I went to see the endo this morning. It turns out he's THE top endocrinologist in Houston, founder of The Thyroid Society and author of several books on thyroid dysfunction. I had no idea when I made the appointment.
Anyway, he agreed that my thyroid is slightly enlarged, so he did a blood test for TSH, which I will get the results of in the next two weeks, and an ultrasound of my thyroid. He didn't find any nodules or tumors, which is good, but he suspects Hashimoto's. (He also mentioned Cushing's, but I think he plans to test for that if nothing shows up in the current tests.) He didn't seem too concerned that anything was wrong with me, and kind of annoyed me because he suggested that I'm depressed and that it's a contributing factor to my being overweight. I don't actually think I'm depressed--I've been depressed before, and I certainly don't feel like that now--but I do have severe mood swings, so when he suggested talking to a therapist about my depression it made me cry (from frustration), which of course only convinced him that I AM depressed.
But, in the book HE WROTE it does say that Hashimotos and hypothyroid can both make weight loss hard, although either don't really cause obesity. So if my test results do say that something is wrong, and I'm pretty sure that they will, maybe he won't tell me again to just lose weight to feel better.
Don't doctors understand that we KNOW we need to lose weight, and our inability to do so is WHY we seek them out for help? I know what a healthy diet consists of and I know how to exercize, and I consistently do both, and my weight DOESN'T CHANGE. I'm not asking for a miracle here. I'm totally willing to work for it. But I'm SO TIRED of killing myself, refusing offers to go to lunch with my coworkers every day, taking my lunch break in the gym, sweating my a** off, just to barely maintain my weight.
If that which does not kill us makes us stronger, I should be able to move mountains by now.
enlarged thyroid 
