Getting myself fixed

Last Monday I went to my first appointment with my new endocrinologist. She was the first doctor to say something that made me feel not crazy.

I got vaccinated back in April of last year with my second shot in May. Pretty normal stuff. A few days later when I was out on a ride on my bike I noticed that my heart rate was higher than normal on that hill. I persevered and made it to the top. Over the next six months that happened with increasing frequency. In November I was on a very easy ride, maybe 100W if you're into numbers, and my heart rate was going crazy. On my way back home, skipping any hills, my heart rate topped out over 200 BPM.

This was concerning.

I started putting off calling a doctor like so many guys. Ennie convinced me to go, thankfully.

The first doctor when told that "I think it might be due to the vaccine?", well he just responded somewhat reflexively that "the vaccine is safe and effective; now go see a cardiologist."

The second doctor, the cardiologist, did a bunch of tests. It turns out I was in atrial fibrillation maybe 1% of the time. He put me on calcium channel blockers. When asked about potential vaccine connections he was a bit more circumspect: "there are so many things that can cause this, it may be, it may not be, but the vaccines are a good thing."

The results of the blood tests from the first doc finally came in: hyperthyroidism. A bunch of annoyance later I finally got an appointment.

She asked when I started getting these symptoms. "Doctor, please don't hate me for this, and I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but I started getting this right after my second vaccination." I was already setting this up to fail. "Oh, I've seen a bit uptick in thyroid issues along with a bunch of autoimmune diseases. It can cause thyroiditis, Grave's Disease, Hashimoto's Disease. Whenever someone comes in with something I start having to ask around to see if anyone else has seen that."

I swear I was being gaslighted for the past couple of months and I was going crazy.

It doesn't solve anything just by that, but it at least makes me feel better.