WHAT IS HASHIMOTO'S THYROIDITIS?

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Hi! Welcome to the Story of My Health. My name is Laura and I want to share my story of how I was able to put my Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis into remission.

I am a mom to 2 young toddler girls who keep me on my toes each and every day. Life changed for me after the birth of my first little girl and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. What is Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis? Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune form of hypothyroidism- an under active thyroid gland- where your immune system is attacking your thyroid gland causing it to under produce the amount of thyroid hormone needed.

I wanted to start blogging to share my experiences with my thyroid and immune system that have really transformed my life. When I began this journey, I found reading other peoples experiences helped me to find my path to remission and gave me hope.

I feel like my story is very similar to many new mom’s out there so I am hoping this can help someone else find a path to wellness. I am not a doctor or a health coach- I am only hoping my story can help others as they have helped me (read more about me).

THE BEGINNING – POSTPARTUM HASHIMOTO’S THYROIDITIS

Let’s go to the very beginning of this life changing experience. My husband and I were so blessed to have such a beautiful little girl to begin our family. However, within the beauty there was a dark side to it all. I found myself depressed and struggling to hold my world together and it seemed to start immediately after our daughter was born.

My husband was working long hours and since I was at home, the care of the household and baby fell to me – and I was failing. I was fighting with a severe exhaustion that cut to the bone daily. Literally, bone tired.

Also, I was so freezing cold during the day that I was wearing my snow jackets and snowboarding socks in the house- and sleeping in them too. Somehow, I didn’t realize that something was terribly wrong.

In the confusion of being a first time mom, I couldn’t understand why I was having such a hard time caring for myself as well as caring for my baby. To make matters worse, at my postpartum checkup my doctor told me all was well.

Eventually, I had a sobbing breakdown and begged my mom to fly into town to help me. My husband was working 12 hour days and only getting 4-5 hours of sleep due to helping me with the baby. It wasn’t enough. I couldn’t do it and my symptoms were slowly growing. I didn’t know it at the time, but my thyroid gland was failing me.

DISCOVERING MY LURKING HASHIMOTO’S THYROIDITIS

Nine months later, I made another appointment with my OBGYN because I was bleeding heavily between my cycles and my symptoms were getting worse. My cycle was increasingly heavy and came with PMS- specifically horrible, mind boggling cramps. I had always been an active person, but I had put on 20 pounds that I could not lose no matter how many laps I swam, how many miles I ran or walked in a day, or how many Insanity exercise videos I did. I tried it all.

At this point, I was sleeping 16 hours a day. Along with my sleeping, my ongoing exhaustion, and the perpetual feeling of cold- I also had both anxiety and depression, intermittent back pain, constipation, a horrible memory and brain fog.

My doctor asked me several questions about my symptoms and then she told me she wanted to me to go the lab to test my thyroid. At the time, I did not connect my symptoms to a possible thyroid condition. You can find more on the common symptoms of hypothyroidism in my article detailing 15 Key Symptoms of Hypothyroidism.

Now, I had heard that thyroid issues ran in my family, but I had no idea what it meant or how it could possibly be affecting me. After this appointment, I went home and straight to Google to do as much research as I possibly could about thyroid conditions.

It didn’t take long for me to realize after reading the symptoms that my thyroid was more than likely the problem. I was waiting for those results on pins and needles!

WHAT IS HASHIMOTO’S THYROIDITIS?

For starters, I didn’t even know what the thyroid gland was when everything started to fall apart for me. I quickly learned that your thyroid is a butterfly shaped gland that sits in the base of your neck and secretes several different hormones to regulate your metabolism.

Hypothyroidism is when your thyroid is not able to produce enough thyroid hormones so your metabolism slows down due to lack of these hormones. So..What is Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis? Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis is autoimmune form of hypothyroidism in that the immune system is attacking the thyroid. For some people with Hashimoto’s, this gland will swell – referred to as a goiter – and may even be sore or painful. I did not have a goiter with my experience, but many people do.

Finally, my results were released and what I learned truly was life altering. My TSH was at a 4.38 uIU/mL. TSH is a hormone secreted by your pituitary gland that tells your thyroid to make more or less thyroid hormones. When I finally went back to my doctor she told me I was within the normal range.

Wait, what?! I felt horrible- how could that be?! I had matched so many of the symptoms I had read about. Thank goodness I had done that research!! I argued. I requested medicine. She refused. Finally, she said she would run the test again. Phew!!

Lab Test	My Results	Lab Range
TSH	4.38 uIU/mL	0.34 – 4.82 uIU/mL

WHAT THE DOCTORS DON’T TELL YOU

This is where I feel like patients are treated unfairly and it is extremely frustrating. TSH is a snapshot of what is going on. It only shows one moment in time. If I hadn’t argued, I would have been dismissed. I was having debilitating symptoms and yet the doctor told me I was fine.

If I didn’t know any better, I would have left that appointment still feeling terrible. Maybe I would have attributed it to getting old. Most patients are not educated enough on their condition to know the right answer.

My trust in our healthcare system these days is on the decline. It seems we have a blind faith in our medical community or even the people that control our food, but more on that down the road. I have learned that we need to be our own advocates. Everyone needs to take a personal responsibility for their own health.

I don’t think my doctor intended to do harm, in fact, I think she is a wonderful OBGYN and I will continue to go to her for that. However, I just don’t think she knew any better- and neither did I.

This is where I wish I knew or had learned that it was possible to put my Hashimoto’s into remission. If only I had realized that there was a way to heal. Some people will not be able to get off medication completely, but they will be able to help their body heal instead of be under constant degrade, immune attack, and inflammation.

This autoimmune attack is what creates many of the symptoms and what is even more terrifying is that once you have one autoimmune condition you are likely to develop another.

If I been better informed earlier in my journey, I would have saved myself 3 years of agony. This is why I want to help other people. It is not fair to spend your life in this degraded state because you didn’t know there was an answer.

Click here for Part 2: What Do You Mean My Thyroid Is Broken? on my thyroid journey. It is about thyroid hormones and the tests used to understand if your thyroid is healthy.