Well, after having a lot of test results shipped down to Pittsburgh because of the atypical nature of them, there is an answer for me and my ongoing thyroid issue. I'm one of those 3% of cases that present with atypical hyperfunctioning colloid nodules and at least one of them is firing off hormones that are telling my body I am in some sort of starvation mode. So this explains why a cold I had several weeks ago left with with more than a month of hoarseness (one of the nodules had swollen and was pressing near the voicebox) and, more importantly for me, why I have ballooned up to giant economy family size despite my ongoing intense exercise efforts. No matter what I eat, my body says, "oh my god... it's the first food in weeks... store every bit of it!" I also am prone to hot flashes. It's like menopause... one minute fine, the next minute the perspiration is everywhere.
Yay.
The good news is I have an answer for what is going on, and these are typically benign and not cancerous. The complicated news is that generalized thyroid hormone therapy is potentially ineffective for me because I do not have traditional hypothyroidism, and as they deal with the nodule issue, that could resolve the hyperfunctionality and then I'd also be on medication for the same thing, and getting off the meds can be a real problem. The bad news is the first stage treatment for this is having ethanol injected into the nodules with teeny tiny needles to shrink them, and then potentially going with radioactive iodine (yum), plus ongoing tests to ensure nothing else pops up.
Whatever. For me, I just want justice on behalf of those like me who can eat a rice cake and gain three pounds vs. selected others who can wolf pizza down and not gain an ounce.
But I shall live, and hopefully with treatment things will resolve. John is going crazy having to deal with my high tuna diet (a can of tuna alone is a typical lunch for me - keep the protein high and the carbs on the low side), and John thinks tuna smells. But I can also have my sushi and eat it too.