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Ice breaker

Posted By Lilina

"Ice breaker"

About: Ealing IAPT

(as the patient),

I have hypothyroidism (not producing enough hormones to regulate my body). I am taking a medication everyday. I used to have a lot of panic attack and chronic anxiety. I was considering that it was the consequences of my hypothyroidism. I went from doctors to doctors and they were saying "it is all in your head"... It might be or not but the thing is that I wanted to take care of myself and enjoy as much as possible life. I had been referred by my PCP to west london mental health. I was first very apprehensive by the name "mental health". But I quickly realize that I needed to take care of my mental health as well as my physical health. My therapist gave me a lot of tool to manage the anxiety and more than that to apply them in real life. I feel much more freedom than before! ! .

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Responses

Response from Clinical Lead IAPT, West London NHS Trust 7 years ago
West London NHS Trust

Submitted on 20/10/2016 at 08:12
Published on Care Opinion at 11:30

Dear Lilina

What an interesting story. It is very common for people with thyroid disorders to often have emotional or mental health symptoms as well as physical symptoms. This is especially the case for people with hyperthyroidism (an over-active thyroid) and hypothyroidism (an under-active thyroid). The link between this and psychological wellbeing is often ignored.

It sounds as if your therapist equipped you with effective strategies to manage the psychological impact of the problem, resulting in feeling more in control of your condition. Services like ours (the Ealing IAPT service) find these stories encouraging as we have a passion for reaching people whose medical health condition is having an impact on their mood and functioning. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that treatments like CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) is an effective way of reducing someone’s distress associated to their physical health condition.

May I wish you the very best for the future and thank you for taking to time to share your story on Patient Opinion.

BW, Josef

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