Diagnosis

So, as most of you were told during my trip, I have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism. And--surprise--the muscle pain is caused by muscular breakdown.

I just spoke to my doctor about it, and he says that my TSH levels are "through the roof", and were "one of  the highest levels he's seen". He admitted to regret and dismay ("I'm just kicking myself for not seeing it") and not having run the TSH test earlier. For those of you in the know, the actual TSH number is 331.  ("Generally, a normal range for TSH is between 0.3 and 3.0 mIU/mL" - ibid)

He's going to start me on medication for that tonight. He thinks this should affect everything: the muscles, the hypercholesterolemia... the gamut.  He's not discouraging going to see the neurologist about the muscle-scan next week, though--just in case.  He'll follow up with me in two weeks and if things aren't really improving, we'll shift to an endocrinologist and keep digging... but he's got a few more tests to run himself to rule out the usual causes of hypothyroidism (follow the earlier link to see a few--hashimoto's is the first we'll look into).

So: relatively minor problem.  Not completely in the clear (nor the know) yet, but it could be as simple as "yup, this fixes everything!"  We'll see in two weeks.

Interestingly, I presently find myself most looking forward to not being cold.  Though today, it's really the stiffness that's been bothering me most.