“Hi everyone, my name is Meagan. I am wearing teal to raise awareness for my autoimmune thyroid disease- Graves’ disease.
Graves’ disease is caused when my immune system mistakenly attacks my normal healthy thyroid and causes it to overproduce hormone. I was 25 years old when I was first diagnosed, and I had no idea how much my thyroid affected everything in my body. I had many tests run, and I realized that my body was producing over four times the amount of hormone than it should have. It slowly began breaking down my muscles and bone mass, so I became very weak and was constantly out of breath. Even walking up a flight of stairs felt like I was running a marathon. It also caused me to have hair loss, hot flashes, fluctuations in my weight, heart palpitations, insomnia, chronic fatigue, tremors, anxiety, mood swings, and even some depression.
The tricky thing with autoimmune disease is that on the outside you appear to be fine, but some days I felt so bad that I found it hard to get out of bed. It made it difficult for family, friends, and coworkers to fully understand what I was physically and emotionally going through at that time.
Unfortunately, there is no known cure for my disease, just treatments and lifelong medication to manage the symptoms. I have been lucky, however, to find an amazing endocrinologist who listens and supports me in having a better quality of life. I am happy to say that I have been symptom free for over a year now, and I couldn’t be more grateful. This disease has definitely opened my eyes to the struggles that many people across the world face with autoimmune disease. I have learned to never take my health for granted, and I try to live each day to the fullest. ♥️Thank you to @awarecauses for bringing awareness to the many struggles that people face!” @beautee_inthe_breakdown