| In 1986, our son was killed
by a drunk driver, my father-in-law died and my father died, all within
a year. I think the stress just did me in. I began a downward spiral which
I attributed to mourning. My exhaustion worsened; my periods became irregular;
I started gaining weight; my sex drive decreased; I woke with a headache
every morning; I had heart palpitations, constipation, and my sleeping habits
reversed. I couldn't sleep, and as it progressed I couldn't get out of bed.
Some days it would take me 2 hours just to get the energy to get out of
bed. But the problem with getting out of bed wasn't lack of sleep. It was
as if my life was drained out of me. I just didn't care.
After our son had been
dead 3 years, I began to wonder why I wasn't getting better. I felt like
this just wasn't mourning. I thought perhaps that I was going through
menopause. I saw my GYN. He said that I wasn't going through menopause,
but he did put me on hormones and said maybe they would help make my periods
more regular. They didn't. Things got worse. I stopped taking the pill.
My mother came for
a visit. In her late 30's she'd had a thyroid problem and it was removed.
She looked at me and heard my problems and told me it sounded like her
behavior when her thyroid went bad. So I went to see my general practitioner
and he took one blood test and said nothing was wrong. I started becoming
paranoid. My husband and I started yelling at each other, which was something
we had never done in 25 years of marriage. I felt like everyone was against
me. I wanted to run away.
In the meantime, my
husband, Clyde, was going through a very similar problem. All his life
he has been obese. When he was 5 years old the doctor put him on 3 grams
of thyroid a day and that was the only time he wasn't obese. When his
folks moved they couldn't get the prescription filled again so he was
no longer on thyroid. After the year of death, Clyde started to get lethargic.
He couldn't work more than 4 to 5 hours a day without collapsing in front
of the TV.
While he became more
and more lethargic, I became a bundle of nervous irritation. I couldn't
sit in front of a TV without wanting to scream. Knowing Clyde needed thyroid
medicine, I insisted he have his blood checked. The general practitioner
said he didn't have any problems and Clyde got worse. He started having
terrible acid indigestion and a spastic colon. He got depressed and would
stay that way for days. All this deeply affected our behavior towards
each other and towards our lives. We couldn't take any kind of stress
without blowing up. Increasingly, I was thinking our marriage was over
and that we should call it quits. Then I'd think, no, there is something
wrong. My behavior isn't logical and neither is Clyde's.
We went to a health
food type of doctor. He took our blood and took our temperatures. Our
blood was fine, but Clyde's temperature was 96.7 and mine 97.7. He explained
how tricky thyroid tests were, and because of our low body temperatures,
he assumed we had a problem and put us on an over-the-counter health food
thyroid pill as well as other things to help Clyde's digestion.
It seemed to help for
a little while, then we started the downward spiral again. Clyde got really
bad. I thought he was going to commit suicide, so I asked his mom, who
also had no thyroid and was taking thyroid pills, if we could try her
pills to see if they would help Clyde. When he began taking her thyroid,
his spirits lifted. He began working again. He took the thyroid for two
months, but then began to feel guilty about doing it without a doctor's
permission so he went off it for a month and then went into a doctor again
to see about getting his own prescription. Again, the doctor said his
blood was fine and Clyde began to slide downhill again.
About this time I began
reading about chronic fatigue syndrome and wondered if this was my problem
and what I had to look forward to for the rest of my life. I became more
depressed. I knew I had to do something. I wanted to run away but couldn't.
Or maybe I could commit myself to an institution, but that would cost
a fortune.
Then I went to an art
show where I met another artist who, without any comments from me on my
condition, told me about her problem and how Dr. Wilson had helped her
and her son. Well, it sounded pretty weird and unbelievable. Almost instantly
after beginning treatment, both Clyde and I felt a sense of well being.
I stopped crying. I began to cope with life. Little things stopped overwhelming
me. Clyde began working a full day without having to stop and rest. We
stopped screaming at each other. Clyde's temperature is now 98.6 and mine
is 98.5. My sleep pattern is good, and I am able to cope with 8 hours
of sleep, although 9 hours feels better. The whole thing was so miraculous
that it was hard for us to believe.
Other things had seemed
to help before, but eventually kind of wore off, and we would end up going
downhill again. We wondered if this was just a temporary feeling of help.
We felt the true test would be if we could get through our art show season
without bone-deep exhaustion and depression. During the 3 months, we earn
our year's income. We work 80 hours a week with no days off, which is
exhausting and very stressful. We've made it. We are tired, but we are
feeling very well and there is no bone-tiredness and depression and we
couldn't have done it, if it weren't for Dr. Wilson.
The interesting thing
about taking the T3 is that it isn't a high. I don't feel like I'm on
a drug. I still cry, but I can control the emotion. I still get angry,
but it's logical angry. I still get depressed, but it's not severe and
uncontrollable depression. I still have a full range of emotions good
and bad. I feel human. What is even more wonderful is that I can say for
the first time in my life that when I wake up in the morning, I'm excited
about the day that lies ahead of me. Thank you Dr. Wilson. And so now
when I meet someone who is complaining of all the same symptoms that I
had for so many years, my heart goes out to them and I tell them about
Wilson's Temperature Syndrome. It seems like most people don't believe me. It's too
good to be true. There really is an answer. I hope your book will help
people to understand and believe that it is at least worth a try, then
they can make their own decisions.
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