Thursday, December 23, 2010

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays to everyone who celebrates a holiday at this time of year!  The countdown is on for me.  We open our presents on Christmas Eve, tomorrow night, and I have nothing wrapped and work still to do on two gifts.  I threw my back out five days ago, which has really made things challenging.  It is healing very slowly, probably because I am using it too much.  But you know, back injuries are really a catch-22, they need some activity but not too much, it is hard to get the right mix.  Last year I wrapped my presents about 3 hours before we opened them, and I think it will be much the same this year.

I have eliminated the tiredness I mentioned in the last post.  In the early fall I cut back to a maintenance dose of 8 Empowerplus capsules per day.  Any more was feeling like too much.  When I realized in November that my thyroid was probably getting slow, I tried raising my dose to 10.  It worked like a charm!  I felt good again.  Before my period I still had the sluggishness return, and raising my dose to 12 for a few days helped with that.  I will stay at 10 to 12 over the winter, it may be that my thyroid or some other system needs more then.

My activity level is so improved, even compared to last spring, that I have to remind myself to take stock every once in a while.  Things like laundry, which used to be an exhausting two day enterprise, are now just background activity while I am busy with something else.  Things that used to seem overwhelming I now do without a second thought.  When I wrote my one year anniversary post, I wasn't sure if the improvements would continue.  They are, and I can't wait to see where I will be in five years!  It is a complete change from the slow road to nowhere that I was on with meds.