You’re exhausted, constipated, and depressed, your periods are a nightmare, and your hair feels brittle and dry — these must be hypothyroidism symptoms, right? Not so fast.
“If I had a dollar for every time I get asked that question, I’d be sitting in Hawaii right now,” Afreen Shariff, an associate professor and endocrinologist at Duke University School of Medicine and the director of Duke’s Endo Oncology Program, says. “I always say half my job is to tell you what it is, and half my job is to tell you what it’s not.”
Because you need thyroid hormones for so many processes in your body, it can wreak havoc “from your hair to your toenails” when they get out of whack, Dr. Shariff says. But the symptoms are so common and varied — a true smorgasbord of options! — that it’s often hard to figure out if that little butterfly-shaped gland in your neck is to blame or if you have other run-of-the-mill problems.
About 5% of Americans over the age of 12 are believed to have hypothyroidism — when you don’t make enough of some key hormones — and another 5% may have it and not know it. That’s fairly common, so if you have a handful of the symptoms of an underactive thyroid, plus a risk factor or two for the condition, doctors are usually pretty quick to send you to the lab to check, Susan L. Samson, MD, PhD, a professor at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and the president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, says.
Here are 10 common hypothyroidism symptoms.
If you have this condition, you’re probably dealing with several of these symptoms:
- Weight gain
- Fatigue
- Heavier periods
- Depression
- Dry skin or hair
- Thinning hair
- Cold intolerance
- Muscle cramping or pain
- Joint pain
- Slow heart rate
The problem is, these can also sometimes be caused by simply… existing. You could be tired because work has been super stressful lately or thanks to a new medication you just started taking, for example, Dr. Shariff says.
Or you could have another health problem entirely. “The symptoms really overlap with a lot of conditions,” Dr. Samson says.
“It would be neat and tidy to have a convenient equation that told you if you had, say, three of those, your thyroid was to blame. But unfortunately that’s not the way things work. Everyone’s symptoms and experiences are different,” Dr. Shariff says. That’s why doctors look at the “constellation” of other symptoms you’re experiencing to help determine what’s going on, she says.
In many cases, your GP may ask you about any relatively recent changes in how you look or feel, although symptoms can also sneak up on you gradually, Dr. Samson says. You might only decide it’s time to talk to your doctor once things get extreme — maybe your period feels like a waterfall for no obvious reason after seeming just a little heavier for several months or your teeth are chattering in your air-conditioned office when you used to feel just a little chilly.