Weight Frustration

[KnottedYet]

Chiming in on the thyroid: my aunt gained a bunch of weight when she started having thyroid problems, and she was training for marathons at the time!

[indysteel]

I would definitely talk to another doctor. Have you noticed anything else that seems off with your body? For instance, have you noted any changes in your menstrual cycle? Do you feel fatigued, bloated, moody? Do a physical and mental inventory and share that with your doctor. Also, keep a food journal for a couple of weeks to track your diet more specifically. I find it difficult to believe that you'd gain 40 pounds from sheer overeating in a year's time. I would insist on having a full blood and urine workup as a starting place.

In any event, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. I hope you figure something out soon,

Kate

[indysteel]

I would add that sometimes medication--if you're taking anything new--can cause a weight gain. Interestingly, my sister gained a bunch of weight years ago from various meds she was on for anxiety. She didn't to go off of them because of the side effects and ended losing all the weight and then some. I turned out that she's had Grave's Disease (hyperthyroidism) that has presented itself as panic attacks and the meds had masked the most obvious sign of the disease--rapid weight loss. If she hadn't gone of the meds, she would have eventually gotten even sicker. Kind of crazy!

[Eden]

Lots of women (and some men too) are hypothyroid - symptoms: (you don't need to have all of them! some people only have 1)

Fatigue
Weakness
Weight gain or increased difficulty losing weight
Coarse, dry hair
Dry, rough pale skin
Hair loss
Cold intolerance (can't tolerate the cold like those around you)
Muscle cramps and frequent muscle aches
Constipation
Depression
Irritability
Memory loss
Abnormal menstrual cycles
Decreased libido

[Meaux]

Indysteel-I am all of the above. Eden-I have like 8 of those symptoms. I don't know if I'm just making things up, the way sometimes people do when they diagnose themselves on the Internet. I feel exhausted most of the time, and am moody and irritable, despite the anti-depressants that I'm on. I've also started having dandruff, which I never had before and my face has started breaking out more. (I used to only get one monster pimple right before my period.) The libido has been practically zero and I've had almost constant yeast infections for the past few months. (I've always been pretty cold-intolerant and have struggled with depression for as long as I can remember.) I'm not the best eater, don't get me wrong, but I have tried to be more conscious about what's going in my mouth. Before I started cycling, the only exercise I ever really got was walking to the fridge and back, now I'm trying to bike at least once a week (for a couple hours at a time, it's not much, but I work a lot and I am trying to do it more.) and I'm also supplementing the biking with Pilates. I try to exercise for at least half an hour a day, five times a week. Could this have anything to do with the meds I'm on? I'm on Effexor for depression and Seasonale. I know that weight gain comes with both of those, but I had always heard that it was not a HUGE amount. Thanks for listening to me, ladies, it's nice to know that this isn't all in my head and that I'm just a pig or making bad food choices constantly.

[KnottedYet]

It might be a good idea to get your thyroid checked.

Mine got checked when my celiac last flared up, just in case. I think it was just a blood test for me.

[SalsaMTB]

Definitely go get checked out. I would recommend going to a general practitioner or something like that if you have one. If you don't have anything medically wrong, it will at least clear your mind and hopefully your doctor can recommend you to a nutritionist. 40 lbs in one year seems like an awful lot.

Something I've learned recently is not to trust one doctors opinion, listen to your body and take charge.

[makbike]

I'd also encourage you to see another doctor and have them test your thyroid. It took me two years to have my thyroid condition diagnosed and only after I found an endrocrinologist who would see me without a referral from my GP. You might request they also test you for antibodies that are associated with Hashimoto's disease - my TSH was normal but my antibodies were sky high. Just a suggestion of course.

I too gained a lot of weight though my eating habits had not changed and I was exercising on a daily basis for at least 40 minutes. I was extremely tired (literally fell asleep talking to students and could not drive to Louisville because I could not stay awake), my skin was extremely dry, I was always cold and I had a very hard time staying focused. It was a huge relief to finally find a doctor who would listen to me and not base everything on numbers on a lab report. It was even a bigger relief to find out I was not crazy nor was I depressed as had been suggested by my GP. My life has improved 1000% since I started taking my medication for my thyroid disease and I gladly take that little pink pill every morning. Oh what a difference it has made.

Good luck and keep us posted.