First let me tell you that this is probably going to be a long post, but something I think is very important that everyone know.  So bear with me!

I see different doctors for different things, as I suspect just about all of us do, for what I think are fairly obvious reasons.  I think seeing a “specialist” is very important, and I want to know the person I’m trusting my health to is an “expert” in the area I need the best attention paid to.  So assuming you have a network of doctors, and like I said I think both of us do, I’m imploring you, I’m begging you in fact, to always make it a rule to get your very own copy of all your medical test results!!!  After all, they are yours, and the hold an obscene amount of key information about you.  Why is it that we shred all of our personal information before throwing it out, but we go through life, most of us anyway, letting some medical office hold the copies of all our body information?  Generally we never even lay our eyes on those results personally.  They tell us what they say and then we move on.  That has to stop and I’ll tell you why…

In April of 2007 I had a routine visit with my Neurologist regarding my migraines.  Routine blood work was done and that was the end of it.  I left, never got a call back about it and didn’t expect to.  It wasn’t until I’d guess July that I even thought about those tests again.  I had gotten notice that my Neurologist was moving to Ann Arbor to work with U 0f M.  I was given the opportunity to request my records to take to a new doctor.  I requested them and waited.

My records arrived sometime in August, and honestly I’m not even sure when exactly it was.  I had no idea that what was mailed to me in that envelope was really a ticking time bomb.  As I fumbled through all the notes and such, I ran across the results from the blood draw in April.  Right there in front of me were several numbers circled and noted as high and some low.  I wondered about it and set it aside, intending to investigate further.  I figured it was probably nothing as I never got a call from the doctor that initally did the tests.  So really, what was the difference right?

So September comes and I’m feeling all around pretty awful, tired, shaky, etc.  I’ve had this before, for a long time it seems, but I have three children, I’m probably supposed to feel like this.  Well on the 18th of September I had finally had enough and headed to my family doctor.  I took those mysterious tests with me, just so I could kill two birds with one stone and ask about them.  Well it turns out what was on that paper was indeed very important.  According to those tests there was a problem with my thyroid.  A problem in fact that certainly wasn’t likely to just resolve itself and that could have very well been responsible for the way I had been feeling for a long time.  So more blood was run and it again came back showing my thyroid to be totally out of control.

Sadly it had taken until today, this morning in fact, for a specialist to sit me down and tell me that I have Hypothyroidism.  I’m now on a medication for that and another medication to get my heart back under control.  The other sad part, my symptoms sat undiagnosed and worsening to the point that they have before I could get any help.  Had I insisted from day one that I get my results I would have known in April and had this treated before it got so far out of hand.  I’m told now that it will be at least a week before the medication to control that pesky thyroid kicks in and makes a noticeable difference, but I’m on my way.  Thank goodness for that.

Things have really gone downhill over even just the last two weeks.  I have moments, sometimes hours, where it seems mostly impossible to catch my breath, uncontrollable sweats… hot flashes for lack of a better term, complete sense of weakness, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, substantial weight loss, (which I’m not technically complaining about *wink*), and most recently my hair has started to fall out.  That is the short list.  It has gotten that bad before it was even at a point where it could get better.

I know what you are thinking, and I thought it too… “What am I going to do with test results?  I don’t know what any of that means.”  Well I’ll tell you what, after seeing mine, 99% of them are marked by the lab ad High, Low, or in range.  Not only that, but they list what the normal range is and some of them even give a possible full DIAGNOSIS on the bottom.  A cheat sheet or suggestion list I guess you could call it.  So put yourself in the know!!  Get a copy!!  Keep the copy!!  READ the copy!!

For me it had to get to this point before I saw how important it really was for me to take charge of my medical records.  For me I had to get increasingly worse to get any better.  Now I’m on my way to better, but I’d hope that not everyone has to learn the lesson the way I did.  The hard way really isn’t always the best way!