Stop it You're Killing Me!: The Untold Suffering of Undiagnosed and Poorly Managed Thyroid Disease.

Are you like me; sick and tired of being told that you are 'normal' each and every time you visit your health provider struggling with blatantly obvious symptoms of thyroid disease? The management and diagnosis of thyroid disease is nothing short of a bloody joke, and I'm not laughing!
My sorry tale of ill health and unfortunate genetics is sadly not unique and in fact shared by millions of people (mainly women). Like my mother, some of her sisters, their mother and some of my female cousins too, we are all the unlucky sufferers of thyroid disease. I choose the word ‘unlucky’ with great care because as some of you will already know, thyroid disease has become one of the most elusive diseases to detect in the general population. Strangely, this is not because we exhibit ‘unique’ or unrecognisable signs of thyroid disease, but apparently because fashionable blood tests which are proving inefficient in detecting this disease are solely being used to determine our state of health.
So I, like many of you, am one of the unlucky undiagnosed sufferers of thyroid disease; I struggled and suffered needlessly with the signs and symptoms for decades, and this equates to all of my adult life when considering this began for me as it also appears to have happened with my daughters, since puberty.
I am both angry and devastated that our lives have been hijacked by this disease, but this does not compare with the anger I feel with regard to NEVER gaining an official diagnosis from the medical professionals.
Although I am now almost 42 years of age, and have Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, my health is markedly better, and I have support forums such as TPAUK, Stop The Thyroid Madness and Thyroid UK to thank for this.
At times when considering the fact I will for all intent and purpose be left alone to monitor, treat and endure this disease for the rest of my life, I cannot help but feel somewhat vulnerable. Nevertheless, for the larger part I experience full remission from my symptoms and thus want to share my story with you; someone who may be wobbling precariously in the very same sinking boat I spent most of my life bobbing about in!
There is hope, and we can bring about the changes required if we speak out!