I have Hashimoto's Disease

I needed ten years, and countless doctors to get treatment, and still is a crap treatment, given to me by a doctor that behaved more or less in the way of "Lets try to humor the crazy person"

Before 1970s hypothyroidism was diagnosed mostly by symptomatic evidence, and it was treated with natural hormones extracted from pigs.

Then there was the discovery of the TSH blood test, and the invention of synthetic T4.

This resulted into the medics going into a strict dogma frenzy, they started to diagnose hypothyroidism ONLY by the TSH test, and treat it only with synthetic T4.

The first medic I went to, I was 15 years old, my mom took me to a endocrinologist against my will, because she was bothered by the fact that even with good diet and me being a active competition athlete I was still overweight, I took offense then, I promptly told my mom that I hated the fact that she was taking me to a "fat people doctor".

Upon arriving on the medic office, she weighted me, concluded I was fat (not shit sherlock, I already knew that!), and that all my other problems was because I was fat.

Many years went on, with the condition worsening, until a friend of my mom, just by LOOKING at me, told my mom I had it.

My mother then took me to another endocrinologist, that made me take a TSH test, that the result was 4.4, while the lab threshold was 4.5

But then I was used to google for things, and found out how to diagnose hypothyroidism, also I asked around the family, and learned that my aunt had thyroid cancer, my grandma took T4, the mother of my grandma took T4 too, and some months later my mom found out she had hypothiroidism too and also started to take T4, the only genetic condition with that behaviour, is Hashimoto's Disease, that then I figured out how to diagnose.

I went to a string of doctors, that REFUSED to take the tests, many of them told me I was crazy and that I had to seek help for my symptoms elsewhere (symptoms that I had then: chronically fat, chronically high cholesterol, brain fog, constant itching, enlarged neck, brittle hair, random muscle pains... to the medics I went I needed to visit a dermatologist, a psychiatrist, a gastroenterologist, and so on).

So, what I needed to diagnose my condition?

In that order:

Thyroid ultrasound, thyroid tissue analysis, blood test looking for the antibodies that are created by Hashimoto's Disease.

This serves to diagnose the Hashimoto's Disease itself, not the hypothyroidism.

Then to diagnose hypothyroidism, you either rely on the symptoms, or use TSH test, but instead of the usual 4.5 threshold, the endocrynology association recommends that in cases of high cholesterol and known thyroiditis to use 2.5 as threshold.

The first list of examinations I had to physically threathen a medic to order the exams, and at every step she tried to misdiagnose me (example, after the ultrasound showed my thyroid was damaged, she claimed I had a bacterial disease, and made me take exams for that, THEN she claimed it was a calcium disease, and made me take exams for that, THEN she agreed that it might be cancer, and asked for the tissue sample, that showed that the damage was being caused by the immune system... THEN she said it was a false positive, and only asked for the anti-body blood test after I was VERY 'assertive' that I wanted one).

After that, she STILL refused to treat me.

I went to several medics after her, looking for one willing to treat me, all of them said the same thing: "your TSH is below 4.5, thus you are not even subclinical, and so you are fine, your symptoms come from elsewhere, I suggest you look for a psychiatrist).

The one day, my TSH went to almost zero in a hashitoxicosis episode. (and by the way, the person that taught me that this existed, was a ophtalmologist).

I found one medic then willing to talk to me, seeing my almost zero TSH made that medic conclude that 'something' was wrong, but NOT what I claimed it was, after some stern arguing, she behaved like if I was crazy, but that she would go along and give me T4.

And behold! My symptoms got better! (not much though :/ hair still brittle).

After she gave me T4, I finally got curious about the TSH lab ranges, I took my blood test results, and read a note there saying the 4.5 threshold came from a certain document from the endocrynologist association.

I went to read that document... and that very same document, that all doctors without exception claimed to follow, cited the very same research articles I cited to those doctors and was ignored, they kept telling me that "research" for medics was irrelevant, until the association decided to make it into standard practice, and there it was, the association document cite that research, and suggest that although it is not strong enough yet to make it a mandatory standard, it was sound enough to be a recommendation, and thus I concluded that medics don't even read the rule books they claim to follow.

tl;dr; medics refused to examine me no matter how hard I pushed them to, claimed to follow a rule book that they actually don't read.