DEAR THYROID^TM

I was speaking with someone last night about Dear Thyroid, and they asked me “What is the core of your brand”? With gumption, I said “Support via writing directly to our thyroids or thyroidectomized glands, among other things. Support via Local Dear Thyroid Meet-Ups. Advocacy and Education; learning more about our diseases from each other, our columnists and guest bloggers.”

Every day, regardless of incident, we show up and do just that. Yes, we are a unique brand and community – we all admit that, don’t we? We work because of you. We exist and grow, and mire our way through the Gland Canyon because of each of you. If you didn’t give as much of yourselves as you do, we wouldn’t be a community. If you didn’t write and share, and scream at the top of your lungs with joy, or sadness, or anger, or frustration; we wouldn’t be the change.

Yet again, I thank you for being yourselves. I am so grateful to you – every single day.

Coffee, the Morning Paper, and a Little Ball of Hate, today’s Dear Thyroid Letter, written by Amy. If you haven’t read it and connected with her, please do. She slammed it out today – Not easy to do. An excerpt from her post: “I am five and a half months pregnant. But, I can tell the difference between thyroid and pregnancy symptoms. I hate you! I am not okay today! I do not want to accept the fact that I have Hashimotos today!”

Today’s comment…

alisa says:

I had Hashimoto’s while pregnant! Caused high blood pressure and hypoglycemia and a lot of panic attacks… but my doctors put it down to pregnancy, wasnt until 5 months after my son was born they diagnosed me. They spent that 5 months telling me I had PND.

I am so thankful my son is healthy, I am so angry they didn’t test for it, which was supposed to have been routine.

I can understand how awful it is to have thyroid problems during pregnancy… and I am very worried about being pregnant again. I fainted for 5 hours due to thyroid related problems – later diagnosed – And my brain stopped functioning as normal for that time.. they still left me in the dark.. I don’t want that to happen again.

I live very remote.. so thyroid problems arnt known much about, and theres a doctor rarely… and being pregnant would have me sent 1400km away..! So were holding off on #2.

I hope you start to feel more normal again..!

Yoga For Your Thyroid, another wonderful post from Dr. Gottfried. One of the things she said in comments regarding yoga and thyroid is “Yoga has been mostly proven to improve the thyroid through reducing stress hormones, and thereby amping up conversion of T4 to T3 (make more active thryoid hormone). Exercise also have been shown to increase testosterone, especially weight lifting, which is of interest really in folks with low testosterone. It also makes estrogen more efficient – overall lowers it, but also makes it go further and get into the brain and muscles more readily.”

If you haven’t read her post, please do. Tonight, from Sara (Dr. Gottfried): If you read this before 10am PST, join me for Natural Hormone Balancing — a FREE interactive teleconference right here.

Today’s comment…

Monica says:

I practice yoga almost daily, in class and on my own, and these are some of the best poses for our little thyroids.

I wonder though how do these poses affect those of us who no longer have a thyroid? I asked this question of one of my yoga instructors, Dr. G, and would appreciate hearing your view on this.

Mucho thanks,

☮ ♥

Monica

—

There are only six more days to enter butterfly paragraphs for the butterflygraph competition. We’re only accepting 20. So far, we’ve received the most awesome entries. The winner is gifted with an original Ms. Averell painting! The question is “How do you feel about butterflies post diagnosis”. Regardless of how you feel, write it and submit it to submissions@dearthyroid.org.

When was the last time you wrote and submitted a Dear Thyroid Letter? Tapping foot… We want to hear from you. Whether you want to write to your thyroid, thyroidectomized gland, your doctor or medication, or anyone/thing else, write it and submit it! The more we write, the more we learn about each other and our respective diseases. Submit Dear Thyroid letters to submissions@dearthyroid.org

Finally, for the local meet-ups, we’ve received lots of RSVPs for the LA Dear Thyroid Meet-up and we have lots of other patients in other cities interested, too. Kerri is going to be writing a post about local Dear Thyroid Meet-ups for Support in the next few days. We believe in offline support. If you want to host (at a public venue) or participate, please email Kerri and let’s make it happen! Kerri@dearthyroid.org

Is there anything else? Oh, yes. Another fabulous installation of Fat Thigh-roid Woes after we post a Dear Thyroid letter is scheduled for tomorrow. One question… What would you like to see posted and discussed on Friday? Any thoughts or ideas, let us know: inquiries@dearthyroid.org

Love,

Katie

Tags: Comment of the Day, community building, Dear Thyroid, graves disease support, hashimoto's disease support, Health Community, health support community, hyperthyroid support, hypothyroid support, literary community, literary support, thyroid cancer support, thyroid community, thyroid literary community, thyroid support community

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