Small But Mighty: A Thyroid Life

What to think and what not to think; what to do and what not to do....we wonder endlessly about our daily lives and how we should manage them, but we usually don't realise the best ways until after the moment has passed, especially when it comes to medical disorders. So here I present to you: What to do and what not to do: The Thyroid Newbie Guide

The way I see it, there are two options about what you should do when first diagnosed with thyroid disease, and I cannot yet tell which is the better:

Option 1: Continue your life as normal, thinking as little as possible about your thyroid or the symptoms caused by its disease. Work with it, if possible, increasing your activity and pushing yourself harder, but never do less than you were doing before; base yourself on the assumption that whatever is happening now is better than it was before, not worse, and so you have no possible excuse to do any less than you were doing before.

Option 2: Attempt to work with your thyroid if possible, (as above), but this time write down everything that you are feeling in a chronological order, like a medical record. Write down the symptoms you have, and then add to that list as you realise that you have more than you first thought. As each symptom goes, tick them off, write the date (important!) and write how you are feeling now. If you gain any additional symptoms, write them down too, and write when they come, how or if you begin to treat them, and whether they are getting worse or better as time goes on.

Those are the two options, but as you would expect there are advantages and disadvantages of each. These are as follows:
Option 1 Advantages:

• Some people say that the more you think about something, the worse it gets. If thyroid symptoms, once you are 'normal' again, are part caused by psychological thought, then part ignoring the fact that you have the disease may well allow you to continue life as normal (assuming you do not forget to take your pills!).
• It will keep you active: the more exercise you do, the higher your metabolism.
  
• There is very little disturbance to your current routine and you can carry on as normal.
  
• It's a more positive outlook
• Any minor symptoms which recur will cause you little disruption if you base yourself on this assumption that no symptom is worse than what you used to have.
  

Option 1 Disadvantages:

• If you end up hypothyroid again after a fairly short period of time and have to up the dose of your medication (highly likely) then you may become impatient waiting for all of your symptoms to go. Option 2 in this case would perhaps be more beneficial because it would offer you the chance of knowing that there is nothing to worry about because last time that symptom didn't go until a few weeks after starting the medication, and that one didn't go until much longer after starting it, and so forth. Using Option 1 also means that, should you develop other symptoms not strictly related to your thyroid whilst being 'normal', you will have no opportunity of finding out whether you developed a similar symptom the first time; again, Option 2, in this case, is much more beneficial.
  

Option 2 Advantages:

• This option covers for the disadvantage 1 of Option 1: it is a useful way of preparing for the next time your thyroid goes down.
  
• If you develop any methods of daily life which seem to ease your symptoms - such as memory routines; exercise routines; types of foods and regularity of foods; the use of certain medications - you will not forget this usefulness next time and will hopefully re-use it.
  
• You will not be put down when you develop apparently new symptoms despite being 'normal' as you will have evidence telling you that a similar thing happened last time, perhaps it goes given time, or is not such a problem after a while.
  
• If you do manage to 'work with' your thyroid, the same advantage of Option 1 applies: the more exercise you do, the higher your metabolism.
  
• You will understand the condition you have much more than in Option 1 and you will therefore be able to predict your reactions to different situations (for example how you might react to a long week which requires full concentration, while you are still underactive) and you will be in a better position to work out strategies of ensuring that negative reactions do not happen, if you have the motivation to do this; you will also be able to better explain your condition to other people should they ask questions about it.
  
• Once you do get there, to 'normal' and relatively symptom-less, you will know almost exactly how you did get there and will therefore be in a better position to know that, so long as you keep doing what you have been doing, and your dose doesn't need changing, you will be fine. If your dose does need changing and you go underactive again, you just need to revert back to what you previously did to ensure a speedy return to the normal that you have finally got to experience, and the normal that you absolutely love.
  

Option 2 Disadvantages:

• Doing this takes time and can cause a change to your routine as a lot of your focus will now be on your thyroid instead of your everyday life.
  
• Some people say that the more you think about something, the worse it gets. If this is true then Option 2 is not going to be particularly useful.
  

There is no right or wrong option to choose, and choosing should not be based on couting up how many advantages or disadvantages are on each side; it should be based on weighing up which advantages you prefer and which disadvantages you do not.

The most important thing is to remember to



On a personal note....about options and why working with your thyroid is so important.
I began last year with Option 1, but the more I realised just how many symptoms I did have, and how many were then going, and the more I learnt about hypothyroidism itself, the more I saw that I needed to pay more attention to what was happening and to understand which of my routines were providing the best solutions. This time round I think I completely forgot about the need to 'work with' my thyroid and simply couldn't be bothered for the hassle; I instead decided that it wouldn't be long until I was back to normal and that I would 'work with' it once I got there. I think that's a bit of impatience that was kicking in. As it turned out, it has taken much longer than I thought. I am now reverting to Option 2 and going to set into action the whole of this working with my thyroid idea. When I collect more (hopefully) advantages and, if there are any, disadvantages, I will add them here and hopefully conclude the best Option in my eyes.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Some Health Queries & Answers (findmeacure.com)
• Tips On How To Grow Taller (slideshare.net)
• Diagnostic Hybrids gets FDA clearance for thyroid test (medcitynews.com)

The Independent should recieve a massive 'thumbs up' for the amount of articles on the thyroid which they have published, although it must be said that the articles I recorded are not really 'could it be your Thyroid?' type articles: they are, for example, about soya or fluoride, where the thyroid gets a mention of about a paragraph in length, as one of the dangers of such an ingredient. Although a definite starting point and a hint that thyroid diseases are certainly not 'ignored' by The Independent, there ought to be more detail and explanation - the average reader, unless considerably enthused, is not going to take the time of looking up the word 'thyroid' just because it pops up in an article. And to top this, the fact that there were quite a few letters asking about symptoms of thyroid disease suggests that there is a demand for more, full articles; for more attention to it.

It must also be noted that these articles are online - this does not necessairly mean that the article has been put in print, in the newspaper.


The Time's beats any newspaper out of the original list, and actually turns my whole theory around, as here is a newspaper, working for awareness quite actively. (See previous blog entry for the recorded data).

1. 
   
   This interests people (not me!)
   
   
   
2. 
   
   There is alot available to use.
   
   
   
   

Related articles by Zemanta

• UK newspapers: A lot of your online readers are from across the pond (socialmediatoday.com)
• Guardian and Times the most cited UK papers on wikipedia (malcolmcoles.co.uk)
• Opposition to BBC's newspaper video-sharing plans grow (the links) (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• How US traffic is vital for UK newspaper sites (onlinejournalismblog.com)
• Independent titles 'not for sale' (guardian.co.uk)
• The Thyroid and its Diseases: Popular or Ignored? - Study of Additional News Sites (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• Causes of Thyroid disease (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• The Thyroid and its Diseases: Popular or Ignored? (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• 13 Reasons For A Poppycock State Of Awareness (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• The Thyroid and its Diseases: Popular or Ignored? - Results (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• Welcome & Thyroid Symptoms (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)

1. Independent
   
2. Times
3. Daily Mail
4. Local News: Watford Observer/Borehamwood Times
5. JC

1. Independent

• 1 - Soya
• 1 - Hormones
• 1 - BBC presenter suffering from thyroid cancer
• 1 - Oprah Winfrey (who also has thyroid disease)

• 1 - Flouride
• 1 - Chernobyl

• 1 - Diabetes and Downs Syndrome - dated yesterday, 10th August!
• 1 - Cancer
• 1 - BBC presenter suffering from thyroid cancer
• 1 - Swine Flu
• 1 - SAD
• 1 - Hair Loss
• 1 - Genome Project

• 1 - BTF/Thyroid UK and how the thyroid is undiagnosed. Excellent article. April 2005:

• 1 - Thyroid Awareness Week:

• 1 - 'The silent epidemic'

• 1 - BBC presenter suffering from thyroid cancer
• 1 - Celebrity with thyroid disease
• 1 - Presenter with thyroid disease
• 1 - Sex hormones and the thyroid

• 1 - Baby's IQ and thyroid disease
• 1 - Thyroid Cancer

• 1 - 'Local family perform for charity' - But there was no info here about the charity they were perfoming for, the BTF

• Infertility and thyroid disease

• There were 2 about the prevalence of thyroid disease and thyroid cancer in the Ukraine, however these were not strictly about thyroid disease and this is not to be expected - they were about the suffering of the people of the Ukraine.

• Enidnews.com - Oklahama, US

1 website - no date, but comments are closed

• athens gynecology.com 'serving Athens and the surrounding Atlanta areas.'

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Thyroid and its Diseases: Popular or Ignored? - Just how informative IS the media? (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)

• Channel 4's website was the most informative on thyroid disease and thyroid cancer; it had the most number of articles compared to other news sites.
• There were some television programmes: one on Channel 4 ('You Are What You Eat')
• Revision sites for GCSE and A Level of biology and PE contain merely mentions of what the thyroid does - nothing about thyroid disease, which is odd considering that the disease can target during puberty or is more likely to be spotted at this time. (Though it is also true that this is more information than was studied in the past.)
• BBC articles did not do much to raise awareness or encourage (though it is liberal so can only state) and tended to be:
• - Negative for thyroid disease treatment (1)
  - About Chernobyl (Where thyroid disease and cancer numbers have gone up dramatically since the disaster

Informing us and paying attention to this is good, but it does not explain what thyroid disease is or that it is common throughout the world - concentrating on its prevalence in one country alone could lead to misinterpretations.

• The BBC does get the 'thumbs up' when it comes to radio presentations, however these are all, bar one, on Radio 4, and the other is a Cornwall Local station. The timing for the programmes is not bad - late evening - but it is still unlikely to receive many individuals not concerned about their health, especially considering the title of one of the Radio 4 programme: 'Am I normal?'

• Generally the search terms I came up with were not particularly successful in terms of the first three pages of Google results: 6 altogether, of 10 search terms.
• 
  

However, searching for more specific terms - goitre, for example, provided endless results, where the word 'thyroid' was located on almost every one and it seemed pointless to count up points. Again, I am reminded of something I said not long ago:

It seems that you need to know about thyroid disease in order to find out about it.

The problem is that almost all thyroid symptoms are general, and common with a number of different conditions, diseases, or temporary illnesses. As such, even knowing one or two symptoms is not enough to find out more, unless you know specifically that it is your thyroid, or know the more 'original' symptoms, such as a goitre.




As such, the 'self-help' sites out there cannot be quite as useful as they hope; even my own awareness site, without advertising, is also left quite distant from the 'any one', who doesn't have or know of thyroid disease.

• I did not search blogs, but a quick search on Google blog search reveals: 567, 670 results (although many of these are actually websites, not blogs); there are 11 blogs listed on blogarama.com (including my own).
• There were a ridiculous amount of YouTube videos: 1,730 results for the search term "thyroid", and as such it seemed even more ridiculous to filter through these and pick out the ordinary VS the news video or official entry.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Thyroid and its Diseases: Popular or Ignored? (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• Awareness In The UK VS The US: This Needs To Be Changed (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)
• Causes of Thyroid disease (thyroidlife.blogspot.com)

Click here to view a spreadsheet of all the results from the study:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tk3YmCivYl7Jptcz7s-hdHg&single=true&gid=0&output=html

Below is a bar chart of the data types and numbers (as per 'method') recorded. Click on the thumbnail to view full size.


From the number of terms recorded, I worked out the points as follows:

*Note: I did not find any 'entire news section', worth 14 points, or 'news video entries', worth 14 points also. However I am aware that there are some US news videos available on YouTube which I have found previously and is referred to in the July article: 'Awareness in the UK VS the US: This Needs to be Changed.'
I also did not search blogs in the end - see 'analysis' for more details on this as I did a quick search afterwards.

The results comparing US and UK points 12 and 13 should not be relied upon because I did not search specific US news sites as I did with the UK, e.g. the BBC.


Commentary on the study, along with many articles are coming soon!

AIM: To find out to what extent thyroid disease is publicised across the media and therefore what the state of awareness is.

METHOD: I am going to surf the net for approximately one hour. I am going to search Google for the following terms:

1. tiredness
2. stomach problems
3. conditions
4. diseases
5. women
6. common problem
7. top diseases
8. poor concentration
9. poor memory
10. infertility

I am going to look through:

• BBC online
• ITV online
• Sky news online
• Five news online
• Four news online

...and see if I can find any websites or single terms of the following:

• thyroid
• hypothyroid
• hyperthyroid
• thyroid cancer
• thyroid disease
• underactive thyroid
• overactive thyroid
• metabolic diseases
• endocrine disorders

I am going to record the amount of results whose title or description on Google contains any of those terms above. I am only going to search through the first 3 pages of search results on any website.

Any results which I judge to be related to a thyroid or thyroid disease I will click on. I am then going to record each website or term with the following points:

1. Single mention/term: 2 points
2. Brief entry (paragraph) on website: 4 points
3. Blogs: 8 points
4. YouTube videos by ordinary people (a collection of videos by one person will gain only a single collection of points): 8 points
5. Non-blog website: 10 points
6. Old news article (old being more than a year old exactly): 11 points
7. Present news article: 12 points
8. Any present radio entry on usual stations e.g. BBC Radio 4: 12 points
9. Section on an official website e.g. the health section of the BBC: 13 points
10. Entire present news section: 14 points
11. Present News video entries: 14 points (per entry)

If radio or video I will record what time they are published and by whom.
I will record anything else of interest e.g. whether videos are US or UK; whether US news sites give coverage and whether the UK ones will.

I will record the results and then analyse and compare where necessary. I will present my results as best as possible and write as many articles as I feel necessary.

----------------------------------------------------

Aside from this study...

I also hope to research the following:

• Is thyroid disease in the school syllabus?

If yes, when did it enter the syllabus?
If it isn't, was it ever?
And when do people start learning about it in education? University - what courses, what levels? Medicine, yes, but any others?
Are there any other qualifications in which you learn at least briefly about it?
And, if it's not on our syllabus, is it on the US one, or anywhere else in the world?

• Who should know about thyroid disease? (profession wise)

This will be useful when it comes to analysing the results of a survey I have created about thyroid awareness (see above for the link). At present, I cannot find this information and do not know how to go about it - if you have any ideas, please let me know.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Beyond Sky, the BBC and 'Objectivity' towards pluralism and the 'new information order'... (sluggerotoole.com)
• Hypothyroidism - what is it? (blisstree.com)
• The Thyroid & Pregnancy: ATA Research Summit And Spring Symposium (medicalnewstoday.com)
• How do I keep my thyroid problem in check? (beinghealthyhomeandaway.blogspot.com)
• Check your neck, it could save your life (osocio.org)
• Thyroid Scan (findmeacure.com)
• Safer treatment for thyroid cancer (marsdd.com)

Of Note: Written at some point I think before being diagnosed hypothyroid.

---

Reality is pouring in from all angles, and I feel so tired. It's like a ceiling collapsing on me, for I can feel it crunching at my bones. I can feel it tearing every breath from my lungs. In its dull and solid make there homes no creature, no kind of magical object, pathway to other dimensions or anything of the sort. I try to open my eyes, and again I see this ceiling, cracking and crumbling at every part.

Reality is pouring in from all angles, and I feel so tired. Again and again. I try to open my eyes and here comes the whole process again. Tiredness: the only all-powerful, immortal killer, so dull and solid that it wears no cracks or holes through which to see into the open. Darkness revels in its presence. I try to open my eyes, to see once again. To see an entire sky laid out before me, and above me, and behind me, and all around me, colours...