I want to take a moment to acknowledge that January is Thyroid Disease Awareness Month. I think this is so great because it’s a lot more common than we think and it’s just not recognised enough. In the UK 15 in every 1,000 women and 1 in 1,000 men suffer from under active thyroids and that’s just who have been diagnosed. To honour this month, we have a good few posts planned but I thought I would start with an educational post all about the thyroid in the hope it can help people know what is happening to their bodies. Just to put it out there, myself and Eimhear are in no way Doctors, but we have a lot of experience with hypothyroidism and a lot of self research behind us. So lets get into it.
The thyroid is a gland in the shape of a butterfly (hence our name) that sits just in front of your windpipe. This gland is very important to our metabolism, growth and overall development of the human body. So as you can imagine when it goes wrong, it’s not pretty! I had never even heard of the thyroid until I was diagnosed and little did I know it’s role in keeping our bodies running smoothly is a hefty one. Brain development, bone maintenance and heart, muscle and digestive function are all also a major role of the thyroid. All in all it does a pretty amazing job.
So how does it regulate many of our body functions I hear you ask? Well the answer is, it works by producing a set of hormones and sending a steady amount of them into the bloodstream. The key to this whole process working out well is that our trusty thyroid produces and sends out the right levels of said hormones. Now this is where it gets a bit complicated. The different thyroid hormones have their own individual roles so the right amount in each is crucial for a healthy thyroid and body. This is what starts to cause problems for thyroid patients because GP’s don’t look at all of the hormones, causing a lot of patients to still feel ill but told they are normal and nothing is wrong. Frustrating, I know. This is a complex subject and I can write about it all day so I’m going to write a separate post all about the different hormones and their jobs later.
There’s three major ways things can go wrong with the thyroid. The hormone levels can be too high causing your thyroid to be over active (hyperthyroidism) or the levels can be two low causing an under active thyroid (hypothyroidism.) The third way it can go wrong is when your own immune system attacks your thyroid which can then cause you to be both over active and under active (hashimotos). All three are very serious and can be dangerous if left under treated for a long time.
Rachel Hill, also known as The Invisible Hypothyroidism, describes the thyroid healing process as a jigsaw puzzle in her book ‘Be Your Own Thyroid Advocate,’ which by the way I highly recommend! I love this analogy because it couldn’t be more true, it really is a puzzle but slowly and surely you will start to fit the pieces together. Hopefully we can all do that together. People with thyroid issues or any other autoimmune diseases unfortunately tend to have more than one health issue so starting to figure out what your different jigsaw pieces can be is the start to your healing process.
Everything I’ve touched on today will be expanded on in further detail in future posts but please feel welcome to ask us any questions at all over on our Facebook or Instagram pages, links are above!
The Butterfly Effect 