I was saddened when my doctor left his practice several years ago. He was a terrific doctor and I had been going to him for many years. But I was healthy and I rarely went to a doctor anyways.
A year or so later I noticed that I was feeling exhausted and my wife felt I seemed depressed. I spoke with our marriage counsellor and she suggested I see a doctor to determine if there was anything medically wrong with me. A new practice was being set-up and I made an appointment with a doctor that had recently come to town. He was Iranian and told me that he took his job very seriously and planned to live in my town for a long time. He sent me to the lab for a comprehensive set of tests and two weeks later we reviewed the results. The lab had found I had low Thyroid functioning but the doctor told me that I wasn’t Hypothyroid because my glucose levels were fine. There is often a connection between thyroid functioning and glucose levels and he reassured me we should ignore the findings. This opinion was unfortunate and had huge implications beyond what I could imagine.
The doctor thought I seemed lethargic and said he wanted to closely monitor my condition. He kept doing tests and over the next year I seemed to visit his office at least twice a month. However, I continued to feel tired, depressed, gained weight and was cold sensitive - all classic symptoms of Hypothyroidism. At one point the doctor told me that my problems were psychological and were likely due to problems in my marriage. He even asked me to bring my wife to the next appointment because he wanted to do marriage counseling - I told him we already were going to a marriage counsellor who was a licensed psychologist. Nothing seemed to improve and my lack of energy and depression gradually worsened. My body felt out of control and prevented me from doing things I had always loved like hiking and skiing. I started carrying candies when I went for walks because I found I quickly lost energy and felt light headed. Finally I came to the conclusion that it must be what it feels like to get older and was something I needed to accept. I went to the doctor less frequently and tried to get a long as best as I could.
During this time my marriage of more than twenty years started to unravel and in many ways my condition was the straw that broke its back. We had our problems but things seemed to intensify and worsen. Eventually I felt so horrible I decided to leave and while the divorce was nasty it was resolved relatively quickly. I moved into a small rental and adjusted to being a divorced dad. I started to blame my lack of energy and depression on the divorce and hoped I would soon start to feel better over time.
Eventually the Iranian Doctor quit his practice and moved out of the country. He told me he was moving because the winters were too cold and long and he had received a good offer elsewhere. A few weeks after he left I started hearing rumors that he wasn’t qualified to practice medicine in Canada.
Several months later I found another doctor and made sure she was credentialed. I Googled her and was pleased to see she had received academic awards while at medical school and had a lot of positive comments from former patients. Within a few visits she called me to review my test results. She told me was that I was pre-diabetic and suggested I consider taking Diabetes medication. Then she told my that my TSH levels were too low and I was Hypothyroid. I was stunned and didn’t know how to respond. We decided to treat the Hypothyroidism and hopefully in time my glucose levels would improve. I started taking Synthroid and almost immediately began feeling better. Finally I had energy and felt much more optimistic and happy.
Soon afterwards I went to a writing retreat in southern Spain for a couple of months. The sun and warmth invigorated me and I was hiking many miles each day on goat trails through the Andalusian mountains. Within a few months my glucose levels improved and I felt better than I had in years. It was like a light had been turned on. I no longer felt cold, lethargic and depressed and I was slowly losing weight too. Fortunately I hadn’t developed other problems such as diabetes and I was recovering.
Every day I wake feeling great. Then I become angry at the years I endured untreated Hypothyroidism and all the opportunities that were lost. My kids are now in their late teens and have memories of me was as lethargic and depressed for several years. I sometimes wonder if the Iranian doctor deliberately kept me sick so he could bill thousands of dollars worth of visits? But I prefer to think he was just incompetent and/or unqualified and hurt me unintentionally.
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