“Almost instantly after beginning treatment, both Clyde and I felt a sense of well being. I feel human” – Niki B.
In 1986, our son was killed by a drunk driver, my father-in-law died and my father died, all within a year. I think the stress just did me in. I began a downward spiral which I attributed to mourning. My exhaustion worsened; my periods became irregular; I started gaining weight; my sex drive decreased; I woke with a headache every morning; I had heart palpitations, constipation, and my sleeping habits reversed. I couldn’t sleep, and as it progressed I couldn’t get out of bed. Some days it would take me 2 hours just to get the energy to get out of bed. But the problem with getting out of bed wasn’t lack of sleep. It was as if my life was drained out of me. I just didn’t care.
After our son had been dead 3 years, I began to wonder why I wasn’t getting better. I felt like this just wasn’t mourning. I thought perhaps that I was going through menopause. I saw my GYN. He said that I wasn’t going through menopause, but he did put me on hormones and said maybe they would help make my periods more regular. They didn’t. Things got worse. I stopped taking the pill.
My mother came for a visit. In her late 30’s she’d had a thyroid problem and it was removed. She looked at me and heard my problems and told me it sounded like her behavior when her thyroid went bad. So I went to see my general practitioner and he took one blood test and said nothing was wrong. I started becoming paranoid. My husband and I started yelling at each other, which was something we had never done in 25 years of marriage. I felt like everyone was against me. I wanted to run away.
In the meantime, my husband, Clyde, was going through a very similar problem. All his life he has been obese. When he was 5 years old the doctor put him on 3 grams of thyroid a day and that was the only time he wasn’t obese. When his folks moved they couldn’t get the prescription filled again so he was no longer on thyroid. After the year of death, Clyde started to get lethargic. He couldn’t work more than 4 to 5 hours a day without collapsing in front of the TV.
While he became more and more lethargic, I became a bundle of nervous irritation. I couldn’t sit in front of a TV without wanting to scream. Knowing Clyde needed thyroid medicine, I insisted he have his blood checked. The general practitioner said he didn’t have any problems and Clyde got worse. He started having terrible acid indigestion and a spastic colon. He got depressed and would stay that way for days. All this deeply affected our behavior towards each other and towards our lives. We couldn’t take any kind of stress without blowing up. Increasingly, I was thinking our marriage was over and that we should call it quits. Then I’d think, no, there is something wrong. My behavior isn’t logical and neither is Clyde’s.
We went to a health food type of doctor. He took our blood and took our temperatures. Our blood was fine, but Clyde’s temperature was 96.7 and mine 97.7. He explained how tricky thyroid tests were, and because of our low body temperatures, he assumed we had a problem and put us on an over-the-counter health food thyroid pill as well as other things to help Clyde’s digestion.
It seemed to help for a little while, then we started the downward spiral again. Clyde got really bad. I thought he was going to commit suicide, so I asked his mom, who also had no thyroid and was taking thyroid pills, if we could try her pills to see if they would help Clyde. When he began taking her thyroid, his spirits lifted. He began working again. He took the thyroid for two months, but then began to feel guilty about doing it without a doctor’s permission so he went off it for a month and then went into a doctor again to see about getting his own prescription. Again, the doctor said his blood was fine and Clyde began to slide downhill again.
About this time I began reading about chronic fatigue syndrome and wondered if this was my problem and what I had to look forward to for the rest of my life. I became more depressed. I knew I had to do something. I wanted to run away but couldn’t. Or maybe I could commit myself to an institution, but that would cost a fortune.
Then I went to an art show where I met another artist who, without any comments from me on my condition, told me about her problem and how Dr. Wilson had helped her and her son. Well, it sounded pretty weird and unbelievable. Almost instantly after beginning treatment, both Clyde and I felt a sense of well being. I stopped crying. I began to cope with life. Little things stopped overwhelming me. Clyde began working a full day without having to stop and rest. We stopped screaming at each other. Clyde’s temperature is now 98.6 and mine is 98.5. My sleep pattern is good, and I am able to cope with 8 hours of sleep, although 9 hours feels better. The whole thing was so miraculous that it was hard for us to believe.
Other things had seemed to help before, but eventually kind of wore off, and we would end up going downhill again. We wondered if this was just a temporary feeling of help. We felt the true test would be if we could get through our art show season without bone-deep exhaustion and depression. During the 3 months, we earn our year’s income. We work 80 hours a week with no days off, which is exhausting and very stressful. We’ve made it. We are tired, but we are feeling very well and there is no bone-tiredness and depression and we couldn’t have done it, if it weren’t for Dr. Wilson.
The interesting thing about taking the T3 is that it isn’t a high. I don’t feel like I’m on a drug. I still cry, but I can control the emotion. I still get angry, but it’s logical angry. I still get depressed, but it’s not severe and uncontrollable depression. I still have a full range of emotions good and bad. I feel human. What is even more wonderful is that I can say for the first time in my life that when I wake up in the morning, I’m excited about the day that lies ahead of me. Thank you Dr. Wilson. And so now when I meet someone who is complaining of all the same symptoms that I had for so many years, my heart goes out to them and I tell them about Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome. It seems like most people don’t believe me. It’s too good to be true. There really is an answer. I hope your book will help people to understand and believe that it is at least worth a try, then they can make their own decisions.
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