WHY THIS BLOG..?

Although it's now agreed that I have been hypothyroid practically all my life, I was only diagnosed in January 2009 and started on thyroid meds in January 2010, when I was also diagnosed with Hashimoto's.  Since then, I have discovered so much about the illness both through personal experience and from the Internet - and nothing from the medics who were supposed to have helped me!

I hope that by writing down my experience, I might be able to help other adults or parents struggling with this grossly under-diagnosed and badly handled condition.  I will also add links to websites, forums and articles I've found particularly helpful or interesting but, PLEASE NOTE, I am neither medically trained nor qualified and offer this as information and not advice.

Please add your own experiences...

Starting small...

My story starts with a slightly premature birth in 1950, followed by a happy childhood but one dogged by ear, nose, sinus and throat problems.  When I was about two years old I had chicken pox and pneumonia simultaneously, and my parents were told to move to a better environment or risk losing me; so we moved to a beautiful part of the country, the Peak District in Derbyshire. 

At 7 years of age I and my 10 year old brother and a whole ward of children were booked in to have our tonsils removed.  As I had developed whooping cough my parents queried whether I should have the operation.  The Sister said to leave us both but she would speak to the surgeon about me - she forgot..!  As a consequence, I could neither lie down, eat, sleep, nor talk (much to the amusement of my brother, in the next bed).

My throat was raw and I spent the few days there being shouted at constantly by the nurses (all nuns!!) to swallow the copious phlegm  I coughed up [apologies ] and which was completely cutting off my airway.  There were some highlights for a young girl though and I felt very special and grown-up with the nurses on night duty sitting by my bed, reading their romances and chatting to me (if I lay down I, quite literally, choked).  The rollicking the Sister got from the surgeon on the last day was quite a spectacle for young, innocent eyes too!

Getting bigger...

From a scrawny child I grew and grew and grew - width-wise, unfortunately . I still had constant ENT problems: earache is an abiding memory of my childhood as is leaning over a bowl of boiling Friar's Balsam under a towel (and lots of happy times too!). Nosebleeds and headaches were also part of life.  X-rays discovered a problem with my nose/scull formation which prevents air circulating properly (I permanently feel 'stuffy' and always need fresh air in my face).  An operation to correct this was available but considered to be too dangerous for a problem which wasn't life-threatening.    

At 13, I went into hospital to have all four wisdom teeth removed - yet more humiliation, as I spent several weeks imitating a hamster with its cheeks full of food and yet unable to open my lips wide enough to get food in, so unfair!  And yet more teenage embarrassment was to come: I contracted an infected mastoid and suffered the indignity of receiving daily penicillin injections in my backside, for a week; mortifying - and extremely painful.

As I reached my late teens, childhood ENT problems gave way to bronchitis, which I would bark and choke my way through several times a year, each time for many weeks or even months (each year, that is from about 1965 until 2002 - when I went gluten-free - but more of that, later!)

SO, I had a pronounced ENT childhood and recurring respiratory infections throughout my childhood and adult life: 

Hypothyroidism causes immune suppression and anemia.  Therefore, it is not surprising that hypothyroid people are subject to recurrent infections.  Dr. Broda Barnes cites the following infections among hypothyroid patients:  frequent colds, respiratory infections including bronchitis and pneumonia, chronic sore throats, sinusitis, recurrent otitis media or middle ear infection, tonsillitis....  

Taken from:  Hypothyroidism Lita Lee