Tired All the Time? It Could Be Your Thyroid
As the mornings get darker and the evenings draw in, it’s easy to put feeling tired down to the time of year. Add in a busy diary or a few nights of broken sleep and most of us expect to feel a bit flat, at least until a quiet weekend puts things right. But if you’ve been tired all the time for weeks or even months, and no amount of rest seems to help, the change in season might not be the whole story.
One of the most commonly missed explanations for ongoing fatigue is an underactive thyroid. It’s also more widespread than many people realise. Around 1 in 20 people in the UK have a thyroid problem, and women are around six times more likely to be affected than men.
If any of this sounds familiar, below we’ll look at why thyroid problems are so often missed, the symptoms worth paying attention to, and how to get checked properly.
Why Thyroid Symptoms Are Easy to Miss
Your thyroid is a small gland in your neck that controls how your body uses energy, and when it isn’t producing enough hormone, pretty much everything can start to slow down, including you.
As an underactive thyroid tends to develop slowly, symptoms often creep in gradually rather than appearing all at once. In fact, a University of Aberdeen survey of almost 1,200 UK thyroid patients found it took an average of four and a half years for a thyroid condition to be diagnosed, and longer still for those with an underactive thyroid.
You may notice you’re more tired than usual, or that you’re putting on weight despite nothing much changing in your diet or exercise, but it’s easy to explain each symptom away individually rather than stepping back and asking whether they might be connected.
The most common cause is an autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the thyroid.
It tends to develop between the ages of 30 and 50, though it can happen at any age. Having a close relative with thyroid problems also increases your own risk.
Symptoms Worth Paying Attention To
Alongside constant fatigue, it’s worth keeping an eye on symptoms such as unexplained weight gain, feeling the cold more than those around you, low mood, dry skin or hair, constipation, and difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly, sometimes described as brain fog. Changes to your periods, if you have them, can also be a sign.
None of these symptoms on their own necessarily point to a thyroid problem, but if several of them are turning up together and persisting for weeks, it’s worth having a proper conversation with a doctor rather than assuming it’s just stress or a normal part of getting older.
Getting Checked
The good news is that an underactive thyroid is usually simple to test for and once identified, is very manageable with daily medication and regular monitoring. A blood test can measure your thyroid hormone levels and give you a much clearer picture .
At ERIC Healthcare, our Endocrinology & Hormone Health Clinic looks beyond a single standard blood test, reviewing your results alongside your symptoms and history, so nothing is looked at in isolation. If something’s been off for a while and you can’t quite put your finger on why, it’s worth finding out rather than continuing to push through it.
Book an appointment at our Endocrinology & Hormone Health Clinic today and get some real answers about how you’re feeling.
WhatsApp: +44 7951 553356 Phone: 0161 507 5162 Email: hello@erichealthcare.co.uk