Hypo, hyper, or well-medicated, millions of Canadians are in the category of those who manage a thyroid hormone imbalance.
But instead of being offered the agency to co-manage our condition, we are being managed and manipulated by our medical system and economy.
We thyroid patients are a huge amorphous group, way too easy and vulnerable to exploit and profit from.
Our numbers are immense, so health care admins can save a lot by limiting our care by a dollar here and there.
Meanwhile monopolies can make fortunes from our meds.
Our massive spinoff health care spending when we suffer suboptimal thyroid care does not show up on the “thyroid” balance sheet, but in other health care departments and para-health industries.
Those of us left jobless, cognitively challenged, fatigued or depressed by a poorly managed thyroid condition can’t afford the money or energy to optimize our thyroid hormones.
The endocrinologists collectively don’t care about those of us on maintenance therapy, having downgraded our lifelong hormone levels to a simplistic process of driving a machine with 2 buttons.
While all eyes honor and worship the TSH — a hormone that no longer regulates our thyroid hormone status, a hormone that says nothing about our T3 status beyond the pituitary — our body-wide T3 levels are ignored, unregulated, and often oppressed.
There’s no organizations that yet exist in Canada to watch our backs and truly advocate for us and say “STOP IT.”
We’re truly an orphaned chronic health condition.
But we are not alone. We have each other.
We can join together and take back our agency and voice.