I just had my medication stabilised at 50mcgms thyroxine a day. A blood test found my free T4 was he lower end of normal and my TSH was skyhigh. My hypothyroidism is autoimmune - my body makes anti-thyroid antibodies which attack it and make it hard for it to work well. It's called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.

Your symptoms sound like they could be hypothyroidism.

Mine were:

- extreme exhaustion
- cold all the time (even with the heating cranked up in summer!)
- brittle hair and hairloss and losing the outer 3rd of my eyebrows which got very thin
- terrible memory
- joint pain, especially stiff knuckles and wrists in the mornings on waking
- low milk supply

As others have said, it's just a blood test. Ask for your TSH and T4 to both be measured, as you CAN have hypothyroid symptoms when your T4 is within the normal range, if your body is having to make ALOT of TSH to keep it there. This is called subclinical hypothyroidism and often a very low dose of thyroxine can make a massive difference.

My thyroid was swollen (goiter) but towards the outside, not the inside, so it didn't interfere with swallowing etc. but i could see it! It went down on its own and is now relatively normal-sized (still a bit big on one side, but i can detect it where the GP can't, because i'm so familiar with my own throat, iykwim).

HTH

Bec