeks that followed that appointment, my levels were taking time to get back down. My thyroid hormones were still skyrocketing. My periods stopped until October, and I didn't want to admit that I was starting to feel a little unwell at times. I was getting weaker by the day, and I suffered from Graves' myopathy a thyroid disease complication. This is a neuromuscular disorder where your muscles lose strength and start to waste away, mine did rapidly. Jason even had to help me out of bed on some occasions or even help me to get up off the sofa, and kept reminding me we were about to take our vows for better or worse, in sickness and in health. It was tough. Only a few months before, I was the fittest and strongest that I had been in a while. I had been working out and re-found my love of running, I had just managed to lose the 2 stone weight gain from the medication due to my previous relapse. I was starting to feel great about myself in the lead-up to our wedding and happy with my body, but annoyingly, my thyroid relapsed and with the disease affecting my muscles, I couldn't do anything about the shape of my body; I just had to go with it. It made me appreciate that having the strength to be at my wedding and marrying the kindest man I could wish for was far more important than what I looked like in my wedding dress.

I followed up with blood results on New Year's Eve, and the results came in that same day. My thyroid FT3 levels were normal. My TSH was still abnormal -0.01, nearly untraceable, and the disease is still active in my blood and can come back thriving at any time. It shows that my body is producing far too much thyroid hormone, and my thyroid is still very much overactive. However, this has been the best result that I had last year, and it put me in a better place to enter 2025. So this year didn't get off to a great start, being riddled with anxiety, stress and just constant pain throughout most of January and February. My periods were back with a vengeance, I had migraines and backache, which I'm convinced are from the weight gain from his medication.

But now I am feeling heaps better, I have more energy, and every day I feel stronger and not as fatigued as I had been. I have started introducing exercise slowly back into my life as I have the energy again to get moving and generally feeling the strongest I have felt in years.

I have just had another appointment and another blood test. My thyroid levels are stable, and I hope that they continue this way. The doctors have planned to check all three thyroid hormone levels in 3 months, and if they again come back all three are consistent and stable, we are hoping to slowly wean off the medication in the hope of being drug-free again. The withdrawal is awful, so I will do everything I can to make sure that I never need to rely on this medication again.

I can now concentrate more on my thyroid health and try to keep on track. I have been spending more time on myself than I have in a long, long time. I've been taking time out to do hobbies I like, going for long walks, reading books, getting creative and spending more and more time outside as the evenings are getting lighter. I don't think I read one book for the entirety of last year because of a lack of concentration and barely having time to myself.

So this May, a year in from starting the thyroid medication, I want to start a new chapter of my journey. I have always been interested in food and believe they have always aided my recovery, so I would like to look a little deeper into the science behind nutrients and minerals and how they affect our health. This past Month, I have been swotting up and starting to read about anti-inflammatory foods, and tomorrow, I will start my new food plan.

Graves' disease is an autoimmune disease, and my trigger is inflammation in the body. Along with these high levels of inflammation, a few new issues have arrived, but before I have an appointment with the specialist, I hope to get a little control and nip things in the bud before a bigger diagnosis comes my way. I want to explore what triggers my inflammation levels to rise, find which foods don't agree with my body, discover these triggers, eliminate them, introduce new things, try new foods, and bring an even bigger bout of energy into my life.

I'll be focusing more on foods that ideally bring that happiness along the way to help aid and control my hormone changes, and try to find some stability to align with.

I am ready to embark on a new journey towards a happier, healthier self, free from toxic energy and negativity, cultivating happiness everywhere, living with gratitude, and embodying a high vibrational vibe!