This is a firsthand account submitted through SWHR’s Share Your Story portal, as part of SWHR’s Women’s Health Perspective series.
My and my wife’s story – our story – is about a disease that overwhelmingly impacts women, as women are five to eight times more likely than men to have thyroid problems. My wife, Linda, developed the symptoms of hypothyroidism, which occurs when the thyroid gland doesn’t make enough of the thyroid hormone, in 2002. We didn’t realize at the time that she suffers from a disease closely related to hypothyroidism but is actually different in its function and physiology.
She was dutifully treated with levothyroxine, an approved endocrinology treatment. While it did normalize her thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), it did not mitigate her symptoms. My wife renewed her request for an alternative Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved hormone replacement, which is also safe and effective – but she was not granted the treatment due to what I understand to be general hypothyroidism practice policy. She suffered up until the time she could see her first endocrinologist and continued to suffer for another year with her body running slow all over. Then her second endocrinologist changed her prescription amount. She ended up going to her general practitioner to get her necessary prescriptions filled, which worked for a few years util she needed more alternative hormones.
Then, she saw a third endocrinologist, who tried a different treatment alternative. It was only so-so. So, she went to her mother’s general practitioner, who prescribed another alternative treatment, which worked for a decade, until he retired. Then, we had to find another doctor.
I wrote a scientific appeal to try and get my wife the treatment she needs.
Now, I write and submit articles of our story, but medicine and its journals are not always as altruistic and patient-centered as we would like to believe.