Small But Mighty: A Thyroid Life

SEARCHING the word 'Thyroid' on Google brings up about 13,600,000 results. Does this mean anything to you? To me it is just a number; a collection of digits all stringed together in a way that I cannot read; a meaningless piece of information, except to tell me that there is no point in looking at every search result - it would take an uncountable number of hours. It is meaningless, but it does make me think: how many of these are blogs? How many of these are entries on health websites? How many are videos? News entries? Single word terms? I attempted to study this a short while ago in order to find the answer to this - see the posts on 'Popular or Ignored?' for the results. What actual use are all of these Google search results to us? How much use do we, the public (who own most of the results conjured on Google) think that we're doing? The endless blogs, YouTube videos, self-publishing initiatives, websites, and so forth, and then the abundance of blog search engines designed the find the best, the most popular, the most useful and so on - is there not a point of doing so much that we create a paradox?

How much information can you put into a categorised system? Imagine a library, like The British Library, containing books from across centuries right through to modern day. Every book is categorised alphabetically, numerically, according to date - but how long does this system last? In modern-day times books are produced at a mass-scale, hundreds per year worldwide. If you were going to categorise every book in existence, and if you had endless space to do this, would you not still get lost in a room of endless authors whose surnames begin with 'A'?; would you not become confused with a Sci-Fi section that stretches from the centre of London right up to Manchester? How many times do you move your organisation system around in your home or office?

We all love and think it's wonderful to have a vast abundance of choices and as much information from people as is possible, but is it not possible to put so much information into a system that can't categorise all of it (though it does try) and end up with an overflowing river that people steer clear of? When you search a term and Google shows 13,600,000 results, do you think "oh, god." and just look at the first two? Or do you filter through all the pages until you find one that interests you? Or, do you simply close the browser and think: "forget it"?

Search engines such as Google's blog search allow some filtering between results, but we are still left pondering which link to open. I tend to open up several in new tabs and have a read of each one, before getting horrendously bored and closing them all: there are simply too many. I have been moaning for perhaps far too long about the state of awareness of thyroid disease, and quietly asking for more news entries; more official websites; more of this, more of that, but now I would like to query - am I just furthering the paradox?

I believe not. I believe that the contradiction of receiving information lies where we cannot differ between the types of information. To release ourselves from this contradiction we need to find the quality articles; the official blog posts; the informative websites; the non-exclusive communities. I will be discussing these things in the articles following this one. Awareness comes from news articles - because the general public read them. Awareness comes from quality articles - because they are more likely to attract attention and be judged as 'official' in a way. If we are to find good articles out of the sea of information available (which, quite literally, is what 13, 600, 000 results translates into) then perhaps we should have technology which can deal with the constant pitter-patter of our keyboard. Will this take a few years? Will it take several? Who knows. It might even take a day. But what I have realised is that no matter how often we use our beloved search engines they still cannot quite provide us with what they need - they cannot cope with the endless flow of information; they cannot categorise it well enough. And as a result when we submit more information to the web, we are effectively getting less out of it. How does a thyroid newbie know which link will provide him/her with the most useful and accurate information at his first search?

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I have just looked up the Edexcel GCSE Biology specification for 2010 to see where the word 'thyroid' might or might not be mentioned, and this is what I found:











The word 'thyroid' was not mentioned anywhere.

In one section, there was a rather detailed paragraph about hormones.













No 'thyroid' mentioned there either, despite the fact that the thyroid produces hormones and can affect the body's ability to produce other hormones - such as oestrogen.

In fact, the pituitary gland is even mentioned here, but the specification fails to mention what else the pituitary gland does (it releases TSH - Thyroid Stimulating Hormone - to control the amount of T3 and T4 released by the thyroid gland. In other words, it tells the thyroid when it should start kicking, or when it should go to sleep.) No mention.

There was one section about "the metabolic rate":
















Here, we can see that the "metabolic rate varies with the amount of activity you do...." We are told that "It may be affected by inherited factors"...

And that is it. Not a word about how the metabolic rate might also be affected by the hormones in the body or by disease; not even that thyroid disease may be one of these 'inherited factors.' There is no mention of the thyroid whatsoever, despite the thyroid's 'area' being mentioned.

There are many ways of doing things at once. One is to have two keyboards and two monitors - one for the right hand and one for the left, so that you can type two entirely different articles at once.

Unfortunately, I cannot do this for I am not a multi-tasking genius. Aside from that, I must remember that thyroid blogging belongs to the medical, and hence scientific field - therefore such a thing is impossible.

A second way is to do things one at a time, until you've completed a list.

Unfortunately, I seem unable, as I am currently preferring to add about a line to each article as and when I feel.

Finally, another way is to stop thinking of ways to do things at once and to actually go and do it.

This, I really ought to do.

For now though, here is a list of the 'coming soon'....

• 'The Thyroid and The Stomach' - Arriving in no more than two or three weeks.
  
• Useful Links
• 'We'll Fight Till We Win: A Virtual Battle of Knowledge - The Official VS The Personal Touch' - A response to the media study of earlier posts, looking at the way in which the majority of thyroid information tends to come from thyroid sufferers themselves (because they have actually heard of a thyroid and its diseases and know more than: "it makes you fat.")
• The utter uselessness of an education in teaching about one of the mightiest glands in the entire body - another response to the media study of earlier posts
  
• 'Something has finally arrived to satisfy our medical needs and it goes by the name of.....' - Introducing a brand new site to you

That, coming very soon

STAGE 1: Symptoms appear (here are just some of the symptoms a thyroid disease sufferer may encounter):
Exhaustion/Falling asleep over books
Stomach pain/ flatulence/Digestion problems
Forgetfulness/ clumsiness/ brain fog/ blanks/Inability to concentrate/Inability to stay involved in conversations

STAGE 2: Tests: Blood tests
There may be tests for Diabetes; Lupus; Celiac Disease and other endocrine disorders

STAGE 3: RESULTS
Tests are all normal, except the thyroid test.

Headless Metabolism response:

"Well isn't that jolly? It's just my thyroid. Alrightee then!" 

Doctor response:

"Nothing to worry about - it's just your thyroid" 

It is of course fantastic that Headless Metabolisms are able to respond in such a way - for one thing, it is very positive - but is there not a major issue with addressing the results of blood tests which show a thyroid inadequacy as just? It may well be so that thyroid disease is relatively easy to treat - and as such hypothyroid sufferers should perhaps consider themselves lucky, that all we have to do, or at least, according to the medication leaflet this is so, is take a few pills every day for the rest of our life, unlike other, more viscous diseases. Indeed, we have a perfect reason to conclude with a 'just' - because with a small increase of medication, the symptoms should disappear.

However, surely by concluding with a 'just' we are pushing aside the real importance of such a small but mighty gland. Surely, this collective 'ah well' attitude is likely to wander in on the lack of media efforts in addressing the importance of the thyroid? The small articles, personal stories and altogether lack of an informative style, which were found in the media study of earlier posts, must surely be driven by some viewpoint? Perhaps it is the viewpoint that the thyroid isn't really that important; that thyroid symptoms aren't life-threatening or life-intruding, and that they are 'healed' so easily that there isn't really a need to talk about them. Well, let us look for a moment at what the thyroid actually is, at what it does, and at why there really is a need to talk about it, because it is important.

Thyroid symptoms, while they are present, cause a lot of irritation and disturbances to everyday life; they cause stress (dangerous in itself); they can be related to other conditions and problems such as gluten intolerances and autoimmune conditions and they can cause the immune system to be less functional, hence causing the onset of viruses and diseases. The disruptions of thyroid symptoms can also lead to unhealthy habits and lifestyles, and can, like any illness, lead to low examination, job or interview performance, undoubtedly leading to long-term changes: affecting a child at school and impacting on the rest of their education and their future, or causing an adult's livelihood to be in tatters. In addition, unhealthy habits such as drinking and smoking whilst with untreated thyroid disease can be especially dangerous - extremely so when the sufferer does not know of his/her situation.

The conclusion of any one to the word of 'thyroid' ought not to be 'just' because thyroid symptoms do not always go away, and the patient is lucky if they go away purely with the aid of Levothyroxine (thyroid hormone replacement medication) and without any extreme effort by the patient him/herself.

So, let us address that question of aren't we pushing aside the real importance of such a small but mighty gland? It ought not to be forgotten that it is of course a relief to know that such symptoms are merely caused by a dodgy thyroid and nothing more. I do not for one minute propose that the entire medical community, media, patients and non-patients all of a sudden react with a hardened face to the word of 'thyroid', because, quite simply, it isn't mighty enough to end the world - yet it is mighty enough to fight an entire sufferer's body. We must not forget or ignore that. We all like to think 'just' because it is a nice thought - but there are other words which are positive, like 'work with your thyroid,' which takes into account the thyroid's importance as well as the fact that it's not our greatest enemy. It may only be a dodgy thyroid, but that dodgy thyroid, so central to our entire bodily functions as it is, is more than an inferior concern of our body and so should be more than an inferior concern to us, to our doctors, to the media, and to just about any one and everyone else.

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Note: There is no sound in this movie