That's the latest theory about my health problems. My doctor went to a conference on thyroid stuff in Park City about a month ago and learned more about a substance called "reverse T3," which is produced at the time that the body breaks down T4 (which the thyroid gland produces) to T3 (which is the workhorse that the hypothalamus monitors ( Read more... )

It's Monday morning. I slept most of the weekend, and went to bed early last night. I got up around 10am. And now it feels as if I hadn't slept for days ( Read more... )

Not so good ( Read more... )

I was doing OK Monday and Tuesday, because I took 15 mg of ADDerall around 7:30 - 8:00am, got up and worked for an hour in the yard, and had some Diet Sunkist before showering and ending up at work. Then I'd be all clear and mildly energetic for the rest of the day ( Read more... )

But I don't mean that in a good way, necessarily ( Read more... )

Spotted a new kind of birdie at the feeders over the weekend: a pair of American Goldfinches in their winter plumage, seen here, were horking down the thistle seed in the bag I hung on the telephone wire. Also hanging thereon is the suet feeder, and though I see some beak-marks on it, I've no idea who's been sampling it. Should be chickadees or ( Read more... )

OK, so it turns out that the fatty liver and the elevated alkaline phosphatase (ALP) are no big deal. The fat incursions are minor: the doctor said that if you pull 100 people off the street, as many as a third would have the same amount of fat as I have. The other stuff in that region-bile ducts, kidney, gall bladder-looked fine ( Read more... )

The doc checked my isoenzymes for bone, liver, intestine, and placenta (!) and they all came out normal. As did my reticulocytes, my lipid levels (cholesterol, triglycerides, and HDL and LDL). The ALP dropped by one point over last test, too, which I guess is better than rising ( Read more... )

Fatty incursions in the liver, causing irritation. Probably non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is often associated with diabetes. Which, as far as I know, I don't have. But they siphoned off 7 vials of blood to check for cholesterol (which has been OK thus far) and insulin levels (my sugar levels have been OK) and to see what's going on ( Read more... )

Except hold the onions ( Read more... )