I wanted to ask for your hypothyroidism experiences on your long term health and how/if your career has affected your health.
The reason I am asking is I believe the stresses of my job have contributed to my poor health. I have been hypothyroid for 22 years. I work as a primary school teacher.
I am 44 and single. I fully expect to work full time until I am 68 years of age.
I am working towards better health with the help and advice I have gained from your expertise. I want my better health to be long term and I’m therefore considering a career change into a more stable, sedentary career where experience is recognised.
I am of an age where I feel the threat of being an expensive teacher. I currently work outside of the UK as I was unable to secure a teaching post locally in the UK at my salary scale. I was lucky enough to be offered lots of jobs but sadly had to turn them all down due to the significant pay decrease I would have had to take.
I’d be grateful if you could share your experiences of your long term health and how/if your career has affected your health. I am trying to inform myself fully before making a decision.
Written by
LynLyn
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"I am of an age where I feel the threat of being an expensive teacher"
What do you mean by that? It seems to be significant.
You sound as if you are putting yourself under pressure, for some reason.
From what you say you have been hypo since age 22 at which time you would have been newly qualified. The "stress of your job", therefore, is unlikely to have caused hypo - however, stress and anxiety are symptoms of hypo.
Do you have any recent lab results - TSH, FT4, FT3, vit D vit B12, folate ferritin and
You may be wrongly medicated. How much thyroid hormone (T4 and/or T3) are you taking?
Are you self medicating?
In your shoes I would be checking those first, ensuring results are optimal - not just in range.
My professional career did not affect my health but my poor health ( misdiagnosed and wrongly treated thyroid disease) caused me to stop working. I enjoyed my job!
Only you can decide on a career change just be sure that you work out what is causing you to be stressed (your health or your job/lifestyle) and make any change for the right reasons.
Teachers are paid based on a salary scale and can usually expect annual pay increases from "increments" for seniority until they reach the top of their pay band in addition to any general pay increase announced for the teaching profession. For example the pay for a primary school teacher like LynLyn will be between X and Y, going up in increments, and then the next year the pay may have risen by say 2% across the board - ie at each increment level, so someone climbing the ladder will get a two-part pay increase. If there is no annual pay increase - eg under Mr Osborne recently - you would still expect to get your increment increase until you reached the top of the pay scale [had to explain this to new school governors when I was one, who couldn't understand why teaching costs rose so much each year even though there were ostensibly no pay increases]
So if LynLyn is at the top of her pay band, she will cost quite a lot more than a new-ish teacher further down the same pay band - without being able to offer lots of experience in that particular school, although obv she is very experienced per se, which puts her at a recruitment disadvantage.
I am currently transitioning from T3 only to T4 and T3. I’m due some blood tests soon so I’ll know more after those but I expect and increase in T4 will be required.
It’s not that I put myself under pressure but I do feel a pressure not being able to secure employment in the UK at(or even near) my salary scale.
I know there are no certainties in life but having been pushed out of two jobs does make me worry. I don’t know many ‘older teachers’. In fact I am the second oldest in my school at 44! I think given my health and my career prospects I will continue to look into changing career. Thank you for your advice.
I don't know if my experience will be relevant to you , as my work is more manual ,but i'll chuck it in the pot , so to speak.
I developed autoimmune hypo age 32. Throughout my 40's i was able to work in my chosen field (Bespoke Tent Making ),albeit with some pacing limitations.
I expected to continue this, and adapt to older age by developing different product's/ services with a higher profit/physical effort ratio and was considering employing someone in the future to do some of the more manual work.
However , come the menopause aged (? i've forgotten! ) my thyroid management has become much more problematic, and i have been having a much harder time, had to reduce hours ,then roles, and now stop completely aged only 54.
I hadn't accounted for this possibility in my financial forward planning, in fact i assumed it would be easier for several years because my children were now grown up.
Obviously i can't say whether i would have just had a horrible menopause anyway regardless of thyroid issues. Some people seem to sail through. But it's not unheard of for thyroid hormone issues to change after menopause.
I hope you will sail through without too much 'choppy water', but it might be wise to allow for the possibility in your planning.
I didn't .. consequently i'm now happy and stress free , but financially challenged!
I hope this is helpful, rather than worrying. I was already having problems recovering from exertion/stress pre-menopause , so if you have been Ok working up to now, you may be ok in the future.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I hadn’t considered the menopause and it is something I definitely should be considering! I don’t want to be ill again and the pressures of teaching and on a lower salary do not appeal. I feel working towards another career would be a positive step forward even though I know it would be difficult. I feel to repeat the same patterns again would be foolish. I am sorry to hear you had such a difficult time but I am very glad to hear you are now happy and stress free! It is all about managing our thyroid health for the long term. Thank you again for sharing your experience. Your insights have been invaluable.
Thank you for your reply. I’m worried about not having the energy to teach in a few years. I’m keeping a lot better with improved nutrient levels and becoming optimal on T4 and T3 but I’m not sure I’ll ever be well enough to teach until I retire.
In a way I was lucky because I was older when I developed thyroid disease but I do have my suspicions that I have had it longer. I was working as a Legal Assistant and the illness meant I could no longer do my job because I was afraid of making mistakes. I now work from home and have my own business. As for the menopause, I went through that at 55 and I it didn't affect me as much as thyroid disease and I don't take hormone replacement because my mother died of breast cancer. Strangely enough my GP thought I was going through the menopause at the beginning and didn't spot I had a suppressed TSH for over 2 years. By the time I reached 50 I was starting to struggle and I was eventually treated. You can read my story on my profile page if you are interested.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Please may I ask what you do for a living now? I have been doing some accountancy courses with the idea of being able to book keep. The impact of thyroid disease is far reaching.
I actually use Sage because I manage our accounts with my husband because we own properties which we rent out. At the moment some of our tenants cannot pay but they have been our tenants for a long time and I know they will try to pay us back in the future when the country returns to normal.
Yes it is, my husband works as a Property Lawyer and he is now only getting a third of his wages but luckily we have our business or we would be in a worse situation than we are.
That is very lucky. Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m going to carry on with the accountancy exams. Teaching is too stressful to carry on long term especially with the likely health implications of being hypothyroid.
You will never be out of work if you are an Accountant. My daughter considered doing that and went for work experience at a small accounting firm. She didn't like working alone and felt isolated so decided to go into the law like the rest of her family.
I used to help out at my daughter's primary school as a volunteer and found it a bit stressful! This was a few years ago but one boy came to school wearing a belcher chain which he was asked to remove because it was not allowed. I handed it to his mother to explain why and she hit the roof and said I had no right to remove it etc. In the end I walked away and left the Head Teacher to deal with her.
You spend all day dealing with incidents like that to the point where what you are meant to be doing is where you spend the least amount of your time. I’m trying to work out finances and I think it’s going to be two more years in the classroom before I can leave to find work experience and complete AAT level 4.
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