January 27, 2014 • 35 mins
Thyroid disorders are eight times more likely to affect women. Cristen and Caroline break down how thyroids function -- and malfunction -- and why these "meat butterflies" are such a female pain in the neck.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from House stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristen, and today we are talking about
a health issue that selfishly I brought up shoe Kristen
to cover because uh, I was recently diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease,
(00:28):
which is an autoimmune disease that affects your thyroid and um.
I had brought it up to my doctor after I
had started feeling certain symptoms like uh generally gaining more
weight than expected, feeling really exhausted all the time, not
sleeping particularly well, and some other stuff, and she said,
(00:49):
you know, well we will just to be on the
safe side. You know, when we do your blood work,
we'll do a full thyroid workup. Well, so when I
got all my results back, everything was um, pretty normal
and okay, except for one particular thyroid measurement, which in
a normal range should be around like ten or so
(01:12):
under twenty for sure, mine was eight D twenty four.
Who yeah, those were some antibodies, good old antibodies. And
so my doctor sent me to get a an ultrasound,
a thyroid ultrasound UM, which was okay, you know, I
don't have thyroid cancer. I don't have any nodules. It
is a little bit misshapen, you know. It's kind of
(01:32):
like an old car that maybe has had some shopping
carts run into it. Your thyroid, Yeah, my thyroid, it's
all it's all beat up. It's had some fender benders,
had some fender benders. And so the combination of my
antibodies being off the freaking charts and my slightly abnormal
but nothing too scary ultrasound basically confirmed that I have hashimotos,
(01:55):
which is named for the guy who discovered it. It's
not just like a particularly unique Japanese condition. Yeah, his
name was Hakaru Hashimoto, and he discovered this in nineteen twelve,
but not in Japan, in Germany. So in case that
kind of medical knowledge interests you, now you know, now
you can win at trivia exactly. But yeah, we wanted
(02:15):
to talk about this with you today because thyroid issues
are actually pretty common, and not only are they pretty common, um,
but they can really mess up some systems in your body. Yeah,
and first of all, let's talk a little bit about
what the thyroid is, because I don't think that a
(02:38):
lot of people myself included are that familiar with the
thyroid functioning. I think we all know that it exists
and it's there, but what it actually does might not
be as well known. So we got some information from
the National Institutes of Health. And your thyroid is a
gland in your neck. And what you read over and
over and over again is that it's butterfly shaped. Yes,
(02:59):
I refer to mine as my meat butterfly. Oh, and
I say that it's a little chubby, a little sluggish,
a little chubby, little chebby meat butterfly in your neck. Anyway, So,
your thyroid um is one of your indocrine glands, which
make hormones, and as you might imagine, hormones are pretty
important for some stuff. So to break it down, your
(03:20):
indocrine system um is instrumental in regulating things like mood,
growth and development, tissue function, and very importantly metabolism, as
well as sexual function and reproductive processes. It basically has
a hand in almost everything that is not the nervous system. Yeah,
and the thyroid in particular produces thyroid hormones, and the
(03:40):
two main ones are T three and T four, and
those are the thyroid hormones that doctors often test for
if you are showing symptoms of some kind of thyroid disorder,
and those T three and T four hormones in particular
help regulate how fast you burn calories obviously there is
mental in your metabolism, and also control how fast your
(04:03):
heart beats. Yeah. And so if you have basically a
sluggish thyroid or an overactive thyroid um, which we will
kind of talk to you about the differences there um,
it really does have a big effect on the different
chemical reactions and the speed at which those reactions occur
in your body. And as we'll talk about more in
the podcast. One the reason why we wanted to focus
(04:26):
in on the thyroid and these thyroid hormones on stuff,
and I'm never told you is that these kind of
symptoms and issues happen far more to women than men.
And the kind of issues that we're talking about when
your thyroid is out of whack include things like goiters,
which would be enlargement of your thyroid gland or your
(04:49):
meat butterfly, all fat little meat butterfly. Um. Yeah. And
you can also have thyroid items, which is the swelling
of the thyroid nodules those are lumps in your thyroid
gland you might have to have a biopsy to get
those looked at, and thyroid cancer as well. UM, And
the two main things that we're going to focus on
today are hyper thyroidism, which is basically when your thyroid
(05:10):
makes more thyroid hormones than your body needs, and hyperoth thyroidism,
when it makes not enough. So how many people are
affected by hypo or hyper thyroidism? According to the National
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which came out in nine
I found that hyper thyroidism is found in four point
(05:33):
six percent of the population compared to hyper thyroidism, which
is less common and it's found in one point three
percent of the population. And that might sound like really
dated data because it came out, but that is actually
the most recent research done like this, right, Caroline, right.
(05:53):
It's a giant study that basically like groups like the
CDC and National Institutes of Health used to pull for UM.
So the actual study that we're talking about that focus
is just on the thyroid aspect, actually came out in
two thousand one, and so these giant kind of cross
sectional studies that look at huge numbers of the population
(06:14):
are very useful for scientists to pull different types of
health data from So don't worry. We're not just you know, lazy,
and you know our thyroids aren't all slow. We're just
hanging out in the nineties staring flannel talking about old
school thyroids. Right, my thyroid is not listening to grunge.
But so in this study focusing just on the thyroid
(06:36):
um researchers found that the thyroid stimulating hormone or T
s H and the prevalence of anti thyroid antibodies indicating
thyroid disease were greater in women increased with age, and
we're greater in white people and Mexican Americans than in
black individuals. So next up, let's dive into what actually
(06:56):
happens in the case of hyper thyroidism, which is your
body making too much of say that the T three
and T four thyroid hormones. Well, when this goes on,
basically a lot of things in your body are going
to speed up because remember the thyroid is so instrumental
in your metabolism. So symptoms include things like nervousness, moodiness,
(07:19):
feeling weak or tired, having hand tremors, irregular heartbeats, feeling hot, sweaty,
having frequent and sometimes the loose bowel movements, losing weight
even if you're eating normally UM. And also some women
have irregular menstrual cycles or stop having periods all together.
And for some men, they might develop enlarged breasts. And
(07:41):
the most common cause in the United States of hyperthyroidism
is Graves disease. UM. It is an immune system, the
kind of the counterpoint to the one that I have
hashimotives that attacks the thyroid, which ends up fighting back
by making too much of the thyroid hormone, and it
tends to run in families. Hyper Thyroidism can also be
caused by a swollen thyroid or thyroid nodules. And Caroline,
(08:03):
when I was learning about Graves disease, because it's such
an ominous sounding name, I wanted to know why it's
called Graves disease. And it's just named for the Irish
doctor Robert James Graves. That sounded Scottish. Well, you know,
maybe he's spent a little time so but moving back
to my my normal voice. If left untreated, Graves disease
(08:28):
can lead to a lot of complications like heart rhythm disorders,
changes in the structure and function of your heart muscles
and the inability of your heart to pump enough blood
to the body. So if you don't get it checked out, obviously,
Graves disease, it's really bad for you, especially for your
cardiovascular health. Yeah, and it can cause something called thyroid storm,
(08:48):
which is a rare condition, but it is life threatening
and end it ends up causing a number of effects
like fever, profuse sweating, severely low blood pressure, and even
coma um but something slightly less scary but still bad.
Hyperthyroidism can also cause osteoporosis if left unchecked. But they're
(09:09):
also pretty straightforward treatments out there for Graves disease. For instance,
if your doctor has figured out that there be some
thyroid problems going on, but they're still narrowing it down
to something like Graves disease, they might put you on
beta blockers, which will block the thyroid's affect um, and
then if they pinpoint Graves disease. I thought this was
kind of fascinating, you get a one dose treatment of
(09:32):
radioactive iodine that just destroys part of your thyroid. Yeah.
You can also take anti thyroid medicine UM if your
symptoms are mild and Uh, that's actually the treatment that
doctors use most often. But you can also have surgery
to remove most of the thyroid. And of course, you know,
if you get your thyroid removed, you have to be
on medicine for the rest of your life to kind
(09:52):
of keep your hormones regulated, because if you're missing a
part of your endocrine system, you know, stuff can get wacky.
It's incredible to think of how powerful that such a
small piece of tissue is in our bodies, I know,
And and really the thyroid, like literally is something I
never thought of until I started kind of feeling like, man,
(10:14):
you know, I'm gaining more weight than ever. I can't
lose it. I feel just different and weird, and I
feel like I'm angry all the time. You know, like
when you start feeling weird, out of control of your body,
that's pretty good time to go to your daughter. Absolutely,
And because those symptoms that you just ticked off first
of all, are probably kind of confusing, because I feel
(10:35):
like there have been so many different women's health issues
that we've highlighted that touch on a lot of those symptoms.
And if you look at the symptom list for hypo thyroidism,
which is when your body is not making enough thyroid hormone,
you have all of those things that you just mentioned, Caroline,
and then on top of that things like brittle nails,
(10:56):
you can get a yellowish tint to your skin, you
might feel cold old, uh, you might have memory problems,
constipation again, having heavy or irregular menstrual cycles. Yeah. And
because of just like the wide variety of symptoms, it's
very easy for thyroid disorders to be confused with other things,
and hypo thyroidism can often be mistaken for things like depression,
(11:20):
especially during and after pregnancy, which we'll get into, and
in older people it can be confused with Alzheimer's dementia
and other conditions that cause memory problems. So you know,
if you or your parents or whoever you know have
a clean bill of health as far as their brains go,
it might be time to look into the thyroid if
you're really concerned, because you know, with with thyroid disorders,
(11:43):
when you start feeling depressed, I mean a lot of
doctors their first instinct is just to be like, well,
let's get you on some antidepressants are in anti anxiety,
and and for a lot of people, if you know,
you're reading the message boards and list serves and things
out there about thyroid disorders. You know it just won't
It won't fix it you. You really won't feel much better. Um.
(12:03):
But in the United States, the most just like in
hyperthyroidism with Graves disease, the most common cause of hypothyroidism
is Hashi motos thyroid itis, and it causes, just like
in Graves, the body's immune system to attack the thyroid tissue.
As a result, the gland cannot make enough thyroid hormone.
And the crazy and unfortunate thing about hashi motos is
(12:25):
one of its hallmarks is shifting back and forth between
hypo and hyper thyroidism. It's not fair, and so a
couple of years ago this made me think back to
a couple of years ago when I started. I was
twenty six, and I started having severe migraines. I was
having heart palpitations, I was sweaty all the time, uh, nervous,
(12:47):
you know, generally anxious. And I'm wondering, now, you know
now that I don't just have hypeoth iyrodism, I have
an actual autoimmune disorder that causes it. I'm just wondering
if I was going through a period of hyper thyroidism
back in my mid twenties, and now it's gone back
the other direction. Well, and it seems like if hashimois
(13:07):
can switch you back and forth between those that it
has to be even more challenging to get a correct
diagnosis for it, right, because you know, back back then,
I just went to a neurologist. I got migraine medicine
and that was that, but it didn't stop the migraines.
And then now you know, I'm entering the period where
I'm gaining weight and I'm not having as many headaches,
(13:28):
and so I'm wondering, like, what's going on, and it's
just my my body is desperately trying to adjust itself.
I think. Well, at the very least in your situation,
the good news is that you're able to catch it
before more extreme complications happened, such as something like a goiter,
which you see more often in developing nations because it's
(13:49):
more linked to unit linked to dietary things. That's partially
why a lot of salt that we eat is iodized,
because it helps keep your thyroid in check. Um, but
goiter's happened when you have constant stimulation of your thyroid,
which releases more hormones that can cause the gland to
become enlarged. And basically the enlarged thyroid is a goiter. Yeah. Yes,
(14:12):
and I'm not willing to call mine that. Yeah good,
My neck still does not appear well, and they can all.
I mean, it's not just a like a looks thing.
It also can affect breathing and swallow. So yeah, and
for the record, you have a lovely neck, thank you. Um. Well,
just as in graves, Uh, hashimotos can cause heart problems
(14:37):
and interestingly enough because I have slightly elevated cholesterol. Um,
not to make this all about all the time, but um,
hashimotos can be associated with high levels of low density lipoprotein,
which is l d L bad cholesterol, So that can
lead to heart problems if you don't get on medication.
(14:58):
And then they're also the mental health issues that you mentioned.
And then something called mix edema, which is a rare,
life threatening condition that can develop due to long term
hypo thyroidism as a result of the untreated hashimotos, and
the symptoms include intense cold intolerance and drowsiness, followed by
(15:19):
lethargy and unconsciousness. Basically, if this stuff starts happening, you
need to go to the er immediately, right, And so
looking at treatments for hashimotos, all is not lost. It
is not hopeless. Doctors usually prescribe thyroid hormone pills, the
most common of which is leave a thyroxin um and
it's a man made form of your tea for hormone,
(15:40):
and it's it's exactly the same as what your body
makes um. It doesn't always work for some people, Like
I'm on my doctor put me on the very lowest
possible dose just to kind of test it out, and
I'm going back soon for more blood work to follow
up and see how my antibodies are doing. But the
thing is, like, I don't feel like many of my
symptoms have really changed aged and so in that case,
(16:01):
it's important for me to talk to my doctor about
do we need to alter the dose, you know, anything
like that. And some people are actually on something called
desiccated thyroid hormone, which in recent ears has kind of
fallen out of favor, but is is starting to get
back on the upswing and that used to be the
only treatment for hypothyroidism, and it is basically like pig
(16:23):
thyroid and it's it's kind of you know, it's freez drag,
ground up whatever put into a pill form, and and
that actually has shown to help a lot of people well.
And when it comes to the a lot of people
that that might be helping, there's a very good chance
that most of them are women. Because in this episode,
like up until now, it might just sound like a
(16:45):
straight up just health podcast, but the one of the
major risk factors for high for thyroid issues is being
a woman. This affects women far and away more often
than men. Yeah, And the thing that we were Chris
and I were discussing about this issue is that it's
(17:05):
not clear cut as to why. And you know, we'll
we'll talk about some pregnancy stuff and hormone stuff and
that their links with thyroid and how it affects you
during pregnancy. And and my my very uneducated hypothesis would
be that because of some of these links between thyroid
(17:25):
issues and hormones and then thus pregnancy, you know, women
are the only ones getting pregnant so far, and so
I do wonder if, if you know, if pregnancy does
play a very large role in it. But let's look
at the numbers. First, yeah, the numbers are staggering. Experts
estimate the women are between five to eight times more
likely than men to have a thyroid problem, and those
(17:48):
differences only increase after age thirty four. A lot of times,
the older you are as a woman, the higher chances
of developing a thyroid disorder. So, for instance, about eight
out of ten people with thyroid disease are women. And
for yet another statistic, one and eight women will develop
(18:08):
a thyroid disorder during her lifetime. Yeah, and by the
time we reach age sixty, more than twenty of us,
being American women will have a thyroid disorder. And you know,
just like many many health conditions and other things out there,
when you take into account the fact that a lot
of people go undiagnosed, the numbers are probably a lot
(18:28):
higher because so many of the symptoms we listed can
be anything else. And you know it should we should
pause here and say, go to your doctor, please, do
not self diagnosed. Do not assume that you have a
thyroid disorder, because a lot of those things like thinning hair,
feeling cold, having brittle nails, maybe you're just not eating
in a vegetables. Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of things
(18:49):
that it could be. UM. But what's interesting too about
thyroid disorders and women is that a lot of times
when we hear about these more gendered health issues, the
answer will be, well, estrogen is up to her dirty
old tricks. But it's probably not just tied to estrogen,
because you see these kinds of disorders cropping up both
(19:11):
pre and post menopausal, whereas if you look at other
kinds of women's health issues, a lot of times it'll
hit after or like during your reproductive years and then
fade away post menopause. Right, because there are plenty of
women and girls out there who were born with congenital
thyroid issues, that is certainly not just tied to estrogen
(19:32):
UM And wrote A. Cobin, who is the clinical professor
of medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, pointed
that out that you know, these conditions can happen anytime,
so it's probably not solely linked to that, and she
says it is likely that the gender predisposition is likewise
genetically mediated. In other words, women may inherit a predisposition
(19:53):
to these disorders based on their gender. So that's clear
as mud, right, Yeah, Yeah, well, there's also uh Turner syndrome,
which is a complete or partial absence of the second
sex chromosome, and it's a genetic disorder that affects solely women.
And as many as half of patients with Turner syndrome
have hypothyroidism. So there are certain conditions that lend themselves
(20:18):
more to just women having hypo thyroidism. And next up,
one thing that we've got to talk about when it
comes to women in thyroid issues is the pregnancy link,
and we'll get into that right after we take a
quick break. Okay, Well, we were just discussing how being
a woman is one of the main risk factors for
having thyroid disease, and we want to get into the
(20:41):
pregnancy link because you know, your thyroid is part of
your endocrine system, which regulates all your hormones, which regulates
everything going on in your body, and so obviously pregnancy, menstruation, ovulation,
these things are heavily tied into that too. Yeah, and
pregnancy is one of those things on the doctor's checklist
in a way, if you come and complaining of all
(21:02):
of these thyroid related symptoms, they'll typically want to know
whether or not you've been pregnant, because if the answer
is yes, that usually spotlights thyroid issues a little more
strongly um because of how during pregnancy your immune system
is suppressed and that alters the thyroid function. So before
(21:24):
you even um consider getting pregnant, or if you were
starting to consider getting pregnant, one thing you do want
to have checked out if you feel like you're having
trouble conceiving is your thyroid because in pre menopausal women,
early symptoms of hypothyroidism can interfere with fertility. If you
have a history of miscarriage, for example, that could be
(21:46):
a sign of hypothyroidism, and a pregnant woman with hypothyroidism
has a fourfold risk for miscarriage, and most women with
overt hypothyroidism have minstrual cycle abnormalities and often l to ovulate.
But in the case that you do get pregnant, you
might not think about thyroid issues being related to that.
(22:07):
But actually, during early pregnancy, for the first ten of
twelve weeks, the baby is completely dependent on the mother
for the production of thyroid hormone, and so by the
end of the first trimester you have the baby's thyroid
beginning to produce some hormone on its own. However, it's
still going to remain dependent on the mother four ingestion
(22:28):
of iodine, which is essential to making the thyroid hormone.
And again why we eat eydie salt right exactly so?
And actually side note, we're having a lot of problems
even an hour developed world now with iodine because we're
all eating that like fancy salt, like all of that
(22:48):
sea salt stuff that's all flavored and fancy whatever. I
love sea salt. It's not iodized, So make sure, like
maybe put fancy salts on your fancy meats and things.
But if you're just doing some all cooking, Dr Caroline
recommends that you use regular salt that has iodine in it,
and even be careful because some of that kosher salt too,
does not have iodine, So just check the label. People.
(23:11):
Oh man, I like my fancy salt too. I like
your I like your fancy salt off flue um. But
let's look at the effects on the actual fetus. So
you are pregnant, and whether you have hypero thyroidism or
hyper there can be various effects on your unborn child.
Um Italian study and and the Mayo Clinic provided some
(23:33):
information on hypothyroidism's effect on the fetus. Untreated hypothyroidism, especially
produced by hashimotos, can impair this is hererible can impair
the neurological development of the fetus due to the reduced
availability of maternal thyroid hormones during early gestation. What can
this meaty butterfly not do to wreak havoc on our bodies? Caroline,
(23:57):
I know I'm starting to not be a fan of
the thyroid. Not to be dramatic about things. Well, I
think your thyroid is probably fine. You should love yours
so we can team up against mine. Okay, okay, I
don't like your meaty butterfly. That sounds so mean to say.
And speaking of reasons to be frustrated with the thyroid,
speaking of hypothyroidism and pregnancy, there could be a link
(24:20):
between that and birth effects such as a cleft palate.
And also there's a link between hypothyroid pregnancies and heart, brain,
and kidney problems in infants. Right, So your thyroid is
nothing to mess around with if you want to get
pregnant and have children, because it could have some completely
horrific effects on both you and your child. Yeah, and
(24:42):
not just for hypo but also for hyper thyroidism. This
is also coming from the Mayo Clinic as well. There
are complications possibly of Graves disease during pregnancy, such as
preterm birth, fetal thyroid dysfunction, poor fetal growth, and pre
acclampsy at which we've talked about in other podcasts, which
is a condition that results in high blood pressure and
(25:04):
elevated proteins in the urine. And I think it can
endanger the pregnancy if I'm not mistaken. So if you
are already at risk for a thyroid issue or if
you already have on going into pregnancy, it can't As
we have just told you, it can really screw some
stuff up. And the screw nous does not stop once
you have the baby, because when a woman gets pregnant,
(25:27):
her immune system is suppressed and the function of the
thyroid gland is altered. And in most women, the thyroid
regains its normal functioning after pregnancy when the immune system
is released from its suppression, but for some the thyroid
gland never fully recovers, and in that case it's referred
to as postpartum thyroiditis. And according to Dr Cobin, who
(25:48):
we cited earlier who is a clinical professor of medicine
at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She talks about
how this postpartum thyroiditis can either cause the fluctuation between
hyper and hypo and in some cases this condition can
just resolve itself and others it can intensify, and in
(26:09):
some it can persist for a lifetime. So the net
net of all of that is yet again to be
vigilant about your thyroid health, especially if you have been pregnant,
because of all of these ripple effects that can happen. Right,
And I mean the fact that ten of women who
get pregnant in the US will probably have postpartum thyroiditis
(26:32):
is definitely nothing to sneeze at. And yeah, like we said,
you just when you're getting pregnant and gonna carry a
little human inside of you, you know, this is just
another reason to be extra careful. Yeah, and not to
continue on the train of thyroids are horrible. Uh. We
do have a little bit more dismal news to share
(26:53):
in the thyroid department, which is that thyroid cancer is
the fastest growing cancer among women. And this was reported
over at Yahoo Health, but it was just coming from
a study published in the Journal of Cancer Epidemiology, and
it reported that not only have rates of thyroid cancer
gone up by two DT over the past twenty years,
(27:16):
it's expected to become the third most common cancer in
the US by twenty nineteen. Now, the good news is
is that it's pretty treatable, that the fatality rate from
thyroid cancer isn't high. But the question is, wow, why
why are we seeing such a giant leap and why
does it hate women? Because while thyroid cancer incidents rates
(27:39):
have increased worldwide for decades, UH, it's mostly for papillary
carcinomas than other types, and more for females than males,
and women are much more likely to get papillary carcinoma
then than men are. And just one more piece of
bad news for Caroline Irvine, women with hashimotos are at
an increased risk for it. According to the Journal of
Surgical Research, currently thyroid cancer is the fifth most common
(28:03):
cancer for US women. And as for why it is
on the rise, there are two main reasons that are
talked about, one being the increasing use of medical imaging
to detect smaller early cancers like those pavolary carcinomas. But
there's also a theory that we have been more in
contact with environmental carcinogens and increased exposure to medical radiation.
(28:29):
Actually that can up your risk. Yeah, So yes, these
cancers are increasing. Throd cancers are increasing, but on the
one hand, we're doing more medical imaging, so more things
are being caught that maybe wouldn't otherwise be caught. But
also large cancers are actually increasing, and so it's just
(28:51):
one more health thing to be very vigilant of. Yeah.
And one way that you can be vigilant of this
is in the same way that we're told as women
over and over again to do breast self exams to
check four lumps, you can also check your neck to
check for any lumps there. And basically you just tip
your head back, take a sip of water, and as
(29:11):
you're swallowing, you just check around your neck for any
bulges or protrusions other than what you know. You're you're tricky,
r like what should be there, right, And what's kind
of scary to think about, you know, to me personally,
is that no one had ever checked my thyroid before.
You know, every time I go to the guy in ecologist,
(29:32):
everything is checked. Uh, she even does a breast exam.
I mean the bases are typically covered, or I thought
all the bases were covered. But she had never once
put her hands around my neck like she was choking me,
because that's basically how your doctor has it's it's like
she's choking you feeling your thyroid. And so when I
actually expressed to my internist, my my at my physical
(29:54):
that I was having all these symptoms, that's when she
did get up and put her fingers on my neck
to feel it, and she said it did feel large.
And so that started out the whole all of the testing.
And so it's very important, as we've said before, to
be your own advocate in your health care um and
make sure that you know all of the risks that
are out there because there's so many, and and ask
(30:15):
for those appropriate tests, and especially with something like this
where it disproportionately affects women. But for what reason, we
still don't know. Yeah, you know, that's that's definitely concerning that.
It's still a giant question mark as to what it
is about the female biology, anatomy physiology that is setting
(30:37):
us up for being at such a high risk of
thyroid issues. And I'm not necessarily in a place where
in my life where I'm thinking about children. But if
I were to think about children, I mean I have to, Like,
you've got to be on some serious medicine and be
constantly monitored if you're going to get pregnant and have
(30:57):
children when you have a thyroid issue. Yeah. Um, But
I hope that this might be helpful for listeners out
there who might have experienced some of these symptoms, might
be wondering what's going on in their own bodies, might
have received Hashimoto's diagnosis like you, Caroline. I'm sure it's
helpful to know that there are other people out there
going through this. Um. So we want to hear from you.
(31:17):
Have you experienced thyroid issues? Um? Is this a health
concern of yours? Let us know. Mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com is where you can email us. You can
also reach out to us via Twitter at mom Stuff podcast,
or you can send us a message on Facebook as well.
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you right now. In fact, so we've got a couple
(31:43):
of letters here in response to our episode on sex trafficking,
and I have one here from a nuke who writes.
When I was living in Amsterdam, I saw an item
on TV about sex trafficking and decided to take some
action since I had no idea how to contact women
who have been saved from traffickers like contacted a sex
workers organization and they put me in contact with someone
(32:04):
who had had escaped human traffickers. This organization for sex
workers at a website warning for sex trafficking. It had
been translated in lots of different languages, and I did
wonder how many women they actually reached with it. I
later came into contact with an organization that organized a
buddy project for women who had just escaped. The idea
was that this isolated in foreign woman meets a Dutch
(32:26):
woman about once a week for a cup of coffee
so she won't become too isolated before anyone has put
into contact. The Dutch woman had to participate in a
couple of workshops about the theme, and I also later
went to a congress about the topic. The main problems
there are with helping victims are that they're often too
afraid of the police because they can come from countries
where the police are corrupt, or to be able to
(32:49):
win a court case they need a detailed account of
who did what to them and when a doctor at
the Congress explained why this is impossible for a majority
of women because they're usually very traumatized and often been beaten,
two reasons why their memory isn't as sharp as usual.
And it also takes a lot of courage to be
able to tell all the awful and embarrassing things that
have been done to you. So just some insight into
(33:11):
the atrocities of human and sex trafficking going on. So
thanks the nuke Well. I have a Facebook message here
from Heather who said that sex trafficking is a topic
that she is very passionate about, and she says I've
tried to get involved in my community and college concerning
this issue. Here are some awesome organizations that are attacking
(33:31):
this problem. Robb's Rope is based locally in Gainsville, Georgia,
but works in India rehabilitating women and teaching them skills
for other means of employment. The Sold Project believes, as
I do, that the main issue is really about education.
The more education someone has, the more opportunities and choices
they can make about their employment. They create scholarships for
children in Thailand in the cycle of poverty and trafficking
(33:53):
in their families. Finally, Love one forty attacks the problem
from three angles prevention, care and rehabilit rotation, and Heather
provided the web addresses. They are Rob's Rope dot com,
The sold Project dot com, and love one dot org.
So thank you very much for those resources, Heather, and
thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff at
(34:15):
Discovery dot com is where you can send us all
of your letters. You can also tweet us at mom
Stuff Podcasts or send us a message on Facebook, and
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(34:37):
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Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from House stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristen, and today we are talking about
a health issue that selfishly I brought up shoe Kristen
to cover because uh, I was recently diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease,
(00:28):
which is an autoimmune disease that affects your thyroid and um.
I had brought it up to my doctor after I
had started feeling certain symptoms like uh generally gaining more
weight than expected, feeling really exhausted all the time, not
sleeping particularly well, and some other stuff, and she said,
(00:49):
you know, well we will just to be on the
safe side. You know, when we do your blood work,
we'll do a full thyroid workup. Well, so when I
got all my results back, everything was um, pretty normal
and okay, except for one particular thyroid measurement, which in
a normal range should be around like ten or so
(01:12):
under twenty for sure, mine was eight D twenty four.
Who yeah, those were some antibodies, good old antibodies. And
so my doctor sent me to get a an ultrasound,
a thyroid ultrasound UM, which was okay, you know, I
don't have thyroid cancer. I don't have any nodules. It
is a little bit misshapen, you know. It's kind of
(01:32):
like an old car that maybe has had some shopping
carts run into it. Your thyroid, Yeah, my thyroid, it's
all it's all beat up. It's had some fender benders,
had some fender benders. And so the combination of my
antibodies being off the freaking charts and my slightly abnormal
but nothing too scary ultrasound basically confirmed that I have hashimotos,
(01:55):
which is named for the guy who discovered it. It's
not just like a particularly unique Japanese condition. Yeah, his
name was Hakaru Hashimoto, and he discovered this in nineteen twelve,
but not in Japan, in Germany. So in case that
kind of medical knowledge interests you, now you know, now
you can win at trivia exactly. But yeah, we wanted
(02:15):
to talk about this with you today because thyroid issues
are actually pretty common, and not only are they pretty common, um,
but they can really mess up some systems in your body. Yeah,
and first of all, let's talk a little bit about
what the thyroid is, because I don't think that a
(02:38):
lot of people myself included are that familiar with the
thyroid functioning. I think we all know that it exists
and it's there, but what it actually does might not
be as well known. So we got some information from
the National Institutes of Health. And your thyroid is a
gland in your neck. And what you read over and
over and over again is that it's butterfly shaped. Yes,
(02:59):
I refer to mine as my meat butterfly. Oh, and
I say that it's a little chubby, a little sluggish,
a little chubby, little chebby meat butterfly in your neck. Anyway, So,
your thyroid um is one of your indocrine glands, which
make hormones, and as you might imagine, hormones are pretty
important for some stuff. So to break it down, your
(03:20):
indocrine system um is instrumental in regulating things like mood,
growth and development, tissue function, and very importantly metabolism, as
well as sexual function and reproductive processes. It basically has
a hand in almost everything that is not the nervous system. Yeah,
and the thyroid in particular produces thyroid hormones, and the
(03:40):
two main ones are T three and T four, and
those are the thyroid hormones that doctors often test for
if you are showing symptoms of some kind of thyroid disorder,
and those T three and T four hormones in particular
help regulate how fast you burn calories obviously there is
mental in your metabolism, and also control how fast your
(04:03):
heart beats. Yeah. And so if you have basically a
sluggish thyroid or an overactive thyroid um, which we will
kind of talk to you about the differences there um,
it really does have a big effect on the different
chemical reactions and the speed at which those reactions occur
in your body. And as we'll talk about more in
the podcast. One the reason why we wanted to focus
(04:26):
in on the thyroid and these thyroid hormones on stuff,
and I'm never told you is that these kind of
symptoms and issues happen far more to women than men.
And the kind of issues that we're talking about when
your thyroid is out of whack include things like goiters,
which would be enlargement of your thyroid gland or your
(04:49):
meat butterfly, all fat little meat butterfly. Um. Yeah. And
you can also have thyroid items, which is the swelling
of the thyroid nodules those are lumps in your thyroid
gland you might have to have a biopsy to get
those looked at, and thyroid cancer as well. UM, And
the two main things that we're going to focus on
today are hyper thyroidism, which is basically when your thyroid
(05:10):
makes more thyroid hormones than your body needs, and hyperoth thyroidism,
when it makes not enough. So how many people are
affected by hypo or hyper thyroidism? According to the National
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which came out in nine
I found that hyper thyroidism is found in four point
(05:33):
six percent of the population compared to hyper thyroidism, which
is less common and it's found in one point three
percent of the population. And that might sound like really
dated data because it came out, but that is actually
the most recent research done like this, right, Caroline, right.
(05:53):
It's a giant study that basically like groups like the
CDC and National Institutes of Health used to pull for UM.
So the actual study that we're talking about that focus
is just on the thyroid aspect, actually came out in
two thousand one, and so these giant kind of cross
sectional studies that look at huge numbers of the population
(06:14):
are very useful for scientists to pull different types of
health data from So don't worry. We're not just you know, lazy,
and you know our thyroids aren't all slow. We're just
hanging out in the nineties staring flannel talking about old
school thyroids. Right, my thyroid is not listening to grunge.
But so in this study focusing just on the thyroid
(06:36):
um researchers found that the thyroid stimulating hormone or T
s H and the prevalence of anti thyroid antibodies indicating
thyroid disease were greater in women increased with age, and
we're greater in white people and Mexican Americans than in
black individuals. So next up, let's dive into what actually
(06:56):
happens in the case of hyper thyroidism, which is your
body making too much of say that the T three
and T four thyroid hormones. Well, when this goes on,
basically a lot of things in your body are going
to speed up because remember the thyroid is so instrumental
in your metabolism. So symptoms include things like nervousness, moodiness,
(07:19):
feeling weak or tired, having hand tremors, irregular heartbeats, feeling hot, sweaty,
having frequent and sometimes the loose bowel movements, losing weight
even if you're eating normally UM. And also some women
have irregular menstrual cycles or stop having periods all together.
And for some men, they might develop enlarged breasts. And
(07:41):
the most common cause in the United States of hyperthyroidism
is Graves disease. UM. It is an immune system, the
kind of the counterpoint to the one that I have
hashimotives that attacks the thyroid, which ends up fighting back
by making too much of the thyroid hormone, and it
tends to run in families. Hyper Thyroidism can also be
caused by a swollen thyroid or thyroid nodules. And Caroline,
(08:03):
when I was learning about Graves disease, because it's such
an ominous sounding name, I wanted to know why it's
called Graves disease. And it's just named for the Irish
doctor Robert James Graves. That sounded Scottish. Well, you know,
maybe he's spent a little time so but moving back
to my my normal voice. If left untreated, Graves disease
(08:28):
can lead to a lot of complications like heart rhythm disorders,
changes in the structure and function of your heart muscles
and the inability of your heart to pump enough blood
to the body. So if you don't get it checked out, obviously,
Graves disease, it's really bad for you, especially for your
cardiovascular health. Yeah, and it can cause something called thyroid storm,
(08:48):
which is a rare condition, but it is life threatening
and end it ends up causing a number of effects
like fever, profuse sweating, severely low blood pressure, and even
coma um but something slightly less scary but still bad.
Hyperthyroidism can also cause osteoporosis if left unchecked. But they're
(09:09):
also pretty straightforward treatments out there for Graves disease. For instance,
if your doctor has figured out that there be some
thyroid problems going on, but they're still narrowing it down
to something like Graves disease, they might put you on
beta blockers, which will block the thyroid's affect um, and
then if they pinpoint Graves disease. I thought this was
kind of fascinating, you get a one dose treatment of
(09:32):
radioactive iodine that just destroys part of your thyroid. Yeah.
You can also take anti thyroid medicine UM if your
symptoms are mild and Uh, that's actually the treatment that
doctors use most often. But you can also have surgery
to remove most of the thyroid. And of course, you know,
if you get your thyroid removed, you have to be
on medicine for the rest of your life to kind
(09:52):
of keep your hormones regulated, because if you're missing a
part of your endocrine system, you know, stuff can get wacky.
It's incredible to think of how powerful that such a
small piece of tissue is in our bodies, I know,
And and really the thyroid, like literally is something I
never thought of until I started kind of feeling like, man,
(10:14):
you know, I'm gaining more weight than ever. I can't
lose it. I feel just different and weird, and I
feel like I'm angry all the time. You know, like
when you start feeling weird, out of control of your body,
that's pretty good time to go to your daughter. Absolutely,
And because those symptoms that you just ticked off first
of all, are probably kind of confusing, because I feel
(10:35):
like there have been so many different women's health issues
that we've highlighted that touch on a lot of those symptoms.
And if you look at the symptom list for hypo thyroidism,
which is when your body is not making enough thyroid hormone,
you have all of those things that you just mentioned, Caroline,
and then on top of that things like brittle nails,
(10:56):
you can get a yellowish tint to your skin, you
might feel cold old, uh, you might have memory problems,
constipation again, having heavy or irregular menstrual cycles. Yeah. And
because of just like the wide variety of symptoms, it's
very easy for thyroid disorders to be confused with other things,
and hypo thyroidism can often be mistaken for things like depression,
(11:20):
especially during and after pregnancy, which we'll get into, and
in older people it can be confused with Alzheimer's dementia
and other conditions that cause memory problems. So you know,
if you or your parents or whoever you know have
a clean bill of health as far as their brains go,
it might be time to look into the thyroid if
you're really concerned, because you know, with with thyroid disorders,
(11:43):
when you start feeling depressed, I mean a lot of
doctors their first instinct is just to be like, well,
let's get you on some antidepressants are in anti anxiety,
and and for a lot of people, if you know,
you're reading the message boards and list serves and things
out there about thyroid disorders. You know it just won't
It won't fix it you. You really won't feel much better. Um.
(12:03):
But in the United States, the most just like in
hyperthyroidism with Graves disease, the most common cause of hypothyroidism
is Hashi motos thyroid itis, and it causes, just like
in Graves, the body's immune system to attack the thyroid tissue.
As a result, the gland cannot make enough thyroid hormone.
And the crazy and unfortunate thing about hashi motos is
(12:25):
one of its hallmarks is shifting back and forth between
hypo and hyper thyroidism. It's not fair, and so a
couple of years ago this made me think back to
a couple of years ago when I started. I was
twenty six, and I started having severe migraines. I was
having heart palpitations, I was sweaty all the time, uh, nervous,
(12:47):
you know, generally anxious. And I'm wondering, now, you know
now that I don't just have hypeoth iyrodism, I have
an actual autoimmune disorder that causes it. I'm just wondering
if I was going through a period of hyper thyroidism
back in my mid twenties, and now it's gone back
the other direction. Well, and it seems like if hashimois
(13:07):
can switch you back and forth between those that it
has to be even more challenging to get a correct
diagnosis for it, right, because you know, back back then,
I just went to a neurologist. I got migraine medicine
and that was that, but it didn't stop the migraines.
And then now you know, I'm entering the period where
I'm gaining weight and I'm not having as many headaches,
(13:28):
and so I'm wondering, like, what's going on, and it's
just my my body is desperately trying to adjust itself.
I think. Well, at the very least in your situation,
the good news is that you're able to catch it
before more extreme complications happened, such as something like a goiter,
which you see more often in developing nations because it's
(13:49):
more linked to unit linked to dietary things. That's partially
why a lot of salt that we eat is iodized,
because it helps keep your thyroid in check. Um, but
goiter's happened when you have constant stimulation of your thyroid,
which releases more hormones that can cause the gland to
become enlarged. And basically the enlarged thyroid is a goiter. Yeah. Yes,
(14:12):
and I'm not willing to call mine that. Yeah good,
My neck still does not appear well, and they can all.
I mean, it's not just a like a looks thing.
It also can affect breathing and swallow. So yeah, and
for the record, you have a lovely neck, thank you. Um. Well,
just as in graves, Uh, hashimotos can cause heart problems
(14:37):
and interestingly enough because I have slightly elevated cholesterol. Um,
not to make this all about all the time, but um,
hashimotos can be associated with high levels of low density lipoprotein,
which is l d L bad cholesterol, So that can
lead to heart problems if you don't get on medication.
(14:58):
And then they're also the mental health issues that you mentioned.
And then something called mix edema, which is a rare,
life threatening condition that can develop due to long term
hypo thyroidism as a result of the untreated hashimotos, and
the symptoms include intense cold intolerance and drowsiness, followed by
(15:19):
lethargy and unconsciousness. Basically, if this stuff starts happening, you
need to go to the er immediately, right, And so
looking at treatments for hashimotos, all is not lost. It
is not hopeless. Doctors usually prescribe thyroid hormone pills, the
most common of which is leave a thyroxin um and
it's a man made form of your tea for hormone,
(15:40):
and it's it's exactly the same as what your body
makes um. It doesn't always work for some people, Like
I'm on my doctor put me on the very lowest
possible dose just to kind of test it out, and
I'm going back soon for more blood work to follow
up and see how my antibodies are doing. But the
thing is, like, I don't feel like many of my
symptoms have really changed aged and so in that case,
(16:01):
it's important for me to talk to my doctor about
do we need to alter the dose, you know, anything
like that. And some people are actually on something called
desiccated thyroid hormone, which in recent ears has kind of
fallen out of favor, but is is starting to get
back on the upswing and that used to be the
only treatment for hypothyroidism, and it is basically like pig
(16:23):
thyroid and it's it's kind of you know, it's freez drag,
ground up whatever put into a pill form, and and
that actually has shown to help a lot of people well.
And when it comes to the a lot of people
that that might be helping, there's a very good chance
that most of them are women. Because in this episode,
like up until now, it might just sound like a
(16:45):
straight up just health podcast, but the one of the
major risk factors for high for thyroid issues is being
a woman. This affects women far and away more often
than men. Yeah, And the thing that we were Chris
and I were discussing about this issue is that it's
(17:05):
not clear cut as to why. And you know, we'll
we'll talk about some pregnancy stuff and hormone stuff and
that their links with thyroid and how it affects you
during pregnancy. And and my my very uneducated hypothesis would
be that because of some of these links between thyroid
(17:25):
issues and hormones and then thus pregnancy, you know, women
are the only ones getting pregnant so far, and so
I do wonder if, if you know, if pregnancy does
play a very large role in it. But let's look
at the numbers. First, yeah, the numbers are staggering. Experts
estimate the women are between five to eight times more
likely than men to have a thyroid problem, and those
(17:48):
differences only increase after age thirty four. A lot of times,
the older you are as a woman, the higher chances
of developing a thyroid disorder. So, for instance, about eight
out of ten people with thyroid disease are women. And
for yet another statistic, one and eight women will develop
(18:08):
a thyroid disorder during her lifetime. Yeah, and by the
time we reach age sixty, more than twenty of us,
being American women will have a thyroid disorder. And you know,
just like many many health conditions and other things out there,
when you take into account the fact that a lot
of people go undiagnosed, the numbers are probably a lot
(18:28):
higher because so many of the symptoms we listed can
be anything else. And you know it should we should
pause here and say, go to your doctor, please, do
not self diagnosed. Do not assume that you have a
thyroid disorder, because a lot of those things like thinning hair,
feeling cold, having brittle nails, maybe you're just not eating
in a vegetables. Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of things
(18:49):
that it could be. UM. But what's interesting too about
thyroid disorders and women is that a lot of times
when we hear about these more gendered health issues, the
answer will be, well, estrogen is up to her dirty
old tricks. But it's probably not just tied to estrogen,
because you see these kinds of disorders cropping up both
(19:11):
pre and post menopausal, whereas if you look at other
kinds of women's health issues, a lot of times it'll
hit after or like during your reproductive years and then
fade away post menopause. Right, because there are plenty of
women and girls out there who were born with congenital
thyroid issues, that is certainly not just tied to estrogen
(19:32):
UM And wrote A. Cobin, who is the clinical professor
of medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, pointed
that out that you know, these conditions can happen anytime,
so it's probably not solely linked to that, and she
says it is likely that the gender predisposition is likewise
genetically mediated. In other words, women may inherit a predisposition
(19:53):
to these disorders based on their gender. So that's clear
as mud, right, Yeah, Yeah, well, there's also uh Turner syndrome,
which is a complete or partial absence of the second
sex chromosome, and it's a genetic disorder that affects solely women.
And as many as half of patients with Turner syndrome
have hypothyroidism. So there are certain conditions that lend themselves
(20:18):
more to just women having hypo thyroidism. And next up,
one thing that we've got to talk about when it
comes to women in thyroid issues is the pregnancy link,
and we'll get into that right after we take a
quick break. Okay, Well, we were just discussing how being
a woman is one of the main risk factors for
having thyroid disease, and we want to get into the
(20:41):
pregnancy link because you know, your thyroid is part of
your endocrine system, which regulates all your hormones, which regulates
everything going on in your body, and so obviously pregnancy, menstruation, ovulation,
these things are heavily tied into that too. Yeah, and
pregnancy is one of those things on the doctor's checklist
in a way, if you come and complaining of all
(21:02):
of these thyroid related symptoms, they'll typically want to know
whether or not you've been pregnant, because if the answer
is yes, that usually spotlights thyroid issues a little more
strongly um because of how during pregnancy your immune system
is suppressed and that alters the thyroid function. So before
(21:24):
you even um consider getting pregnant, or if you were
starting to consider getting pregnant, one thing you do want
to have checked out if you feel like you're having
trouble conceiving is your thyroid because in pre menopausal women,
early symptoms of hypothyroidism can interfere with fertility. If you
have a history of miscarriage, for example, that could be
(21:46):
a sign of hypothyroidism, and a pregnant woman with hypothyroidism
has a fourfold risk for miscarriage, and most women with
overt hypothyroidism have minstrual cycle abnormalities and often l to ovulate.
But in the case that you do get pregnant, you
might not think about thyroid issues being related to that.
(22:07):
But actually, during early pregnancy, for the first ten of
twelve weeks, the baby is completely dependent on the mother
for the production of thyroid hormone, and so by the
end of the first trimester you have the baby's thyroid
beginning to produce some hormone on its own. However, it's
still going to remain dependent on the mother four ingestion
(22:28):
of iodine, which is essential to making the thyroid hormone.
And again why we eat eydie salt right exactly so?
And actually side note, we're having a lot of problems
even an hour developed world now with iodine because we're
all eating that like fancy salt, like all of that
(22:48):
sea salt stuff that's all flavored and fancy whatever. I
love sea salt. It's not iodized, So make sure, like
maybe put fancy salts on your fancy meats and things.
But if you're just doing some all cooking, Dr Caroline
recommends that you use regular salt that has iodine in it,
and even be careful because some of that kosher salt too,
does not have iodine, So just check the label. People.
(23:11):
Oh man, I like my fancy salt too. I like
your I like your fancy salt off flue um. But
let's look at the effects on the actual fetus. So
you are pregnant, and whether you have hypero thyroidism or
hyper there can be various effects on your unborn child.
Um Italian study and and the Mayo Clinic provided some
(23:33):
information on hypothyroidism's effect on the fetus. Untreated hypothyroidism, especially
produced by hashimotos, can impair this is hererible can impair
the neurological development of the fetus due to the reduced
availability of maternal thyroid hormones during early gestation. What can
this meaty butterfly not do to wreak havoc on our bodies? Caroline,
(23:57):
I know I'm starting to not be a fan of
the thyroid. Not to be dramatic about things. Well, I
think your thyroid is probably fine. You should love yours
so we can team up against mine. Okay, okay, I
don't like your meaty butterfly. That sounds so mean to say.
And speaking of reasons to be frustrated with the thyroid,
speaking of hypothyroidism and pregnancy, there could be a link
(24:20):
between that and birth effects such as a cleft palate.
And also there's a link between hypothyroid pregnancies and heart, brain,
and kidney problems in infants. Right, So your thyroid is
nothing to mess around with if you want to get
pregnant and have children, because it could have some completely
horrific effects on both you and your child. Yeah, and
(24:42):
not just for hypo but also for hyper thyroidism. This
is also coming from the Mayo Clinic as well. There
are complications possibly of Graves disease during pregnancy, such as
preterm birth, fetal thyroid dysfunction, poor fetal growth, and pre
acclampsy at which we've talked about in other podcasts, which
is a condition that results in high blood pressure and
(25:04):
elevated proteins in the urine. And I think it can
endanger the pregnancy if I'm not mistaken. So if you
are already at risk for a thyroid issue or if
you already have on going into pregnancy, it can't As
we have just told you, it can really screw some
stuff up. And the screw nous does not stop once
you have the baby, because when a woman gets pregnant,
(25:27):
her immune system is suppressed and the function of the
thyroid gland is altered. And in most women, the thyroid
regains its normal functioning after pregnancy when the immune system
is released from its suppression, but for some the thyroid
gland never fully recovers, and in that case it's referred
to as postpartum thyroiditis. And according to Dr Cobin, who
(25:48):
we cited earlier who is a clinical professor of medicine
at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She talks about
how this postpartum thyroiditis can either cause the fluctuation between
hyper and hypo and in some cases this condition can
just resolve itself and others it can intensify, and in
(26:09):
some it can persist for a lifetime. So the net
net of all of that is yet again to be
vigilant about your thyroid health, especially if you have been pregnant,
because of all of these ripple effects that can happen. Right,
And I mean the fact that ten of women who
get pregnant in the US will probably have postpartum thyroiditis
(26:32):
is definitely nothing to sneeze at. And yeah, like we said,
you just when you're getting pregnant and gonna carry a
little human inside of you, you know, this is just
another reason to be extra careful. Yeah, and not to
continue on the train of thyroids are horrible. Uh. We
do have a little bit more dismal news to share
(26:53):
in the thyroid department, which is that thyroid cancer is
the fastest growing cancer among women. And this was reported
over at Yahoo Health, but it was just coming from
a study published in the Journal of Cancer Epidemiology, and
it reported that not only have rates of thyroid cancer
gone up by two DT over the past twenty years,
(27:16):
it's expected to become the third most common cancer in
the US by twenty nineteen. Now, the good news is
is that it's pretty treatable, that the fatality rate from
thyroid cancer isn't high. But the question is, wow, why
why are we seeing such a giant leap and why
does it hate women? Because while thyroid cancer incidents rates
(27:39):
have increased worldwide for decades, UH, it's mostly for papillary
carcinomas than other types, and more for females than males,
and women are much more likely to get papillary carcinoma
then than men are. And just one more piece of
bad news for Caroline Irvine, women with hashimotos are at
an increased risk for it. According to the Journal of
Surgical Research, currently thyroid cancer is the fifth most common
(28:03):
cancer for US women. And as for why it is
on the rise, there are two main reasons that are
talked about, one being the increasing use of medical imaging
to detect smaller early cancers like those pavolary carcinomas. But
there's also a theory that we have been more in
contact with environmental carcinogens and increased exposure to medical radiation.
(28:29):
Actually that can up your risk. Yeah, So yes, these
cancers are increasing. Throd cancers are increasing, but on the
one hand, we're doing more medical imaging, so more things
are being caught that maybe wouldn't otherwise be caught. But
also large cancers are actually increasing, and so it's just
(28:51):
one more health thing to be very vigilant of. Yeah.
And one way that you can be vigilant of this
is in the same way that we're told as women
over and over again to do breast self exams to
check four lumps, you can also check your neck to
check for any lumps there. And basically you just tip
your head back, take a sip of water, and as
(29:11):
you're swallowing, you just check around your neck for any
bulges or protrusions other than what you know. You're you're tricky,
r like what should be there, right, And what's kind
of scary to think about, you know, to me personally,
is that no one had ever checked my thyroid before.
You know, every time I go to the guy in ecologist,
(29:32):
everything is checked. Uh, she even does a breast exam.
I mean the bases are typically covered, or I thought
all the bases were covered. But she had never once
put her hands around my neck like she was choking me,
because that's basically how your doctor has it's it's like
she's choking you feeling your thyroid. And so when I
actually expressed to my internist, my my at my physical
(29:54):
that I was having all these symptoms, that's when she
did get up and put her fingers on my neck
to feel it, and she said it did feel large.
And so that started out the whole all of the testing.
And so it's very important, as we've said before, to
be your own advocate in your health care um and
make sure that you know all of the risks that
are out there because there's so many, and and ask
(30:15):
for those appropriate tests, and especially with something like this
where it disproportionately affects women. But for what reason, we
still don't know. Yeah, you know, that's that's definitely concerning that.
It's still a giant question mark as to what it
is about the female biology, anatomy physiology that is setting
(30:37):
us up for being at such a high risk of
thyroid issues. And I'm not necessarily in a place where
in my life where I'm thinking about children. But if
I were to think about children, I mean I have to, Like,
you've got to be on some serious medicine and be
constantly monitored if you're going to get pregnant and have
(30:57):
children when you have a thyroid issue. Yeah. Um, But
I hope that this might be helpful for listeners out
there who might have experienced some of these symptoms, might
be wondering what's going on in their own bodies, might
have received Hashimoto's diagnosis like you, Caroline. I'm sure it's
helpful to know that there are other people out there
going through this. Um. So we want to hear from you.
(31:17):
Have you experienced thyroid issues? Um? Is this a health
concern of yours? Let us know. Mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com is where you can email us. You can
also reach out to us via Twitter at mom Stuff podcast,
or you can send us a message on Facebook as well.
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you right now. In fact, so we've got a couple
(31:43):
of letters here in response to our episode on sex trafficking,
and I have one here from a nuke who writes.
When I was living in Amsterdam, I saw an item
on TV about sex trafficking and decided to take some
action since I had no idea how to contact women
who have been saved from traffickers like contacted a sex
workers organization and they put me in contact with someone
(32:04):
who had had escaped human traffickers. This organization for sex
workers at a website warning for sex trafficking. It had
been translated in lots of different languages, and I did
wonder how many women they actually reached with it. I
later came into contact with an organization that organized a
buddy project for women who had just escaped. The idea
was that this isolated in foreign woman meets a Dutch
(32:26):
woman about once a week for a cup of coffee
so she won't become too isolated before anyone has put
into contact. The Dutch woman had to participate in a
couple of workshops about the theme, and I also later
went to a congress about the topic. The main problems
there are with helping victims are that they're often too
afraid of the police because they can come from countries
where the police are corrupt, or to be able to
(32:49):
win a court case they need a detailed account of
who did what to them and when a doctor at
the Congress explained why this is impossible for a majority
of women because they're usually very traumatized and often been beaten,
two reasons why their memory isn't as sharp as usual.
And it also takes a lot of courage to be
able to tell all the awful and embarrassing things that
have been done to you. So just some insight into
(33:11):
the atrocities of human and sex trafficking going on. So
thanks the nuke Well. I have a Facebook message here
from Heather who said that sex trafficking is a topic
that she is very passionate about, and she says I've
tried to get involved in my community and college concerning
this issue. Here are some awesome organizations that are attacking
(33:31):
this problem. Robb's Rope is based locally in Gainsville, Georgia,
but works in India rehabilitating women and teaching them skills
for other means of employment. The Sold Project believes, as
I do, that the main issue is really about education.
The more education someone has, the more opportunities and choices
they can make about their employment. They create scholarships for
children in Thailand in the cycle of poverty and trafficking
(33:53):
in their families. Finally, Love one forty attacks the problem
from three angles prevention, care and rehabilit rotation, and Heather
provided the web addresses. They are Rob's Rope dot com,
The sold Project dot com, and love one dot org.
So thank you very much for those resources, Heather, and
thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff at
(34:15):
Discovery dot com is where you can send us all
of your letters. You can also tweet us at mom
Stuff Podcasts or send us a message on Facebook, and
you should before you do anything else at all, head
over to the internet home for Stuff Mom Never Told You,
which includes all of our videos, podcast blogs, and all
of our social media presences, which are a lot kind
(34:37):
of like all the things I'm saying right now. There's
one place to go, and that Stuff Mom Never Told
You dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is it How Stuff Works dot com. This
(34:59):
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