invisible monsters

Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.  ~John Watson, 1897

I am someone who is fighting a hard battle so this quote appeals to me. I suffer from a couple of "invisible" diseases. These are diseases where you don't look sick, people don't allow you any slack for your illness and, quite honestly, talking about them makes you look bad as it comes across as lazy, making excuses, unreal. Those without experience in such things have even less understanding. This can be hard. 

Let's start with the easy one - thyroid. I suffer from Hashimoto's thyroiditis. This means that without medication my thyroid normally functions too slowly. This affects my hair, weight, memory, skin, muscles, mood and the list goes on. It is quite amazing what this little butterfly gland can do. I take medication for this daily. However, not all symptoms are simply better, but they are mostly better. 

Next up Sjogren's syndrome. Sjogren's syndrome is a chronic autoimmune disease in which a person's white blood cells attach their mositure-producing glands. I am lucky and my version is not very bad and I am not on medication for this. Mostly, I have to use eye drops and lotions. But on bad days and when my eyes are dry I have more headaches and I have more issues focusing.

My harder battle is with depression. I hate this one. People think it is only for "sad" people and someone like me isn't fighting it. Well, that isn't the case. That is all that I am writing about this one as I am sure there will be more written about depression in general.

Vitamin D deficiency. This one sounds easy but came as a diagnosis when I was being tested for celiac and food allergies due to my daughter going through the routine. I went in for antidepressants (see above) and my blood results happened to be in. The treatment is a high dose of vitamin d once a week for 8 weeks and then a retake of the blood. If the numbers improved we know that that was the issue, otherwise there may be something else. My doctor explained it as the quality of life vitamin. When I came home and started looking into vit D deficiency I realized all that explains. My symptoms are depression (kinda funny), muscle aches (they have been bad), headaches, hair loss, exhaustion (constant for me), and weight gain. This is another that I will be writing about as I feel it is a big part of where I am stuck right now. I walked out without an antidepressant but with vitamin D.