Hey guys,

I've been scouring the internet for an answer to my question, but can't seem to find one. I was wondering if any other hypos experience a sore, swollen thyroid if they exercise too hard or too often for an extended period of time, (I'm a chronic over-exerciser, trying to cut back.) Lately it seems like if I work out really hard almost every day for more than a week, my thyroid swells up and gets really sore, (especially on the left side), and if I continue to push it, it crashes-out altogether and all my hypo symptoms come back. Of course I try not to overdo it anymore, but I was just wondering if anyone else experiences this also.

I think it might be happening whenever I start overdoing the cardio, (I love to run), so my plan is to cut back on the cardio sessions and add back more heavy weight-lifting instead. I hope it helps!

BTW- I'm almost 41 years old and I take four grains of natural thyroid per day, (two in the a.m. & two in the p.m.)

I haven't heard of it, have you tried googling?

Yeah, I've been searching around for a long time now, and pretty much can't find anything. I know that hypos can overexercise and become very fatigued, and I also know that they can have attacks of thyroiditis, but I can't really find anything which connects the overexercise to the swelling. Most of the time when I look up something like "sore thyroid + overexercise," all I get are articles saying that people with low thyroid function need to exercise a lot, (not helpful!)

I did find one thing awhile back, where a hypo lady had been training for a marathon and the same happened to her, (thyroid swelled-up and became very sore and then she felt like she'd been hit by a truck and basically had to go to bed for a week.)

I also find tons and tons of stuff where hypo people say that they can't exercise very much or they get exhausted, which leads me to think that most hypo people don't ever work out to the degree where their thyroids would swell in the first place, except for a few hypo bodybuilders whom I've spoken with. The bodybuilders say that doing excessive cardio wears them out, (no swollen thyroid issues, though), but that they can do plenty of heavy lifting on a regular basis and feel great. Weight-lifting seems to work way better than tons of cardio to get a hypo body into shape anyway, so I know I need to get back to focusing on the lifting rather than the running.

Anyway, I guess I was just trying to find out if this happened to other people like it happens to me, but it doesn't seem to be that common...

Do you have Hashi's? People with Hashi's often have throat swelling from the thyroid. Crashing your adrenals with overexercise can raise cortisol levels which can have adverse effects on your hormone levels-kind of like a cascade effect in the body.

Wow, thanks so much for mentioning Hashi's! I wasn't diagnosed with it so I never thought to research it, but now I'm finding a ton of stuff about sore, swollen thyroids and overdoing it with physical activity. You're right, that sounds exactly like my situation. I think I need to call my doc & get some more blood work done.