The Many Faces of a Thyroid Condition: Symptoms of Disease, Cancer, and More

Thyroid Condition: A Common Disease: Your thyroid is one of the most important glands in your body. Its main responsibility is to decide how the food you eat will be broken down, and also decide whether your body will use that food as immediate energy, or store it as an energy reserve. It uses two main hormones to complete this process, namely thyroxin and tri-iodothyronine. Having a thyroid condition causes a major problem in the body, because it throws this important process off, leading your body to react in many different ways. Some of them can be mistakenly attributed to other causes, and it may take some time and a good doctor to diagnose it properly, but proper diagnosis and treatment is the only way to put a thyroid back into commission.

The Most Common Symptom of a Thyroid Condition: One of the most common symptoms of a thyroid condition is persistent fatigue or sluggishness. This is definitely a symptom that gets attributed to other causes such as stress or a too busy schedule. If left undiagnosed and untreated, the condition will not get better, and in fact will probably worsen and begin to show signs of even more symptoms of a thyroid condition. This can lead to depression, and while this mostly affect women between the ages of 20 and 40, anyone with a thyroid, including your child, and even your dog could begin to exhibit signs of a thyroid condition and should be checked out.

More Symptoms of a Thyroid Condition: There are many more symptoms of a thyroid condition, including increased perspiration, shaky hands, weight loss, feeling warm, rapid heartbeat, frequent or loose stools, eye irritation or general eye discomfort, and infertility or menstrual changes. If you begin noticing any of these symptoms, it would be wise to speak with your family health care provider or at least keep track of any symptoms and where and when you experience them because sometimes it is easier to recognize there is a serious problem when you have it on paper.

Thyroid Conditions Leading to Cancer: Occasionally, the thyroid will begin to develop nodules, or lumps. These are usually nothing to fear and actually occur in most people without them even knowing. Sometimes you may notice a lump, swelling, or pain in the neck, and that will be the only way that you would be able to detect a thyroid nodule. These nodules are not caused by the thyroid being overactive, or by it being underactive, and there is no one cause for their formation. It is just something that the thyroid does in most people. They do not require any treatment unless they are causing pain to the patient. It is at this time the doctor will check to make sure the nodules are not cancerous. While the majority of these lumps are benign, it is not completely uncommon to detect malignancy leading to thyroid cancer.