You know, I just continually have all these reasons to be eternally grateful for the excellent healthcare I have here in Korea. As I said, the doctor tested my blood & urine, & brought me these charts & results & discussed everything with me, which she does whenever she does tests. She suggests supplements I should get, & tells me it's best to order them from the US because they're better quality. But it's also that she really is attuned to what people who have Hashimoto's deal with. I'm INSANELY lucky-- except for the midpoint of getting my initial dosage right after my diagnosis, I've never suffered from the symptoms, constant symptoms, that ALL these other people (mainly women), deal with. My anxiety & depression are definitely stronger because those are both symptoms of it. But apart from that, I really haven't experienced them, even when I've been hypothyroid, whether a little or a lot. & many people have these symptoms when their T3& T4 levels are normal.
Many people with Hashimoto's, as well as people in the paleo community, but especially within the autoimmune, will go on & on about adrenal fatigue. They'll talk about their sensitivity to wheat or milk or whatever. & the doctors will tell them there's no connection to food, they're not celiac (I was tested within a year or two of my diagnosis since I'd been reading up, & the doctor told me I'm definitely not allergic to wheat). I asked about being tested for adrenal fatigue... the doctor was a little irritated, but there IS a test & she ran it & I was fine (but you know, a good 6-7 years ago).
When I see my doctor here, she'll say, "Oh yes, people with Hashimoto's tend to have problems with dairy or wheat," or she'll ask how my symptoms are when I'm a little hypo. At my latest appointment, she was curious about my cellular metabolism (I THINK?), & ran some test where they put these clamps on both wrists & 1 ankle. It measured my pulse, the cellular metabolism I guess... & showed I have adrenal fatigue, which means I need some enzyme. But thanks to the extra tests & of course grocery shopping, I have to make $100 last through 2 dinners out & food this long weekend plus for next week, then around $30 for the week after that. Ohhhh, and it was my bank's turn to do "an update" on a holiday weekend, so I had to take out all the cash I'll need on Friday because Saturday through Monday, my atm & debit card won't work. We foreigners (mainly) must use cash. Every bank in Korea pulls shit like this. Of course, everything here is STILL run on internet explorer, if you can EVEN believe it, THAT is what they use here. It's a whole thing. But anyway, I went to the pharmacy, where I got 2 weeks' worth of: antiobiotic pills (2/day for a week) for my rosacea breakout; 6 primrose oil pills/day (which is usually more than enough to keep my skin clear); my thyroid pills; this pill for stress due to high cortisol & adrenal fatigue (twice/day); & iron pills. Interestingly the pharmacist speaks more & more English with me when I see her, & she told me the primrose pills she gives to her husband & son, 10/day (!!!) & their seasonal allergy symptoms are pretty much gone. She suggested asking my doctor about that. As I always do during & after my visits, I marvel at how the clamp test plus seeing the doc to discuss all these tests in-depth, plus looking at iHerb for supplements I should look for & order, all cost $22. That list of meds cost me $8, because after the government negotiates the prices with all drug makers so people outside the US pay far less for most meds anyway, it was $28, but the pharmacist pointed out that the government covered an additional $20 of the price, hence the $8 for 2 weeks of lots of pills.
When I think about leaving Korea in just over a year, my anxiety kicks into high gear: I have to figure out how to get a job, preferably online/remote, which means freelance & no insurance; how to get MORE LOANS to get certified to teach & live for a year or so in the US. It's nearly impossible to find a remote job with insurance. But EVEN IF I DID get a job with insurance? I can't stomach the idea of going back to that nightmare system. Doctors doubting everything, that deductible bullshit-- what they pull out of my paycheck for the national system here is about $16/MONTH. There's no fucking DEDUCTIBLE-- that $16 is all I pay, then another $3 just to see my GP or ear, nose & throat guy, or an orthopedic (who still seem to be mostly clueless) each visit. & then hoping you also have a prescription discount card to still pay 2-3 times what I pay for the same shit here! Spending 30 minutes with the doctor, who doesn't rush through & talks over everything. Offers me NATURAL ALTERNATIVES to antidepressants if I want to try that before resorting to the drugs (& I will ALWAYS take the natural alternative first), but will write me a prescription for the drugs if I want. That $88 blood work? She checked my liver & kidney function, my cholesterol, my blood sugar (I may be allergic to histamines, AND am getting close to glucose intolerance, common AGAIN with Hashi's, which means much bigger chance of being diabetic. I'd had a bit to drink the night before my blood work, so I'm hoping that's why my blood sugar was 20, & 27 is pre-diabetic), every hormone & vitamin level & all sorts of other shit I can't even remember. I've been thinking about this: do I stay in a place that is possibly/probably making me sicker but also has ways to treat it? Or get out of the bad environment but then have no good, affordable, reliable or consistent way to deal with the health issues that are all there now, regardless of what or how they were brought on? The national heathcare here is PRECISELY WHY I can understand staying here for 10 years or more, as so many teachers do (& they DON'T have the health problems I do).
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