The labour was a protracted and painful one as the baby (we didn't know her gender beforehand) was and remained in a posterior position. We weren't told about this until after the birth and hence had no opportunity to try to correct it beforehand or be prepared for the 23 hours unproductive labour and bone crushing back pain.
Oxygen for the baby and forceps were required and by the time our daughter was delivered, my blood pressure had fallen so low I was shaking too violently to be able to hold her. The bruising I was left with made sitting at all impossible for two months - I had to lie or stand - and I needed support for sitting for six months. This left me with a curved lower spine and its attendant problems and pains.Without once examining me two doctors at my surgery just dismissed my back pain and leg paralysis as down to being an older mum and that I'd just get over it
. Having given up with them but still desperate for help, two years later, I went to an osteopath, who I was with for 18 months. He got me walking much better but my spine would not remain straightened, due to the length of time which had elapsed. He explained that: "basically, your daughter
pushed your spine out of the way whilst trying to get out." Consequently, I still have back, hip and leg problems and pain to this day and I wonder if things might have been different if the doctors had taken any notice?At the same time I began to experience lots more symptoms and pains and lot more severe pains, including my midriff, feet and hands. By 2002 I was so tired and, from being cold all my life, started to have hot flushes and night sweats, which took over my life! Hot flushes could happen at any time, but mega-blasts happened every two hours, day and night: I could set my watch by them; I was getting no sleep!
Still no help from the doctor so carried on researching for myself and discovered I was gluten intolerant - what a difference giving up gluten made! I no longer had such a hard, solid, painful midriff, my fingers and toes would bend and I wasn't walking on tennis balls anymore! Unexpectedly too, I haven't had a bout of bronchitis from that day to this, hardly even a cold..!!!
However, despite this relief, I continued to go downhill, spurred on by a number of terrible events, mostly notably my mother dying a horrible death in hospital. She went into hospital with a problem with her hip replacement and we watched helplessly as she deteriorated in front of our eyes, whilst the medics did nothing.
Only since I have been diagnosed with Hashimoto's, do we now know that she died from undiagnosed hypothyroidism/Hashimoto's. She had been ill for decades with - what I now know - were lots and lots of hypothyroid symptoms (she had the same doctor as me..). We could only watch and badger the doctors as she experienced the full horror of Hashimoto's encephalopathy and horrific hallucinations, with a swollen stomach the size of a beached whale (ascites), before she fell days later into a coma and then died. The medics did absolutely nothing and had no idea what killed her: we had to go especially to get the death certificate in time for the funeral as they tried to decide what to put - it states a number of minor things, none of which could kill anyone.
Talking years later to the same surgery nurse who took my blood as my mum's, I discovered mum's bloods were considered 'normal' and she never had an antibodies test done (the nurse had never heard of Hashimoto's).
So, my mum was subclinical hypothyroid by blood tests, but ragingly hypothyroid by symptoms, features and concomittant conditions, yet for the sake of being given an antibodies test, she not only died totally unecessarily, but in the most horrific manner: for the want of a doctor to actually LOOK and LISTEN to a patient (the same doctor I also had for 25 years) my mum would probably be alive today and have enjoyed a quality of life denied her, as she was kept in an awful painful, hypothyroid state.
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