{"id":18765,"date":"2018-02-06T11:46:58","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T16:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=18765"},"modified":"2018-02-07T13:54:18","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T18:54:18","slug":"what-its-like-living-with-a-thyroid-disorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/02\/06\/what-its-like-living-with-a-thyroid-disorder\/","title":{"rendered":"What it’s Like Living With a Thyroid Disorder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0When I was about eight years old, I was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder called Hypothyroidism. Up to that point, I\u2019d always been as thin as a rail, and constantly sick. When I hit seven years old, I started to gain weight rapidly which prompted my family to take me to the doctor. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0I remember the day I got diagnosed; my doctor didn\u2019t want to scare me with the big terms and medical words, so he sent me outside to stand in the hall while he talked to my family. As an eight-year-old who had spent most of her life being in and out of hospitals and doctors offices, I was convinced that I was dying. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0That wasn\u2019t the case, of course. The condition was explained to me, I was put on some medicine and little me thought that was all there was to it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However, I was wrong. You see, your thyroid controls your hormones. If you don\u2019t have any hormones, then a lot of your body\u2019s systems don\u2019t work right. Some people have the opposite of this condition called Hyperthyroidism, where their body makes too much hormones and sends everything into overdrive. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \"Thyroid.jpg\"\u00a0Thyroid disorders don\u2019t typically sound like something too terrifying. You tend to think that as long as you take your medicine on schedule and eat right and exercise that you\u2019ll be okay. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The thing is, there\u2019s a terrifying side to these kinds of disorders. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Hypothyroidism has the ability to turn into something called Addison\u2019s Disease if it\u2019s not treated. Addison\u2019s Disease is a disorder of the Adrenal Glands, or more commonly known, the kidneys. If not treated, it can be fatal. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Things were fine for a while until I hit Junior High. I gained weight over the course of my junior high years and with that came a lot of struggles. A lot of factors went into what happened, such as things like my anxiety and depression from the low hormones getting out of control, mixed with the fears of being at an age where everything actually starts to matter, as well as being shifted around between doctors. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0High school is hard enough for your typical healthy kid, but when you throw in a disorder that causes them to be different, it\u2019s amplified. The social norm is to be a thin, athletic popular kid who\u2019s on top of it; someone who has their life together and is fun to be around. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0When you have a thyroid disorder like I do, everything is harder. You may not be that thin, athletic kid that people expect. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0For me, I was fat in high school. I\u2019ll admit that up front. I weigh less now than I did then, but looking back on it, I wish I would\u2019ve done something sooner. I wish I would\u2019ve pushed the doctors to figure it out and get me on track. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0I get hurt easily, which is something that hasn\u2019t changed, so it makes it hard to play sports. My tachycardia, another complication of the disorder, makes it hard to run or exercise as my heart goes almost double the rate it should and I end up having trouble breathing. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0On top of the merciless bullying about my weight came a lot of health complications from the disorder. When nothing in your body works the way it\u2019s supposed to, things tend to make you sick a lot easier. I had quite a few bouts of strep throat in high school. I got the flu, pneumonia and bronchitis a lot more frequently than anyone ever should. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\"522691_2612311406183_1862735298_n.jpg\"My junior year of high school, I missed an entire month due to an ovarian cyst that was related to complications from the thyroid disorder.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Another problem that can come from a thyroid disorder is anemia. Anemia is when you don’t have enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to the body’s tissues. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Because of the lack of hormones in the body, you can\u2019t adequately absorb B12 or Iron like you\u2019re supposed to. This can make you feel tired and week. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Over the course of the next few years, as I progressed through puberty, I acquired a bleeding disorder that caused me to bleed for three months straight at a time. I would become severely anemic and had to take iron supplements and increase my intake of iron in my diet. I was eventually put on a birth control shot to stop the bleeding for good and now I\u2019m only slightly anemic. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Having a thyroid disorder and treating it isn\u2019t as simple as taking a pill every day and that\u2019s it. It\u2019s a delicate balance. Too much hormone and suddenly everything in your body is working overtime and you\u2019re at a risk for strokes and heart attacks and lots of other horrible things. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Too little, and you\u2019re suddenly overweight, complaining that you think your voice isn\u2019t \u2018girly\u2019 enough, stuck at a height that you hate because your bones won\u2019t grow, and everything you eat essentially just sits there until your metabolism decides to work. Oh, and you could have a stroke or a heart attack from the excess body fat. Can\u2019t escape those, can we? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0My disorder is specifically known as Hashimoto\u2019s Disease, which is a fancy way of saying that my immune system is attacking my thyroid. It\u2019s the most common type of thyroid disorder, yet no one really knows what causes it. A lot of doctors tend to think that a genetic flaw causes it, and that\u2019s pretty much what my doctor told me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0It took me 14 years to get a name for my disorder. Sure, I knew I had Hypothyroidism, and I\u2019d known that since I was eight, but I\u2019d never known the specific name for my type of thyroid disorder. Getting that final, sure thing diagnosis explained a lot about the way I was and why I had so many different problems related to my thyroid. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Everything finally made sense and I didn\u2019t feel like it was hopeless. The pills had never worked for me; they\u2019d never kept my levels where they needed to be. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Now, I have a doctor who keeps a constant check on my levels. It\u2019s a lot of bloodwork every few months and a lot of working on my diet and exercise, but I\u2019m trying to get my life back on track. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0When you have a disease that\u2019s virtually invisible to the untrained eye, it can be hard to keep people from assuming one thing or another. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0There\u2019s no magic sign that I can hang above my head that says \u201cI\u2019m not fat and lazy, it\u2019s my thyroid. I\u2019m trying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeri Hensley<\/strong>
\nGraphic Designer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0When I was about eight years old, I was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder called Hypothyroidism. Up to that point, I\u2019d always been as thin as a rail, and constantly sick. When I hit seven years old, I started to gain weight rapidly which prompted my family to take me to the doctor. \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":18787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2109,3,2150],"tags":[1400,2365,2016,2364],"class_list":["post-18765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","category-world","tag-health","tag-invisible-illnesses","tag-jeri-hensley","tag-thyroid-disorder"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/10484037_10205849370973976_8034598638846379898_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-4SF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18765"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18794,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765\/revisions\/18794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}