u/deepdives

Moved here a couple years ago due to a job change. Ended up moving near the old mall but… man this place feels like it’s trying to become a ghost town. Would like to live closer to work in Charlotte but housing is so expensive.

Nothing is walkable (common here in the US outside of bigger cities) There’s a fair-to-large amount of homeless people and drug rattled people that walk the street I’m on. Which isn’t necessarily a problem… but I’ve had 3 packages stolen from my porch.

City council should look at Concord/Kannapolis and take notes of how their downtowns look and feel and copy it. Not whatever “Fuse” is trying to be.

Didn’t intend to rant, but I’ll leave it for posterity and hopefully city council lol.

33M, I haven’t been diagnosed yet, actually my doctor REFUSES to use the words hypothyroidism or hashimoto’s and I’m only met with “your TSH is high and you have thyroid antibodies present”but I have the markers of hypothyroidism and hashimoto’s. I thought I caught it early but now I’m not so sure.

TSH of 6, TPOAb of 255, normal T4/T3, daily fatigue and low mood, lower testosterone, broadly thinning hair on scalp.

I had a thyroid ultrasound and below are the condensed findings. I’m just curious if this is similar to other’s experience since I’m so new and still wrapping my head around it with a slew of symptoms I dismissed as aging that now all perfectly align with hypo/hashi’s.

Not seeking medical advice, just feeling a little alone and defeated. Curious about other’s experiences.

What I thought was minor acid reflux (I have been scoped several times and have signs of minor reflux) was probably thyroid inflammation for years.

Findings (if interested)

Right Thyroid Size: 5.7 x 1.2 x 1.7 cm
Left Thyroid Size: 6.1 x 1.5 x 1.8 cm

Nodule #1:
Position: Right mid gland Size: 6 x 2 x 4 mm
Composition: Solid or almost completely solid - 2
Echogenicity: Hyper or isoechoic - 1
Calcifications: Macro calcifications - 1
TI-RADS risk category: TR4 - Moderately Suspicious, does not meet size criteria for follow-up.

Nodule #2:
Position: Right mid gland Size: 6 x 2 x 4 mm
Composition: Solid or almost completely solid - 2
Echogenicity: Hyper or isoechoic - 1
Calcifications: Macro calcifications - 1
TI-RADS risk category: TR4 - Moderately Suspicious, does not meet size criteria for follow-up.

Nodule #3:
Position: Left superior thyroid Size: 19 x 8 x 16 mm
TI-RADS risk category: TR1 - Benign

Nodule #4:
Position: Left mid pole Size: 14 x 9 x 11 mm
Composition: Mixed cystic and solid - 1
Hyper or isoechoic - 1
TI-RADS risk category: TR2 - Not Suspicious

P.S. Edit:
After talking to family members recently the above is far less surprising.
- One sister (39F) has had mild hypothyroidism and low level TPOAb for years all complicated by PCOS. The other sister has no signs or symptoms of thyroid issues.
- Our mother developed nodules and had her thyroid removed due to the type of nodules present but never had her TSH/T4/T3 tested, so root cause unknown, but I'm guessing the same mechanism.
- Our maternal grandmother has no thyroid issues.
- Our grandmother's mother and aunt (my great grandmother and great aunt) both had goiters removed in the 20s probably before testing was established.

Unfortunately... the male data of my family isn't flush with information.

But something has been lurking in the maternal gene pool for a while now.

34M, been feeling a low grade tired for years, but no worse than grad school made me feel a few years prior. However I was having rapid hair thinning for about 1-1.5 years and shrugged it off as “meh, genetics sucks sometimes”. Then a few weeks ago I got hit with an INTENSE wave of fatigue and was about a half hour from home. Drove back crashed and slept for something like 16 hours, very much atypical. I had some FSA money to burn so I ordered a huge number of tests including a thyroid panel because I have been wanting to have a medical “snapshot” for a while now.

Lipids were slightly high, but not terrible except for triglycerides, pretty much normal. But then the thyroid results came in:
TSH: 6.00 (high, out of range)
TPOAb: 250 (high, out of range)
TgAb: 2 (marginal)
T4, Free: 1.6 (high normal)
T3, Free: 3.2 (in range)

I also tested my testosterone which came in marginally low or almost on the lower bound and SHBG was the same, hovering near the lower bound.

I read about Gluten intolerance being a potential source of thyroid inflammation so I had those related antibodies checked as well:
tTG-IgA: <2 (in range)
IgA, Total: 191 (in range)

So ever since that day I crashed I’ve felt this all-day tiredness that has been slightly worse than before that intense fatigue wave. This could be psychosomatic because I discovered the above thyroid values.

Showed these to my GP and she retested 1 week after my self-ordered panel and the value were lower, but consistent.
TSH: 5.7
TPOAb: 210

Plus she found my testosterone was lower than my self ordered panel and is low and out of range with that test so… yay.

Still waiting to get referred to an endocrinologist or specialist but I’m almost convinced it’s Hashimoto’s.

Any tips for new potentially new initiatives?

(Edited for typos and readability)