I Have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

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It was May 11, 2021, and I had a doctor's appointment that day. I was so excited to hopefully be getting answers to all the weird symptoms that I was feeling. But what I didn't know is that the results would change my life.

At my first doctor's appointment, I was encouraged to do a gluten and dairy elimination test. Obviously, I wasn't any stranger to elimination tests. I eliminated gluten and dairy for three weeks. In the fourth week, I added gluten back into my diet for one day, and for the next three days, I observed any symptoms. Then I was gluten-free again, and I added dairy back in and for the next three days, I observed those symptoms.

I reported back to my doctor that I definitely had a gluten intolerance. (At the time, I probably also had a dairy intolerance, but I may have been in denial about that.) When we went over the bloodwork, he got to the thyroid portion and said, "You have autoimmune thyroiditis, so that means you'll be gluten-free permanently."

I remember talking to my mom on the phone right after the appointment in disbelief. I hadn't ever heard the phrase "autoimmune thyroiditis" before, but I had heard of Hashimoto's. So I was very confused about it all, and when I got home to research, anything that said "autoimmune thyroiditis" was related to Hashimoto's. I was also prescribed two different thyroid medications that I had to start immediately.

I had to go back to see my doctor in just a few short weeks to make sure that this medication was working for me. It's synthetic thyroid hormone, so I had to make sure my body was responding to it, and I didn't need any adjustments. So I was armed with all my questions to ask my doctor that day. I had already purchased a few books on Hashimoto's because I'm a researcher. I researched all about PCOS, and now I was going to do the same thing with Hashimoto's. I dove into my questions, and thankfully he answered them, so off I went.

I have hypothyroidism caused by Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which means that my immune system is attacking my thyroid which in turn is slowly killing it. That means that my thyroid cannot produce enough hormones to function normally. The thyroid is in charge of many of the body's activities. It's essential to have thyroid hormone in your body.

I still feel really unknowledgeable about it all, but I'm currently managing. I keep reading books on Hashimoto's and I've become a student of my body. At first, I was okay with the thought of being gluten-free.  But the thoughts about it and actually doing it are two different things. It took about a week for my new reality to set it. I had been planning a night a week to eat out for our family. And while it's still doable, it's more difficult. I was limited on what I could eat. It was that reality that really made me start grieving my former lifestyle. [If that sounds like first-world problems, it really is!] But I wasn't about to give up.

I originally read that it was best for people with Hashimoto's to be gluten, dairy, and soy-free from the start. But based on my history of binging, I knew that taking all of those things out at once was not a good idea. To be fair, I was already soy free because of PCOS (soy mimics estrogen in the body). So that was easy. Check. I knew that I had to be gluten-free, so that's what I worked on for the next few months.

Once I figured all of this out, I just thought the weight would come off. I thought that gluten was hindering my weightloss journey, and once I took it out of my diet, I'd be golden. But that wasn't it. I continued to struggle and struggle with the weightloss aspect of this journey. Taking gluten out of my diet completely made me feel wonderful. So I knew that I was on the right track.

It did take about 3 or 4 months for the fatigue to subside and for me to start to feel "normal" again.

I took this picture on August 24th, 2021 right after lunch. I remember the day clearly--I had made lunch and cleaned it up all within minutes. This hadn't happened in probably 8 months or so. The fatigue had just overtaken my life.

My doctor had described it like this--we want the lightswitch to flip our symptoms. We want the pill or the fix or whatever it is to just work immediately. But it isn't like that. It's like a daytime alarm clock where the light starts at a very low setting and then gradually and gradually gets brighter and brighter. And that's exactly how it felt for me. Fatigue was the very worst of my symptoms, but I had other symptoms, too. They all got better as time went on.