Hi All,
My partner is a type one diabetic and has hypothyroidism which is treated daily with levothyroxine. She's currently taking an average of 35 units of insulin a day and is very insulin sensitive. Average daily carb intake is about 150 grams. We are vegetarian (3 years)and gluten free (2 years). I'm vegan, she is not, but I'd say about 52% of her meals are vegan. Average daily calorie intake is 2000-2200. She does intensive cycling 3 times a week which is around 1000 to 1100 calorie burn and walks an hour 2 times a week.
My lifestyle is roughly the same. I cycle less then she does and eat more calories. I weigh 137 pounds. She weighs 280 pounds.
Ok,thank you for hanging in with me to this point :).
The reason I'm posting here is because she is struggling to find a doctor that will address her concerns about the continued hypothyroid symptoms she's having even though she's been successfully medicating it for 17 years and all test return borderline to good results.
Here current dr. insists that she needs to take symlin and that will help her loose weight but that doesn't address the other symptoms and she has tried symlin. It makes her sick and doesn't work(it's also a type 2 med). The doctor refuses to evaluate her lifestyle and just assumes that because my partner appears overweight that she is eating terribly but the problem is that my partner isn't. As you can see above we lead a relatively healthy lifestyle and it seems really odd that she would just be maintain her current weight considering all of her numbers.
My partner insisted that her dr. refer her to an endo to evaluate her hypothryoidism and the dr. coded the referral as an obesity evaluation, even though that is not what my partner asked for. Where the endo insisted yet again my partner take symlin and there's nothing else the endo can do if she doesn't take symlin.
Bottom line nobody is addressing the real problem here! Just because my partner is a larger lady doesn't mean she's lazy and eats terribly. There is something wrong with her thyroid or something else.
Is anybody experiencing a similar situation? Healthy lifestyle, good numbers but still present hypothyroid symptoms and have you found a doctor that will work with you and is willing to explore?
We've seen a naturopath and where we ended was that she needs to reset her metabolism by just not eating non starchy veggies, avocados, olive oil, nuts, seeds, some seasonings,fruit, grains, peas, beans, sweeteners, alcohol for 6 months. For a veg this would be extremely difficult and seen as a last ditch effort.
Thanks,
Tinks