07/25/2025
It's been almost 2 years since this Canadian news article on Postmedia's Healthing dot ca platform featured my personal experience (Tania S. Smith) as a thyroid patient and our patient-led nonprofit organization, Thyroid Patients Canada.
It's still relevant.
Karen Hawthorne's article raises issues with thyroid healthcare that many of us still struggle with today:
• Under-recognition of the severity of hypothyroid symptoms both before and during treatment.
• Treatment offered for the biochemical deficiency of hypothyroidism without a diagnosis of the cause(s).
• Incomplete treatment with one hormone (T4) that doesn't fully replace a functional gland that secretes two hormones (T4 and T3).
• Failure to acknowledge that effective, safe individual treatment may require a T3-inclusive, or even T3-dominant, therapy.
Why is thyroid disease omitted from the list of chronic diseases monitored by our Canadian government? Do people think we are cured? One pill per day will never adjust to life's demands like a real thyroid can.
TITLE: "Hypothyroidism in Canada: Challenges, treatment options and the case for chronic condition status."
August 28, 2023.
SUBHEAD: "Thyroid Patients Canada is now among the leading advocates for thyroid disease, which includes hypothyroidism, to be added to Canada’s chronic diseases list."
IMAGE CAPTION: "Activists say chronic condition status in Canada will help put hypothyroidism on the radar for educating the public and physicians."
ARTICLE INTRO:
"In her first year as a communications professor at the University of Calgary, Tania Smith was concerned about how tired and emotional she had become for no apparent reason.
She would nearly fall asleep while waiting at a red light or driving on a long, straight highway. When she walked on campus, she would close her eyes for 10 steps and then open them again for 10 steps just to save energy. She took long naps in the afternoon and then another in the evening. She also struggled with unexplained crying.
“Bouts of weeping would come over me with no warning. My mind would try to find reasons for how I felt,” says Smith. “It got so bad that I decided to try acting out my feelings by getting into my closet and cowering in a corner. I thought maybe it would help me identify a buried emotional cause. While I was crying in the closet, I realized there were no reasons, no triggers for the emotional distress.”
She decided to look up her symptoms and see if there was a medical or hormonal cause. Through online questionnaires, she checked off other symptoms like cold sensitivity, weight gain, constipation, slow speech and slow cognition. ..."
Read more at the link. (10 minute read)
YOU CAN HELP -- ADD YOUR VOICE.
The number of people with thyroid disease is huge, but our symptoms often silence us.
This article currently only has 10 public comments (including 4 replies) under the article. Only ten?
Come on! Help us show future readers and Postmedia network that people care about this health issue. It's an excellent piece of journalism.
Individuals can't change thyroid healthcare policy and medical attitudes. We need to come together.
Please be brave and add comments under the article itself if you feel comfortable doing so.
And of course, share, and add your reactions and comments here on our public page, or wherever it's shared on Facebook!
- Tania Sona Smith
Hypothyroidism in Canada: Treatments and chronic condition status
