A (small) Defense of the TSH Test

I can KIND OF understand why doctors prefer using the TSH test to diagnose and treat hypothyroidism, instead of the old-school method of ACTUALLY LISTENING to their patients.

No, really, I can.

An Open Letter to All the Doctors who Expect Us to Live and Die by the TSH number

Here's a fucking news flash:

THYROID PATIENTS DON'T COME TO YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT THEIR TSH LEVELS.

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.