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The 25th May marks World Thyroid Day, which is a great opportunity to be raising awareness on thyroid disease.
The World Health Organization estimates that 750 million people in the world have some form of thyroid disease, including 1 in 20 people in the UK, but as many as 60% are undiagnosed. And that’s not good!
This is just one reason why we need to carry on sharing information and raising awareness about the condition and encourage anyone with symptoms of hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism to get checked out.
But with a full thyroid panel. Not just TSH, but Free T3, Free T4, TPOAB, TGAB and Reverse T3 if possible, too.
Symptoms for hypothyroidism include ongoing fatigue, muscle aches and pains, sensitivity to cold, depression, weight gain, sleep disturbances, low libido, dry skin, hair and nails and never feeling fully well.
Symptoms for hyperthyroidism include anxiety, palpitations, unexplained weight loss, flushes, irritability and sensitivity to heat.
For those of us already diagnosed, we can gain awareness about how to check our thyroid glands regularly for any abnormalities, what vitamins may help us and what tests we need to ensure our doctors are doing on us.
For hypothyroidism especially, we should also be aware of what results we are looking for.
We should also share any resources we’ve found helpful. Find my list here. They have resourceful information that can help you to make steps in improving your health and embrace being your own advocate, which is incredibly important to do. See also the online thyroid course ‘Freedom From Thyroid Fatigue’, which walks you through how to overcome thyroid fatigue and flare up days with a personalised approach.
World Thyroid Day is about creating awareness of thyroid disease and disorders as a whole – for those going undiagnosed, for those going untreated or under-treated and for those doing well like me, but can always learn some more about this far-reaching condition.
Some helpful materials you can use to spread awareness:
A Letter: To Family and Friends of those suffering with Graves Disease
You can click on the hyperlinks in the above post to learn more and see references to information given.
Do you have a thyroid condition?
Rachel Hill is the highly ranked and multi-award winning thyroid patient advocate, writer, speaker and author behind The Invisible Hypothyroidism. Her thyroid advocacy work includes authoring books, writing articles, her email newsletters, blogging and speaking on podcasts, as well as being a founding board member for the American College of Thyroidology and The WEGO Health Patient Leader Advisory Board. Rachel has worked with The National Academy of Hypothyroidism, The BBC, The Mighty, Yahoo, MSN, ThyroidChange and many more. She is well-recognised as a useful contributor to the thyroid community and has received multiple awards and recognitions for her work and dedication. She has authored two books: ‘Be Your Own Thyroid Advocate‘ and ‘You, Me and Hypothyroidism‘. Rachel is British, but advocates for thyroid patients on a global scale.