HOW I GOT MY LIFE BACK

It started when I bolted upright in bed around midnight completely terrified for no reason at all. The next night it happened again. Only that night it happened twice. I thought I’d had a nightmare but didn’t realize it was the beginning of a three year nightmare. By the fifth night of waking up terrified, out of breath, and heart pounding all night long, I was convinced I was going to have a heart attack. I was a single mother and so afraid I’d die in the middle of the night I taught my young son how to go to the neighbors or call the police if he found me “asleep” in the morning. After two weeks I wound up in an ER where I was told I had panic disorder, given a big shot of Ativan, and told to go see a psychiatrist. This “panic disorder” had bled over into the daytime by this point so much that I would get off the freeway to keep from driving over an overpass. I had developed an inordinate fear of heights overnight. I went to a psychiatrist who tried to give me anti-depressants which I refused. I knew I wasn’t depressed just horribly anxious. So he prescribed anti-anxiety drugs and this kept the panic at a barely manageable level for about eight months.

I had had a hysterectomy when I was 39 because of endometriosis and then had both ovaries removed at 43. The panic disorder had begun about 10 months after my ovaries were removed. After eight months on valium, the hot flashes started, so I went to my OB/GYN and asked for estrogen, so he put me on the Climara patch. Imagine my surprise when almost all of the panic I had been enduring disappeared!! I quit taking the anti-anxiety medication and never took another one. But the story doesn’t end there.

A year later I remarried and was on my honeymoon, slipped and fell in the shower in Mexico. My head hurt for months, and my husband, a chiropractor, recommended a brain scan for possible haemotoma. There was no haemotoma but the radiologist picked up a possible pituitary adenoma and was concerned about my thyroid. I was referred to a neurologist who asked for a full blood panel. When he received the results he told me that in 18 years of practice he had never seen a TSH as high as mine – 123.5. He told me I was in desperate need of thyroid and to go to an endocrinologist immediately. I went to one highly recommended who did in fact probably save my life. I started getting dizzy and almost passed out several times. The endocrinologist told me I was in myxedema crisis from such a state of low thryoid and took me off work for five weeks He placed me on Levoxyl and slowly brought me up through different dosages until my “numbers” were more in line. He told me it was incredible that I was still alive and walking and not in a coma. But the story doesn’t end there.

As the Levoxyl dose got higher and higher I started feeling worse and worse. I would feel shaky and sick, so I would get higher dosage estrogen patches from my OB/GYN. Then I would feel nauseous and have migraines. Nothing was working. I started cutting the patch up and trying to self medicate with the estrogen patches just to feel normal. I thought I was losing my mind I felt so awful. I read everything I could get my hands on on the Internet and read enough to realize that thryoid and estrogen antagonize each other in some way but I certainly was no doctor and no doctor would agree with me although I knew the literature was out there. I could hardly work and face all the people I dealt with in my day because I was either removing or replacing little pieces of the patch to feel OK. I begged the endocrinologist to tell me what was wrong. Did I have Parkinsons? He told me emphatically he had no idea and threw his hand in the air as if to dismiss me. I realized I was in a medical no man’s land. That terrified me more than ever. Had no one ever had these symptoms??

Then one day a friend at work walked in and showed me Dr. Hotze’s article and talked about how he had helped so many people. This friend lived in Katy and said she knew where his office was. The article talked about bio-identical hormones which I had never heard of. I was desperate. I told my husband, I didn’t care what it took I was going to this place. He agreed mainly because he simply had no idea how to help me.

I walked into the Center and was shocked at how beautiful it was and how kind everyone, to a person was. I was pampered by my nurse Marci so much I thought it was a dream. Dr. Sheridan spent well over an hour with me and agreed I’d been down quite a road, and that it would take time to get off the chemically made thyroid and estrogen and reintroduce the bioidentical hormones but I didn’t care. It was the end of the road for me. I had gained weight, was exhausted, and a physical and emotional wreck. I started taking Armour Thyroid, Bi-Est, progesterone and testosterone. I immediately noticed a difference. We tweaked the dosages when I didn’t feel right and within a few months, I actually felt “normal” for the first time in years. I wasn’t shaking, and I wasn’t nauseous. I didn’t feel like I had Parkinson’s anymore. I hadn’t realized I needed progesterone to keep my central nervous system calm. The phone nurse and the pharmacists were incredible to work with. When I went into the hospital for unrelated surgery months later, Kim the pharmacist sent me the most beautiful flowers. I couldn’t believe how attentive they were.

I not only got my life back at Hotze, I made new friends, and have learned a new way of life. I’ve gone from wondering if I could live another day to loving every day I live. I can now play with my son instead of being so sick I just want to lie in bed. I’ve taken my stepdaughter there and recommend the Center to everyone I know. My husband now passes out the Center’s name to all his female guests in his Victoria and Rosenberg clinics when they describe symptoms like mine, because through my ordeal he has learned signs to look for.

I truly want to thank Dr. Sheridan, Dr. Ellsworth and all the wonderful staff I’ve had the pleasure to deal with in giving me my life back!

Oh and as for overpasses?? Piece of cake!

Donna Dees