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Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Half of a Thyroid

nightmqre

Almost a year ago exactly (will be a year on December 18th) I was in hospital having half of my thyroid gland removed due to a tumour that was on the surface.

(For those who don’t know, your thyroid gland is in your neck and the only way I can describe it is it looks like a tiny pair of lungs attached to your throat lmao)

So ig if anybody’s interested they can ask about anything. The surgery, why, the process?? Maybe even the after-effects of it, I dunno. I couldn’t think of anything else that’s interesting about me atm lol
Do you need to take hypothyroidism medication now, or is the remaining half of your thyroid able to keep up with your body's needs? (My thyroid is whole, but I have hypothyroidism.)

Was it scary to have surgery done on/around your throat?

Were you limited to liquids or maybe even IV nutrients while healing, or were you able to go right to eating as normal after the surgery?
nightmqre Topic Starter

Zelphyr wrote:
Do you need to take hypothyroidism medication now, or is the remaining half of your thyroid able to keep up with your body's needs? (My thyroid is whole, but I have hypothyroidism.)

Was it scary to have surgery done on/around your throat?

Were you limited to liquids or maybe even IV nutrients while healing, or were you able to go right to eating as normal after the surgery?

1. Currently I’m on Levothyroxine (75mg). I was actually on them before too but this is the first time I’ve actually taken them consistently everyday without fail. They did say initially that there was a chance that my body would stabilise after a while on its own and I wouldn’t need the meds for the rest of my life, but sadly that doesn’t seem to have happened.

2. 100%. It probably didn’t help that it was the first surgery I’d ever had either. I didn’t know how anything worked or what I’d be doing and when I’d be out so my anxiety was all over the place lmao. Luckily the hospital staff were extremely nice and I was allowed to take my snorlax plush into surgery to ease my anxiety a little bit until the moment I knocked out from the anaesthetic

3. I wasn’t strictly limited. In the hospital they recommended that I only eat extremely soft foods (such as bread, or very soft sponge cakes) and that was all I ate for a day or two. When I got home I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted, though I did stick to soft foods for maybe three/four weeks because my throat was VERY sore. One thing they did also recommend was stay away from any “sharp” foods (like, uh. Bags of crisps like Doritos, and such) which I did. It probably took about two months to get fully back on my usual eating habits.

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