I waited until I’d reached the sixth floor bathroom before I burst into tears. According to the endocrinologist I’d spent four years battling to see, my underactive thyroid was not only behind the sluggishness, the stomach issues and the weight gain I’d been experiencing for six plus years, but it was likely to be behind the month’s-long brain fog that had started to make me think I was quite possibly losing my mind and at the very least losing my spark.
That was just the start of the bombshells, it transpired. Had my GP not told me I should be on a higher dose of medication? Did I realise that my thyroid condition may well affect my chances of getting pregnant if I planned to have a baby in the next few years? And was I aware I was likely to have this autoimmune thing called Hashimoto’s disease, the predominant cause of hypothyroidism? “Hashi-what?” I repeated, not only completely overwhelmed but oddly embarrassed by the apparently gaping hole in my vocabulary.
