What underactive thyroid can involve
An underactive thyroid means the gland isn't producing enough hormone, and the symptoms arrive slowly enough that people often put them down to age, stress or winter. Fatigue, feeling cold, brain fog, weight changes and low mood build gradually, which is why the gap between first noticing and being treated can be long.
Once treatment starts, the question becomes whether the dose is right, and that's answered partly by blood tests and partly by how you actually feel. A record kept over weeks gives the second half of that picture, in your own words, rather than trying to summarise it from memory in a ten-minute review.
Symptoms checklist
Underactive thyroid symptoms checklist to take to your GP
Below are some of the symptoms associated with Underactive thyroid. You can print the Underactive thyroid checklist and weekly diary and fill it in by hand.
See what applies to you, note how often it happens, and take it to your appointment, so the conversation starts further along. It describes your experience. It does not say what is causing anything: having many of these does not mean you have Underactive thyroid, and having few does not mean you do not. Only a clinician can work that out with you.
- Fatigue
- Feeling cold
- Weight changes
- Brain fog
- Low mood
- Hair or skin changes
- Constipation
- Muscle aches
- Something else I want to mention
Print the Underactive thyroid checklist and weekly diary Download as PDF
The list comes from the NHS and charity sources linked further down this page, and from what people living with underactive thyroid tell us they keep an eye on. It is a starting point, not a test.
How a day can feel
If your days sound anything like this, taluvu was made with you in mind.
- “I'm cold when everyone else is fine.”
- “The bloods are normal and I still feel like this.”
- “I forget words halfway through a sentence.”
- “It came on so slowly I thought it was just me.”
- “Tired isn't the word for it.”
These are the kinds of things taluvu invites you to say in your own words, never a checklist of what anyone “should” have.
