I'm sorry to hear about your marriage...I hope things get better. I know how you feel. I lost my relationship almost 2 years ago when all this began...I was too scared about what was going on with my health to even care what was happening in my relationship. Now I regret that I became so stressed out...sometimes I guess its too much for others to deal with because they don't understand it...and the personality changes that go along with it. Anyways I wont even try to be in another relationship until I am back to my old self.
I was expecting as I increased meds to either get better or feel Hyper..I was never expecting to feel more Hypo..like I do. I remember reading once that 75 mcg of synthetic T4 is usually not enough to get someone well again but is just enough to get the TSH down to normal. At the cellular level however it is not enough and this is where it counts.
Because of the fact that my TSH was normal my docs left me on this dose for almost a year. I had to go off work because I felt so bad. It never occured to me until recently that I might need to increase. I just had it in my head that I felt better before I went up to 75. I tried to go back and lower but it didn't change my symptoms...I just got more tired and depressed. My memory was very bad and my mind was very fuzzy.
I guess in the beginning I gained weight because I was healthy at about 120 and then all of a sudden I'm Hypo and retaining water and getting bloated and very quickly I was at 128. I liked the extra weight though...except when I was really bloated and looked pregnant. As time passed I kept losing and now I'm struggling to be above 100. Some people lose weight while Hypo because of appetite changes and malabsorption. I think this is what happened with me. I have almost no appetite and basically I just force myself to eat even though I'm not hungry. I still get bloated and still have lots of fluid but I'm just alot thinner now. It looks really unhealthy. Most of my life I weighed from 100-105. It was only about 2 years that I was weighing around 120 and I was liking it. Even though I was this weight for most of my life..It looked normal before...I was healthy. Now being Hypo and at 100 lbs. it does not look the same. I look sickly..I think because of not absorbing nutrients and such. I tried taking water pills too but it didn't help and only made me look more sick. I remember reading that taking diuretics for long periods can actually worsen fluid retention. Anyways I think its good that you stopped. Now I'm taking 3 grains of Armour but I wont know the full effect for about 4 more weeks. Its been about 2 weeks now on this dose and I'm definately not going hyper at this point. I may be wrong but I think this dose is equivalent to about 3 times the amount of Levothroid I was taking. If I dont go Hyper I will know for sure why I suffered so much the past 2 years. Extremely undertreated.