An overactive thyroid

WHAT IS IT?

While not as common as an underactive thyroid, symptoms can overlap with other conditions and become tough to diagnose.

“Your thyroid is responsible for your metabolism, so when it’s overactive it can feel like you’re running a marathon 24 hours a day,” says Katherine. “You’re burning lots of energy, so you feel exhausted, sweaty, suffer weight loss, heart palpitations and hair loss or thinning.”

The most common form is Graves’ disease – an autoimmune condition that forces the thyroid to produce too many hormones.

WHO SUFFERS FROM IT?

Kelly Osbourne and Oprah have b both oth battled an overactive thyroid an and nd Aussie songstress Sia has b been een outspoken about her struggle with Graves’ disease.

“I’m not crazy! I have Graves’ disease! The shakes, the nerves. The crazy! Goodbye thyroid, I will kill you with radioactivity,” she wrote on Twitter.

HOW TO TREAT IT

“The treatment is anti-thyroid medication, ablation using radio-iodine or removal with surgery,” says Katherine.

But rest assured, although these treatment options sound extreme, it’s a step-by-step process. “You’d try the medication first, and a third of cases improve after a course of medication,” she says.

“If that doesn’t work, radioiodine is used as a form of non-surgicalil non-surgical thyroidhid thyroid removal.l removal. It’s really simple – you go in, take a tablet and go home.”