Assembled by Mary Shomon, Your Thyroid Guide
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"Oprah,
Please consider doing a show on hypothyroidism! No doubt, you've gotten the impression from the media that it's a minor illness with subtle symptoms which people blame weight gain on. After all, a recent news magazine article on the subject pictured two remarkably healthy-looking people, one of whom apparently didn't have any symptoms at all.
That's not how I experienced hypothyroidism. To me, it was a devastating disease brought malnutrition, unending respiratory and skin disease, and disabling weakness into my life. Every part of my body felt sick. Other people sensed there was something wrong and avoided me like the plague. Even though I was used to being praised for my intelligence before I got sick, afterward all I heard were expressions of horror at my subhuman stupidity afterwards. In essence, I felt I'd been transformed into a monster.
Oh, I should mention that I also did gain 40 pounds within a few months in my 30s when I started getting other hypothyroidism symptoms.
You never hear about celebrities getting hypothyroidism, and there's a good reason for that. Hypothyroidism disables thoroughly and socially isolates a person so that person can't receive help. And no celebrity diagnosed with it would admit to it, since the symptoms are so repulsive. Yes, unlike those good-looking people in that picture in the magazine, II looked, well, like an alcoholic. It didn't help that the disease also gave me a whiskey voice: I now have a baritone range, and strangers call me "sir" on the phone.
I'm lucky to be financially well off. But poor people really suffer: they lose their jobs and wind up homeless. I'm willing to bet that most of those "alcoholic bums" on the street have hypothyroidism. It's really that bad.
Please do take a look at how this disease strikes menopausal women in particular. It seems to get especially bad around this time of life, and is often overlooked by doctors, who tell their patients (as my old one did) that they're just "getting old" or that their bad dietary and exercise habits must be catching up with them. Besides, those invidious comparisons with magazine fashion models are going on all the time in their heads, and they would just as soon get us out of their sight as soon as possible.
Thank you so much for your attention"
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