It’s not a tumor, so what is it?

Last Updated on May 9, 2023 by Amanda Brooks

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In the last episode of Amanda’s Hormones Gone Wild, it was declared that I’d simply gone through menopause. This bizarre statement for someone my age is always followed by the very logical question “what are you doing about it?” My answer…NOTHING.

After getting past the initial results of my hormone issues and working with a doctor who was quite frankly stumped by my lack of a pituitary tumor, I stopped going to doctors and invested more time in things I could fix like my digestion {learn how it impacts our total health}.

I was tired of being poked and prodded.

I wanted to cultivate the mind-body connection for health and stop thinking about it!

All of that is fantastic, but a little bit head in the sand too. I wasn’t paying any attention to how my out of whack hormones might be effecting other things.
Between training, travel and life I started to recognize something was off again, which is why I reached out to Kristina at Diet Diva’s for sports nutrition advice.

I’d hoped with ALCAT testing and more nutrition improvements my fatigue would improve along with my performance. The only real way to know if any of it worked was to get a good baseline. I touched on the first part of that with the Bod Pod testing, but luckily I went a step farther to get my blood work done.

Which brings us to what’s happening now…

TIME FOR A TUNE UP
Cars usually come with a 12,000 mile warranty, which makes me think that since my body has now passed 12,000 miles in the last 7 years I should take a look under the hood and see how everything is holding up…or at least duct tape anything that’s falling down.

I wanted hard numbers for gauging results of working with a sports dietitian. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Physical
Full blood work for hormones, vitamins, iron, etc
ALCAT food sensitivity testing {read about it}
Bod Pod testing {read about it}

PHYSICAL
Paper gown? Really? My brain was doing mental gymnastics: “I’m not in high school, I don’t need a physical”. The nurse then pointed out that’s how insurance would pay for the blood work and I stripped nearly before she left the room.

Unfortunately it was an immediate sign of not the right doctor…

Dr: So menopause? You just mean you don’t get your period.
Me: No I don’t produce any estrogen.
Dr: Yeah we’ll just call it amenoria {loss of period}
Dr: So when was your last period
Me: Uhh 2009
Dr: Ok, you’ll need to take a pregnancy test

Clearly not on the same page, but they happily sucked out my blood for the tests I needed. And yes I’ll be asking to work with someone else in the future.

BLOOD WORK
Here’s where things got interesting…

After repeating some of the blood work, it was determined I should head off to a hematologist to discuss why my platelet count was so far below the normal ranges. Pulling out some old tests, I noticed my levels had dropped by 50% in the last two years.

That’s probably not good.

It’s not catastrophic either, which is why I’m glad I got a great Dr. who took the time to really speak with me about the results and what we should do next.

We discussed how I’m currently feeling:

Fatigued
Vertigo
Every run entirely too hard
Hard to focus
Low blood pressure
Feeling down

Based on this he decided to run some additional tests, I’ll be getting a liver and kidney scan then touching base again at the end of October.

At that point I’ll likely be hustling off to an endocrinologist because we both agree that seems to be the root of my problem. Right now, I’m still not overly concerned because I don’t have anything to be concerned about..worry when you’ve got something to worry about!In the end all I really want is more happy moments with this man, the freedom to run with joy and being a little more focused again wouldn’t hurt either. I’m going to continue meditating, working on taking life as it comes and all the things that I CAN control about my health because no matter what the blood work says I know those choices make it all infinitely better.

As always I’m sharing this as a reminder to push for answers when you aren’t feeling quite right and of course to know it always works out one way or another.

When was your last physical?

How do you gauge your health?

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