Do you have a friend who is constantly tired? Perhaps they’re experiencing unexplained weight gain, or they just won’t stop talking about their thinning hair? It can be difficult to be the sounding board in this situation, as whilst you can offer well-meaning advice, it’s likely they would benefit most from speaking to a health professional who can investigate the situation further. Low energy, fatigue, weight gain and hair loss can arise due to many different circumstances, but one of the reasons we see most commonly in clinic is undiagnosed hypothyroidism.
As we talked about in our article HERE, hypothyroidism is a common condition affecting both men and women, and it can be responsible for a wide range of symptoms, including:
- Weight gain
- Fatigue
- Hair loss or thin, brittle hair
- Constipation
- Weak nails
- Menstrual irregularities
- And more!
Hypothyroidism is most common in middle-aged women, which is why when our patients mention their friend who just can’t lose weight, it’s one of the first things we think of. In other cases, patients come in suspecting they might have an underactive thyroid, but they’ve yet to complete the tests to work out what might be going on. In both cases, we take a detailed case history, we use pathology testing to assess how well the thyroid is functioning, and we investigate and explore other factors that might be at play as well.
As thyroid health is a key specialty at our clinic, I developed a Thyroid Quiz, to give patients a general idea of whether their symptoms might be suggestive of thyroid under-function. This quiz is not diagnostic in nature, but certainly helps to clarify whether your constellation of symptoms might look similar to a typical picture of hypothyroidism. If you would like to take the quiz, or share it with a friend, you can do so HERE.
So next time your friend worries about their weight, complains about their lack of energy or laments their thinning hair, consider directing them to our Thyroid Quiz, or suggesting they look into having their thyroid health explored more comprehensively. They might discover an undiagnosed thyroid issue, or perhaps find another reason for their symptoms entirely. Either way, it’s important to remember that these symptoms are not a rite of passage with age, and that they have nothing to lose by investigating further!
