January is Thyroid Awareness Month!

[Silverfox]

Hi everyone,

January is thyroid awareness month. Not many are aware that having a thyroid disease is very common, and millions are not aware that they have a thyroid illness.

Some are calling Hypothyroidism an epidemic, and diagnosing a person with a low thyroid disease can be very difficult, as it has so many symptoms that mimic other illnesses.

A former MD Thyroid Association president said that it is a woman's disease, and that thyroid disease is being ignored, "kinda for that reason". Hmmmm...:mad:

Thyroid disease can mimic many disease processes/mental disorders and without a proper diagnosis you will be treated for everything under the sun with no relief. Long standing undertreated hypothyroidism can take a while to optimize on thyroid replacement and to see vast improvements.

Getting diagnosed is just the start of the battle. Getting optimized can be a long standing battle!

You can read about this in the February 2006 issue of "Elle" fashion magazine. The name of the article is "The Exhaustion Epidemic". (It is on page 190)

I feel angry and sad that IC and thyroid disease are both diseases that affect women, and both have never been given the attention that is deserved.

Sometimes, I think it is all about the money.

Make certain your Drs. don't miss thyroid disease.

Sheila

[sacausa]

I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism (Grave's disease) at the age of 12 and then later diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (autoimmune thyroiditis) at the age of 14. Now after almost 6 years of living with this disease, my thyroid annoyingly fluctuates between hypo and hyper levels making it very difficult to treat. I'm glad you are helping to spread awareness about this frequently forgotten disease.

[Silverfox]

Hi Sacausa,

Om my dear, you have been hit hard with both diseases, the thyroid and IC, too!!! :help:

I am one that believes that it is not a coincidence that these often occur together. It's my strong belief that once you have the thyroid disease and then the bladder problems come along because of having too low of thyroid. I guess I came to feel this way, because so many in my immediate family for several generations have inherited the same thyroid disease, Hypothyroidism. Well, as time went on we all ended up with the same bladder frequencies, and pains. With all the many different symptoms, we finally realize that the thyroid disease caused us all kinds of misery, including the worst the bladder problems.

I had to do my own searches to try to understand how our families thyroid disease went on to cause us all our horrible bladder symptoms. From what I understand is that having hypothyroidism will cause over time nerve damage.
This is often called having peripheral neuropathies. The peripheral nerves throughout the body are fragile and with Hypothyroidism, the blood flow and nutients are blocked and the nerves are slowly damaged. The good news is that this damage can be repaired by the body over time, with the proper treatment of thyroid hormones.

My Dr. tells me that I have nerve damage all throughout my body. Some damage is to the sensory nerves, and they do fire off a lot of painful sensations, especially as they try to grow back. Thats why we all had such awful bladder symptoms as there are so many nerves to the genital, rectum, bladder and urethra.

I was so much more worse than my older sister. She started taking 2 grains of Armour thyroid, and within a few months she never had further bladder symptoms again. That was now over 20 years ago. Lucky lady she is. I'm so jealous, so happy for her. :woohoo:

In my case, I had the bladder symptoms when I was just a baby and by the time I learned about my families thyroid disease, my nerves throughout my body are severely damaged and I had had so many different bladder surgeries and treatments that just made me worse. The body is fragile and such attacks on it are not helpful.

Like they say, "You can't fix a problem until you identify it". Boy, is that true when you suffer with the sneaky silent disease that thyroid diseases are.

Some say that Hypothyroidism affects 1 out of 10 women. Some are claiming that hypothyroidism is going unresearched and untreated because of it being
a woman's disease. But, it does affect men as my husband was diagnosed with hypothyroidism the same day that I was. We learned later that our 3 kids also have hypothyroidism due to our genetics.

My Mother, has been in a nursing home for the past 7 years. Well, one day I asked her nurse if I could see her thyroid pills, and when I examined them closely, I discovered that her thyroid pills were fake. I knew that because I have been taking the same thyroid medication for years. At that time, I felt just so shocked, like being hit with a truck!

The nurse did not know that my Mothers pills were not real. Her thyroid pills were labeled as "Armour thyroid 1 1/4 grains" It had her name on the label as well. I called the pharmacy, and they admitted to me that they were not really Armour thyroid. The told me that they were sending her the real thing by the next morning. Well, the next day the nurse showed me that the real Armour thyroid had come, and they gave her Armour thyroid for the first time.

I was so angry, disgusted and hurt that the elderly could be fooled like that. Fake pills must save the nursing homes a good deal of money, no wonder I never saw my Mother and others at this nursing home never get any better. I only saw people die.

It turned out that all those years I thought she was being treated for her thyroid disease, her thyroid medicine was fake. Talk about nursing home abuse!!!! :cussing: She had been diagnosed with Hypothyroid dementia, IC of the bladder, arthritis and fibromyalgia, bowel disfunction, wounds on her feet that would never heal, dry, dry flaky skin and hair, no eyebrows, numbness and tingling in her feet, so many signs and symptoms of Hypothyroidism.

The head nurse even threatened me that after I left, and went home to Alabama, they would be switching her back to the fake stuff. My Dr. told me that was not legal to label something as Armour thyroid, when it was something else. I traced the fake stuff to a spanish web site in South America, so who knows what it was that they were giving her????? They would not allow me to take a pill just to have it examined by some expets, perhaps with the government. People deserve to be getting what they are paying for. That nursing home charges my Mother $5 thousand a month for her care. :headbang:

So, this Christmas I visited Mom at the nursing home. She just looked so much better. I saw her skin on her legs that looked like I had never known it to be. I have pictures of her legs before being on Armour and now took new pictures and the change in them is dramatic. I checked with her nurse and she is still being given Armour thyroid, the real thing!!! We sat with her all day long, and my Mother chatted with her grandkids all day, they heard stories of her past like they never had heard her talk. She was not cranky anymore, and seemed so peaceful and her dementia was not apparent to us. She watches the news daily and knows all about her great-grandchildren.

The most fantastic thing, was that she actually was able to get up out of her wheelchair after years of being unable to support herself on her legs. She was walking without help. We could not believe our own eyes. She is still weak from inactivity from being in a wheelchair so long. The sores on her toes are nearly healed, when years ago they were talking about amputation of her foot!!!

No, I am not through, I have to go back and fight her Dr. and the nursing home to increase her Armour thyroid medication. I have heard of people who where like her getting up and walking again. She has always told us she was going to walk again. She deserves the chance, even if it is for a day. She still has her bladder symptoms but doesn't complain much. Just to be this much improved is a miracle and I am kicking myself for being such a fool and trusting that others would take good care of her. This must be happining to others in nursing homes. I wonder how many are not getting real medications, because someone has decided that the lives of the elderly and sick are not worthwhile. I will fight this everyday, untill I have no life left in me. I pray that God listens to my prayers, and gives me the courage. :angel:

Please make sure that you are getting help for your thyroid problem. Don't depend on others to help. You might have to change drs. With your thyroiditis, you most likely will be hypothyroid by now. It often ends this way.
There are some good web sites to find help. Do be a detective with this.

try www.tpa-uk.org.uk (a really interesting site that does include bladder symptoms with hypothyroidism)
www.thyroideducation.com a really neat UK Dr. I wish I had
www.thyroid.about.com a big thyroid site with lots of infor about thyroid

God Bless you and everyone who has thyroid disease and or IC bladder misery! :grouphug:

[courtascot]

i too have hypothyroidism since the age of 18 years old(i am now 38). interesting that that was my first diagnoses then i year later ic,then in 2003 ibs and 2005 endometriosis. my thyroid is usually stable at .100mg but since evrything else is out of whack right now it is too(just found out on friday). i can't win everything is going haywire at the same time so the doctor had to up my dosage again then test again in 6 weeks. my mom and sister are also diagnose with hypothyroidism but they are borderline .

[holles]

sacausa,
i have graves as well. i did the RAI twice, and it went hypo, but sometimes it still bounces up to hyper. i'm so relieved to know i'm not the only person out there like this. my synthroid dose gets changed about twice a year nowadays. one of these days i hope it settles down, but it's been almost 10 years now.

i didn't realize there was a thyroid awareness month. i'm glad to know it. it's such a common condition.

[Silverfox]

PLEASE TELL OTHERS THAT JANUARY IS THYROID AWARENESS MONTH! :idea:

Hey all with thyroid diseases, be sure to get help on those excellent thyroid web sites, and they have good forums there for thyroid problems. Also it was about 1973 when they stop teaching Drs. about the symptoms of thyroid disease so few Drs. know the symptoms. The blood tests were made so that Drs. could just get the blood tests and send the patient home without having to listen to the patients talking about their symptoms. Somehow the tests are not all that reliable so patients are left to suffer without help, but dont do that be a detective and know all the symptoms and all the different thyroid hormone medications that are available for treatment of low thyroid.

I never did well on Synthroid for example, and so I had my Dr. switch me to Armour thyroid. Boy, it was a wonderful change in the way that i felt. Some Drs. claim that they can diagnose and treat hypothyroidism without ever doing any blood tests. Yeah, that is old fashioned but for many it works very well.

January is thyroid awareness month. There is a site that sells all kinds of thyroid t-shirts, coffee mugs and even a coat for your dog. My kids bought me a pink t-shirt that says "I just Love My Armour Thyroid" and another black t-shirt that says "Got Thyroid?" I plan on wearing my thyroid t-shirts to all my Drs. appointments, because I want my Drs. to know that I am aware that Armour thyroid is one of the great miracle drugs in the history of medicine.

Don't forget to learn all you can about the treatment thyroid diseases, so you can feel good again!

www.thyroideducation.com
www.thyroid.about.com
www.tpa-uk.org.uk
www.armourthyroid.com

[Cora]

Are you still able to get your Armour thyroid? The company is back ordered till at least September for my dosage. I believe there are higher doses that have not been affected.