Thyroid Wait-n-see. *sigh*
May. 5th, 2026 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI did the thyroid ultrasound thing on Monday. (It had been scheduled for the 19th but they kept sending me text alerts on the app which I refuse to install and subsequent email notifications about the alerts on the app, all of which were like Woot! An earlier appointment is available! Would you like it now? followed approximately 30 seconds later by Oopsie, you snooze, you lose! The earlier appointment special offer is no longer available!. Finally on Friday they called me on the phone and were like, "Hey, can you come in on Monday May 4?" and I was "Sure." so that was a far more reasonable way to expedite.)
I do not love the effing portals, but at least now I can use them expeditiously. This means I get results and can google them before the doctor's office gets around to calling me. Also, I get the same written test results as the doc's office, so that's nice.
Thyroid ultrasound: The goop smells like baby powder. This is the ultrasound goop, the conductive shit they smear on the ultrasounder. There is no reason for the goop to be scented. Ugh.
The tech moves the ultrasounder tool around all over the front of your neck (where the thyroid lives) in a full-contact and some pressure sort of way and click-beeps to take pictures and shit. This takes a while. The ultrasounder tool looks about like a sleek computer mouse with a cord coming out of it. It's smooth and inoffensive. When the ultrasounding is over, the tech gives you a towel to dry off the goop. This does not remove the goop-perfume, so you smell like baby powder until you have a for-real wash. Ugh.
Anyway, the result of all this was Come back in a year, we'll check again.
There was a nodule. Something like 65% of people have a thyroid nodule, these nodules are not unusual. Most thyroid nodules aren't very interesting and don't do much. (From the website I googled: "The high prevalence of thyroid nodules, combined with the typically indolent progression of thyroid cancer, poses a significant challenge to the optimization of patient management.")
Since it's a waste of everybody's time and energy to go around biopsy-ing boring ass nodules that don't fucking do much, doctors since 2017 use a TI-RADS number to indicate how worried you should be about your nodule and let you know whether or not they are going to do fuck-all about it.
Note: most of the time not doing anything is OK. There's no need to saw people up or bombard them with radiation or some shit if they're JUST FINE and not going to die from having a nodule.
TI-RADS is a scoring system that helps doctors do a better job of telling which nodules are more interesting and might, therefore, actually kill the patient. There are 5 results for TI-RADS, numbered 0 through 5. Even if you get a 5, if your nodule is small, they just watch it.
I got a 4 and it's not big enough to biopsy, so they're going to watch it. Come back in a year.
If your nodule does weird shit or grows a lot or something in the year long interval, the medical professionals will bestir themselves to do a biopsy or something but if it just sits there looking weird on the ultrasound, being all indolent and shit, they're not going to mess with it.
I do not love the effing portals, but at least now I can use them expeditiously. This means I get results and can google them before the doctor's office gets around to calling me. Also, I get the same written test results as the doc's office, so that's nice.
Thyroid ultrasound: The goop smells like baby powder. This is the ultrasound goop, the conductive shit they smear on the ultrasounder. There is no reason for the goop to be scented. Ugh.
The tech moves the ultrasounder tool around all over the front of your neck (where the thyroid lives) in a full-contact and some pressure sort of way and click-beeps to take pictures and shit. This takes a while. The ultrasounder tool looks about like a sleek computer mouse with a cord coming out of it. It's smooth and inoffensive. When the ultrasounding is over, the tech gives you a towel to dry off the goop. This does not remove the goop-perfume, so you smell like baby powder until you have a for-real wash. Ugh.
Anyway, the result of all this was Come back in a year, we'll check again.
There was a nodule. Something like 65% of people have a thyroid nodule, these nodules are not unusual. Most thyroid nodules aren't very interesting and don't do much. (From the website I googled: "The high prevalence of thyroid nodules, combined with the typically indolent progression of thyroid cancer, poses a significant challenge to the optimization of patient management.")
Since it's a waste of everybody's time and energy to go around biopsy-ing boring ass nodules that don't fucking do much, doctors since 2017 use a TI-RADS number to indicate how worried you should be about your nodule and let you know whether or not they are going to do fuck-all about it.
Note: most of the time not doing anything is OK. There's no need to saw people up or bombard them with radiation or some shit if they're JUST FINE and not going to die from having a nodule.
TI-RADS is a scoring system that helps doctors do a better job of telling which nodules are more interesting and might, therefore, actually kill the patient. There are 5 results for TI-RADS, numbered 0 through 5. Even if you get a 5, if your nodule is small, they just watch it.
I got a 4 and it's not big enough to biopsy, so they're going to watch it. Come back in a year.
If your nodule does weird shit or grows a lot or something in the year long interval, the medical professionals will bestir themselves to do a biopsy or something but if it just sits there looking weird on the ultrasound, being all indolent and shit, they're not going to mess with it.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-05 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-05 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-06 07:17 pm (UTC)Scented goop should be banned from doctor's offices. I make a big deal about being allergic to that kind of thing. It really does make me break out into a red rash. More and more often these days there is a fragrance free option that the office keeps in the back of the cabinet because apparently "people like the scent".
no subject
Date: 2026-05-06 12:34 am (UTC)Like... I AM glad it's not of immediate concern. But I hate "wait and see and deal with this again in a year to find out."
Also... why is it scented. Yuck.