Hypothyroidism, Thyroid Disease
Do you know it is estimated 90% of people with hypothyroidism actually have the thyroid autoimmune condition Hashimoto’s? The crazy part is thyroid antibodies are often NOT tested. No doubt I have many Hypothyroid Mom readers here right now with Hashimoto’s and they don’t even know it.
One of my most popular posts at Hypothyroid Mom was a post entitled Mental Disorder or Undiagnosed Hypothyroidism? A reader contacted me soon after the launch of my blog in October 2012 with a story that has haunted me to this day.
Dear Dana,
I found your blog Hypothyroid Mom and feel a need to contact you directly. I was an energetic successful person and in one year I fell down and literally broke. I was put in a mental health ward because I went days without sleeping, felt so tired I couldn’t function and found myself delusional and couldn’t stop the words running through my head. I was diagnosed bipolar and drugged up with medication. I saw the line of bipolar patients waiting every morning in the psych ward for electric shock therapy. The only thing that saved me from electric shock was my mother yelling NO.
For four years I was drugged up so bad that my mind wasn’t right. I told the psychiatrists and doctors that something wasn’t right with me. From 110 pounds my weight went up to 245. I was so tired, suffered pains from fibromyalgia. My heart rate was pounding at 155 and my blood pressure was through the roof. They just kept telling me I was bipolar and that I was a hypochondriac.
Finally after 4 years of bipolar medications to the max, a close family member was diagnosed with hypothyroidism so my doctor tested me too. I have a family history of thyroid disease. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I’ve suffered so many of the symptoms of hypothyroidism you list on your blog for so many years.
Every single time I attend a bipolar support group I ask everyone if they are hypothyroid and every time half the people raise their hand and the other half have no clue what it is and they don’t know if they have been tested.
Jana
This post sparked so much interest that many thyroid sufferers contacted me with their personal horror stories of psychiatric disorders. I can’t stop wondering how many fellow thyroid sufferers reading this post right now are struggling with mental health issues? Is it possible that many of them have been misdiagnosed? [Read more…]
I love the community gathering on the Hypothyroid Mom Facebook page. One of my readers named Samantha wrote that when her doctor discovered her sky high TSH levels, he responded, “You hypo’d like a rock star!” Now you know I couldn’t get that image out of my mind. A common scenario with Hashimoto’s is one in which the thyroid condition fluctuates between being underactive and overactive. For these Hashimoto’s sufferers, their symptoms fluctuate from hypothyroid to hyperthyroid and back again and forth like a rock star partying hard then crashing with a hangover then partying hard again. Their TSH swings up and down like a rock star gone wild! [Read more…]
I wrote this article almost 5 years ago at the very start of this blog Hypothyroid Mom. I have not reshared it again in all these years.
Why?
The “C” word is the scariest word I know and I know it is for so many of my readers. I lost my father, father-in-law, and 16-year-old nephew to cancer. I know the seriousness of this word and I don’t use it lightly. At the time I wrote this article I had discovered research showing an association between hypothyroidism and breast cancer. I knew more research needed to be done and quite honestly I did not want to scare myself or anyone else with what I had discovered.
A few weeks ago, however, while researching for another article that I am currently writing for Hypothyroid Mom, I stumbled across more recent studies that add fuel to this ongoing controversy that truly left me numb. I’ve thought about these studies so many times since and now it’s time to update this article and reshare it.
This not to scare us but to push us to be the fiercest advocates for ourselves. I also want to shake the medical community that continues to diagnose and treat hypothyroidism with a protocol that fails millions of us and shout,
“HEY MEDICAL WORLD, WAKE THE HELL UP.” [Read more…]
Dana, your blood sugar and cholesterol are very high. Do you have a family history of diabetes and heart disease?
Several months later…
Dana, your blood sugar and cholesterol are high again. You should start a cholesterol-lowering statin drug and diabetes medication. Let’s wait until your next lab test to decide.
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is an autoimmune condition in which the body attacks and destroys its own thyroid gland. Piece by piece your body chews up and destroys your own thyroid gland as if it is the enemy. In a healthy immune system, antibodies act as the body’s army to detect and destroy invaders not normally present in the body, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. In the case of Hashimoto’s disease, a defective immune system wreaks havoc on the body by directing antibodies against its own thyroid gland as if it is a foreign invader.
Although Hashimoto’s disease is considered a leading cause of hypothyroidism around the world, it is a tragically overlooked disease in mainstream medicine. You might be thinking, “My doctor has never diagnosed me with Hashimoto’s disease. This post is not about me.” Are you sure? [Read more…]
