A silent epidemic

[Guest guest]

I found this online. It's a good article. Perhaps we should write the

author to give her some more information?!?!?!

Link to story:

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/97/157/03_2.html

By Kursman

Arizona Daily Wildcat

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

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It started out innocently enough. Tired from a long run, I pushed open

the front door, flopped down on the couch and kicked off my shoes.

Across the living room, my mom looked up from her book and gasped.

" What on earth is wrong with your feet? Are you in pain? " she wanted

to know.

Well, not really, but I was tired. More tired than I had ever felt in

my whole life, come to think of it, which was especially odd, since I

used to feel so energetic after running. It did seem that my feet were

pretty swollen, so I went to the doctor's office. After examining my

feet, my doctor's eyes bulged. She called the four remaining

physicians into my room, and as their expressions changed from

curiosity to worry, I started to feel anxious.

" You have to go the hospital, " my doctor commanded. " Right now.

Hurry. "

But I wasn't sick! I felt perfectly fine, just tired. Really, really,

tired ...

To make a long story short, I ended up spending over two weeks at the

hospital recovering from an extremely underactive thyroid gland. My

thyroid was so inflamed that an endocrinologist took a picture of my

neck, saying it was the worst case he'd ever seen. Maybe he'll submit

that photo to a medical textbook company, and then I'll be ... famous.

Yeah.

Anyway, I don't usually write columns about my personal life, but

after learning that thyroid disorders are so common - and so

frequently misdiagnosed - I feel it's important to spread the word on

this under-reported and potentially life-threatening endocrine

disease.

Basically, the thyroid gland, located in one's neck, is part of the

body's endocrine system. It regulates metabolism by making thyroid

hormone, which in turn affects cell activity. When an inadequate

amount of thyroid hormone is produced, the body makes more

thyroid-stimulating hormone, which results in an enlarged thyroid

gland, or a " compensatory goiter. " Left undiagnosed, an underactive

thyroid can wreak havoc on all other parts of the body - in my case,

elevating my heart enzymes, making my feet swell up and lowering my

heart rate into the low 40s.

Symptoms of hypothyroidism - fatigue, weakness, depression, muscle

aches - are so common that it's easy to write them off. Furthermore,

thyroid disorders are more common in women than in men, and frequently

patients are stereotyped as emotional hypochondriacs; doctors say that

the symptoms are " all in your head. "

Thyroid treatment is about as painless as can be: a synthetic form of

the hormone taken as a pill every morning. And thyroid testing is

simple - a standard blood draw to determine hormone levels. Yet

according to endocrinologist journals, although over 5 million

Americans have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, millions more have

not been diagnosed and continue to suffer.

Thyroid testing needs to become a mandatory portion of a physical

exam, and certainly included in a standard complete blood count. At

the very least, people with a genetic history of thyroid disorders

should have their hormone levels tested often, since hormone balances

can fluctuate without warning. The public needs to wake up to the

dangers of this creeping, insidious and readily treatable disease.

Kursman is a biology junior. She can be reached at

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