Week 2: Diagnosis Day — Hyperthyroidism & Goiter

Naming the imbalance

Awareness opens the door, but understanding gives us language.

Once the signs are no longer ignored, the next step is diagnosis — not as a label to fear, but as clarity that brings direction. For me, that clarity came in the form of two words I had never connected to my symptoms before: thyroid disease.

The examination confirmed what my body had been trying to say for years. I had an enlarged thyroid, known as a goiter, and my thyroid was producing too much hormone — a condition called hyperthyroidism.

Hyperthyroidism places the body in a constant state of overdrive. The metabolism speeds up. The heart races. Anxiety intensifies. Weight drops without effort. Sleep becomes elusive. Internally, the body struggles to slow itself down, even when rest is desperately needed.

Suddenly, the puzzle pieces fit. The racing heart. The crushing anxiety. The physical changes I had normalized. They weren’t character flaws or stress mismanagement — they were physiological.

Receiving a diagnosis was both sobering and relieving. Sobering, because it meant something was truly wrong. Relieving, because it meant I wasn’t imagining it — and I wasn’t alone.

Treatment followed, including radioactive iodine therapy, a common and effective option for managing hyperthyroidism. What many people don’t realize is that while this treatment resolves the overactivity, it often shifts the body into the opposite condition.

That shift — from hyperthyroidism to hypothyroidism — marked the beginning of a new chapter.

Body Wisdom Takeaway: A diagnosis is not a sentence. It’s a starting point.

Next comes the part few people talk about — learning how to live in the body after treatment.