What It's Like to Live With Thyroid Disease
Like any other disease, thyroid disease is difficult to deal with, but unfortunately it is the condition that gets deemed “the good condition” or “the good cancer,” like it somehow doesn’t measure up to some standard of difficulty.
Thyroid disease is hard – even harder because many, including doctors, don’t understand it. So instead of getting proper diagnosis and treatment, we get an antidepressant and are told it’s “all in our head.” No, it’s not all in our head!
Thyroid disease is a lot more difficult to deal with than people realize because, unlike some other conditions, you can’t always see its effects.
Recently we asked a question, prompted by a wonderful article, “If you could use one word to describe thyroid disease, what would it be?” Take a look at the answers that expose the cold, hard truth of thyroid dysfunction:
- Devastating
- Exhausting
- Alone
- Isolating
- Challenging
- I don’t know if one word can simply describe it. All-encompassing would be the closest I could come up with.
- Roller-coaster
- Frustrating
- Frazzled
- Debilitating
- Depressing
- ‘Undead.’ An old horror movie term that describes a being that is neither fully alive, nor completely dead, but in some purgatory of existence, somewhere on a scale between fully alive, and not.
- Complicated
- Draining
- Limited
- Doubted
- Torture
- Life-altering (not in a good way)
- Dull
- Lost
- Misunderstood
- I do not want it happening to anybody.
Whether anyone chooses to believe us or not, we know how real the symptoms and the struggles are. We are not looking for sympathy, but we are looking for proper treatment.
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Thinkstock photo via carlacastagno.
The National Academy of Hypothyroidism is a non-profit, multidisciplinary medical society dedicated to the dissemination of new information on the diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. Our goals are: -Improve physician, endocrinologist, healthcare provider and patient understanding of the diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. -Advance the standards of care for hypothyroidism and its associated diseases. -To disseminate new knowledge that leads to the appropriate diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. -To implement change in “standard” endocrinological dogma that has historically left the majority of patients misdiagnosed as euthyroid (normal thyroid) based on the use of inaccurate out-dated “standard” blood tests. -To implement change in the “standard” treatment of hypothyroidism that has historically left the majority of patients with suboptimal treatment. -To establish and guide public policies on new concepts on the causes, diagnosis, and management of hypothyroidism and related disorders. -To be an advocate for thyroid specialists who are knowledgeable about new concepts in the diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. -Review, develop and implement training programs and education for physicians. -Provide a thought leadership role for fields and industries associated with the treatment of hypothyroidism.
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