As Fun as a Needle in Yer' Neck!

So autoimmune disease

is like this:

Your body is a house.

Your immune system is a bodyguard 

set outside the door to keep you and your house safe.

One day the bodyguard opens the door, steps in with a baseball bat, and starts

 bashing the crap out of your tchotchkes and thingamabobbles. 

  Then he bonks you on the head for good measure. 

Sadly, Western Medicine's approach is:

Get a broom and dustpan and sweep up behind the bodyguard, 

replace the Ming vase with a coke bottle, 

and slap a bandage on your head.

They do not, however, try to kick out the bodyguard.

The cycle is expected to continue until the house is destroyed and you have hamburger for brains. 

Then you get moved to a cheap apartment.

All that is to say that the basic approach is to treat the symptoms, replace the hormones that the damaged organ is not able to make, and wait

 for more damage and eventual destruction. 

It's not how I do things.

I study. I research. I experiment. 

My goal is to find a way

 to reform the bodyguard. 

Maybe even get him back on my side. 

*****

This is how it’s been:

GP, Rheumatology, Head and Neck, Dermatology, Allergy, Optomology and Opthomology have all sent me on to the next guy. It’s autoimmune hot-potato

(and, by the way, each one have said “There is no research to support diet changes, but if it makes you "feel better", go ahead.” And by feel better, they don’t mean physically). 

I had been told by other autoimmune folks not to hope for much from an endocrinology appointment. 

 I kept my expectations low. 

After the usual “where does it hurt?” chit-chat, Dr. P did an ultrasound of my thyroid. The growths were only slightly suspicious to her, though she admitted that cancer tended to have vague borders, which my growth (she said there was only one) had. She told me a biopsy was up to me, or we could wait and see. 

Hmmmm... wait 6 months and see if it’s cancer, or find out now.... 

what to chooooose....

Now, please!

Oh, wait, she meant NOW now. 

No appointment for a month from today. 

Now. 

I hoped up on the table, she sprayed my neck with utterly useless numbing spray, 

and then sunk a needle into my throat (the answer is 

YES.IT.HURT.LIKE.BLUE.BLAZES!  Thanks for asking).   

And if one stick in the neck was good, four was even better.

Guy said he could see the needle on the ultrasound as she dug all around in my neck with it each time. Apparently it is a little unpleasant to watch.

Of course, I was sorry to have been such a nuisance to him. 

On my end, it felt like my throat had mice with ice cleats on running around inside it.

She bandaged up my neck. 

I was miffed that after all that, 

she gave me a Barbie doll bandaid. 

It was kinda’ insulting, frankly.

She then gave me a prescription. Traditionally I avoid meds when possible, but new research has indicated that even if my thyroid levels are in the safe zone, they might be too low for me personally. So if a small amount of  medication could help my symptoms, I was willing). 

But my favorite part of the appointment was when she encouraged me to modify my diet. 

WHAT?! A doctor that believes you can influence your health by improving your diet? I pretty much almost hugged her!

She made a few suggestions. I smiled at Guy. I told her what I have been doing the past 2 months (more on that later). She was surprised and the strictness of my food protocol, but was all in favor. 

We chatted about a medical industry that is driven by pharmaceutical companies who finance studies intended to promote dependence on the drugs they manufacture. Of course, there aren’t many studies on diet!  No drug company wants you to see food as medicine.  Grocery stores don't require prescriptions.

*****

So that was last week. 

And lucky you, you don’t even have to wait as long as I did for the results. 

Negative. 

Yay for no cancer! That’s twice in two months.

I guess, for that, I will forgive them their puny bandaid.