“Please Help Me…..”
“And she got healthy, and lost a ton of weight. Her thyroid and Hashimoto’s symptoms disappeared, and she lived happily ever after.” That’s how the story will end, but it’s beginning was a much different story.
I had watched Dr. Jack’s Webinar on line. I wanted to believe more than anything that he could help me. This doctor talked confidently about thyroid disease, but so had a lot of other webinars. But, in my heart, I knew this was different this time. I actually felt like the whole webinar was just about ME!! I wanted to contact him but my head was getting in my way. “He can’t help you, no one can help you! Look at how many times you tried before with no success!” My fingers were on the contact button, but I kept second guessing myself.
My heart was beating louder than my head. “You have one more try in you! He IS talking to you! What will it hurt to just talk to him?” My hands shook writing to him, “Please help me..” followed by my name, and my phone number using the wrong digits because my fingers were shaking so much. Before my head could yell any more, my fingers hit send and I waited.
“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”
― Nora Ephron
I sat there thinking about how I am a college educated person and the best I could do was, “Please help me.” What must he be thinking at the other end? I wondered if he truly understood how much desperation there was in those three simple words. How could he possible ever understand what I had gone through already. And is there any way he can possibly help me? I had tried everything already.
I don’t know how long I sat there clutching that phone but suddenly the message came back with a reply to give him a time to call and talk to me. I responded in micro seconds with a time, because I had come this far, and there was no way I wasn’t going to at least find out what he could do. He responded with a note mentioning how quickly I had answered him. I sat there thinking, “Ohhhhh….Doctor, you have NO idea how badly I need your help, or how I have spent a lifetime looking for an answer.”
When the phone rang, again I was shaking. We talked and he did a lot of listening about what I told him. I doubt he knew just how much of a story I had left out. And then something magical happened… I can still remember exactly where I was sitting and what I was wearing.”
Doctor Jack: “I know I can help you. Did you know that your Hashimoto’s can go into remission?”
Me: “What??? Is that possible? But what if what you suggest doesn’t work, what then?”
Doctor Jack: “Then it will my problem to figure out why. Hashimoto’s is no mystery to me.”
Me: “Well, what if I tell you things that happen like how I can gain five pounds overnight?”
Doctor Jack: “I promise you that I will believe everything you tell me, because I have seen all this before.”
And then all of a sudden, that little black cloud that was always seemed to be following me started to move, and I caught a glimpse of a little ray of sunshine…… I could feel it in my heart that something was different about this doctor, and for the first time in about twenty five years, I felt it………. HOPE.
The Endless Parade of Diets
After I talked to Dr. Jack, I sat there thinking about the things he had said. I wasn’t sure that he truly knew what he was getting into by saying he could help me. I hoped he was ready……
I have been overweight most of my life. Two times in life, I had dieted myself down to a significant weight loss. Both times I started out by doing a great approach and then starved to get it off, cutting calories, and a host of other things. Both of those times were prior to my thyroid issues.
After my diagnosis, weight loss seemed to be an unachievable goal. No diet worked and all had the same result. Little if any loss followed by none, followed by gain and then I gave up. This was then followed by a period of low self esteem and beating myself up for not trying hard enough, followed by another diet. The cycle was endless. And each time, my self esteem took a big hit.
Then, about five years ago, I had to have back surgery for a cherry tomato sized tumor growing in my spine that was pushing on my spinal cord. After it’s removal, the surgeon mentioned to me that he saw some spinal stenosis and he thought it would be best if I could lose some weight and that began the five years of the Parade of Diets.
I started with Weight Watchers. I ordered all the materials, paid a significant amount of money and began. I gained ten pounds. Yes, you read that right, I gained ten. I wrote to their support team about twenty times after which it was suggested that this might no be the diet for me. Then I moved on to Atkins. Again, purchased materials, and lost five pounds the first two weeks but then things stopped and the five returned with five more. Over the next five years, I tried Atkins several more times, but each time resulted in the same way. Pounds lost? none
My endocrinologist suggested South Beach as many of her patients were successful at it. Pounds lost: none. From there began the list:
Low carb, high carb, low fat, high fat, low protein, high protein, American Diabetes society diet, Mediterranean Diet, Dash Diet, Gaps Diet, Zone, American Heart Association Diet, Mayo Clinic Diet, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, diets from about seven dieticians, Spark People, exercise programs, yoga……….. the list is endless. After a while I stopped telling people that I was even trying because it was all the same. You start a diet with a friend and they lose and you just keep telling them how great they are doing but they keep telling you how you must be cheating or doing it wrong because it works for them. People were always suggesting things to me. 21 Day fix works for EVERYONE, or you need to join the Y! They have programs that work for everyone!! EVERYONE!!!! yeah….. everyone, but me. NO one believed how hard I was trying and after awhile? I didn’t believe it either.
And then I started thinking that I was approaching it all wrong. Maybe what I needed to do was read more about my disease and the diets that would help that. So after purchasing another set of books, I figured the way to go was Paleo. Six months later I had lost six pounds. Then I tried Autoimmune Paleo and lost nothing and then I had enough. I made an appointment to see yet another dietician.
I walked in with my journal I had kept for six months of every single morsel that had gone into my mouth. I explained my whole situation to her, getting very emotional about my struggles. She looked at the book, maybe two pages worth and slid it back across the table to me…….
I won’t forget that day ever either, because that was the day I reached my limit…..
The Visit to the Nutritionist…
I sat there and waited while she studied the book. She kept looking at me and I swear I saw her roll her eyes a few times.
She closed the book and looked at me, “It’s obvious why you are not losing weight, you are lying about what you eat.” It took a minute for that to register. Lying??? I explained to her by showing pages that there were plenty of days where I had cookies or cake, or went to a picnic and wrote down everything I had eaten. She condescendingly explained to me that it is scientifically impossible for someone to not lose weight eating what I claimed I had eaten. She looked at me and said, “The answer is really simple. Your chart shows you have a documented history of failure when it comes to weight loss, so let’s just get you set up for weight loss surgery and be done with all this.”
I have nothing against weight loss surgery and I have many friends who had it and were successful and many who were not. But again, I explained to her, that if I could live on 700 calories a day now and not lose weight, how was weight loss surgery going to change that fact? She then looked straight at me and told me that perhaps what I needed was to talk to another kind of professional who could help me to understand why I felt the need to constantly and continually visit their office to discuss these issues, that perhaps I was searching for attention of some kind that I was lacking.
And that was when I hit the my wall. I slammed my hands on her desk, grabbed my book and headed for the door…..
I got home, ripped the book to shreds and told myself, “THAT IS IT. I have to just learn to live with this because there is no one coming to help you with this. You have to live with it and just accept things as they are and accept yourself.” That was a hard thing to live with, but I was going to have to do it.
About a month or so later, I am sitting at home,poking through Facebook, and I stumble on an ad by a local doctor and he is going to be talking about thyroid disease. “Oh,no,” I told myself, “We are not doing this again! I have read every book, listened to all kinds of seminars, what is this guy going to say that I have not heard before? No way.” But the next night that ad was there again….mane then again the third night….. I figured that someone was trying to tell me something.
I registered and since I was off the night of the webinar, I thought I could at least start watching it. If he started and I had heard all this, I was leaving. So it started and I sat there and all of a sudden he said something I had never heard before. My ears perked up, and then he stated another fact I never knew. I jumped up and got some paper. I was copying all kinds of information and charts and diagrams, trying to hang onto his every word. I sat there crying when he was done. I kept thinking that this man made this webinar solely for me! I am the person he is talking to. But could he help me??
I hardly slept thinking all night about his talk. Could he possibly help me? The next day I fired off a really intellectual email to him, (insert laughter). I typed my name…. My phone number with wrong digits because my fingers were shaking and only one sentence, “Please help me.” And I sat there clutching the phone and saying over and over, “Please answer, please answer, please answer…..” Then the phone beeped with a reply…….
And that is where our story started…..
http://hashimotofriend.com/2015/09/25/please-help-me-2/
My story of our emails and journey begins with the post listed above. It is a story of how I found hope and healing with this compassionate doctor, Dr. Jack Saia, who bravely took me on as a patient. His website is partnertohealth.com.