My Battle For Well Women
Hi to all and welcome to Well Women. My name is Marianne and I am 45 years old. I was born in Clapham, London in November 1962. I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis which is an auto immune disease of the Thyroid. Well Women is about my struggle with Thyroid disease, Scoliosis, menopause, panic attacks and many other conditions that affect women, including self esteem and depression. It is due to the failure of the medical profession in helping those with chronic illness, especially thyroid disease, CFS, Fibromyalgia etc that this website was born. Many women are suffering with thyroid disease which is fast becoming an epidemic and doctors are failing us miserably because of medical protocol. There are mandates and guidelines in place which our dear GP's can not over-rule and due to this many women with borderline or normal thyroid test results are ill and not receiving much needed medication. GP's simply write women off as neurotic or menopausal not stopping to wonder why we grace the surgeries so often complaining of exhaustion, feeling cold, aching joints, depression and the list goes on. They hand out anti-depressants instead. This in turn means that we will never overcome the real cause of our illness. Anti-depressants just don't work with thyroid disease. In fact they actually make it much worse. The prescribing of T3 is not allowed, so those who are unable to convert T4 to the more powerful T3 are suffering. We have to resort to private doctors who can prescribe these needed hormones. Please contact me for a list of these doctors in the UK and Republic of Ireland who have an interest in thyroid disease, adrenal insufficiency etc and can provide much needed help. Sadly this is at a cost to us but in our desperation to find someone who will listen and understand, we are often prepared to pay whatever it takes to find out what is wrong and receive the correct treatment. I spent many years suffering from depression, many years of being fed anti-depressants. As soon as I was given Thyroid medication, my depression lifted. Natural progesterone has also helped me enormously. I also have details of doctors in the UK who can prescribe Natural bio identical transdermal progesterone although it can be purchased online too and is completely natural so does not cause us more illness like HRT and the contraceptive pill which are synthetic hormoes and responsible for a lot of our problems too. Here again, GP's prescribe these synthetic hormones with little thought to how they are wreaking havoc with our bodies, including endocrine function. Anything we put into or on our bodies or inhale that is synthetic (60 per cent of what we put on our skin is absorbed into our blood stream and often stored in the liver) including food with additives, beauty and personal care products containing chemicals, hair colours, suncreams and self tanners, spray tanning, perfumes and fragrances, chlorine and fluoride in tap water and toothpaste, chemcials we use to clean our house and decorate it such as paints and varnishes, even carpets, dry cleaning fluid, gardening chemcials such as weed killers and treatments in fact any chemcials interferes with endocrine function and many are carcinogenic. This could also be why such a high proportion of women suffer with endocrine illness and autoimmune disease compared to men. they are the biggest users of beauty products and also synthetic hormones. Take a look at the amazing list of chemicals in your anti-aging creams and body lotions etc. Most you can't even pronounce. The conglomerates that sell them are still allowed to do so. More scary still is the fact that baby products contain parabens and chemicals and we are using them on our precious new born baby's. Not to mention products we are using while we are pregnant with the baby. We are subjecting our precious offspring to a life of chemcials before they are even born and then after too. Please see my Scoliosis Story I have three wonderful children, Sean 18, Clare 15 and Niamh (pronounced Neeve) aged 10. Clare also has scoliosis and was first diagnosed around Jan 2006. She is being constantly monitored by her orthopaedic consultant. Her curve is only around 12 degrees, so does not need a brace, and hopefully never will! I now only have to worry about Niamh, who is coming up to the age where she will need to be watched.
In my Scoliosis story, I discuss what happened to me from diagnosis to present day. Also please see Clare's story which will also be updated all the time. I still await spinal surgery some time this year and my diary will be documented on this site including before and after photos, should I decide to proceed. There is still another option that I am considering. (please see my story for details.) I have included this in my thyroid story as I feel the constant x-rays may have been contributary in the onset of Hashimoto's as although I may have inherited this from my Father, I was having X-rays every three weeks!! This can’t have been good. I have been very ill with the thyroid condition, which has taken a long time to treat and now I am on the road to better health, want to share with you the way that I have achieved this with supplements, natural progesterone and building my website, "Well Women." Working from home has helped me enormously as it has taken the worry out of being absent from work and of course has increased my happiness. It is very important to have a hobby doing something which occupies your time and is in addition to being a mum and wife. There are so many women out there who may have an undiagnosed Thyroid condition and just don't know why they feel so bad. There are also women who have had thyroid tests, and because these showed as being "normal" have been ignored by their doctors. It is possible to have a normal blood test and still be hypothyroid. Reading and research have been my "food" and by doing this I have made myself so much better. We always neglect ourselves because we have families to look after, but then when we can no longer carry on, what happens then? Only I have a very supportive husband, I would have gone to rock bottom after the death of my father, and not everyone is as lucky as me. Please take time to read as much as you can about the conditition so that you can educate yourselves about your illness and in turn, educate others. Please take a look at my well women guide to books. If only men could be educated in why their wife or partner is behaving the way they are. Many women go through complete personality changes because of a Thyroid condition and just can't understand why. My behaviour was very odd and I was very worried I would lose Mike, but fortunately with diagnosis and treatment and the 100 per cent support from him, I can tell you about this today and that is the sole purpose of "Well Women". Many women with undiagnosed thyroid conditions have relationships that are troublesome and ultimately end because of lack or support and knowledge. These relationships could often be saved if GP's took more interest in their patients symptoms. Our partners are not always at fault. Looking at it from their point of view we just seem unreasonable, bad tempered, neurotic constantly tired with no sex drive or interest in life. Is it any wonder our relationships break down? With no diagnosis and treatment how can we receive support?
Building a site called well women is to help you all and I really hope it does. Please use the contact me page if you want to tell me anything about your conditions or if you would like your story to be featured on this site or if there is any products, supplements, herbal remedies or anything at all that has helped you so that we can spread the word. Good luck for now Mx
Please Click HERe to go to the Thyroid Page
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