I TOLD You I was sick!

I used to joke that I would have that put on my tombstone, after I died of my undiagnosed hypothyroidism.

Because I honestly believed that it would have to come to that before ANY of the doctors I'd consulted would actually believe that I was sick.

I'd be on my death bed, bald, 400 lbs, and bloated with fluids, my TSH in the stratosphere, and my T3 and T4 non-existent, and the doctors would finally concede that MAYBE I was onto something, all those years ago, when I kept insisting that SOMETHING WAS WRONG.



I was cold and tired all that time, and  my body wasn't responding properly to exercise. I don't mean I wasn't losing weight (although that was part of it), I mean I wasn't getting any stronger or getting any better.

In fact, I was getting weaker, and LOSING flexibility and stamina, despite regular cardio, resistance, and yoga. I was also having a harder time recovering between sessions, and had constant muscle aches and inflammation in my tendons and ligaments.

But nobody listened. Every doctor I talked to totally ignored one important fact:

That I, 40-year resident in MY BODY, knew exactly how MY BODY should respond to exercise, and had intimate knowledge of how it had responded in the past.

That I, a 40-year resident in MY BODY, knew when things in MY BODY were NOT NORMAL.

But I was told it was my age. I was told to try a low-carb diet. I was told nothing was wrong, because my TSH was within the normal range. For get that it got progressively higher each year, or that my T3 and T4 were slowly dropping. I was still within "normal," so any complaints I had were in my head...

I was just a 40-year-old, hypochondriac, fat chick making excuses.

Yeah.

Luckily, after five years of banging my head against the wall, and almost giving up -- resigned to having the final say on my tombstone -- I found a doctor who actually listened to me, and tested me for the thyroid antibodies.

Turns out, I have an autoimmune disease. But, I already knew that. We had studied autoimmune diseases in massage school and something about the total-body aches, the sun allergy I'd suddenly developed, the diffuse inflammation in my tendons, and the fatigue all spelled autoimmune to me. Like my body was attacking itself...

And I was right because, after FORTY FUCKING YEARS, I knew my body.

And I fucking TOLD YOU I was sick!

I wish I could say my experience was unique. It's not. I read somewhere that it takes about six years, and as many doctors, for the average thyroid patient to get a diagnosis.

And the totally ridiculous thing is, hypothyroidism has a VERY CLEAR and VERY WELL DEFINED set of clinical symptoms, and MOST THYROID PATIENTS COMPLAIN ABOUT THOSE EXACT SYMPTOMS FOR YEARS.

Hypothyroidism is not a rare disease, but getting a diagnosis is like pulling teeth.

One major reason is that doctors live and die by that fucking TSH number. TSH levels are bullshit for reasons that are best explained here.

But I think the other  problem is that a majority of Hypo patients are women and, by the time we see the doctor, we are usually fat women, because one of the symptoms (and results) of hypothyroidism is WEIGHT GAIN.

The fact is, there is a documented anti-fat bias amongst health professionals against fat people. So if a fat person comes in complaining of being SICK, the doctor's fist impulse is to diagnose her fat... even when there are clear, documented, clinical symptoms of a disease that predominantly affects women, in their 40s, and is KNOWN TO MAKE THEM FAT.

And, of course, because we are women, we are also discounted as hysterical hypochondriacs.

So, until the blessed TSH is high enough for a doctor to take notice, or the patient just gives up and eventually gets so sick she DIES of myxedema, we are essentially fucked.