14 Signs Your Thyroid is Low And Most People Miss Them

Name: 14 Signs Your Thyroid is Low And Most People Miss Them
Uploaded: 2026-08-18T15:30:25.000Z
Duration: 19 min 2 s
Channel: Kabir Harricharan Singh, MD

Kabir Harricharan Singh, MDAugust 18, 202619m

Topics17

The Thyroid Gland and Its Impact0:00 Educational Disclaimer1:04 Sign Number One: Fatigue, Constipation, and Weight Gain1:04 Sign Number Two: Hair Loss and Hair Changes3:04 Sign Number Three: Dry, Cracked, Thickened Skin4:30 Sign Number Four: An Enlarged Thyroid Gland (Goiter)5:31 Sign Number Five: Feeling Cold All the Time6:34 Sign Number Six: Depression, Brain Fog, and Mood Changes7:34 Sign Number Seven: Menstrual Irregularity and Reproductive Effects9:02 Sign Number Eight: Puffy Face and Swelling Around the Eyes10:03 Sign Number Nine: Carotenemia - Orange-Tinted Skin11:04 Sign Number Ten: Nail Changes12:32 Sign Number Eleven: Loss of the Outer Eyebrow13:00 Sign Number Twelve: Tongue Enlargement and Sleep Apnea13:32 Sign Number Thirteen: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome14:30 Sign Number Fourteen: Facial Nerve Palsy15:32 Diagnosis and How to Talk to Your Doctor16:30

In a Nutshell

Dr. Singh identifies 14 subtle symptoms of hypothyroidism—such as unexplained fatigue, weight gain, constipation, hair loss, dry skin, cold intolerance, depression, menstrual changes, puffiness, carotenemia, nail changes, outer-eyebrow loss, sleep apnea, carpal tunnel, and rare facial-nerve palsy—explaining how each arises from low thyroid hormone and underscoring that these signs are frequently dismissed as normal aging or stress. He stresses that diagnosis requires asking for TSH, free T4, and TPO-antibody tests rather than relying on a single TSH cutoff, because treating the underlying deficiency can reverse most symptoms and prevent misdiagnosis.

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There's a small gland in your neck, about the size of a butterfly, that controls your energy, your metabolism, your skin, your hair, your mood, your weight, your heart rate, your brain function, and your reproductive health. When it's working properly, you don't know it exists, but when it starts to fail, everything starts to fall apart in ways that are so easy to dismiss as stress, aging, or just feeling off. Around 20 million Americans have a thyroid disease, and up to 60% of them don't know it. They're being told their fatigue is normal, their weight gain is lifestyle, and their brain fog is just getting older, but it may not be any of those things.

I'm Dr. Kabir Harricharan Singh, a family and obesity medicine physician, and today I'm taking you through 14 signs that your thyroid may be underactive, what's actually happening in your body at each stage, and the specific test you need to ask your doctor for. Stay until the end because the last two signs are the ones most physicians miss, and one of them can look exactly like a stroke.

This video is for educational purposes only, not medical advice.

Let's start with the three symptoms that bring most people to their doctor, and the three that are most often dismissed when they get there. If you've been told your fatigue is just stress, your weight gain is what happens when you get older, or your constipation is because you're not eating enough fiber, and none of that actually fix anything, keep listening because for a lot of people the thyroid is what's actually behind all three.

The mechanisms are direct and clear. Fatigue: your thyroid controls how fast your cells produce energy. Think of it like the dial that sets how hard your body's engines are running. When thyroid hormone drops, the dial turns down. Your cells slow down, and the result is a kind of tiredness that sleep doesn't fix because it's not coming from not enough rest. It's coming from your body not producing enough fuel.

Constipation: your gut has muscles that squeeze in a wave-like pattern to push food through, and thyroid hormone is what tells the muscles to keep going. When it drops, that squeezing slows down. Food moves through more slowly, and constipation that doesn't respond to more water or more fiber is often the result.

Weight gain with hypothyroidism is particularly frustrating because it happens even when nothing in your diet or activity level has changed. Here's why: your thyroid controls your resting metabolic rate, how many calories your body burns just to keep you alive while you're sitting still. When thyroid hormone drops, the rate drops with it. Your body starts burning fewer calories around the clock, not just during exercise, but all day, every day, even while you sleep. And the weight that comes with it often has a particular quality, a puffiness and heaviness that doesn't budge the way a regular weight does.

Hair loss is one of the most distressing symptoms of hypothyroidism and one of the most frequently dismissed because it's attributed to stress, aging, or nutritional deficiency before the thyroid is even considered.

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14 Signs Your Thyroid is Low And Most People Miss Them

The Thyroid Gland and Its Impact00:00

Educational Disclaimer01:04

Sign Number One: Fatigue, Constipation, and Weight Gain01:04

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