As you already know, you are obese and your height, weight, age, and your female sex puts you in the 95th percentile which means that you weigh more than 95% of women your age and height. Needless to say, this is not good. Your weight might be at the root of your physical problems.
You didn't gain the weight overnight, so that it won't be lost overnight. It will take months to lose but then think of it like this: a baby doesn't learn to walk overnight, it takes the baby 9 to 12 months of building-up its leg muscles and then learning to balance and finally---one step at a time---the baby eventually walks. The same with losing weight. You need to build-up your health and then a day at a time you will lose the excess weight. You are an intelligent woman, as expressed in your post here on JustAnswer, therefore, you can easily help yourself by following a few suggestions that have worked for women just like yourself.
You have trouble sleeping. Well, this might be due to being too wound-up from stress during the day or it could be due to allowing distractions (children or husband) to keep you from getting sufficient restorative natural sleep every night. Stress is inevitable in everybody's life. You must find a method that can effectively help you to avoid stress e.g. use visualization techniques or deep-breathing techniques to find a place within yourself that you can go whenever the inevitable stress faces you. Imagine you are in a resort enjoying a fresh pineapple juice and listening to the monotonous sound of the ocean rolling in and out.
Put the baby(ies) and husband to bed earlier so that "YOU" can get at least 8 or 10 hours of "continuous" sleep. Easier said than done? No, not really. Have a routine that you NEVER break from e.g. every evening dinner is at 5 PM then a walk to the park and home by 7 PM, then baths and bedtime TV or stories or homework until 9 PM and then lights out and Mom and Dad have time together until 10 PM. Sleep from 10 PM until 6 AM the next morning. Only allow distraction from your sleep if there is an emergency.
As you know, sleep is important for your health. During sleep your body regenerates the myelin sheaths that cover your nerve fibers. Without sufficient sleep your body cannot handle the inevitable stress that you will face during the daytime. Stress causes the adrenal glands to secrete hormones which increase blood pressure and damage vital organs. Although your physical exam found "nothing" clinically wrong with your body, it is obvious that you have problems because you are having symptoms of constant stomach pains, headaches, dizziness, insomnia, persistent echymosis ("bruises that won't go away"), and obesity.
Your children need you to be healthy. If you don't take care of yourself, then who will care for your chldren? Therefore, I recommend that you borrow sufficient money to be examined by an endocrinologist who specializes in obesity problems. Obesity can be caused by a number of reasons but most of the causes boil down to a problem with over-eating in response to an abnormal release of specific hormones in the body such as adrenal hormones, thyroid hormones, sex hormones, etc. Each of the various endocrine glands works in harmony with the other endocrine glands so that the person can maintain homeostasis (good health). When the pituitary gland is not capable of stimulating the thyroid gland then the thyroid gland secretes less thyroxin and the person can become unbalanced which causes the person to feel sick and have various physical symptoms such as you are experiencing.
First, the hypothalamus, located just above the pituitary gland in the brain, secretes thyrotropin
-releasing hormone, which causes the pituitary gland to produce thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). TSH stimulates the thyroid gland to produce thyroid hormones. The pituitary gland slows or speeds the release of TSH, depending on whether the levels of thyroid hormones circulating in the blood are high or low. To produce thyroid hormones, the thyroid gland needs iodine, an element from the ocean which is contained in ocean foods e.g. ocean fish and sea kelp among other things. Iodine is present in seafoods and in foods grown in iodine rich soil. The thyroid gland traps iodine and processes it into thyroid hormones. Iodized salt is important so that your thyroid gland has iodine. Sometimes, due to stress and excessive demands e.g. children, our bodies don't get sufficient iodine and in these circumstances it's important to increase the iodine in the diet by making a point of eating fresh ocean fish once a week for example.
Increasing your natural iodine intake by eating fresh ocean fish once a week sounds like it's just too simple of an answer for your problems. However, you'd be amazed at the number of people who suffer from similar symptoms to you who do not eat foods that have iodine. Then when they start to eat seafood, they notice the difference in their weight and energy. It doesn't happen immediately, it usually takes a few weeks after you begin eating ocean fish at least once or twice a week before you will notice the difference.
As for your dizziness and headaches, this might be due to cholesterol which is notorious for causing the lining of arterioles to become coated with plaque which decreases the lumen (size of the opening in the artery). When the lumen is decreased then there is reduced blood circulated to various parts of the body e.g. to the brain. When your brain circulation is decreased you will, of course, have less oxygen to the cells in the brain and this causes temporary cell ischemia which produces pain (headaches). Dizziness is the feeling that one is going to faint. Therefore, dizziness is a natural means for the body to lay on the floor so that the head is level with the feet and heart. This is so that blood can reach the brain. Therefore, as you can see, your headaches and dizziness are due to cholesterol building-up in your arteries. A basic complete physical exam by a family practitioner will not reveal these problems. You require a doppler study of your arteries in your neck to diagnose this problem. However, from what I've told you, you should realize that it is very important for you to minimize the amount of cholesterol-inducing foods in your diet e.g. decrease consumption of beef, pork, dairy products, and egg yolks in your diet. You are already consuming a health diet of chicken, fruits, veggies, and orange juice. The tendency toward hypercholesteremia can be inherited. It's important to continue to follow a low cholesterol diet and teach your children to eat a healthful diet. As far as diet not contributing to hypercholesteremia, high density lipidemia can help to clear the arterioles of plaque due to low density lipidemia. This means that high density lipids can be helpful for you. How do you increase your high density lipid level? You exercise. Exercise is the means that the body has of increasing HDL. You should perform some sort of routine consistent aerobic exercise daily e.g. take a walk to the park with the kids daily. Or, join the YMCA and swim daily. Join a daily aerobics group at the Y. Etc. Don't depend upon your daily chores to help you lose weight and increase your HDL. Daily chores are just as the name implies---a chore. On the other hand, aerobic exercising is a means of increasing fresh oxygen to your muscles in order to increase glucose uptake by insulin. This will help you lose weight.
Another important endocrine problem is insulin resistance. As you put on weight, your body becomes less capable of utilizing insulin in order to provide energy for your muscles. This can eventually lead to type II Diabetes. Extra fat tissue can make your body resistant to the action of insulin, but exercise helps insulin work well. If you have insulin resistance, your muscle, fat, and liver cells do not use insulin properly. The pancreas tries to keep up with the demand for insulin by producing more. Eventually, the pancreas cannot keep up with the body's need for insulin, and excess glucose builds up in the bloodstream. Many people with insulin resistance have high levels of blood glucose and high levels of insulin circulating in their blood at the same time.
Many people with insulin resistance and high blood glucose have excess weight around the waist, high LDL (bad) blood cholesterol levels, low HDL (good) cholesterol levels, high levels of triglycerides (another fat in the blood), and high blood pressure, all conditions that also put the heart at risk. This combination of problems is referred to as the metabolic syndrome, or the insulin resistance syndrome (formerly called Syndrome X).
Aerobic type exercise enables the muscles to utilize your calories (glucose) by using insulin. When you utilize calories efficiently then your blood hemoglobin contains lower levels of glucose (Hemoglobin A1c). I recommend you have either a fasting blood glucose or a 2 hour postprandial glucose tolerance. Fasting glucose levels of 100 to 125 mg/dL are above normal but not high enough to be called diabetes; it is called pre-diabetes or impaired fasting glucose. A glucose tolerance test measures your blood glucose after an overnight fast and 2 hours after you drink a sweet liquid. If your blood glucose falls between 140 and 199 mg/dL 2 hours after drinking the sweet liquid, your glucose tolerance is above normal but not high enough for diabetes and this is called impaired glucose tolerance and points toward a history of insulin resistance and a risk for developing diabetes.
So, as you can see, in order for your muscles to use glucose and keep your blood glucose from increasing, you need to exercise. Exercise consistently everyday and not too strenuously because strenuous exercise can actually damage muscle fibers. Mild aerobic exercise is important.
Make a habit of you and your kids taking a walk in the evening after eating maybe or ride your bikes in the fresh air. Consistent regular aerobic exercise will help you lose weight, will increase your level of HDL (good cholesterol), lower your level of bad cholesterol (LDL), and will lower the amount of glucose in your circulation (HbA1c).
As for your persistent ecchymosis (bruising), this can be caused by a liver problem. The liver can become fatty and this can cause problems. So, by following the above information, you can also eventually solve your problem of persistent bruises. Evidently your physical exam showed you had a normal platelet count so this is most likely due to your liver being overwhelmed by fat.
I know this is a lot of information for you all at once, but you have several symptoms that require attention. If you have questions please ask me. You can always request Dr. Hanson.
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