Life of a thyroid disease suferer

In the last week I have had two very interesting encounters that are very particular to the life of the thyroid disease sufferer. I thought it might be interesting to document them here with my feelings on the experience.

The first was an extremely negative experience. To put it in context I have very recently had a flare up and as usual it was a terrifying and uncertain experience. As anyone who experiences this knows there is a huge amount of unknowns when it comes to a flare-up. Particularly with hyperthyroidism, when the doctors are telling you worst case scenarios and giving you one main option which is to kill your thyroid, so erm....no! Anyway going through this experience, as always was terrifying and difficult. Things have improved although I am still uncertain about whether this is a permenant end or a dip in the continued flare-up. However the experience I am refering to relates to a friend that saw me going through this. However now she is confused about why there has been a reduction in symptoms. Leading her to suggest that perhaps all of my fears were completely unfounded and worse that I was attention seeking. So as you can imagine that felt amazing!

Auto-immune conditions are completely misunderstood by those that don't have them. It fair that they don't understand. I wish I didn't know how this feels but for the love of goodness, what makes people think that they can judge something that they know nothing about??! It genuinely makes me angry. It's very difficult to understand thyroid conditions. it's very difficult to contain all of the anxiety and uncertainty. From the perspective of the non-suffer, it may seem easier to dismiss the whole thing. I understand that, however that is not an option for the suffer. They must contain all of that uncertainty, all of that fear and anxiety and then make serious choices that will potentially impact the rest of their lives.

The second experience was much more positive but gave me some serious pause for thought. I met up with a fellow suffer to discuss natural treatment and strategies. The talk was really interesting and a wonderful feeling of solidarity. However there was a one theme that left me feeling somewhat thinking and that was the idea of all the things that we did wrong that caused us to have these conditions. This is a common theme amongst the natural treatment blogs that i have seen online. I understand it, I have thought it. However I wonder if it is potentially a part of the problem. This is an auto-immune condition. Our body attacking itself, and here we are atacking ourselves for all the things we have ever done. Usually things that everyone hs done at one point or another. I haven't led a perfect life or treated my body like a temple all the time, but who has??! I know so many people who treat themselves much worse and never get a thyroid condition. But for some reason, we deserve this because we, what? Sometimes the things we are made to feel guilty of involve natural and healthy behaviours such as taking the wrong type of multi-vitamin or used medications or body product that impacts your thyroid.

It occurs to me that there is a narrative happening here that correlates with the action of the condition and thoughts have impacts on the body. So maybe we can stop blaming ourselves and start thinking about how to love ourselves in the most productive way possible......so just a thought!

Hyperthyroid: No Symptoms

I am creating this blog purely because I couldn't find anything similar to my story when I googled it. I searched for hours and hours, day after day and nothing, all I found were horror stories or extreme symptoms and even more extreme solutions. Now I should emphasize that I am not a medical doctor. I cannot advise anyone on what to do with their body. However I do feel that there is a strong possibility that I am not alone with this experience. So I will put my experience out into the world and hopefully someone will find it when they need to....