Test results

I went to get my pulmonary function tests done today. My doctor ordered a spirometry test to see if I have some form of asthma. (For those of you who do not know what that is, please click here.) The nurse/technician/lady administered the test 3 times. First it was the "normal test." She smiled at the results and said I had fantastic lungs. The numbers she gave me were "113% of capacity, 125% of capacity...." which apparently were fantastic. She said, based on those numbers, continuing with the test would be silly because it appears that I don't need it.

But she did understand that this was an "exercise induced thing" and that my sypmtoms don't show up unless my system is "stressed." I told her that I didn't mind running up and down the hallway, and that's just what she made me do. About 5 minutes in, I wasn't feeling terrible but I also couldn't get a full sentence out without stopping every 3rd word or so. We came back and did the test again. Believe it or not, my numbers were actually better than before! Can you believe it? I was breathing hard, not quite gasping, but my lung capacity was apparently better? Weird.

She then gave me some medication and we did the test again. And....can you believe it.....the numbers were even better?!?!? What!? She didn't quite get it either. But we talked more about it and she said she would go over the results with a pulmonologist and send them to my regular doctor.
We then got on to a conversation about my thyroid. She was looking at my blood test results from last week (which came back normal by the way) and was checking out my numbers. The oxygen-carrying parts of my blood are on the low end of the scale. Which is strange. But she also noticed that my thyroid numbers were up. The top number in that range is 5 and my number is 4.75. From what she told me, that's not good. She said she was diagnosed with an autoimmune thyroid disease and her numbers weren't even as high as mine. She then referred me to a website that lists thyroid disease symptoms.

Now, I'm convinced I have some kind of thyroid disease. I told you I'm slightly hypochondriac-y! I will probably obsess over this one until I see my doctor again next month. It will probably turn out to be nothing....but my symptoms match thyroid symptoms better than they do anemia symptoms and you saw how well that went. Ugh.

This may turn out to be a diagnosis of "just get your lazy ass off the couch and quit complaining already." Or it may be that there is somehting wrong. Either way, it will cost money to figure it out.

So....until then. I will continue using that inhaler before I run (because that is also what this nurse/technician/lady said this might all turn out to be).