Say Hello To My Scumbag Thyroid

Yep. Ya girl’s got a hyperactive thyroid. All I know is that my body has betrayed me and I’m paying the price for it. Let’s chat this shit out…

Apparently my thyroid is “slightly inflamed” which to me sounded like the end of the world, but then my doctor proceeded to tell me that “there’s no tumours yet, so that’s a plus” and I almost (figuratively) died. Way to put it in perspective, doc.

I had no idea what a thyroid even was until I got the diagnosis and F R A N T I C A L L Y Googled everything there is to know about it.

Here’s a basic run down of what the thyroid is and how it affects the body…

First of all, it’s in your neck. It kind of hugs your trachea. Your trachea is your windpipe, for all the medically inept people like me out there. It sits there and sends a few different hormones out into your bod so you can function like a regular human boy / girl / whatever you identify as.

Basically there are two main thyroid issues can come about – hyperthyroidism (it me) and hypothyroidism. Hyperthyroidism is basically when your thyroid makes too much of a good thing. It goes a little overboard in the amount of hormones it sends out into your body. Hypothyroidism is the opposite – not enough of the hormones, resulting in a somewhat similar, yet almost polar opposite condition.

Thyroid issues are more prominent in females as opposed to males. Sounds about right. It’s not enough that our bodies can be suuuuper frustrating to begin with, we’ve got a fucking mutinous hormone monster living in our necks that could declare mutiny at any given moment. Nice.

Throughout my incessant journey through thyroid related articles, it all started to make sense. The symptoms I’d been feeling for a long time now, and had been passing off as ‘normal’ were actually all part of one bigger issue.

• A racing heartbeat that sometimes feels a little irregular – tick!
• A brain that never slows down, making it hard to focus and to fall asleep at night – tick!
• Anxious thoughts, nervousness and depressive moods – tick!
• Regular discomfort in my neck, kind of like the feel you get when you’re trying to stifle a good cry – tick!
• Occasional twitching/trembling (it’s the hands for me) – tick!
• Not gaining weight (high metabolism) despite the fact that I eat almost too much food in any given period and my exercise rate is minimal at best – tick!
• Irregular cycles (only just found this out due to cancelling my pill prescription recently) – tick!

According to my doctor, the medication I’m now taking for it SHOULD help it start to self-regulate and sort its shit out. The future holds a little uncertainty about fertility, flare-ups and continued need for meds. I have a wonderful friend who lives with hypothyroidism who I caught up with recently (pizza dinner ftw) and she was able to help me understand that although this thing is likely with me for life, there are ways to treat it that can help dull the symptoms and keep it in check.

So, yeah. Bit of a life update there. Getting old sucks. Let’s see how this pans out.

Kates