Her Thyroid Condition Was Misdiagnosed as Bipolar Disorder for Decades
Learn which thyroid tests to request so you don’t have to suffer like Kim Howerton did
Medical gaslighting is at epidemic proportions for women. And when patients are underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed, they can live with painful and frustrating symptoms for years as their medical mysteries continue to cause misery. That’s what happened to Kim Howerton, 49. Keep reading to learn how she struggled with a misdiagnosed thyroid problem for decades and how she finally took control of her health. Plus see her recommended list of thyroid tests to help you get a proper diagnosis.
Kim’s medical mystery started as a child
Looking back, Kim admits her health had always been “fragile.” She started talk therapy for what doctors thought was depression at the age of nine. But without any blood tests to rule out hormonal issues or nutrient deficiencies, Kim will never know if it was actually an early sign of a faulty thyroid.
In high school and college, she began struggling with mysterious symptoms: weight gain, exhaustion, temperature sensitivities and emotional and hormonal fluctuations. Plus her thick, black hair was falling out to the point where she was left with half her original volume. These were all signs of a thyroid disorder. But when she went to a doctor, he prescribed antidepressants and said, “You must be bipolar.”
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Kim initially thought, “Well, if a diagnosis will fix me, and there’s medication that can help me, great. I just want to stop feeling this way.” But that wasn’t the end of her medical mystery.
Misdiagnosed, her problems persisted
“Depression meds just made me gain weight. And bipolar meds didn’t do anything. Nothing the doctors did improved my mood one iota.” She quips, “You know how people say, ‘I went to Disneyland, and all I got was a shirt?’ Well, ‘I took all the meds, and all I got was an extra 50 pounds!’”
For many years after that, Kim lived with symptoms and a sense of hopelessness. She resigned herself to thinking, “I’m just going to try to be a good person and do my best.” But it didn’t have to be that way. In truth, doctors misdiagnosed Kim, and a complete medical investigation into her symptoms had never happened.
A new doctor finally uncovered Kim’s thyroid problem
After 20, sometimes 30 years of painful, life-disrupting symptoms, Kim started seeing a new doctor, Sara Gottfried Szal, MD, who would later become the bestselling author of The Autoimmune Cure. Kim shared her whole medical history. The doctor listened, did testing and ultimately diagnosed Kim with an underactive thyroid condition.
It was an ah-ha moment. Kim felt validated when the doctor told her, “I’d bet good money you’ve been dealing with this since you were a preteen.” Her diagnosis wasn’t rare. Thyroid conditions affect one in eight women in the US, says the American Thyroid Association. And the most common form of hypothyroidism—Hashimoto’s thyroiditis—is considered an autoimmune disease that affects 10 times more women than men.
How thyroid conditions can get misdiagnosed as bipolar
How did Kim’s case fall through the cracks? Turns out, the symptoms of depression, bipolar and early-stage hypothyroidism can mirror one other. Around 60 percent of all thyroid conditions go undiagnosed, and many others are misdiagnosed as other things. Kim explains, “Your thyroid levels aren’t just low. They’re low then high, low then high. And that mimics being bipolar.”
“Because depression and hypothyroidism share so many symptoms, my story of misdiagnosis is not unusual.” —Kim Howerton, CPHC
She says, “One of the key things about thyroid is it’s a mood stabilizer. When it isn’t working properly, you feel cold and tired and brain foggy, which feels like depression. But then you have a good day because your thyroid hormones are back up, and you feel better. That’s the same thing you get with bipolar.” She adds, “My doctor said it’s a common misdiagnosis.”
How Kim improved her thyroid function
Once she had the proper diagnosis, Kim used a three-part approach to treat her medical condition and regain her health.
- She started taking thyroid meds. Thyroid hormone replacement medication replenished the hormones her body was struggling to produce. She says, “I felt 50 percent better within a couple months.” And what a difference. “You literally can’t survive without thyroid hormones.”
- She changed her diet. She reduced her intake of carbs and fueled up on protein and healthy fats. She says, “Changing my diet and getting enough nutrients to my brain got me 25 percent further.”
- She worked on emotional healing. “I spent 30 years of my life managing not feeling great, and my brain formed mental pathways,” says Kim. So she did self-work to improve her mindset. Her mantra became: “Be kind to yourself.”
Today, Kim feels better than ever
All of Kim’s medical lab work improved after her diagnosis. And her overall health and life transformed once she was able to treat her thyroid disorder. Today, she’s happy to report her depression is gone.
Now she works as a health coach, helping others to avoid falling into a misdiagnosis trap. Her outlook, “I am very focused on knowing that I wouldn’t be a good coach if I didn’t struggle.”
She admits, “My heart breaks for the little girl I was. I wouldn’t wish my health experience on anyone, but I’m good now. I feel more angry about the women that are going through this right now. Because there’s so many of them. I see medical gaslighting and misdiagnoses happening to people—even worse than it happened to me—and it’s infuriating the lack of care women are getting.”
How menopause can muddle diagnoses
Kim finds doctors often default to diagnoses of depression. And she feels it has a way of shutting women down, so they stop searching for better answers. She notes, “Perimenopause is a time when people have significant depression. And what do doctors do? They give them antidepressants instead of hormones. But it doesn’t fix the problem.”
Through her entire medical mystery, Kim learned, “The most important thing is getting diagnosed properly.” She explains, “There is a ticking clock on some of these health problems, where—once you go past a certain level—you can stabilize it, but you can’t always roll it back. So getting early treatment matters.”
Kim even co-wrote a book, Common Sense Labs, to help empower women to try to get adequate testing and proper diagnoses. “Comprehensive testing would have uncovered my true issues,” she says. “Hypothyroidism is debilitating, and no one wants to spend decades untreated.” Bottom line: “Women deserve to feel good!”
Tests to request if you’re worried about your thyroid
- TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone): This test tells you if your system is pumping out adequate thyroid hormones. If you aren’t suffering from classic low-thyroid symptoms, this may be the only test you need.
If you do have low-thyroid symptoms, request these additional tests:
- Free T4 (Thyroxine): This is the main (mostly inactive) hormone produced by your thyroid gland
- Free T3 (Triiodothyronine): This is what T4 turns into inside the body
- RT3 (Reverse T3): This can mimic biologically-inactive, inaccessible thyroid hormones
- TPO (Thyroid peroxidase antibodies) and TgAb (Thyroglobulin antibodies): These screen for thyroid antibodies to see if there is an autoimmune condition sabotaging your gland
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