Assembled by Mary Shomon, Your Thyroid Guide
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"The summer of 2000, I went to the dr. not feeling well. I was feeling very tired, weak, and shaky. I actually had the symptoms for years but just dealt with it and continued on as best I could. This day the dr. ordered a blood test. The next week the dr. told me that my thyroid levels were elevated so I needed more tests. I had an ultrasound, iodine uptake scan, biopsy, then Jan 30, 2001, I had surgery. 2 cold nodules suspicious of cancer were found. The surgery found no cancer but I did have a "multinoduler goiter". the surgeon told me I would be back to work in 2 weeks.
Today is March 22nd, and I am not back to work yet. I knew nothing about the thyroid or its function before or after surgery. Since the surgery though I have spent countless hrs. on the internet researching here and there. Instead of getting better after the surgery I was getting worse. I have made a very slow improvement with my health, but not to the point of feeling "great" yet.
After coming home from the hospital, I couldn't drive, work, go shopping, or barely life my head off of the pillow. I knew "I needed to find out what was going on".
2 weeks ago when I went to the dr. he wanted me to carry on with the same amount of thyroid meds I was already taking and come back in 2 weeks. I told him about the things that I had been learning and he "agreed" to increase my meds. I also told him that the disease was called - "Hashimotos Thyroiditis". He then said he would check into some things and for me to come back in 2 weeks. At yesterday's appointment my doctor told me that "I WAS EDUCATING HIM" and that yes I did have Hashimotos. I was soooo impressed. I'm still learning and plan on continuing to share these things with my dr. I am improving and hope to be back to work in a few weeks. I KNOW I would still be down on the couch if I did not have the internet. I have learned so much and realized that I probably have had an underactive thyroid for about 20 yrs. and didn't know it. As I said already it impressed me that my dr. said that I was educating him. Too bad I didn't make his salary - haha
I found this awesome website by Mary Shomon that you can learn so much from and you can ask questions from other people with thyroid disease. Also there is a thyroid chat where you can talk with other people with thyroid disease. I am so grateful that I have found this. It has helped me enormously."
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