1. Paranoid About Thyroid

Courtesy of Dalton Surgical Group

I was almost diagnosed with thyroid cancer. My family has a history of thyroid disease, specifically my dad’s side. My dad has three brothers and two sisters. Two of his brothers and one of his sisters developed thyroid disease, including my dad. The thyroid is an organ located just below your Adam’s apple (Office on Women's Health). It’s shaped like butterfly wings and weighs less than an ounce (The Nemours Foundation). It’s responsible for producing two main hormones called T3 and T4, which helps control a person’s metabolism and growth. It can affect how fast you can burn calories and how fast your heart beats (Office on Women's Health.)

The two main thyroid disorders are hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. Hyperthyroidism is a disorder where your thyroid makes more hormones than you need, making it overactive. Hypothyroidism is the opposite of hyperthyroidism. Hypothyroidism is when your thyroid doesn’t make enough thyroid hormones, causing it to be under-active. Hyperthyroidism can cause bones to weaken, and increases people’s risk of developing osteoporosis. Hypothyroidism can increase the amount of “bad” cholesterol someone has in their bad which can lead to heart disease (Office on Women's Health.)

I’m not sure which of these disorders my aunts and uncles with thyroid disease have because I’ve never asked. But I know they all take medicine for it. There are several treatments for hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. For hyperthyroidism, there is something called anti-thyroid medicine which prevents the thyroid from making new hormones, radioiodine which destroys and damages the thyroid cells that make thyroid hormones, surgery to remove most of the thyroid, and beta blockers which block the effects of the thyroid hormones on your body. When someone has surgery or takes radioiodine, they must take thyroid hormone pills for the rest of the lives to make up for the missing thyroid hormones. With hypothyroidism, medicine is the only treatment for it. There are artificial T3 and T4 hormones in these medicine, some have one or the other while some have a combination of the two. Again, this type of medicine must be taken throughout a person’s entire life (Office on Women's Health.) When my dad started taking thyroid medicine, the doctor told him that he might have to take it for the rest of his life in order to maintain normal thyroid levels. But slowly, he tried to wean himself off of those pills while still having normal thyroid levels and he did it. But he still has normal checkups to make sure that his thyroid levels are where they should be.

Because of my family’s and dad’s history, my parents were worried about me. My mom has always commented on the size of my neck, saying that it looked bigger than normal. She spoke to our family doctor and he decided that it was better to be safe than sorry, and suggested that I get testing to try and figure out if I had thyroid disease. Thyroid diseases are hard to diagnose because their symptoms are fairly common among other diseases. Symptoms for hyperthyroidism can include muscle weakness, increased sweating and sensitivity to heat, shaky hands and fingers, trouble sleeping, irritability, anxiety, increased appetite and weight loss, and irregular heartbeats. Symptoms for hypothyroidism include a hoarse voice, puffy face, pale and dry skin, fatigue, depression, muscle or joint pain and weakness, increased sensitivity to cold, and unexplained weight gain. You may also develop thyroid nodules, which may or may not cause thyroid disease. A thyroid nodule is a swollen thyroid gland. A thyroid nodule can be seen on either side the windpipe below the Adam’s apple. It looks like a bump and will move up and down when you swallow. Less than 10% of thyroid nodules are cancerous. Cancerous thyroid nodules may cause people pain of difficulty when swallowing, and it may also cause the neck to look swollen (Office on Women's Health.)



Works Cited

1. Office on Women's Health. "Thyroid disease fact sheet." Last modified July 16, 2012. http://womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/thyroid-disease.html
2. The Nemours Foundation. "Thyroid Disease and Teens." Last modified February 2012. http://kidshealth.org/teen/diseases_conditions/growth/thyroid.html#