Thursday, November 4, 2010

Good News and Not so good news....ohhh and the "lovely Low Iodine Diet"

Ohhh well, the infamous "Low Iodine Diet" has started.  It's been 2 days since the diet started to get me ready for radiation and if I dont lose any weight with it...NOTHING WILL! lol...It's so difficult to eat. The reason they place you in a low iodine diet is because the Thryroid cells absorb high amounts of iodine so they give you the radiation on an iodine pill so radioactive material will attack those cells killing them ALL. (Hopefully) However, the difficult part is that you cant consume regular iodize salt or sea salt which means that every product out there that says in its label that salt is an ingredient I can't buy. That leaves me with NOTHING! I was at the supermarket today and every can, every box, everything has salt!!!! I can eat salt, just the one that is Kosher. Since the labels don't specify which kind of salt they use and restaurants either, I can't eat anything with salt unless I prepare it with non iodize salt. Ohhh but wait, that's not all. I can't have any dairy, soy so that means that my beloved Dunking Donuts Iced Latte that I drink everyday has turned into the disgusting Iced Coffee with NO MILK!!!!! :(....   Wow do I cope? Knowing this is just temporary. I need to stay positive even though is very tough!

On the other side, my doctor informed me that Thyrogen (the medication to increase my TSH levels two days before radiation) is on a shortage worldwide. In the past they used to make you go Hypothyroid for 6 weeks by removing you from your thryroid medication 6 weeks before radiation to increase your TSH levels naturaly.  Now they keep you with your Thyroid medication until 2 days before RAI (radioactive iodine) and give you two shots of Thyrogen to artificially increase your TSH levels for RAI. Well, a family doctor just told me that Thyrogen is on shortage becuase FDA has some safety concerns with it. So, I have made the tough decision to go HYPO for 6 weeks. That means I am going to be miserable for 6 weeks, but I am going for it so I can have my life back to normal as soon as possible. I also dont want to develop any other nodules while I wait. So let's get it done!

TTYL,

Michelle