Half year later and still doing fine!

2024-01-24

A little late with the latest results of my latest annual physical and follow-up with my endocrinologist.

Long story short, not much is different from when I was on meds to now being off meds. My BP at the time of my physical was 125/76, heart rate was 49 (it’s only been this low when I was running and my all time low was a calm 42 bpm), cholesterol at 175, weight at 161.2 lbs.

My thyroid levels still gives my endocrinologist fits but as I’m still asymptomatic, there was little he could offer to make me want to irradiate or surgically remove my thyroid. The TSH was again below 0.005 (0.165 at the last half year check), T4 at a modestly high 2.20 (1.67) and T3 within the ‘normal’ at 171 (106).

We also had another bone density test performed as one of the side effects to Graves is osteoporosis. Rather than losing bone mass, I managed to gain 11.1% in the spine, 4.4 % at my femur and a total mean improvement of 6.6% since the last test in Aug of 2020.

As a last Hail Mary, he warns me of the risk for heart problems but, as you can already see from my physical, that doesn’t appear to be presenting itself either.

To his credit, he recognizes that there is little he can do for me without further consent and so we agreed to reduce my endocrinology visits to annually but maintain doing blood tests bi-annually and to contact him if there were any changes to my condition.

Personally, I think my best medicine has been to stay active every day and that’s not a problem living here in The Villages, and particularly with the sport of pickleball. On top of playing, I’m one of the instructors for The Villages run practice sessions, I have my own practice group that meets 3 times a week, I’m a referee for when The Villages has tournaments, and since last summer, I host my own weekly tournaments every Sunday with 18 teams with skill levels going from beginners to advanced play. I’ve picked up golfing again and, when I have time, I squeeze volleyball into the mix.

Yeah, I’m busy but I wouldn’t have it any other way!