The World Has Turned to Crud!

As some of you may know, I have an underactive thyroid, and have been talking about it lately. Partly because January was Thyroid Awareness Month, and partly because the FDA and the drug companies have been having a fight over a lot of things that seem to be headed toward harming patients with hypothyroidism, while making more money for the drug companies.

The formulation of my medicine (Armor Thyroid) was changed at the beginning of last year, and although it still has the same amount of active drug, the filler hinders absorption rather than aiding it like the previous formulation did. They also added a thin film covering each individual tablet, rendering it even more difficult to absorb (I think--the coating makes it almost impossible to crush, so I think it hinders digestion and absorption).

So, anyway, for more than a year, I've effectively been taking less of the medicine that I need, and more and more hypothyroid symptoms have appeared. Here's the list so far:

• Often cold
• Cold hands and feet
• Rising Cholesterol
• Bizarre & debilitating reaction to exercise
• Thinning outer edges of eyebrows
• Ridged fingernails
• Dry hair
• Hair loss
• Weight gain
• Air hunger (gasping for air)
• Swelling/edema/puffiness
• Internal ear itching
• Ringing in ears
• Joint pain
• Tightness and soreness of throat
• Muscle pain
• Allergies
• Low energy/stamina
• Long recovery after activity
• Brain fog

And last night, I finally slid into depression.

To be fair, I had a lot of things go wrong, both for me and for friends, but I suspect that I'd be dealing with it all in a much more constructive way without the under controlled hypothyroidism.

First of all, I recounted an experience on my blog, and a family member seems to have misunderstood what I wrote, and has become upset with me. I think I've been forgiven, but now I'm upset about it anyway. I never meant this blog to harm anyone, even if it was just to upset them.

I paid my Comcast bill on the 4th of this month. I had spoken to a supervisor there, who said that the bill was $58 (I'm rounding off) and because of my complaint, he was taking off $15. 98, for a total of about for about $42. I actually paid more than that, but that's not the problem.

Last night, I was watching TV, and the screen suddenly went black, there was a long pause, and the screen said that my DVR was NOT AUTHORIZED, and told me to call a number to get service. I did call the number, and by the time I got someone on the phone, the picture had come back on. Just another of the dozens of malfunctions this piece of junk they gave me has done. I complained (again) and insisted that they make a note of the complaint. I was told that I could make an appointment and have a repairman come out and swap my DVR for a new one. They like this because they normally charge a hefty fee to do that, although because of the agreement the apartment place has with them they can't do that with me. I explained that because the box was such a piece of crud that I had bought a TiVo and was expecting delivery any day.

But before I got a chance to speak to someone, the automated system informed me that I was overdue on my payment, and that I owe them $168 and change.

The payment to them hasn't posted to my checking account, at least not yet, but for some reason there are a lot of payments and charges to my debit card that haven't posted, and I don't know why.

Comcast has done this to me at least twice before. If you make a payment and they don't collect it or post it to your account, they can charge a late fee, and if they can keep you from noticing that they have prevented you from paying it, they can turn off your service and then charge a lot of money to restore service. It's a dishonest way of making more money for them.

I hate Comcast!

So, now I have to figure out what happened, and get that straightened out.

While I was checking my checking account, I found out that a lot of charges to my account haven't been made yet, and I really have to spend some time and balance my checkbook and double check everything. Until I do that, I won't know for sure, but it looks like I'm going to be out of money before I'm out of month.

Then I got a phone call from a friend who was telling me about someone else I know who is ill, and unable to work (mostly because of doctors). This person had a treatment that worked well for them and made it possible for them to work, but the doctors are now refusing to prescribe what works and are now prescribing "new" and "better" drugs that don't work. My guess is that they're doing this to help the drug companies even though it's severely harmed my friend, and on one occasion, nearly killed her. Because of it, my friend can no longer work and had applied for disability. They just found out that the disability has been denied because there are now "new" and "better" drugs that the people who evaluated the case are sure will solve all the problems. The "new" and "better" drugs are the cause of not being able to work.

I hate the American medical system!

The other news is that a friend owns the copyright to a creative work that he just learned someone else has published in Germany. And guess what? You can buy it through an American distributor on Amazon!

He knows this because the distributer called the copyright holder to ask if it was possible to dub the film in English so the distributer could make money selling it in the US! The film was originally in English.

There are lots of complicated legal issues, so I really can't talk about it here, but I'm really upset about it! A lot of money and effort went into this work, and the people involved should be getting money back on it's publication, and instead, they're being asked to help someone rob them of potential profits!

And I had a doctors appointment this morning for which I overslept, and woke up in time to pull on some clothes and rush to keep the appointment in time. I sat there for more than an hour before I was able to find out that the doctor was needed at the hospital for some kind of emergency, and had supposedly called all the patients with appointments this morning to cancel and reschedule. I wasn't one of the people called.

I really wanted to see her to get a written prescription for the thyroid medicine. I only have enough medicine to last until Monday, and I really need to get some more. I already am not taking enough, and it's bad. Taking none is not a good option!

CVS hasn't had it for two months, and I wanted the option to get it from another pharmacy, or to order it from Canada if all else fails.

The drug companies and the FDA have been staging a Chinese fire drill to try to get patients to take a more expensive medicine. The medicine I take has been on the market since 50 years before there was an FDA with no side effects or problems. It's much safer, having been proved in use for over 100 years than the new drugs, which I've tried and don't work. The manufacturers have taken it off the market for a while, and they're insisting it's because of the FDA, who are insisting that the drug companies go through testing as if it were a new drug! FDA says that, yes, they do want all this testing, but that the drug companies are just making all these problems and it's their fault!

The medicine they're trying to get people to switch to (Synthroid, etc) is really ineffective at doing anything other than making the blood tests come out right, but not really solving any symptoms! So they can claim they fixed the problem, but leave you still sick, and in need of other (expensive) medicines to fix all the problems that Synthroid doesn't fix, but natural desiccated thyroid does.

I hate the American medical system!

Because of the phone calls last night and checking my Comcast account and checking account online last night, I didn't get to sleep until 4 am, plus I was up and out by 10 am, so I'm really short on sleep.

I'm also really disgusted with everyone and everything, I feel bad, and don't seem to be able to do anything to straighten things out. So, you can officially add depression to the list of symptoms that the hypothyroidism is causing.

Maybe I'll try to catch up on my sleep. Now there's an "I'm depressed" statement if I ever heard one.

***********************

There's a new Burn Notice on USA tonight! I'll be lucky if I can see it on my malfunctioning DVR.

************************

For all you knitters out there, The Yarn Harlot has put up a post with a link to a sign-up sheet for the Knitting Olympics. Check it out!

I hope you're having a better week than I am! Don't worry if you don't hear from me in a while.