Life After Thyroid Cancer – Weight Gain

If you have read my Life with a Goiter entries, you now know what happened with the goiter.  After my total thyroidectomy, following a low-iodine diet, and radioactive iodine treatment, my next hurdle was this crazy weight gain! Though, I worked out and thought I was eating right, my clothes started getting tighter and tighter and my body was feeling squishy. Things just wasn't making sense. My doctor visits resulted in my readings being normal and where they needed to be, but my body was growing!

I started researching more and more. I just couldn’t figure this out. I’m a personal trainer and how in the world am I getting this wrong? To make matters worse, every visit with my primary and endocrinologist, when I would inquire if the medication was working, they would reply with yes, your levels are fine, perhaps you should exercise and watch what you eat. UGH‼‼

In a nutshell, they were very little help.  At one point, my cholesterol was high and my primary wanted to put me on cholesterol medication. At which, I nicely rejected. I told her, if my cholesterol is high, something is not working. I was getting so frustrated and very concerned. 

For the whole year of 2011, I was struggling. I stopped with my fitness classes, stopped training with my clients and took time to figure this out.  It wasn’t that I had never had weight issues in the past.  This one was making me feel like I would have no control and I might as well watch myself grow. NOT!

In the spring of 2012, I visited the Synthroid website. I was going to read all the fine print that I could to fully understand the medication and the interactions. I researched what foods and beverages interacted with the medication. It finally clicked and my eyes were wide open now. I was taking the medication first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, but I was eating soon after.

I found myself, testing theories that I discovered. First one was, taking the medication in the middle of the night, around 3:30 a.m. for me.  I know, many can’t imagine waking up just to take a medication. But, I did and have been doing it since April 2012.  Yes, I go right back to sleep.  Why that time? It allows for the medication to be fully absorbed in the body with no interruptions. Make sense?

I was also taking calcium. I would take it in the morning, so I changed it to dinner time.  It needs at least 4 hours prior to taking thyroid medication because calcium causes the Synthroid to not be fully absorbed as well.  I was getting on a routine now.  My workouts were going well, but the scale was moving really slow and the inches were decreasing by what seemed as millimeters. UGH! At least the scale was not moving in the wrong direction.  I must have been doing something right.

My next visit with my primary, she had noticed that my cholesterol was down. REALLY??? I thought. She asked me what I was doing and I told her about the 3:30 a.m. med time.  Well, guess that wasn’t in any of the medical classes, but she realized that if your thyroid medication isn’t being fully absorbed, it will cause your cholesterol to rise. [I wish you could have seen my face]. I’m sure you can imagine the look. Good thing for me not taking the cholesterol medication – RIGHT???‼‼