I have found this original post from 4 years ago with 85 replies. The latest reply was only 3 months ago. The person who did the post has not replied lately.
healthunlocked.com/mental-h.....
I’ve had every single one of those symptoms since the age of 30. I’m now 66. I was incorrectly diagnosed with ME, bipolar, and other illnesses. I was an in patient and an out patient at two different psychiatric units – neither helped. I had so many symptoms, couldn’t sleep at night, and fell asleep around 4am and frequently slept for up to 18 hours at a time. I enjoyed the peace & quiet of night time and was most active maybe between 10pm and 4am with my brain switching on then. During the day I had no motivation whatsoever, couldn’t get out of bed for my job even with three alarms. I slept in my day clothes and didn’t even bother to wash and change the next day. So lost my job. Then my marriage. Then my house.
In the end I researched the thyroid gland which is the master gland in the body. It turned out I was hypothyroid. Not many people know about the Endocrine System in the body. But the Thyroid Gland is an endocrine gland and has dozens of vital functions. There are up to one hundred symptoms if it is running low. If it’s been low for a while without the person realising (which usually happens as it’s a slow process), then many other problems arise too. For example the adrenal glands go very low too. When the adrenal glands are low, that is when the body clock goes out of kilter and we live during the night and sleep during the day.
GPs know absolutely zero about the thyroid and as it turns out, neither do the relevant consultants – Endocrinologists. The endocrinologists tend to specialise in diabetes which is also an endocrine illness. I am also a member of the Thyroid section on HU here and have learnt loads about thyroid illness. There are ‘old hand’ members who have recovered and many new members coming on each day asking for help. It turns out that all doctors want to ignore our symptoms and brush them under the carpet. They just love to take the easy route and give us the Mental Health tag.
Anyone who has these symptoms must go to their GP and demand a Full Thyroid Panel blood test. They will no doubt roll their eyes, but you must insist. You must ask for ---- TSH, & FT4. Also FT3 which is vital & they don’t like doing this one. Plus vitamin B12, vitamin D, ferritin & folate as these vitamins & iron levels are vital to help the thyroid to work.
A week later you must go and request a copy of those results as GPs are totally incapable of interpreting thyroid results. For example, the TSH test has an official ok range of something like 0.5 to 10. If your TSH result is, say 3 – you will feel krap, but the GP will say “your thyroid is fine, it’s in range, off you go”. It won’t be. You are legally entitled to have a copy of your blood results. Insist, insist, insist. Then join the Thyroid section on Healthunlocked and post those blood results asking if they are ok and ask for advice.
It is a complicated illness if you don’t understand it. It is mainly women who suffer hypothyroid so it's mainly women on the Thyroid section who have fully recovered, are really helpful and friendly.
If this post helps just one person to recover, it will have been worth all this writing
A difficult day **TRIGGER WARNING** **self harm, overdose, suicidal thoughts**
