A man came to see the village rabbi. "Rebbe," he said, "my house is too small. We have 4 children, a mother-in-law, and my wife and me in three small rooms, and I can’t stand it. The rabbi said, "Bring the horse into the house for the week and come back and see me." The man did as he said, and came in kvetching loudly: "That horse takes up the whole kitchen. He poops all over the place. It makes it worse." And the rabbi said, "Bring in the cow." Each week, the man came back. Each week the rabbi prescribed more animals. Finally, after 6 weeks, during which the horse, the cow, the dog, the chickens, and two more cows had moved in, the man returned, in absolute despair. "Rebbe, I can’t stand it. It’s dirty, it’s filthy, it’s noisy, and there is no where to stand, sit, or sleep in the entire house." So the rabbi said, "Take all the animals back to the barn and clean up the mess." Two days later the man came back. "Rebbe, I don’t know what happened, but my house is now a palace. It’s huge, clean, quiet, and perfect. Thank you!"

That’s what happened when my doctor took me off girl hormones for a week, so that she could get a clearer picture of what was happening. I lost much more cognition. I was monumentally irritable and/or weepy. My energy cut out at 3 in the afternoon and came back at 10 pm. I had to cancel some late afternoon clients, toward the end of the week, because I didn’t have the brain to see them. The hot flashes all day and all night didn’t help much. And a few days after the blood test, when I resumed the hormones, I could think, sleep (mostly) and not want to kill anybody. But I feel so much better.

I’ve done a lot of research about Graves. My eyes aren’t bugging out and I don’t have goiters. I do have the cognitive troubles, sleep problems, and fatigue. I’m not anxious, per se, but any triggers, a car coming too close or a loud noise occurring, make me jump out of my skin. Few web sites talk about the emotional roller-coaster part, but people who have had these problems say that they’ve had those symptoms. I don’t have the weight loss part either, the only symptom I was looking forward to. In about a week, I’ll see a specialist and find out what he says to do. In the mean time, I’ve knocked seafood, kelp, and iodized salt out of my diet, and switched to grass-fed organic meat sources. I’ll keep you posted.