I was diagnosed with a hyperthyroid goiter. They said it was Graves disease when I was 15 years old. They removed half my thyroid. I didn't notice the mental and emotional changes getting the goiter (after all I was a teenager), but I certainly did when they removed it. Fourteen years later, I started noticing mental and physical changes again, and even though I kept telling my doctor, he didn't figure out the problem. I did when I started looking up causes for my eye symptoms. Instead of being an extrovert, high energy person, I had become a paranoid, introvert that didn't have any energy and was gaining weight even though I was exercising more. When they checked my thyroid hormone level, they said it was very low and prescribed thyroid hormone. The medical community doesn't seem to want to acknowledge the effects the thyroid has on a person's mental/emotional condition. It doesn't just affect you physically. In the same way that PMS causes personality changes, so does the thyroid hormone.

I'm 34, and I have had hyperthyroidism, Graves disease, and now, I have hypothyroidism. I've been going through this for more than 10 years. Please, if you have thyroid problems, see an endocrinologist at least every six months. If you have Graves' eye disease, you should be seeing a neuro-opthalmologist. If I had known this earlier on in my diagnosis, it would have saved me a lot of trouble in my life. Take your meds every day and make sure you're taking them properly, for example levothyroxine doesn't work with food or antacids/calcium. I hope this helps someone.

I have been treated for hypothyroidism for a few years now, due to having taking Lithium for manic Bi-Polar this affected the working of my Thyroid gland. I have since been taken off Lithium but unfortunately the damage has been done. I take 50mg of Thyroxine, but I have been noticed these past months that my weight and hair is being affected again. I went back to my G.P. who said my blood test is normal, so I'm left with having to just 'get by' like this. I know my thyroid is not right again, perhaps the med needs increased but something isn't right. I'm going to try my G.P again and failing that I will buy something online to help. I see there are Iodine tablets you can purchase to help.

My wife had her thyroid removed 5 years ago and it turned out benign. Since then our lives have been unbearable. Loss of sleep, depression sick to her stomach following the medicine. She has bright lights in her left eye, dizziness, severe pain in the left side of her neck and headaches, fatigue, severe pain in her legs after just a few stair steps and the inability to have any type of social life. We have been to over a dozen different specialists, including a neurologist that said she was being poisoned. We were back at Mayo yesterday and their answer again was it was just in her head. Why won't they confront this problem instead of looking the other way. People deserve better answers and treatment. My life has been on hold the entire time also. When they tell us nobody else has these symptoms and then I find this website, what a relief that we are not both going through this because of our imaginations.

I became very depressed and I couldn't function in school. I could not walk up the stairs without pain in me knees and loss of hair. I was always tired and always wanted to sleep. I was always cold. I started to lose a lot of hair and my neck enlarged and my face gained a lot of weight. My skin turned dry and my legs swelled up. My skin turned yellow. I talked really slow and it took me awhile to understand what others were trying to explain to me. It affected my liver. I couldn't drink or eat anything that was fried because it made me sick.

I have had thyroid disease for about 15 years now. I take Levothyroxine (25 mcg) tablets. I find it almost impossible to lose weight. I have done a small turn with Nutrisystem with very little success. Now I am trying Weight Watchers. I've had three weeks of hard dieting, and I only lost 4.5 pounds in the first week and none in the last two weeks. I am very discouraged.