psyched to have a stomach virus because it meant I’d drop a few pounds—it’s such a warped mentality, and I’m not sure if I feel comforted or horrified about the fact that many, many Formerlies share this view. One article I read referred to doctors having to wipe away tears from women patients who were so attached to the idea that they had a thyroid problem (and thus a solution for the fat-tired-hairies) that they broke down when pronounced healthy.
My friend Jen M. has many of the same symptoms I have. “I was training for last year’s Chicago Marathon, and in the past, anytime that I trained that hard, I lost weight,” she says. “This time, I not only didn’t lose weight, but I gained some, and I didn’t do anything differently.” Jen, too, went to several doctors, each of whom confirmed that there was nothing wrong with her thyroid. One had the gall to suggest that—get this!—she was simply getting older. Jen hasn’t given up on the thyroid theory just yet. She’s taking sea kelp, which is thought by some (and by “some,” I mostly mean those who manufacture sea kelp supplements) to help stimulate the thyroid; as of this writing she hasn’t noticed a change, and has also been watching what she eats even more closely. “I don’t want to believe that it has to do with my age,” she says.
(In fairness, it could be that there’s no solid scientific evidence behind sea kelp as a thyroid stimulator because there isn’t much financial motivation for pharmaceutical companies to fund double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on things like sea kelp, which is abundant and inexpensive and so they can’t make much on it. Those gold-standard studies are the best way to know how well a drug or a supplement works. That said, considering how desperate people are for a metabolism fast-forward, somehow I think it would have risen to the top of the market if it was the proverbial magic bullet. Although I hear the Little Mermaid swears by it.)
What makes this particular condition, hypothyroidism, so bizarrely desirable among Formerlies is that it’s at the center of the health/vanity nexus (Weight gain! Hair issues! Zits!). It also shines a white-hot spotlight on the question we seem to be deeply ambivalent about finding the answer to: What is simply a normal part of getting older, and what is a disease, or the beginnings of one, that can be treated, thus making your life better while you’re living it?
I, for one, am not sure I want to know the answer to that question—am I getting older the way a healthy person generally does, or are my symptoms a sign that something is off, and once I’m better, I’ll be back to my old self?
If the answer is,
Sorry sister, suck it up, hair thins as you age and a little weight gain is typical if not healthy, and well, you’re Jewish, and women of Mediterranean descent can be furry creatures, especially when their hormones go haywire
, that may just depletemy self-acceptance account for the foreseeable future. It took me all of my 20s and a chunk of my 30s to get over the whole you-have-to-be-perfect bullshit. Don’t I get to enjoy myself for a while before I become even less perfect? Do I
really
have to start accepting that no matter how much laser hair removal I have, there will be more hair? I’m so over it.
If, on the other hand, the answer is,
No, you’re fine, take a pill, or an herb, or some sea kelp
, then I don’t have to deal for a while. That’s rather appealing. I remember the rush I felt when I thought maybe—just maybe—all these little thieves of my hotness were merely symptoms of a treatable medical condition. The hope I had, until it was shot down by the doctors I saw who assured me I was healthy, goddamn it, was exhilarating. And that’s what keeps us looking for that magic bullet, whether it’s a diet pill or a thyroid pill or a tea brewed from a type of bark natives of the South Sea Islands have been using as home insulation for centuries.
My friend Jen M. has many of the same symptoms I have. “I was training for last year’s Chicago Marathon, and in the past, anytime that I trained that hard, I lost weight,” she says. “This time, I not only didn’t lose weight, but I gained some, and I didn’t do anything differently.” Jen, too, went to several doctors, each of whom confirmed that there was nothing wrong with her thyroid. One had the gall to suggest that—get this!—she was simply getting older. Jen hasn’t given up on the thyroid theory just yet. She’s taking sea kelp, which is thought by some (and by “some,” I mostly mean those who manufacture sea kelp supplements) to help stimulate the thyroid; as of this writing she hasn’t noticed a change, and has also been watching what she eats even more closely. “I don’t want to believe that it has to do with my age,” she says.
(In fairness, it could be that there’s no solid scientific evidence behind sea kelp as a thyroid stimulator because there isn’t much financial motivation for pharmaceutical companies to fund double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on things like sea kelp, which is abundant and inexpensive and so they can’t make much on it. Those gold-standard studies are the best way to know how well a drug or a supplement works. That said, considering how desperate people are for a metabolism fast-forward, somehow I think it would have risen to the top of the market if it was the proverbial magic bullet. Although I hear the Little Mermaid swears by it.)
What makes this particular condition, hypothyroidism, so bizarrely desirable among Formerlies is that it’s at the center of the health/vanity nexus (Weight gain! Hair issues! Zits!). It also shines a white-hot spotlight on the question we seem to be deeply ambivalent about finding the answer to: What is simply a normal part of getting older, and what is a disease, or the beginnings of one, that can be treated, thus making your life better while you’re living it?
I, for one, am not sure I want to know the answer to that question—am I getting older the way a healthy person generally does, or are my symptoms a sign that something is off, and once I’m better, I’ll be back to my old self?
If the answer is,
Sorry sister, suck it up, hair thins as you age and a little weight gain is typical if not healthy, and well, you’re Jewish, and women of Mediterranean descent can be furry creatures, especially when their hormones go haywire
, that may just depletemy self-acceptance account for the foreseeable future. It took me all of my 20s and a chunk of my 30s to get over the whole you-have-to-be-perfect bullshit. Don’t I get to enjoy myself for a while before I become even less perfect? Do I
really
have to start accepting that no matter how much laser hair removal I have, there will be more hair? I’m so over it.
If, on the other hand, the answer is,
No, you’re fine, take a pill, or an herb, or some sea kelp
, then I don’t have to deal for a while. That’s rather appealing. I remember the rush I felt when I thought maybe—just maybe—all these little thieves of my hotness were merely symptoms of a treatable medical condition. The hope I had, until it was shot down by the doctors I saw who assured me I was healthy, goddamn it, was exhilarating. And that’s what keeps us looking for that magic bullet, whether it’s a diet pill or a thyroid pill or a tea brewed from a type of bark natives of the South Sea Islands have been using as home insulation for centuries.
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