Health

Olympic Athlete Champions to Raise the Awareness of Thyroid Diseases

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 31, 2002 / 8:40 AM EST / CBS

Olympic sprinter Gail Devers talks about her struggle with thyroid disease and the importance of recognizing the symptoms and obtaining treatment.

Gail Devers, the three-time Olympic Gold medalist in track and field, is the national spokesperson for "Gland Central," a nationwide public health education campaign of the American Medical Women's Association. She is considered one of the best sprinters in the US history. But her dreams of competing and winning a gold medal like we see her doing in the 1996 Atlanta Games almost didn't materialize, because of a debilitating thyroid disease.

Interview with Gail Devers

Devers says that she was diagnosed with thyroid disease in September 1990 when she was only 23 years old. "You have to have one to live and it actually secrets hormones. It's the most central hormone in your body," says the Olympian. "It actually influences every cell organ and tissue in your body. So, if your thyroid stops working, essentially so do you. You can have an overactive or underactive thyroid. The most common is an underactive thyroid. I had the overactive. I was down to 87 pounds at one time." Devers says that her symptoms started around 1987 or 1988 and continued through 1990 before she was diagnosed.

"I was sick of trying to figure out what was wrong and doctors say that nothing was wrong, you are just tired. My hair was falling out and no one could tell me what was wrong. It was very frustrating. The symptoms range from hair loss to weight gain to weight loss, constant fatigue, insomnia and an irregular menstrual cycle. I was having four cycles in a month. These are the main symptoms."

Devers says that she is trying to raise the awareness of thyroid disease by working for the education campaign. "I had never heard of a thyroid," says Devers. "I didn't know what it was."

She says that she has to learn a lot about it since being diagnosed with a thyroid disorder. "There are more than 20 million Americans who have a thyroid condition problem and half of them don't know it. Years ago it was about 13 million. I had blotchy spots on my face. I had hopes and dreams of things I wanted to accomplish. But, I was tired and sick all of the time. You have intolerance to heat or cold, depression is one of the symptoms."

Devers says that another serious symptom of her thyroid condition was that it accelerated her heart rate. She says that it would go up to 185, even doing nothing. "When I jogged, it would go to 190 to 195," says Devers. "The normal for an athlete is sixty or under for a resting heart rate."

Devers says that thyroid problems tend to run in families, but it doesn't have to. She doesn't know of anyone who had it in her family. She says that a thyroid condition, in itself, is predominantly a female disorder. Devers says that she will take medication for the res of her life. "I don't have a thyroid anymore," she says. "I had radioactive iodine treatment, which destroyed my thyroid. I take medication every day."

"I have to educate other people. There was a time that I would crawl into a little closet in my house and stayed there," Devers says. "I know what it feels like when people treat people like lepers," referring to the skin discoloration and blotches that she had as a result of her condition.

Living with thyroid condition is a life long maintenance for Devers. "I still deal with insomnia and some things that others don't have to." Devers says that she cherishes the quality of life that she has now and that she wouldn't replace it for the world. "I had lost sight of myself and everything else," she says. "It's why I'm so passionate about this. If statistics say they are 20 million Americans who have this disorder, I feel that I can't rest until they know it. I am working with the American Medical Women's Association, womephysicians dedicated to female issues. Women are often told that they are just going through menopause. This is very real and it can be very devastating. It should be taken seriously."

Devers will encourage people to get their thyroid tested when they go for their annual physical exams. She says that the cost of a TSH test (thyroid stimulating hormone test) ranges from twenty-five to fifty dollars.

According to the American Women's Medical Association, 27 million Americans suffer from thyroid disease, but more than half is unaware of it. Research has found that it is critical to get tested and treated for thyroid disease. The most common form of a thyroid disorder is hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid. If left untreated, a thyroid disorder can lead to heart disease, osteoporosis and reproductive complications.