I gained about 40 pounds in a period of about 3 months. I felt so sick I thought I would die! I did not want to leave my house and was too tired to do anything. I wanted to scream but could not, since I also lost my voice! I went from a vibrant, in-shape woman to a totally out-of-control, overweight couch potato! Of course, there are always some patients who gain only a few pounds and who lose them fairly easily once treated, but they appear to be in the minority. Just ask the thousands upon thousands of thyroid patients who were at perfectly normal weights - myself included - until they started to pile on weight faster than seemingly physically possible, only to get diagnosed with hypothyroidism shortly afterward. Not true.

That alone was pretty scary. There are a variety of myths about thyroid disease and weight gain. What you will hear from endocrinologists, other physicians, and even patients, however, are supposed facts about thyroid disease and weight gain that are spread around without question but should actually be looked at quite critically. And when you add in the difficulties of a thyroid problem, doctors have even less to offer.

Even for those who don't have a thyroid problem, this advice obviously isn't working. The majority of Americans are overweight, and doctors don't have much more advice than telling people to get off the couch, get more exercise, and eat less. The complexities of the endocrine system, the delicate interplay that goes on between hormones, the brain, the stomach, the appetite, and the ability to store and burn fat, are not topics most doctors have studied or even understand. If you talk to some physicians, they will suggest to you that hypothyroidism can't cause more than a few pounds of weight gain. Also, some hypothyroid people do not have weight gain right away but find that over time it slowly creeps up on them. There are in fact a small percentage of hypothyroid patients who have difficulty gaining weight, or who maintain a normal weight throughout diagnosis and treatment. Or it may be that their impaired endocrine system sets into motion a variety of the problems discussed in the last chapter such as poor digestion, insulin resistance, and adrenaline resistance. It may be they are simply so hungry that they are taking in more calories than even their rewed-up metabolism can burn. Why they do is not clear.

Actually, a percentage of people who are actively hyperthyroid gain weight. Here are the facts.