Personal narrative by a speaker (Dr. Tabatha Barber) recounting a traumatic pregnancy and delivery at age 17, subsequent severe hyperthyroid 'thyroid storm' postpartum, radioactive iodine treatment that destroyed her thyroid, long-term hypothyroidism requiring hormone replacement, and reflections that earlier immune/cortisol and gut-health interventions might have changed outcomes.
I had a daughter when I was 17 years old. I had a very traumatic delivery. Super stressed out being pregnant as an 11th grader. I got married on spring break of 11th grade, and then I had to drop out of high school to take care of my baby. She was born in September, so I didn't go. My senior year, My cortisol levels were no doubt sky high. So I struggled to breastfeed. Finally, after a few weeks of like bloody nipples and no sleep, I finally figured out breastfeeding. And I thought, okay, I'm going to start to feel like myself again. But I felt worse. My heart was racing, my hair was falling out in clumps, I had diarrhea, and I had lost the 50 pounds that I had gained. I think it was actually 60 in like the span of four weeks. And they finally tested me and I was in thyroid storm. So my thyroid was being attacked by my own immune system, causing all of the thyroid hormone to spill out into my bloodstream. So they sent me to the hospital. I had a procedure to, quote, unquote, fix my thyroid. But little did I know that those doctors and those decisions were changing my entire future. They did radioactive iodine treatments on me and they burnt my thyroid out so that it could no longer produce thyroid hormone. That's how they fixed me. Okay, so my thyroid has struggled to function since then. It didn't function at all for decades. But with a ton of work, I was actually off thyroid hormone. I don't know, for six years. It's only recently managing to run three businesses that I've had to go back on thyroid hormone. But, you know, I was young and I was naive. I assumed that the white coats knew best and I was going to just do what they said. But looking back, I wouldn't have done that now. I would have helped my 17 year old self calm down her immune system, stop the attack that was happening on my thyroid, and realized that it was all stemming from too much cortisol. My major hormone shifts of pregnancy, having chronic leaky gut and microbiome issues. And I would have worked on all of that.
