Jerzee, I really thought about what you posted. I asked myself if I honestly was just jealous of her success. I don't think I'm jealous of her success per se, but rather her success made me question my own abilities. She's a top producer at our office, and I'm lucky to have her as a partner; she's helped me immensely and throws lots of leads and deals my way. I just got home after that day and found myself thinking, "What is WRONG with me?" Like PaigeCT, I was thinking "I *should have* done this-or-that. A "proficient" individual would have done fill_in_the_blank..." I believe that's the root of the whole thing. Her success juxtaposed with my horribly bad open house made me question my own abilities, and made me think that I'd made a mistake, I'd never get it right, I'd screwed everything up, etc. While I know those aren't rational, that's where I was. (Poor DH, when I got home and he asked me how it went, I screamed at him, burst into tears and ran back to the bedroom, leaving him standing there with a cookie crumb dangling from his lips and a bewildered and hurt look on his face.) Fact is, when I'm up, I'm pretty much unstoppable. I don't care what the *facts* are, I can get stuff done. But when my confidence is shaken and I don't believe in myself, the world becomes a very scary place! I just need to chalk that day up for what it was; a learning experience. I need to put on my *big girl pants* and go find someone else to help! (Can you tell I'm beginning to become annoyed with myself? I don't have too much tolerance for being down....) Paige, THANK YOU for sharing your own experience. I really emphasizes "That's how life is", and it wasn't just me!! And Susanfnp, I have to say that I've never thought of my "act now---question later" attributes as being GOOD things. I've always considered my impetuous behaviors to be a bad thing, and so I consequently feel guilty about 99% of the time. You really made me realize that I need to have a different perspective! Almost EVERYTHING I do is done without hesitation, and I honestly never looked at that as being a good quality. Just last week, I got the wild hair to remodel a small powder room. One minute I was telling DH that we needed to pick out tile, and then next minute I had the crowbar in my hand removing the old stuff. I felt TOTALLY guilty for 3 days, as I felt like I was "putting everyone out" and not being a good wife, mother, broker, etc. But you know what? That powder room is finished. In 3 days. Why didn't I see that as a good thing before? Wow. What a catharsis. Nothing like seeing your own mess scrawled in black and white on the WWW for a little introspection!! Honestly, thank you. I really do have a different (and much healthier) perspective. And Pecan, I would NEVER turn down your pound cake. It's to die for!

I woke up with right hand swelling and within weeks the swelling included the left hand. Then it was the right and left foot, right and left knee, back of right and left knee, legs, both forearms and elbows, swollen veins under tongue, swollen eyes from the beginning. My hands will not close so I have no grip but I do have muscle strength. Mid Feb 2011, I started to get short of breath. I do have speckled ANA antibodies but that is it. Nothing else in my blood work is abnormal. They did 2 weeks of in hospital testing (Doppler of legs, vascular study, lymphatic study, CT stomach, Ultrasound stomach and liver, X-ray chest, Echo of heart, pelvic ultrasound, mammogram, CT brain). The doc are giving me prednisone to deal with the swelling symptoms but I think the drug has made me as weak as a kitten and raised my resting heart beat since being sick from 72 bpm to 115 bpm. I think the docs are on the wrong track. Not one doctor will agree to a body MRI. All the symptoms just came on too fast. I will be 50 this year. I am hoping someone out there can relate and share their answers.

I had Graves' disease in the late 80's. (That's overactive thyroid - I lost weight while eating like a pig, which was nice, but my resting heart rate was 112 and I thought I was going nuts, which wasn't so nice.:) The doctors eventually used radioactive iodine to kill my thyroid, so now I'm in a similar situation to you, with an underactive thyroid. Your symptoms sound like your thyroid is definitely underactive, and you'll need a synthetic thyroid hormone, like Synthroid. Sounds like you needed to keep taking it for the Hashimoto's, with the symptoms you're having. It does take awhile to get the meds and dosage right, and it's never perfect, but it's pretty good. One thing to know about synthetic thyroid hormones is that they're not interchangeable. This is one case where you don't want to go with the generic, unless you started with the generic. (At least that was true 4-5 years ago when I last checked - not sure about now.) I do understand your concern with thyroid cancer, given that it's in your family and that Hashimoto's is associated with a higher risk for the cancer. I guess all you can do is to keep up with your treatment and keep in mind that if the worst happens and you do get thyroid cancer, it's one of the most treatable cancers. Very, very few people die of it, even after 30 years. Not that you want to get it, of course. Good luck. I know how awful it is to feel so tired all the time. Even with treatment, you'll have some of that, but you get used to it.

Nodules are common - I think it's 1% of the population. I had a nodule in 1992. After a year on synthroid to suppress the gland, a radioactive iodine tracking test that showed it was "cold" (not producing hormone), and a needle biopsy (benign), they decided to take it out "just in case." I had half the thyroid glad removed, and I've taken replacement hormone ever since. For decades, I was on enough hormone to suppress the gland - "so I wouldn't get another nodule," they told me. But my current doctor isn't doing that, I just take enough to keep the TSH in regular range. I'm telling you all this because it seems that the protocol has changed. It's entirely possible that my surgery wouldn't even be considered necessary today. If you ever did need thyroid surgery (unlikely, from the sound of things now), it's not a big deal - way easier recovery than abdominal surgery - and they put the scar in a natural fold in your neck, so it hardly shows. I know several people my age and older who had surgery for a thyroid nodule earlier in their lives, and none had cancer, and you would never notice their scars unless you were specifically looking for them.