Well, I just had the scariest moment of my entire life.
H is gone on a backcountry ski trip this weekend. Since H doesn't eat red meat, I never make it, but I know S19 likes it sometimes, so for a treat I made steaks for us tonight. Sure enough, like a COMPLETE IDIOT, I choked on a piece of steak!!! S19 was doing the Heimlich on me, but it wasn't budging, so I told (kinda sign-languaged) S14 to call 911. I seriously thought I was gonna die right there in my kitchen in front of my three kids!
Finally, just as they were about to dispatch an ambulance, S19's efforts were successful and dislodged the piece of steak. Thank God he was here.
Lessons learned: - I will never eat steak again without cutting it up into itty bitty pieces. - I'll never eat steak when home alone - Please, all of you, make sure your kids know the Heimlich maneuver the way mine do - even little kids can learn it. And make sure they know to send someone to call for 911 right away - that ambulance seems MIGHTY far away when you're choking, and minutes could make a difference.
Thanks, WCW. It was absolutely terrifying. Poor S19 has always had anxiety about losing his mommy too - used to just burst out in tears when he was 5 at the thought that someday his mom would die before him. He was pretty shook up about it for the rest of the evening.
Thanks SG. It's funny - years ago, H almost drowned in a surfing accident at some nearby cliffs. He was fine, but pretty shook up. Just a few days ago, a man did drown under the same conditions in the same spot. So we were just thinking this week about H's close call - now i have my own.
(If any of you guys notice me start slipping into a MLC now, just slap me silly, okay??? )
Ellie, so glad that you are alright and thanks so much for the info. Ellie, if you don't mind, i would like to ask our resident doc here a question. I have a daughter that is 20. She has always been on the petite side, short and wore a size 3 most times. Well here about 2 months ago, all of a sudden she has gained weight really quickly. Mostly from her waist down and especially her thighs. Her eating habits at home have not changed to make her gain weight like that and i have asked her if she is doing or eating anything different at work to make her gain weight. She has said no. I am really worried. Her thighs look like they could just explode. To me she seems to just be so blotted. I had her ask her doc to do a thyroid test on her, and it came back fine. She had many of the clues for it. Wanting to sleep all the time, cold when everyone else is hot and more. I have asked her to go by and get a copy of the test to see what tests they actually did. I don't have any idea what to suggest they check now, but i feel that something is not right for her to gain weight so fast for no reason at her age. My mom was a diabetic, but she seems to have no signs of that. I would venture to guess that she has gained at least 30 lbs in the last month or so. I do know that she had been getting the birth control shot for quite a while and had stopped getting it.Someone had told her that it made you gain 5 lbs everytime that you got the shot so she quite. Not taking anything that i know of, and not pregant either.
Thanks for taking the time and i hope that i am not bothering you. Sonni ( i am over in Midlife )
That kind of sudden weight gain certainly can happen with undiagnosed hypothyroidism. A well-known patient advocate, Mary Shomon, talks about gaining 30 lbs in the months before her wedding from her undiagnosed hypothyroidism (can you imagine how disheartening??? Dieting and still having to have your wedding dress let out?).
If your mother's diabetes is type I (insulin-dependent) then that does increase the risk slightly that your D might have thyroid disease.
Let's see what test was done on your D. Most likely they only checked a TSH. This is often done as a screening test, but can be inadequate sometimes for two reasons: - some people may have borderline normal TSH but still have symptoms of thyroid disease - in some of these cases, their TSH levels have not caught up to their falling thyroid levels yet. New guidelines for what is considered normal were approved a couple of years ago but still controversial, so sometimes the doctor or lab may be using the old standards.
- a second possibility which can be missed by just testing the TSH is secondary hypothyroidism, due not to failure of the thyroid gland, but failure of the pituitary to send the TSH message to the thyroid. These people, instead of having a typical hypothyroid picture of high tSH/low T4, will have normal (or low) TSH and low T4.
Ideally, they would check her TSH, free T4, and free T3, along with thyroid antibodies, but that is seldom done. You usually have to specifically request that they all be done. Total T4 levels can be falsely high in women taking birth control pills - I imagine the same error can occur with the shot, but don't know that for sure. Free T4 measures the actual amount of working thyroid hormone, instead of the amount bound to protein (which is the inactive storage form).
Weight gain is a side effect of Depo-Provera - if it is due to this, the gain should gradually stop as the hormones wear off, although she may have to work at diet and exercise to get back to her original weight.
Cushing's disease is another, rarer cause of unexplained weight gain - abnormally high cortisol levels due to adrenal or pituitary problems. Causes weight gain in a pattern similar to people who have to take steroids like prednisone for a long time - moon face, fatty back of the neck called a "buffalo hump", apple shape. This doesn't sound as much like your D.
Has she really gained 30 lbs. without ANY increased puffiness in her face? If so, then I might also wonder about a real longshot. I once knew a woman who had an extensive DVT (blood clot) in the veins of her pelvis while pregnant that affected both her legs. This would be really rare, though - most DVTs affect one leg or the other - I just throw it in because of your comments about how oddly distributed you thought her weight gain was. (Then again if she's naturally a "pear" like me - that's where we store our excess weight ).
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