In more personal news: Enlarged Thyroid

I’ve noticed a lump in the front, right side of my neck for the last 6 months, maybe even longer. However, it wasn’t noticeable to anyone but me until just recently. It’s grown considerably over the last two months and is now about 6″ long and 2″ wide, and sticks out far enough that with my head tilted just right, one can see it without having to touch it. I’d put off seeing my doctor cuz I thought it was maybe just a swollen lymph node due to allergy drainage or something, and was kind of ignoring it. However, this week it really seemed bigger again, and I realized I’d better get it checked.

Interestingly, after my doctor decided we needed an ultrasound and said it was likely to be my thyroid, I came home and looked up goiters. The picture on this page looks pretty much like what I have.

Note: this is NOT ME. This is a picture from endocrineweb.com.

Also the list of symptoms follows a lot of the issues I’ve had:

• Cough (mine’s been diagnosed as asthma, but the time line is about right for it to possibly be the thyroid pushing on my trachea or lungs)
• Slight change in voice
• Nighttime choking episodes (because of the way that the gland compresses the trachea while sleeping)
• Frequent coughing
• Feeling that “something is stuck in the throat”
• Food getting stuck in the upper esophagus when swallowing (breads and meats most commonly)
• Waking up at night feeling that you can’t breathe
• Inability to lay down or sleep on your back because of symptoms above (when it was never a problem before)

It’s funny; I’ve had doctor after doctor tell me I don’t need to be tested for Hashimoto’s Thyroid because “the treatment is the same” as with hypothyroid that’s not autoimmune. However, now that it seems one side of my thyroid has swollen up to the size of a small banana, I’m getting an antibody test to see if my immune system is in fact attacking my thyroid. Fortunately my current doctor is pretty good about paying attention to what I am telling her, and she takes me seriously. I suspect she learned her lesson when Elizabeth saw her as a primary care doc and ended up with a serious thyroid problem that potentially could have been taken care of early.

Anyway, that’s the deal. I need to go in for an ultrasound ASAP. Already went and got my blood taken this morning. We shall see what turns up.