It’s been almost four years since I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. It was a realization that changed my life. Before I was diagnosed, I ate everything and anything. I ate bread like it was going out of style. Cheese was something I couldn’t do without and ring dings were a mainstay. I never thought food would be the catalyst for the destruction of my thyroid.

You may read these words and think it’s impossible. But I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. We all know the phrase, “You are what you eat.” That being the case there was nothing natural about my being. Most of what I ate was processed in one form or another. My eating habits were what drove me to the brink of what was near disaster.

I don’t think we often associate what we eat with how we feel. That is until we get physically sick. Unfortunately for me, it took years of eating “junk” before I felt the effects of such a lifestyle. Each year I got worse. I remember when I was twenty-nine years old, I went to the doctors with complaints of exhaustion and total body pain. My joints ached, I was unfocused and felt tired most of the time. The doctor diagnosed my condition as Fibromyalgia. That didn’t help the way I felt, it just gave me an excuse to feel the way I felt.

I moved through the next twenty years in a fog. My migraines got worse. I would dose them with sinus medication, Excedrin Migraine, and a bottle of coke. By the time this concoction made it through my system, I was nauseous, jittery, crabby and I didn’t sleep for two days. In the beginning, it made the pain of the migraine tolerable, but as time passed the headaches got worse and my makeshift meds, didn’t touch the pain. I couldn’t take traditional migraine medication, because I was hypersensitive and reacted to everything my doctor prescribed.

Not only did the pain of the fibro make it difficult to enjoy life, but the migraines made it nearly impossible. It took all I had to keep up with my two girls. Beyond that, I couldn’t focus or find enough energy to “have fun” or “enjoy life.”

I tell you this because most symptoms we experience can be a misdiagnosis for another condition, illness or disease. In my blog BLOG POST HERE, I list some of the symptoms of Hashimoto’s, some of which are confusion, numbness, exhaustion and total body aches and pains. Then there is weight gain and a feeling of desperation that steals away your joy.

I remember a time when I would wear socks and sweats to bed in July. Yes, I was cold all the time. Then there was the contest to see who could leave the most hair in the corners throughout the house, the dog or me.

Listen to me when I say, if you experience these symptoms, consider your thyroid as the source. Listen to your body. If you think something isn’t right, chances are something is wrong. Remember, your regular doctor can draw blood and send it off to the lab, but the results will not be accurate. Your TSH results may come back normal and yet your T3/T4 and antibodies could be out of control.

In the next few posts, I will be discussing more of what it means to live with Hashimoto’s and how it affects your life. I hope anyone who reads this series will share it with mothers, daughters, wives, husbands, and sons. Yes, that’s right, men are not immune from Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Look at your children and consider the possibility that their behavior issues could be driven by their thyroid. We will discuss that possibility too.

I hope some of you will share your experience in the comments. Your story could help another to seek out and get diagnosed so they can start living again. In the next post I will talk about how, as Hashimoto’s gets worse, we become disassociated from the life we used to love. I hope you will read it.