Am I getting fat?

One of the things I was most worried about before my thyroidectomy was weight gain; I had heard many accounts of the process with some people stating that they did gain weight afterwards. I have been thin my whole life and have always loved the fact that I could eat as much junk food as I wanted and not gain any weight and I didn't want that to change.

So, did I gain weight after surgery? Yes. But did I get fat? No. Before my surgery I was about 133/134 lbs (approx. 62 kg) and I had been maintaining that weight for a good while, maybe 6 months or so, but so far I have gained about 8 lbs and, as of today, weigh 141.4 lbs (64 kg). I will point out that I haven't really been that active since I had my thyroidectomy as I just graduated university and am pretty much at home every day. Also, my diet isn't the most healthy and I pretty much eat whatever I can get my hands on. What I will say though, is that my appetite is still not back to normal and although I'm not eating the same amount in one sitting, I am eating more frequently. I did ask my doctor about this but he straight up said he didn't know why this was happening so I'll just have to wait and see for myself.

I'm 5'10 so I am quite tall and 141 lbs will look completely different on someone much shorter than me. Luckily for me, the weight seems to be just making me rounder and curvier in the right places so I'm quite happy about that. However, the speed at which it all happened was a little scary to me. About a week or so after my discharge, I realised that I was gaining weight really fast and went up to about 137 lbs initially (that's 5 lbs in one week). This was quite worrying because I thought that I would just continue to gain more and more weight until I was an elephant. But, luckily it did slow right down after that first week and since then I've only gained a little bit here and there.

As I said, I am a tall woman so I don't particularly mind gaining more weight, just as long as I can still fit into my clothes. But, I don't see myself gaining too much more since I have been thin my whole life and my dad's side of the family is too. But of course only time will tell.

Take care! x

A visit to Moorfields Eye Hospital

For those of you who don't know, I've suffered with Thyroid Eye Disease for a while now and yesterday I was seen for the third time at Moorfields Eye Hospital and the first time since my total thyroidectomy two months ago. Please read this post first for a background on my TED. 

So as you can probably tell by the name, for those of you not from London, Moorfields is a specialist eye hospital and I believe quite prestigious seeing as though it is an NHS hospital (but of course I am no expert and could very well be wrong). The last time I was seen was in March and was told to start taking Selenium, a natural mineral, as some reports have said that this may improve the symptoms of TED although it has not yet been proved. They also prescribed me with lubricating eye drops and told me that I would be seen again after my thyroidectomy as there was a chance this would help my TED, so that's what happened.

Whenever I go to Moorfields I am first seen by a nurse who checks my eyesight (exactly like what you do at the optometrist) and then checks the pressure behind the eye (or something to that effect) with this little contraption. Funnily enough the nurse I had was the same one from my last appointment in March and she remembered me because I was scared to get the pressure taken in my eyes LOL. It's the weirdest thing though! It looks like a little gun and they hold it to your eye, press the trigger, you hear the click, and feel the faintest thing for a millisecond but there's no pain. I do believe it makes contact because I saw her testing it out and when she pressed the trigger the smallest blunt pin-type thing came flying out and went back in. I really wish I could explain it because it really is fascinating. But nonetheless, I was afraid of it and kept blinking and squirming about like a child. I must reiterate that it doesn't hurt but knowing that it's going simply near my eye freaks me out. They also do other tests, like shining a light in your eyes to see the back of it and also putting yellow dye in them and shining a blue light in them - but what that is for I really don't know.

The doctor that I saw was really nice and explained a lot to me, but it did come down to the fact that I will have to have surgery on both my eyes next year at some point. TED usually gets bad very quickly but then becomes stable and then takes its time to improve; it won't go back to normal but they want to see me when my body has done all it can to solve the issue before they proceed with surgery. I'm not shocked because I've known that TED isn't something that your body can reverse on its own and I mentally prepared myself for surgery a long time ago. My right eye is worse than the left in terms of bulging but luckily, because I'm young (22), my muscles are still tight and so have kept my eyes from protruding too much. So clinically, my TED is mild and I will require 2-wall decompression surgery, where some bones will be removed around my eye socket to allow my eyeballs to fall back into my head and I believe at the same time, they will remove the large amount of fat that has gathered on both upper eyelids. Doing this should pretty much fix everything and the dryness and wateriness should stop (thank God!). 

I'll be seen again on 1st March 2017 to check them again and most likely book a date for surgery. My doctor prescribed me with more drops, that I don't really think work but then again I don't use them often enough, and told me to continue with my selenium. My eyes have improved but I really don't know if it's the selenium, the thyroidectomy, the TED calming down, or a combination of all three; because there was a time I would put foundation on, walk away from the mirror for a minute, come back and it would all be gone from involuntary tears. I still suffer from the wateriness but it isn't as frequent as it was and the surface of my eyes are dry apparently although I haven't noticed it. The only other symptom, apart from appearance, is that they are really sensitive to light and if I forget my sunglasses I feel like a vampire. 

All in all, I'm feeling better about them and myself and I know that it can only get better from here. I've got some time to go yet before my eye surgery so I'll only update you all on my eyes at my next appointment in March.

Take care, and stay healthy x