In June of 2014, after months of confusion and guessing, I was finally (and I totally mean that honestly) diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. As a forewarning, this is not meant to be my sob story, this is the facts – considering I live with it every day and I will for the rest of my life. Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune disease and a thyroid disease, double the trouble. The overall fact is, anyone can and so many do live with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, but it’s the lack of education that is the reason why I am writing this. Hashimoto’s is not the world’s worst illness, but like many other illnesses, it’s an invisible one. If you looked at me, you would have no idea that I am, for lack of a better explanation, always going to be sick.
Hashimoto’s, like most other autoimmune diseases, is not yet curable – however, it is able to be kept under control with the right medication. For most people, myself included, it takes a few different medications and dosages to get the right one, but once you have the logistics taken care of, things start getting better. So, it all started my senior year of high school. From November to May, I lost about 95 pounds. Doctors claim, since my body quickly had to adjust to losing weight, it attacked itself in the only place that could no longer fight, my thyroid. The first ultrasound showed that my thyroid was seven times the size of a normal, working thyroid.
The first doctor I saw for this was in Pittsburgh, Pa. He told me straight up that I would have it forever and he ordered an ultrasound and bet me that it showed my thyroid was already larger after 3 weeks. He was right.
Hashimoto’s symptoms are, similar to all autoimmune diseases, dependent on the person. My symptoms included loss of balance, inability to feel my spine, fatigue, weight loss, extreme loss of appetite, finger and toe numbness and severe stomach/gall bladder problems. Some of these issues have since been resolved thanks to the medicine that finally started working for me, however, some things have not been fixed. Additionally, living with Hashimoto’s is a routine. I cannot eat too much gluten or too much food in general because, then, my gall bladder literally stops working, but get this, if I don’t eat enough, my gall bladder also stops working. You have to get blood work done every 6 months and routine ultrasounds, but by that point, it's usually time to change my medicine dosage anyway. My medicine has been increased every 6 months since June of 2014.
With Hashimoto’s, I have learned a lot, but mostly patience with doctors and nurses. Like I always say, there are so many things worse than Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, and this is what makes me, me. I wouldn’t say living with an autoimmune disease is something I enjoy, but it definitely could be a whole lot worse.
