cold bug, which will linger longer than it did when your immune system was in tip-top shape. Remember: Playing with an unwashed child means you’re playing with every child they’ve ever played with.
The activity: staying up all night chatting with friends
In your 20s: no consequences
As a Formerly: All-day headache, which leads to over-caffeination, which leads to nausea and agitation and anti-social tendencies. One hundred percent chance of bingeing on carbs the next day, because your judgment is impaired, your mood is for shit and your body is craving extra energy. Overdoing the carbs, of course, leads toovernight weight gain (see TBMFU), plummeting blood sugar and rebound bingeing.
If you forget you’re a Formerly and feel the abovementioned effects, you may think you’re unwell. This would not be illogical. The conventional health wisdom is, if you’re doing what you always have and notice your body reacting in a way that’s not normal for you, there might be something medically wrong. If the problem persists, it would be wise to consult your physician.
That’s what I did when I started feeling a little funky. Around the same time as TBMFU hit, and around the same time I noticed my energy falling off, I also began to notice that I had a lot less hair (on my head) than I used to, and a lot more hair (on my face) than I used to. I didn’t go right to the doctor, but began doing what doctors hate us to do but do all the time themselves: I Googled my symptoms. The condition that kept coming up was hypothyroidism, which is when your thyroid, that little butterfly-shaped gland in your neck, doesn’t crank out enough of the two big thyroid hormones. This, in turn, has a cascade effect on a bunch of other hormones and systems in your body and causes you to turn into a man. Well, not really, but the symptoms are unpleasant (unexplained weight gain, fatigue and depression, to name a few) and if left untreated can lead to heart disease, infertility (Hello! Already had that!) and a few other lovely things that no one wants.
When I saw unexplained weight gain and fatigue—problemsI’d reluctantly concluded were the by-products of not being 25 and of having twins and a full-time job—on the list of symptoms, hope sprang anew. Hmmm, maybe I have a sluggish thyroid. It says here it’s very common and underdiagnosed! It says women often get it after childbirth! And it says it’s easily treatable! Yes!!
I practically tap-danced to my GP, who ran some tests and told me my thyroid was normal. Then I went to my gynecologist and she said the same thing. I asked her if I had a “subclinical” problem—perhaps, while my thyroid hormone levels were within normal range, they were at the low end and hence too low for me. She shook her head sternly. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. I called my mom. “Mom, the doctors say my thyroid is normal!” I moaned. “That’s great, honey. What a relief!” she said. I almost hung up on her.
The fact that my thyroid was normal was bad news because, in my twisted Formerly way of thinking, it means that I am not, in fact, slightly off-balance hormonally, but simply fatter, more sluggish and hairier than I was when I was younger. WTF kind of diagnosis is that? As sick as it sounds, at the time, a part of me would have preferred to pay some huge pharmaceutical company thousands of dollars over the course of my lifetime through a bloated, mismanaged health-care system that is burdening the big steaming pile of dog do that we call the American economy for a synthetic thyroid hormone replacement (that may ultimately cause bone loss) rather than accept that my body is changing, thata certain amount of change is part of life and that the best course of action may simply be to ramp up my efforts to take care of my body so I don’t put on too much weight or grow a full beard.
It’s like back in my eating disorder days when I used to pray for a tapeworm or be halfway
The activity: staying up all night chatting with friends
In your 20s: no consequences
As a Formerly: All-day headache, which leads to over-caffeination, which leads to nausea and agitation and anti-social tendencies. One hundred percent chance of bingeing on carbs the next day, because your judgment is impaired, your mood is for shit and your body is craving extra energy. Overdoing the carbs, of course, leads toovernight weight gain (see TBMFU), plummeting blood sugar and rebound bingeing.
If you forget you’re a Formerly and feel the abovementioned effects, you may think you’re unwell. This would not be illogical. The conventional health wisdom is, if you’re doing what you always have and notice your body reacting in a way that’s not normal for you, there might be something medically wrong. If the problem persists, it would be wise to consult your physician.
That’s what I did when I started feeling a little funky. Around the same time as TBMFU hit, and around the same time I noticed my energy falling off, I also began to notice that I had a lot less hair (on my head) than I used to, and a lot more hair (on my face) than I used to. I didn’t go right to the doctor, but began doing what doctors hate us to do but do all the time themselves: I Googled my symptoms. The condition that kept coming up was hypothyroidism, which is when your thyroid, that little butterfly-shaped gland in your neck, doesn’t crank out enough of the two big thyroid hormones. This, in turn, has a cascade effect on a bunch of other hormones and systems in your body and causes you to turn into a man. Well, not really, but the symptoms are unpleasant (unexplained weight gain, fatigue and depression, to name a few) and if left untreated can lead to heart disease, infertility (Hello! Already had that!) and a few other lovely things that no one wants.
When I saw unexplained weight gain and fatigue—problemsI’d reluctantly concluded were the by-products of not being 25 and of having twins and a full-time job—on the list of symptoms, hope sprang anew. Hmmm, maybe I have a sluggish thyroid. It says here it’s very common and underdiagnosed! It says women often get it after childbirth! And it says it’s easily treatable! Yes!!
I practically tap-danced to my GP, who ran some tests and told me my thyroid was normal. Then I went to my gynecologist and she said the same thing. I asked her if I had a “subclinical” problem—perhaps, while my thyroid hormone levels were within normal range, they were at the low end and hence too low for me. She shook her head sternly. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. I called my mom. “Mom, the doctors say my thyroid is normal!” I moaned. “That’s great, honey. What a relief!” she said. I almost hung up on her.
The fact that my thyroid was normal was bad news because, in my twisted Formerly way of thinking, it means that I am not, in fact, slightly off-balance hormonally, but simply fatter, more sluggish and hairier than I was when I was younger. WTF kind of diagnosis is that? As sick as it sounds, at the time, a part of me would have preferred to pay some huge pharmaceutical company thousands of dollars over the course of my lifetime through a bloated, mismanaged health-care system that is burdening the big steaming pile of dog do that we call the American economy for a synthetic thyroid hormone replacement (that may ultimately cause bone loss) rather than accept that my body is changing, thata certain amount of change is part of life and that the best course of action may simply be to ramp up my efforts to take care of my body so I don’t put on too much weight or grow a full beard.
It’s like back in my eating disorder days when I used to pray for a tapeworm or be halfway
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