Everybody

I love it! So many people with the same symptom patterns. I had 30 or so symptoms consistent with hypothyroidism, based on a formal list I compiled from very reputable sources. Not that this impressed the doctors - never mind the symptoms, the test results were everything. Seems I was a sick person who must be healthy because the tests said so.

But I had so many other "non-thyroidal" symptoms as well - gastric reflux, other chronic gut problems, asthma, mild insulin resistance, blood sugar slumps, food cravings, abnormal fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, ..... I thought I was the only one in the world who apparently had about ten different diseases all at once.

It seems to me that any disturbance of a metabolic nature must be viewed holistically, because the Central Nervous System's control of metabolic functions will get out of whack in a way which generates symptoms far beyond the basic or more obvious cause. That's one of the theories about Chronic Fatigue (which they tried to pin on me, but its just a label for the symptoms, not a disease).

I think that some people might be more at risk for gut absorption problems, or anxiety, concentration problems etc, or heat intolerance, or chemical sensitivites, or whatever, but they will be OK so long as the basic metabolic symptoms are working well, they treat themselves well (diet, exercise, environment), and manage to avoid more severe environmental insults. But let a major system such as the thyroid (or the pancreas, or gut or whatever) drift out of whack and many other conditions could be precipitated, confusing the diagnostic picture and making life damn miserable.

Tomorrow (Monday) I see an allergist/immunologist about my heat intolerance/purported mastocytosis. l don't expect much, but I shall report the outcome in a couple of days.

Thanks all

Marc