Before I got my diagnosis, I felt exhausted, depressed, and defeated.
Most of all, I was confused. And scared. Because I did not know what was going on inside my own body.
I am a nurse. I have been a nurse for over twenty years. I spent seventeen years in the emergency department and then went back to school for holistic health. I understand health from a whole-person perspective — body, mind, spirit, diet, and environment.
And I still did not know what was happening to me.
Maybe you can relate to that feeling. Knowing something is wrong but not being able to name it.
Why I did not want it to be my thyroid
Every time I had studied thyroid — in nursing school, in holistic health school, in continuing education — I left more confused than when I started.
Too many letters. TSH. T4. T3. Things going up when other things are going down. It just did not click.
So when I started feeling horrible, I told myself it could not be my thyroid. I looked at the symptom list and picked out all the ones that did not describe me.
Maybe you have done the same thing.
Here is what I did not understand at the time: Hashimoto’s and hypothyroid symptoms cover the gamut because every single cell in your body needs thyroid hormone. It is the spark plug that keeps everything running. When thyroid hormone is low, everybody is affected differently.
Symptoms can include:
- Fatigue and crashing halfway through the day
- Brain fog and confusion
- Weight gain
- Feeling cold
- Hair loss
- Heart palpitations
- Mood changes, depression, anxiety
- Reproductive health changes
Because the list is so long, it is easy to find a few that do not apply to you and talk yourself out of it.
That is exactly what I did. For a long time.
What it feels like to finally get a Hashimoto’s diagnosis
When I finally got my labs back, I turned to my husband and said, “Here are my labs. Please help me.”
I gave him an education session to listen to alongside my results. I asked him to help me understand what was going on. He got me through that first day.
And then I was able to go back through everything that had confused me before — and finally understand it. Not just as a list of letters and numbers, but in a whole-person context. Body, mind, spirit, diet, and environment.
That changed everything.
If you are newly diagnosed and not sure where to begin, the Start Here page at Health with Hashimoto’s walks you through your next steps in plain language — no overwhelm, no guessing.
What I was feeling that I never connected to my thyroid
Looking back, so many of the things I was experiencing made sense once I had my diagnosis.
I felt:
- Exhausted before the day was even halfway done
- Depressed and defeated
- Like I was not good enough
- Like everything was my fault
- Like I was letting every single person down
- Too tired to do anything
I was helping other women with these exact feelings through my coaching program. And I could not figure out why I was struggling with them myself.
That is one of the hardest parts of this journey. You are doing everything you know to do, and your body is still not responding the way you expect.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone — and there are simple, sustainable strategies that can help.
My background and why I understand what you are going through
I have always wanted to be a nurse. I earned a four-year nursing degree and started my career in Minnesota before heading to Alaska, where I worked in a remote clinic that served an area the size of Ohio.
In that clinic, one or two nurses handled everything — the emergency department, the clinic, X-rays, and patient care. It taught me to look at every person as a whole human being, not just a set of symptoms.
After Alaska I worked as a travel nurse, then settled in Montana at a level two trauma hospital. Eventually my family moved back to Minnesota, and it was around that time — pregnant with my third son — that I discovered functional medicine.
Functional medicine asks why. It looks at the root of what is going on, not just the symptoms. I knew immediately that was what I wanted to do.
After my fourth son was born, I went back to school for holistic health. I eventually left the emergency department to open my own practice, coaching women over Zoom and helping them build simple, sustainable habits for whole-person health.
And then I became the woman who needed help.
What my Hashimoto’s journey taught me about hope
I am sharing my story because I want you to know you are not alone.
The confusion is real. The fear is real. The exhaustion is real.
And so is the path forward.
My goal with this podcast (and with everything I do) is to help you understand what is going on so that you do not have to feel confused, overwhelmed, or scared. I want you to have a solid plan. I want you to have hope.
Because there is hope. You can have better health.
Ready to take a next step?
If you are newly diagnosed and feeling overwhelmed, the Start Here page is the best place to begin. It walks you through your options in order.
You do not have to figure this out alone.
