Thyroid study update

It has been a few months since I started on the first "mystery medicine" in the hypothyroid medication research study.  I am pretty sure the first medication I was on was Armour (natural desiccated pig thyroid).  I say this because I felt vastly different on it than I had when I was on the Synthroid.  My hands were warm for what feels like my entire life.  I had the switch appointment with my endocrinologist yesterday and my blood work was discussed.  My cholesterol on Synthroid was way too high and fluxuating.  I was on Lopid and Lipitor and I was still having problems keeping it from going up.  This was really frustrating for me, I am of normal weight, active, eat well etc....  Just seemed so not fair and totally not in my control.  Well the few months on what I think is the natural thyroid medication my cholesterol was almost perfect!  Something I have not been able to do for years.

At the "switch" appointment I also had to redo the memory intelligence test.  While I still fought with the anxiety that comes with feeling dumb enough to only lick rocks, I think I did better.  The test is designed to max out anyone's memory.  Leaving you with a feeling that you just are not measuring up to some intelligence standard chart that you are not allowed to see.  The Dr kept telling me I was doing fine and that I should just have fun with it.  That was not going to happen.  I do think that the new medication helped increase my short term memory and my memory capacity.  The other thing I noticed was I was able to make better decisions on how to memorize things.  I could quickly come up with a plan for choosing what to remember.

Previously I would look at the grid of 20 slots and the 8 tiles of different designs and attempt to remember the placement of the tiles and all 8 designs in the allotted 10 seconds which as you can imagine is impossible.  This time I was able to concentrate only on the 8 designs and with pretty good accuracy chose them out of the stack of decoys and chose the actual designs that were on the grid.

I am now on "mystery medication" number 2.  Which I am pretty sure is Synthroid again.  I will take it for a few months and go back again for a round of blood work and the mental memory test again to see if the changes are solely from the different medications.  When I complete the study I can tell the Dr which one I preferred and go on that medication.  Right now I am leaning highly toward the first medication I took.