What’s happening to me - feels like I’ve taken amphetamines or something - what is this?!

[Deathgrip]

My health has been bad for years. Endometriosis, adenomyosis, ME and allegedly fibromyalgia. I’ve had all the symptoms of hypothyroidism but levels always within normal range. Nothing has helped. I am reasonably sure I’ve had some sort of hormonal imbalance for years due to the symptoms I’ve had.

A month ago I quit smoking. A week or so ago I got my AWOL libido back. Ever since I’ve had some very weird symptoms I’ve never had before - I feel like I’ve taken amphetamines (which I only did once 20 years ago!)

Feels like my insides are shaking. My heart is pounding. My hands are shaking. I feel sick and dizzy and light headed. I’m getting headaches. My fatigue, which has crippled me for years, is about 90% gone which sounds great, but I feel so shocking that I’m needing to lie down all the time. I’m sweating even when it’s not hot. I’ve had diarrhoea, but now have awful pain like I’m constipated and have trapped wind. I feel anxious and panicky for no reason.

I have no idea what could be causing this. I just bought a fit bit type watch thing so I could check heartbeat and blood pressure when I feel really bad. My resting heart rate is varying between 60 and 115. My blood pressure is varying between 112/75 and 156/100. My bp has always been on the low side.

I have just recently had a nasty infection in my lung but I finished the antibiotics a while ago and that’s cleared up.

I will be seeing my GP next week but I have no idea what to ask for since I had blood tests a few weeks ago and they were normal (thyroid, full blood count and b12).

Any ideas?

This is my BP over the last few hours, all of which I’ve been resting (kids at nursery). Is this just what blood pressure does, going up and down like this? I checked the watch readings against the machine in the pharmacy yesterday and they’re very close

Whoops, here’s the screen grab

I definitely think it's your thyroid going a bit loopy. I have graves disease, and was diagnosed in 2011. Symptoms are bang on like mine. Hyperthyroidism symptoms are exactly like you describe. I had a hell of a time getting diagnosed. It seems to take months for the increased thyroid levels to show in blood tests for me. I know when I am having a flair up for literally 2 or 3 months before my blood tests will agree. Which SUCKS as the docs never believe you!
And you're right about stopping smoking. It can be a trigger for things kicking off. Ironic, as actually smoking is a factor which also increases the likelihood of developing autoimmune problems. And the risk of them returning.... Bloody cigs!
Also, keep a close check on your eyes, as you can also get thyroid eye disease at the same time, and you don't want to let that get too far down the line. My docs took so long to diagnose my first graves disease flair up, that my eye disease had gotten completely out of control, and I could no longer move my eyes around, close my eyelids, or open my eyes in daylight without pain.
So just because your bloods don't show up as high thyroid, doesn't mean they're not always heading that way. My doc had to apologise to me after diagnosis as I had been telling him I thought I was developing graves disease for months (I'd been on Dr. Google), but he just kept saying it was anxiety (due to previous depression and anxiety).
So, epic ramble over.... I'd keep a close eye on your symptoms, write everything down, and prepare for a fight, until your thyroid bloods show up anything out of the oridinary. Good luck. If it is your thyroid you can always PM me if you like. I've been through it 5 times now, and I'm back out the other side with my thyroid totally removed. And it's the best thing I ever did. Hyperthyroidism is like hell!

Thank you mhairi, I’m so sorry you were disbelieved for so long. It is an awful feeling and a vicious circle - once they decide it’s all in your head, anything you say or do makes worse.

I went to the optician a couple of months ago as my eyesight deteriorated very suddenly and I was really worried - luckily I’m just old 😂

Will see what these results say. It seems I’m experiencing prettt textbook hyperthyroidism symptoms, but I said the same about the years of textbook hypothyroidism symptoms so who the hell knows. All I know is that it’s very surreal to swing from one extreme to the other and there has to be something behind that!

So since I last posted, my body has woken up at 3:45am ish two days in a row and won’t let me go back to sleep.

I’m now on another course of antibiotics - turns out the frequent peeing was a brewing infection. Hate antibiotics and really don’t want to take them again but definitely don’t want to be peeing blood either! Dropped off a sample and got the meds automatically so didn’t have to see a doctor but I’m seeing one on Thursday. Have the thyroid test kit here and ready to do on Monday morning so I can send it off right away.

Have woken up this morning with intense sore throat and pain with swallowing but it’s high up at the back of my throat, not where my thyroid is.

I think this body is a write off!

Don’t discount super ventricular tachycardia (SVT). If you look up my posts of the last two and you’ll know I know what I’m talking about!

There can also be a relationship between the thyroid and tachycardic episodes which is why yes it’s informative that youve given your BP but this internet quack can’t see your HR.

If your HR is consistently jumping above 160, holding there and hammering away before just stopping for a second and retuning to a normal beat get this checked out.

SVT is not life threatening but it’s nasty cousin the atrial fibrillation can be. SVT is sensitive to hormone changes, tiredness and colds; I am in hospital now with it and it’s been kicked off by a mild dose of sniffles, ridiculous but I’m 8mo pg so that tends to send it haywire.
My SVT has also definitely got worse since I packed in the fags last June. It’s just “there” more.

I think my heart is probably okay. There were two occasions yesterday where I got an alarm on my watch because my resting heart rate had gone over 100 - first it was 115, then in the evening it was 145, but these were brief, by the top I got into the app to see what was going on, it had dropped below 100 again. Makes me wonder if it was an error so will keep an eye on it

Generally my resting heart rate is averaging low 70s. Unfortunately the app only records averages over 30 minutes - when it went to 145 last night the average was 99 over half an hour and I was just sitting quietly

Just realised you’re in hospital with it and heavily pregnant too - you poor thing. I really hope you’re feeling better soon

Thank you @deathgrip and good luck with your investigations. X

Thought I’d post now I’ve got my thyroid test results back, in case this is useful to anyone.

By the time the kit arrived to take the sample some of my symptoms had slowed down (BP was stable, fewer fluctuations in heart rate, fatigue had worsened, sex drive had buggered off again etc). Which is super annoying because this afternoon, my heart rate and BP are up and down again.

Everything is in normal range so in isolation it all seems fine. However, from everything I’ve read the results seem odd.

TSH has more than halved (was 3.9, now 1.65), but FT4 has gone up (was 12.4, now 16.5, range is 12-22). FT3 is always up and down but was 4.3 a few months ago, now 5.6 (normal range 3.1 - 6.8). TPO antibodies 10.4, TGAb

Good luck. Tha ks for the update. Following as experiencing something similar.