FIRST PERSON

A Deceptive Disease

I had all the symptoms of thyroid cancer as a teenager, but it took years to get the right diagnosis.

Newsweek Web Exclusive

Jan 13, 2008 | Updated: 7:40 p.m. ET Jan 11, 2008

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Discuss

Posted By: r5340h @ 02/18/2008 12:05:27 AM

Comment: My genecologist found my lump, had it not been for him it would have gone on a long time with no detection despite all the symptoms I was having. Afterword, you go ahhhh that's why that was happening. One of my bigger complaints is the employers out there not understanding. When I was going for my RAI treatment I was told I was "a burden" being gone from work for a week for this. Talk about mind changing as your body is changing. They also think that when this is done you are 100% and should be back to normal. Two years later I'm not back to normal and will never believe I will feel like I did before this came about. The public definitely needs to be more informed of these things and if it requires an article in a magazine, so be it!!
Posted By: number1mobyfan @ 02/09/2008 5:16:07 AM

Comment: It took at least five years for my GP to finally diagnose me as hyperthyroid (it took me another four months to discover she didn't really know how to treat it and needed to see a specialist, who had me do an Uptake & Scan Test to determine the cause, Graves' Disease). I too found out the hard way that thyroid levels are not part of a regular annual exam and that most doctors don't know squat about thyroid disease. I trusted that my doctor knew what she was doing but she did not. Unfortunately many symptoms of thyroid disease are vague and common symptoms of many other diseases so it's hard to diagnose. But I completely agree that doctors need to be better educated about thyroid disease as an estimated 40 million Americans have thyroid problems, and about half are undiagnosed.
Posted By: kj6178 @ 01/17/2008 12:08:06 PM

Comment: As a Head and Neck surgeon, I am alarmed at the amount of misinformation in this article. The symptoms described at the beginning of the article are extremely nonspecific and common -- what's more, they cannot be attributed to well-differentiated thyroid cancer (WDTC). WDTC is not a functional disorder and is asymptomatic unless far-advanced. The blood test described in the article is probably a thyroglobulin level which is used to monitor recurrent or metastatic disease AFTER treatment. It has no use at all prior to thyroidectomy and does not help detect undiagnosed disease.

That being said, I sympathize with this young lady's plight and basically agree with her advice regarding second opinions and asking questions. However, I am disappointed with Newsweek for publicizing false medical information and would point to this as an example of how a little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous.
Posted By: zehramohsin @ 01/16/2008 11:20:34 PM

Comment: Beaufiful article. I can relate partially to the author's experience, noting that I'm currently taking medication for a bad thyroid and am only 18.