Chronic Life, Chronic Thoughts

I don't use the term 'chronic thoughts' lightly in this title. I also don't, exactly, mean it in the sense that they're thoughts specifically dealing with any particular chronic illness, but rather chronically recurring thoughts that crop up of their own accord, cause me to fixate on them for a length of time, and eventually taper off again.

I'm sure I'm not the only Spoonie that feels this way, or that has these sorts of chronic thoughts, especially after a round of testing. Some of you may be aware that I recently had a thyroid ultrasound, and the ultrasound, while finding many small nodules and cysts and two quite large cysts/nodules (each is 1cm), none of them, per the report, are suspicious.

The problem is, I haven't been able to get the alarm bells in my head to stop ringing. I last had an ultrasound about 5 years ago, and there were only a couple of tiny nodules then. I've been on thyroid hormone treatment since my dx of hypothyroid/thyroiditis, but recently I've been experiencing a lot of pain in and around my thyroid, as though it's trying to push itself out of the sides of my neck. My voice is getting progressively more hoarse, and swallowing is becoming a bit more bothersome, as though I'm trying to swallow around something lodged in my throat, and my energy level is in the toilet.

My T4 is in the normal range (I'm not sure why T3 wasn't tested) however my TSH is extremely low - 0.040 (Normal is 0.270-4.200). My symptoms would indicate, if anything, my thyroid is being under-treated but the blood work would suggest either over-treatment or a pituitary issue (which is one reason why I've an appointment with an endocrinologist this month.)

I'm not usually one to worry after I get an 'everything's okay' report from a scan. But this time, I can't stop worrying. It's a persistent niggling in the back of my mind that at times rises to a near panic. The last time I had an unshakable worry about my own health, it was just before they'd caught the hypothyroidism. Now I'm left wondering if perhaps they'd missed something on the ultrasound, or if they should have done a biopsy on one or both of the large nodules. If there may be cancer they didn't catch on the scan. All sorts of fun thoughts.

To that end, I have an appointment with an ENT this month as well, for a second opinion. The pain in my throat is so bad sometimes that I can't sleep at night without an ice pack across it. It's, honestly, getting pretty ridiculous. If he even suggests a thyroidectomy I'm going to jump on it. It's not as though I won't be taking thyroid hormones the rest of my life, anyway.

The hard part, really, is getting my brain to stop running itself in circles, to stop re-thinking the same thoughts over and over, the same obsessive whirlwind of worries that I can do nothing about. It's hard not to worry, which is the weird part, for me. I don't usually actively worry over my own medical issues - it's business as usual for me. But this time... I can't stop, and that's the biggest red flag of all, to me, that there's something wrong.

We Spoonies are usually pretty in tune with our bodies. We have to be, really, to be able to get through the day. To know what's chronic pain and what's an injury. So it makes sense, also, that we would be able to know when our bodies are trying to tell us something that we can't feel, I think.

A Question For Vegetarians/Vegans

Firstly, I apologize for any spelling errors, grammatical mistakes or words that simply don't belong. I'm writing this post on my Droid and autocorrect is a bitch as we all know lol.

That being said, I have a question for former meat-eating vegans and vegetarians. Well, I suppose it's a series of questions technically. Can you recommend any good meat-replacement products? I mean like... veggie bacon that tastes at least somewhat close to bacon. Veggie burgers that taste close to beef. Veggie chicken ... you get the idea.

I would like to eliminate more meat and animal products from my diet, and while I can't go fully meatless (my IBS screams at a vegetarian diet and will have me dehydrated in no time from the amount of time spent on the toilet, and also seems to interfere with the amount of iron and calcium I absorb from plant based food as I tend to become both anemic and calcium deficient in spite of eating foods rich in both and taking supplements) I would like to go as close to it as I can. I want to do this not only for my health but for the health of this planet. I'm not fool enough to think that one person ceasing to eat meat or only rarely consuming it will have any impact upon the number of animals killed for meat production, so saving animal lives isn't really on the list of the whys. I do hope that in the long run the joint effort among all of us that are quitting or cutting down will reduce the number of animals raised and thus reduce greenhouse gasses, but that's just a hope.

Anyway. I've tried boca burgers and found them pretty okay but not great so I could use suggestions there. Veggie bacon that doesn't taste like smoke flavored vinyl would be amazing. I've yet to try veggie chicken or vegan cheese (is that even a thing? If so where the hell do I get it?) So suggestions for those are welcome too.

All in all, I'm aware that it won't taste the same as the real deal, but close or at least tasty enough to substitute is good for me. I know meats tend to cause inflammation in the body too and I have enough of that already lol.

Thanks in advance!