Today I had my first appointment with my GP since finding out (through my internet research - including here) that my symptoms seem to "fit" Hashimoto's. She is quite a good GP and is willing to listen, but I often forget what I'm trying to say in the surgery and I'm not always "assertive" enough in getting my point across and explaining myself properly.
This time, thanks to advice from here, I took a list of my symptoms - explaining to her that it seemed like a good idea to put all the symptoms together on one document, and asking her to put this in my medical records. I mentioned Hashimoto's - and when she took a look at the list she did say "that does scream some kind of thyroid problem, doesn't it?"
She's going to chase up the blood test results (including antibodies) which seem to have gone missing between one consultant (general surgery - not an endo) retiring and another one taking over. I also gave her a list of the blood tests which ThyroidUK recommends having done, and she is going to check (once she locates them) what's been done and look at possibly doing the others for me. And, once we've seen the blood test results, she's talking about referring me to an endo.
It actually worked out quite well as, when we were discussing my thyroid nodules, swelling, etc, my voice went croaky as I was talking to her! She also noticed that my hands look like dried prunes and were freezing cold when I gave her the lists.
Of course, I know there's still a long way to go yet. If the results come back OK then she might change her tune. Or if she refers me to an endo, I might get one who says "TSH is normal" and won't look any further. But I feel I'm on the first step of the journey now ... thanks mostly to the help, advice and info I've had from people here.