The Growing Epidemic of Thyroid Disease and What To Do About It: here it comes, the inevitable.

Sorry about the wall of text, I tried to condense the story but being concise is apparently not one of my talents.

I have thought about posting about this for a while but for some reason have been hesitant. I'm not real big on sharing personal information online but with the discussion taking place here maybe now is the time to share my story as a warning to others.

I had been having many symptoms of hypothyroidism for a little over a year. Although my blood test showed mild hypothyroidism my doctor kept telling me there was nothing to worry about. If it got any worse he might put me on medication.

In December 2011 I was felling quite bad. I was so tired. I felt like my body was made of lead. In the span of 3 months I had put on 20 pounds although I was actually eating less than usual. The worst part of it was that it was affecting my ability to think clearly, my memory was seriously hindered. There were other things but I won't ramble on about them all.

So I go back to my doctor. He ignores everything I tell him about except for the weight gain. He says well obviously your taking in more calories than your burning. His suggestion was diet pills! Now let me make something clear, I've been mildly overweight since my mid twenties but my weight had been stable never varying more than a few pounds in the 15 years I'd been going to him. This was something far out of the norm for me.

That day he runs some more blood work, it comes back abnormal again. Once again he says it's not bad enough to warrant thyroid medication and that I should consider diet medication. I told him that I wanted to see an endocrinologist. He could either refer me or I would find my own. He reluctantly referred me.

The first thing the new doc did was an ultrasound. There was a large (I forget the exact size) mass on the right side of my thyroid. Further test, scans, biopsies, ext. confirmed that it was cancer. My entire thyroid was compromised. In Feb 2012 my thyroid was removed. Once the surgeon was in he found that the cancer has spread to the muscle tissue in my neck.

After the surgery it appears through multiple scans that everything had been dealt with and that the cancer was gone. I jubilant knowing that I had beat it. I shouldn't have jumped the gun on that one.

1 year ago I went back to my endocrinologist. During a routine scan it was discovered that there were now tumors on the thyroid bed. So now it's on to radiation treatment. I've been given courses of radioactive iodine I-131. It's certainly not as bad as Chemo but it was quite unpleasant. So, after all of the radiation I go through all of the testing again and appear to have been cured.

A week ago toady I went back to my endocrinologist. It appears that I now have a mass on one of my parathyroids. I've spent the last week undergoing more test and am awaiting the results.

Well, if your still with me =), I have shared all of this today with the hope that my story might save someone else from going through what I have since Dec. 2011. If I had pushed my doctor harder, if I'd refused to just accept that it “was no big deal” This cancer would have been caught earlier and would have been much easier to “cure” I wouldn't still be dealing with it a year in a half or so later.

I implore you, listen to your body. You know when something is just not right. It may not be something just blatantly obvious to your doctor but you know something bad is happening in your body. If you think you may be having thyroid issue please, Please be an advocate for your self and insist that your issues are properly evaluated by a specialist. I wish every day that I had stood stronger and pushed harder to get my problems evaluated. Please don't make the same mistake I did.

Something to ad to the thread. My endocrinologist has said in the past year or so the number of Thyroid cancer patients he sees has tripled.