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My story & Intro to the Cushie World. First Blog


Falling2Grace

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Here are picture progressions. I wish i had some from childhood on, but unfortunatly i do not. These take pace from Sept. 2010-current. I had radical weight gain when i was about 5 months postpartum with my first. I gained 35lb in less than 2 weeks.

 

I have been exercising and eating a mainly plant based diet for the last 3 months. I workout for one hour 5x per week and ive always been a healthy eater (even in the past, though theres always room for improvment). I am a lucky one when it comes to losing baby weight. I dont gain much, so by the time the baby is born, all of the baby weight is off. I have been at the same 190-192lb for the last 8 weeks. I havn't lost very many inches either. I tend to hold A LOT of water weight...i can weigh mysef as soon as my feet hit the floor, i will weight about 190lb, but if im up, even for an hour and not eat a thing, it can fluctuate all the way up to 195lb...i dont dare weigh myself at night...its just flat out scary...

 

Im just so upset and depressed about my body. I aways have been but i was able to see past it...anymore, i can't im in poor health and seeing my body puts me in tears. Most people would have control over it by eating right and exercising but NOTHING is working for me. I eat clean and organic as much as possible. All of this hard work is getting me no where. I just want control over my health and i can't seem to touch it. Its so frustrating and i just want to give up. Most days, latly, i dont even see a point in trying as hard as i do because i feel like its getting me no where :frusty::sad_angel:

 

1.) My Buffalo Hump in September 2010. (just after a much needed hair cut :afro: )

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2.) My Buffalo Hump in December 2010. I realize that these are a bit challenging to see the whole scope of my hump because of how my hair is cut. ...it looks bigger in person...

 

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3.)back view of my current Buffalo Hump (im on My Fitness Pal and doing 30 Day Shred, these are my "befores")

 

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4.) Side View of my body/buffalo hump.

 

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5.) Front View of my body. I am only 5 foot 1 (stopped growing around age 12, give or take). Legs and arms have always been thin, given the amount of central fat i have had my entire life. I must point out, though, that i did gain some weight on my arms and thighs because i went from 160lb to 195lb in a matter of 11 days.

 

 

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6.) My face in January 2011. Ive always had a thick chin and hardly any neck, but now that i look the way i do now, i would take this back any day....

 

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7.) My face in early October 2011.

 

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8.) My face/neck/hump in March 2012

 

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9.) My face (and body) last week in mid-May 2012. I am to the far right.

 

 

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10 & 11) This is very embarassing for me to post, but here is my body. And yes, im trying my hardest to stand up staright, but physicaly can't bc of the hump, even though I feel like i am. These were taken end of April 2012

 

 

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Source: Getting tested for Cushings...i think i had it as a child...

 

Ever since i was little, i have had trouble with my weight. My earliest memories i was the "fat girl" or "the girl that would look good if she lost weight". I was always told as I grew, that my weight would catch up with my height, go to my chest, and I would be a normal weight as an adult. Well that day never came....as i sit here typing this, I am 192lb and only 5 foot 1...5 foot 1.5 to be exact. ...the boob fairy never showed up, i never grew any taller, and the weight never fell off. I am 24 years old now. Have been pregnant 3x (miscarried the first. I have a 20 month old and a 3 month old-two boys).

 

Even as a young girl, my bones achedand ached. I was told, multiple times, that those aches were simply "growing pains" and once I reached my adult height, i would no longer experience them. These pains could have started before age 8, but thats the age i can vividly remember complaining about them. Eventually (around age 9-10, i would say), it got to a point that my doctor decided to test me for Juvenile Arthrtis, Rhemtoid Arthritis, and Lupus. Blood work revealed no problems...and in the words of House "It's never Lupus." I kept getting the old "you'll grow out of it, blah.blah.blah." ...never did grow out of it, by the way.

 

Soon i started having breathing troubles. Was told it was asthma and that i had to be on 3 inhalers 4x per day, and singular. I often had bronchitis so i would get put on large doses of sterroids. i would get Bronchitis around 4x per year. Each and every time i was treated, the doctor temporarily had me increase my inhaler dosages and he RXed sterroids (i want to say predinsone). He would be me on 5-6 day regimines that consisted of the first day taking 5 sterroid pills, the second taking 4, the third taking 3 and so on and so forth. Had i known then, what i know now, i would have declined them. And even then i felt as if i shouldnt have been on them...i even told my mother about this "gut feeling" but nope. Doctor knows best...I was on this type of medication from 4th grade until my senior year of high school. And the only reason i stopped then is because i realized i didn't truly need them! That doctor was def a pill pusher. The irony of it all? Once i stopped taking them, i have never ever had any type of astmatic symptoms...hmm.

 

Around age 11 i got tested for underactive thyroid, especially due to my brittle hair, dry skin, and aching joints (not to mention the weight issue!). At that time, doctor believe TSH of 0.5-5.0 was normal HA! now i know better too! That WAS high indeed and it NEEDED treated, but they failed to realize this. It was until I was 13 or 14 (when we switched primary care providers!) that i begun treatment with Synthroid. I remained getting treated for hypothyroidism until I was 18 years old. I went away to college and got a new doctor (not nowing what normal levels of TSH, T4,T3, Free T4s, and Free T3s were supposed to be). He told me it was normal and i could go off the synthroid. Well it wasn't. It was 5.2. I now know that is indeed underactive. But it wasnt until after my first (full term) baby that i learned just how low my thryoid was. After my first son, Isaiah, arrived I had Postpartum Thyroiditis. Basically the thryoid goes bonkers and around 2 months postpartum it goes super hyper (my highest level was 0.005) and then around 5 months postpartum it goes super hypo (lowest was 12.5!). Within a matter of days (11 days to be exact!) I gained 35lb! I went from 160lb to 195lb, in less than 2 weeks. And the crazy thing, is that i had actually lose the 13.5lb that i gained during my pregnancy.....needless to say, i have Postpartum Thyroiditis AGAIN! I am currently in the hyper stage and at last check my TSH was 0.007. I am so terribly worried about whats going to happen in a matter of a couple of months, especially with my weight. Long story short, im pretty sure i will be dealing with this for the rest of my life.

 

Anyways, I stopped growing around age 12. I havn't grown even a CM since then. i have been 5'1" (and a half lol) since the 7th grade. I didn't even experience my first menses until i was 13, nearly 14! How in the world can one person stop growing before puberty and yet gain weight ALL the time?! I thought when they started treating my thyroid, the weight would just melt off or at least i wouldn't have trouble losing it. By this point I was about 160lb (as a 13 year old!!!!). My doctor kept telling me, i need to lose weight (of course, reassuring me, at the same time, that as i grew my weight would even out-he didn't know i wouldn't keep growing). I ate healthy, i was on swim team, rollerskated twice per week, rode my bike, took long walks, and played games with the neighbor kids (like T.V Tag, hide and seek, Red-Light/Green-Light, you know, all of those games that requiring RUNNING!). Nothing worked. My weight would not budge and sometimes i would actually GAIN weight. And this was while my thyroid was being treated! I *think* it was around this time that a Buffalo Hump begun to appear, but it could have been prior. ...

 

When i met my [now] husband, in high school, he always said " I love your little spinal protector[buffalo hump]"...it was embarassing for me, every time he said that in front of friends and then would rub it. I knew he was just joking, but i was very insecure about it. I knew it looked awkward. In the early days, it wasnt painful. But now it is. And it has been for about 3 years now. It hurts. I have been getting chiropractic care done for 7 years now, and it's helped a lot of stuff, but it hasnt even begun to touch my neck. Over the last 2 and a half years it has gotten bigger, fatter, and more painful. My doctor from 2 years ago told me it was because i had poor posture and if i would sit up straight i wouldnt have that problem....the thing is, i do sit up as straight as i possibly can, but i cant do it correctly because of the bufflo hump! And i knew that, but this doctor had poor beside manners so i scoffed it off. (but deep down i knew there wasn't anythign normal about it!). I have since switched doctors and I am blessed enough to have a new doctor that is very adament about getting me tested. She is also checking for PCOS. (but i'll get into all of this later).

 

Along with the buffalo hump increasing in size and pain, i have gained enormous amounts of weight. I have switched my diet to be vegetarian in the weekdays and omnivore on the weekends. I exercise 5x per week for one hour. Im on My Fitness Pal and tracking. I havn't lost any weight. (and yes, i have already lost all of the baby weight-i never gain much seeing how im already overweight, and so that practically falls off the minute the baby is born). My bones still ache. They hurt 5x worse than they ever did as a child. Even sitting makes my legs hurt! Moving makes my joints hurt (I work past it though as i know that im overweight. But the thing is, i have always been an active person!) I have been retested for Rhemtoid Arthritis and Lupus (around age 18) and once again, i didn't have any of it. The bloodwork was normal. The only questionable thing was that i have reactive insulin resistance, but its well controlled through diet. My [new] doctor ran a ton of labs for my first physical. Despite my eating habits, i have high Cholesterol: 222[should be 0-199],High Tryglycerides: 161 [should be 0-149], Low normal range of HDL Cholesterol: 47[should be >40],High LDL Cholesterol: 143 [should be 0-99]. Sure, I eat at McDonalds once a month or have a slice of pizza, but how can someone have a mainly plant based diet and have levels like that?! Mom says its genetic, and maybe it is, but i feel this lines up with everything Cushings related. My ALT {SGPT} was 76 and that is high normal (should be 12-78, so it is normal, but its high) and my AST {SGOT} was 16. That is low normal (should be 15-37, so its normal, but its low). I have a bunch of other test result but i wont bore those with you unless you ask to find other information out.

 

My PCP is also going to test for PCOS. I have charted cycles and although i do ovulate fairly normal, i dont ovulate until what is considered delayed ovulation (on cycle day 22) and i only have 9-10 day Luteal Phases. Which is the bare minimum LP time to have a baby saftly implant. I know miscarriages are quite commont, but thats what we lost our first baby to. Anyways, I have some facial hair (like where a mustach would be), i have a lot of hair on my body too. I dont look crazy hairy, but i do have a lot more darker,thicker, and longer hair on my arms and legs than most people. I have TONS of thick hair on my heat and it falls out all of the time. In fact i have fix clogs in the drain because of the amount of hair i lose. I know its normal to lose hair when you're a couple months postpartum, but i have ALWAYS had a hair lose problem. I am def not going bald (probably because of how thick my hair is!), but i can pull handfulls of out (not purposfully) when i shower or wash my hair. It is dry and brittle. nothing has worked to fix that, but when i was a very young girl it was very fine and shiny, very straight hair (its now frizzy wavy and has been like that since i was 11). With my weight issue. Ive always been overweight, i struggle and i have never ever been succesful at losing weight and i have large stretch marks on my breast, stomach, hips and now my thighs and near the back of my knee caps. i did get some from pregnancy, but the GREATLY increased between my two sons. They are pinkish-red and very thick and long. Some are wider than the width of my thumb! My legs and arms have always been thin but, even as a child, i had midsection fat galore. I always have had nice legs (until i gained the 35lb from my thryoid...or at least, until now i was blaming that on thyroid but now im not too sure, and maybe the cortisol could have contributed).

 

My doctor is sending me some labs. She is going to be adding more to it, but she is def checking fasting insulin, cortisol, and sex hormones ( I think she said DHEA?). She thinks its either PCOS or Cushings or both. She is sending a referral to my endocrinologist (he is currently treating my thryoid but per policy she has to do this) and then he is going to run all the tests for Cushings. Oh and she also told me that I have Metabolic Syndrome. So now that added to the list =/

 

I think I have missed some stuff here, but ive already written a book. As i think of them, i will share them. Please help me, give advice/opinions, im not even sure, but its real nice to know that if this is Cushings there is help available...i know this sounds terrible, but part of me hopes that it is, so that i can get this taken care of and finally have some control over my health. I am at my wits end, in tears because no matter how hard i try, no matter how well i eat or how often (and hard!) i exercise, i cant control anything and its just getting to me. I am irritiable and get upset easily. I have always been a worrywart too. Recenty i have been getting mysterious bruising and my cheeks are always red...ive got the moon face as well. I just want to find answers and pray to God that there is something to fix this.

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have made it this far, you are a rock star!

 

 

Source: Getting tested for Cushings...i think i had it as a child...

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Hi!

 

Thanks for putting this all up on here! I am new to this whole site - thing, but found this help page while doing some research! I have been reading, what seems like non stop for a week, to put my case forward to my GP tomorrow (as Suppressant test came back normal).. but to sit here and read my own story talking through by someone else has made me realise I am not alone, I can fight this and also... that I am not nuts to think as I do about me just being 'Wrong!'... The Asthma, PCOS, metabolic Syndrome, thyroid check, Weight gain, red face, stretch marks, larger stomach in comparison to limbs....the list goes on! :)

 

...So, um... well, I just wanted to say thank you for your blog and for sharing it! I hope you find answers too!! :)

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