Self Management for Thyroidians
IF YOU HAVE CHRONIC THYROID DISEASE, THESE GUIDELINES ARE NOT JUST FOR SHORT-TERM USE, BUT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE…
In order to derive the most benefit from your treatment for any thyroid disease (be it medication, RAI or surgery), you would be well advised to have the following under your control - not perfectly, but well enough. Do not rush it, do not put yourself under any pressure: be patient, it takes time to change things. Nonetheless, you need to start putting the ideas into practice as soon as you can, if you want to feel well besides being told that you are well!
GIVE DEFINITE ATTENTION TO:
PACING YOURSELF - Energy is a problem central to thyroid disease, so use it wisely. Do not push yourself to your limits, because you will only pay for it by being exhausted the day after. Be realistic about what you can manage and ‘listen’ to your body. Plan your time so that you have breaks between activities and don’t overload the day, the week or the weekend. However difficult life is, do try and do things that you enjoy, no matter how small: plan ‘treats’ into your day. You deserve them.
REST - Without it none of us thyroidians can function properly. Good sleep is essential so if you have a sleeping problem, try and solve it soonest. Good advice is available and herbal sleeping aids can help. Try and keep yourself to a regular sleep pattern and develop a helpful going-to-bed routine. Sleeping well is about teaching your body good habits!
RELAXATION -Flopping into a chair when you are exhausted isn’t good enough. You need to plan proper relaxation breaks into your day, whether it’s a 10 minute sit-down or a 20 minute deep relaxation. We all benefit from both. How much relaxation you need depends on how active you are, how at ease you are in your life-style and how sensitive your thyroid responses are. From relaxation you can get a more energised body, a more stable emotional state and a more stable thyroid state. There are plenty of different types of relaxation from simple breathing techniques and relaxation tapes to auto-genics, yoga, chi qong and self-hypnosis. You have got a lifetime to try them all, but start NOW. You are sure to discover something that really suits you and the benefits are immeasurable.
EXERCISE - This is absolutely essential for everybody. There are no excuses! If you have not moved for a long time start by wriggling your toes and shrugging your shoulders - and that is not a joke! You can exercise quite effectively sitting on a chair. For thyroidians, walking is probably the most beneficial exercise. Walking can both stimulate and calm, and you can go your own distance and at your own pace. You can do it any time and it doesn’t cost anything. Without exercise we physically seize up as we allow our muscles to weaken and our joints to stiffen. Toxins build up in the body and not only do diseases of the body develop but also diseases of the mind. From lack of exercise you can become anxious and depressed. So exercise improves our tiredness, our muscle weakness (which makes us feel tired), our joint pains, our unwanted lows and our over-highs. Not bad for starters, and it is even enjoyable!
Until your thyroid is comfortably stable, aerobic exercise is in advisable; so besides walking there are other gentler activities like swimming. For those thyroidians that feel that they can’t possibly do anything, help is at hand to get them going. Remedial Massage Therapists are the specialists in this field though any masseur practising deep massage can help. (Massage is good for everybody and you can learn to DIY - perhaps your local authority runs a course.) If you want to be well, you need to move yourself!
EATING - Eat regularly and sensibly. Do not cut out meals. Do not go on drastic weight reducing diets. For thyroidians, it is particularly important to keep blood sugar levels as stable as possible. If these levels drop we can go into a state of hypoglycaemia. Even if we don't’ get to the point of collapse (as some diabetics do) we can suffer all sorts of bad things from dizziness and fuzzy-headedness onwards. Hypoglycaemia even causes anxiety. The effects can easily be mistaken for thyroid symptoms! Once blood sugar levels dip it can actually take days before they return to normal. The answer is to eat regularly - for some people that means every 2 hours. What you eat is very important; biscuits and chocolate bars are the worst things as they cause the blood sugar levels to rise and then dip even lower. You need complex carbohydrate: potatoes, pulses, bread, rice, pasta, (and it really is so much better if they are brown, wholemeal and unrefined - try buckwheat or millet). Fruit and vegetables are what are needed most. Portions don’t have to be large and between-meal snacks can be as little as an apple or a banana or some rice cakes. It’s the regularity that’s all-important.
DRINKING - Water is essential. It clears the system - especially if your body is running a bit slow. It keeps you hydrated - necessary if your body system is a bit too fast. Dehydration can bring problems like headaches and migraine. Try to avoid caffeine-loaded drinks - tea, coffee and cola - though they are sometimes useful if your body needs a kick-start in the morning. Try something different: herb teas make an interesting change but, when you need a drink, remember first - WATER.
BREATHING - ‘Deeply and easily’ is the proper way but most of us don’t breathe as well as we could. Pain and discomfort, anxiety and pressure can all make our breathing worse. We need our lungs full of air to get the full energy available in our bodies: we need to take it in deeply into our abdomen and expel it fully from our lungs. Otherwise the balance of oxygen to carbon dioxide is incorrect and problems will follow. Hyperventilation, which is breathing just into the chest, shallowly and frequently, can lead to a whole load of symptoms, both physical and psychological, which can seem just like thyroid symptoms. So it is important to check the habits of a lifetime and make sure you are really breathing properly. Learning new habits can be difficult but physiotherapy help is available. You just have to try good breathing to find out the difference it can make to how you feel.
THINKING - Well, what do you think of it so far? If your answer is “rubbish!” I ask you to think again. You have got to believe that you are going to get better and that you can do things to help you get better. We all have to dump a lot of negative ideas that we have taken on board with being ill (not to mention the negative ideas we had beforehand). It is well recognised now that this line from an old song is right: ‘accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don’t mix with Mr. In-between’. To be well, we have to look on the best side of things, encourage ourselves that what we want to achieve is possible. And we have got to have fun. Laughter is very therapeutic. Again, acquiring good habits is not that easy but there is straightforward practical advice available for anyone who thinks it worthwhile and that surely includes YOU.
HOW YOU FEEL - This is not about palpitations or tiredness; this is about your feelings and emotions. (I feel frightened; I cry. I feel angry: I shout). How do you feel now? How did you feel before you were ill? When you were ill? When you got your diagnosis? When you started treatment? A whole gamut of feelings and emotions has come our way with thyroid disease - especially a sense of loss. We need to recognise these feelings, think about them, talk about them, and release them emotionally. You can take your anger out on the garden, you can put your sadness into a painting, you can literally sing your heart out…What you don’t want to do is to keep your feelings locked up inside you because that is the way to further illness. Many of us are terrified (quite understandably after our thyroid experience) of being labelled as anxious or depressed or manic, but you need to remember that elements of these conditions are inherent in thyroid disease. If you are ‘hypo’ you are ‘under’, your body system is low, your emotional system is low - it’s all depressed (pressed down). If you are ‘hyper’, the adrenal levels get bumped up high and anxiety develops and even panic attacks. And that was for starters, before we actually knew we had an illness to worry about! Thankfully, most of the emotional ‘hypo’ and ‘hyper’ symptoms clear with treatment, but unfortunately some of us do not regain our emotional stability in line with the improvement of our thyroid condition. Our thyroid illness leaves some of us with panic attacks or intense anxieties or the ‘lows’. If that includes you, please realise that you are not alone (or a failure) and there is help around (although you may need help in deciding what help to get).
STIMULATION AND STRESS - The first is good and we all need it; the second is bad and thyroidians definitely don’t want it. Generally, the two concepts are stuck together and called stress, but it is much easier to understand what is going on for you, if you think of them as the two ends of a continuum. When we reach stress, we don’t feel that we can cope, things have got out of control - a situation nobody wants. So, we must be aware of what’s happening before we reach that point. What turns enjoyable stimulation into stress is prolonged pressure. We can cope with pressure for a short while, though perhaps most thyroidians would rather not experience it. Sometimes in life, however, we cannot avoid it and in the short-term, it does us no damage. But, if pressure is more long-term, we can then feel strained; we are coping but with difficulty; the effort is not pleasant. Now, this is the time when we need to act to protect ourselves, our health and our well-being. So, we must learn to recognise those situations in our life, from family or friends, or from our own self-expectations. We also need to work out, in advance, what to do in these situations for our own best interest. Maybe we need to walk away, or to simply say “no”, or to ask for help or extra time or take that relaxation break. Sounds complicated? Well, life is and you’ve got a lifetime (long, hopefully) to work on this. The gain is priceless - you will feel less stressed and so you will feel better and you will enjoy life even more.
BE AWARE OF:
DRUGS & SUPPLEMENTS - The interaction of these with thyroid medication is not fully known. Individual reactions can occur. Thyroidians have reported persistent headaches on blood thinning tablets, an increase in the effect of Carbimazole when taking anti-depressants and ‘muzziness’ and hot flushes on beta-blockers taken for a long while. It is recognised that iron should not be taken at the same time as Thyroxine, as it inhibits absorption of the latter. Be aware that vitamin tablets can contain kelp and slimming products, iodine. If you are taking something else as well as your thyroid medication, try and check it out. You can start by asking the pharmacist.
PMS & HRT - For some women thyroid sufferers, these can complicate their thyroid condition, and vice versa. Each situation is individual and you will benefit from the best medical advice obtainable. There are support groups for both PMS sufferers and for HRT users.
ALCOHOL - The liver reacts to thyroid disease, so don’t add to the gland problems: practise ‘moderation in all things’. In particular, thyroxine does not seem to be a good ‘mixer’.
SMOKING - This aggravates the high cholesterol levels that can develop with thyroid underactivity and also the eye troubles that can come with thyroid overactivity.
ALLERGIES & FOOD INTOLERANCES - These can bring about physical reactions, which may be similar to thyroid symptoms. The most practical approach is to avoid ‘overload’. Eat everything in moderation and have plenty of variety in your diet. It is said that anything you ‘can’t do without’ is probably no good for you!
POSTURE & BALANCE - Muscle tension, joint pain, headaches, muzziness and even psychological disturbance can result when you do not hold your body well or do not use it with care. So the occasional check in the mirror or thoughtful pause in the middle of an activity can be worthwhile. If needed, there is a whole range of ‘body’ experts available to help you; physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors, Alexander Technique teachers.
THYROID & OTHER GLANDS - As the thyroid is so central to the functioning of our hormonal system, other glands can get affected when the thyroid dysfunctions. There are only a few thyroidians whose problems need to be recognised and medically treated. For the majority of us, especially those whose blood test results are normal, but who do not feel well, ‘rebalancing’ the hormonal system may bring some benefit. (‘Balanced energy’ is a concept from Chinese medicine that can be quite helpful). Thyroid sufferers are reporting that reflexology can help. Medical personnel are now practising reflexology and it is being given in hospitals and it can be done as a self-help technique.
ALTERNATIVE THERAPY - It is recognised that there is no alternative therapy that can cure thyroid disease. Orthodox medicine is the only means to a cure and thyroidians need to take their prescribed medication regularly without fail. Complementary therapies, however, may ease the symptoms of thyroid disease and the aftermath of the illness.
Copyright 1997, Helena R. Green. |
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