HEY FAM. I’ve been off social media more than usual (and I’ve really liked it, sorry I’m not sorry). To be honest I was not in a great spot the last few weeks. I changed thyroid medicines and got off my IUD— which let me tell you if you are considering that, PREPARE YOURSELF TO FEEL CRAY. With both of those things, my hormones were raging and I felt crazy depressed and anxious. Thankfully most of that has subsided now as my body has adjusted to the meds and new thyroid hormone, but dang it would rough. That being said, instagram was not a great place for me to land the last few weeks. I would get sad or jealous or think crazy things so I just had to say girl bye.
But now that I’m feeling a little better I wanted to catch up, get back on my instagram game and blogging game (because ever since my site and all my blog posts got deleted I just felt defeated like I couldn’t get it back up and running). SO, I waned to do a little recap of what I’ve been doing with my health journey, what I’ve been reading, learning and implementing to help myself out through all my new symptoms and what not.
If you missed it, or if you’re new here (HI LOVE YOU)— I have an autoimmune thyroid disease. (It can vacillate between Hashimoto’s and Grave’s diseases which is confusing but basically it just means whether my thyroid is over producing or under producing it falls in one of those categories). I don’t talk about it much because I didn’t think it was that big of a deal or affected me that much (ps I was v v V wrong). It affects literally every. single. thing. in how I feel, think, act, digest, metabolize, regulate, etc. I’m learning most of this from a book my psychologist recommended (remember I was feeling terrible and depressed lol) called The Thyroid Solution. It’s based on a ton of research showing how much depression is linked to thyroid conditions, especially auto immune ones. Your thyroid regulates the neuropathways in your brain as well as the dopamine and seratonine levels so basically if anything is off with your thyroid, you’re going to feel depressed and fatigued and anxious. Finding this out actually made me feel relieved. Sometimes with depression it can feel like something is wrong with you because of how the media and culture spin the story. But in the book, they talk about how MOST people with thyroid problems struggle with depression because of the symptoms of your thyroid. Not because you aren’t tough enough, or you don’t pray enough, or you are lazy etc. Because your body is not making the hormone you need to not be depressed. Simple as that.
You may even have a thyroid deficiency and not even know it. Everyone I know with depression I’m telling to go get their thyroid checked. It’s smart and could potentially help you feel way better. Getting on antidepressants helped very slightly for me but getting on thyroid medicine helped cut my depression probably by at least half. I felt like a new woman. So it’s worth getting your blood drawn just to check all your bases.
So because of learning all of this, I found out how inflammation contributes to worsening depression and how detrimental inflammation is to our immune systems, and with an autoimmune disease— mine is already very compromised and inflamed all the time. So things that cause inflammation in the body have to go away. Gluten, dairy, alcohol, excess sugar, I can go on— basically every form of deliciousness has to leave my diet and yes I’m mad about it but I also want to stop feeling depressed. I have all the celiac symptoms and because auto immune diseases usually come in groups rather than just one, I’m 95% sure I’m celiac at this point. So I’ve been very strict about gluten ever since finding that out. I have had a lot more energy since cutting a lot of these things out and I know it will build momentum for me to continue to feel better and want to take better care of myself.
I’ve been keeping records in the Streaks App and that has helped me stay more motivated than I normally am to follow through on simple basic things I don’t do for myself. Take my vitamins, walk 30 minutes a day, drink 8 glasses of water, read my bible, limiting social media time etc. Setting up these goals helped me get out of my depression cloud slowly too. I started feeling more self esteem come back into my life and more traction.
I say all of this so that maybe if you’re also feeling crappy these are tangible things that may help. I like to give way what I’ve learned in my research and experience to help save anyone else who is struggling some time. Here are the books I’ve been reading, some supplements I’ve been taking and the recipe books I’ve been using to get my health back on track.
xo