u/neurosci69420

Hoping this is an okay post for this sub. I put the seeking advice-personal flare, but I really just want to hear about other's experiences with doing a PhD with Hashimoto's. I'm a 25F STEM PhD candidate in the US. My Hashimoto's started probably around age 9, but it went undiagnosed and untreated for about four years (so it got very bad at a very young age). My PhD feels simply undoable with this sometimes. When I have flares (and even when my numbers are "fine"), my memory and attention are shot and I feel like I have to put 100% energy into even the smallest things. It feels like I'm slowly dying most of the time, but I want to finish my PhD more than anything. It's quite the invisible disease from the outside, but for me it's just like every day is so hard, and it feels really lonely.

I guess I'm kind of seeking comfort in the fact that other people have and are suffering through this as well and I'm not alone in this. And if you got through this part of your career with this, I'd love to hear about that as well. I am medicated, I stay active, I eat healthy for the most part, and I've been in and out of therapy over the last few years. So, I am trying to make myself feel better, it just takes so much and doesn't work all the time. Thank you in advance (and sorry again if this is maybe the wrong sub for this post).