When Did Everyone Get Hashimoto's?

Epstein-Barr virus. Those were the words highlighted in red that flashed across my lab results. I saw those words and my brain automatically went somewhere different… For the record, Epstein-Barr virus is not an STD. It's mono. And you've probably had it too. Because according to the CDC , about 9 out of 10 people carry antibodies showing a current or past infection by the time they reach adulthood. What it actually was for me, though, was the missing piece behind my Hashimoto's diagnosis that my primary care doctor missed for seven years. Four years after my diagnosis, I can't get through a group chat without someone mentioning their thyroid. Four years after my diagnosis, I can't get through a group chat without someone mentioning their thyroid. Every female influencer, podcaster, and celebrity seems to have Hashimoto's today. This whiplash from "What is Hashimoto's?" to "You have it too!?" in the span of just a few years is what got me thinking about the one question no one on my FYP was talking about: why? Why are women without a thyroid diagnosis the minority, and what are our actual options to start healing the symptoms that have upended our lives? Let's talk symptoms Fatigue that no amount of sleep could fix. Weight that wouldn't budge no matter what I did… RIP to the jeans I lost along the way. A libido that checked out way before I noticed it was missing. Then came the days when I couldn't tell the difference between exhaustion and depression because they felt one and the same. I brought all of this to my doctor, more than once, for about seven years. But every time, the answer was the same: your results are within normal range. It wasn't until I paid out of pocket to see a naturopath, who ran an entire antibody panel instead of just a standard TSH check. My naturopath was the first person who said the words "autoimmune" and "thyroid" in the same sentence. A standard TSH test only tells you how well your thyroid is currently functioning. It says nothing about whether your immune system is attacking it. What was explained to me was that you can have the antibodies (which is the actual autoimmune process) for years before your TSH ever reaches the number that's considered "abnormal." Now, is that an escape clause within the system? Or is it the system working exactly as designed and missing the entire diagnosis? A 'normal' TSH doesn't mean nothing's wrong. It just means no one's checked the right thing yet. So after hearing my naturopath's explanation, and of course my seven stages of grief over what I thought was a life sentence, I went home and Googled "Hashimoto's." I found a handful of Reddit threads of women over 40 describing the symptoms I had been feeling since high school. When I look back now, the red flags are as clear as day. I just obviously didn't have a name to call my symptoms and had to pay to actually get it. The day I left my naturopath's office, it felt like complete isolation. It didn't feel like something that, within a few years, would be a topic of conversation at Thanksgiving dinner among my female cousin and aunt, let alone a common vocabulary word around the world. So, why is this happening? The easiest explanation boils down to simple numbers… aka, we're just testing for it more. More doctors are running thyroid panels now than they were even just five years ago. Also, we can't forget the viral awareness campaigns that had women asking for their own bloodwork, not waiting for a doctor to suggest it for them. But my own diagnosis complicates this story because my labs were "normal" more than once through my regular covered insurance care. If better testing is the entire answer, then that initial standardized bloodwork should have caught it the first time. Hashimoto's isn't rare. It never was. It's the most common cause of hypothyroidism in the United States. A study shows its prevalence worldwide is between 5 and 10 percent. Not to mention women are between two and seven times more likely to develop it than men. It's always been a woman's disease. We just weren't talking about it. So, is "better testing" really the answer? Or is it just the scapegoat? Is Hashimoto's actually new… or newly visible? Play devil's advocate with me for a second: maybe nothing has changed but the conversation. Maybe our mothers and grandmothers had the same symptoms, but they were labeled "just getting older," or "exhaustion," or my personal favorite, "hysteria." They just never got the right bloodwork to prove it… which would mean an entire generation of women were not well and nobody asked why. We're arriving at a place where researchers aren't settling without answers. Thankfully, we're arriving at a place where researchers aren't settling without answers. A Sicilian study tracked new Hashimoto's diagnoses at a single hospital division in Messina over 31 years and found they climbed from roughly 33 a year in the late 1970s to roughly 444 a year by the early 2000s. Yes! You read that right. One clinic. Does visibility alone explain numbers like this? Or is something else going on? What's actually changed from 1975 to now This is where it gets a little uncomfortable, because the research points to our daily life. Much research has linked autoimmune diseases , thyroid conditions specifically , to endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA and phthalates, found in plastics, food packaging, and everyday products. If you want a breakdown where you can find these daily disrupters, take a peek here … It's way more than you think. Not only are endocrine-disrupting chemicals a leading factor in autoimmune diseases, but estrogen itself is part of the problem. Yes, that estrogen. The same hormone that makes females already more susceptible to the reactive chemical loads we're carrying on a daily basis. Women have always been more prone to this disease. We've also, in the last few years, increased our exposure to the exact category of those endocrine-disrupting chemicals that research shows can trigger autoimmune disease. Is that a coincidence? Or is it cause and effect, still being written in real time? The virus lying dormant Endocrine-disrupting chemicals and estrogen aren't the only things researchers are pulling on when it comes to the root cause of Hashimoto's. It's the virus that we catch in middle or high school. Remember the virus I thought was an STD scare at the beginning of this? Yes, Epstein-Barr virus. So, here's what Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has to do with Hashimoto's. EBV, the virus behind mono, infects around 90 percent of people at some point and then goes dormant in the body for life. However, researchers have recently found that EBV produces proteins that closely resemble those found in thyroid tissue. So, when the immune system tries to defend itself from the virus, it can end up attacking the thyroid by mistake, and if EBV lies dormant in the body for life but let's say you catch the common cold… Well, you do the math. This process is called molecular mimicry. This raises the question: what makes some of us more susceptible than others? The childhood trauma to autoimmune disease pipeline It would be a disservice if I didn't touch on the childhood trauma to autoimmune disease pipeline because one of the strongest predictors researchers have found isn't biological at all. It's what happened to us before we even knew what was happening or had tools to react. A recent 2025 study of more than 100,000 women showed that those who experienced childhood neglect (both emotional and physical) were at higher risk of autoimmune disease, thyroid disease specifically. The body remembers long periods of survival, even after the person living inside it has learned how to keep moving. This proposed reason behind Hashimoto's isn't woo-woo mysticism. Chronic life stressors appear to leave a lasting mark on inflammatory and immune regulation. This means it can be decades before symptoms or a diagnosis appear. The EBV and childhood trauma findings don't necessarily mean they cause Hashimoto's. Rather, the "why me" question might have a more layered answer than just genetics, or bad luck. What actually helped me I want to be careful here, because I don't hold a medical degree, and Hashimoto's isn't one-size-fits-all. So, this is what works for me, not a protocol for you. After getting the right test from my naturopath, what came next was nutrients most Western doctors, mine included, had never mentioned. My naturopath talked me through supplements that my body needed: selenium, zinc, tyrosine, magnesium glycinate, probiotics, and omega-3s. I supplemented using vitamins and minerals, and ate as many natural foods that contain them as possible. One caveat: selenium has a ceiling. The upper limit for adults is 400 micrograms a day from food and supplements combined, and consistently going over it can cause hair loss, brittle nails, digestive problems, and nervous system issues. Do this part with someone watching your labs. The gut work took longer to understand than the supplements did. My naturopath kept mentioning that the gut is just as important as my thyroid itself. Now, what we did here is rooted in the wellness space, ideas that don't necessarily have the same research backing as the vitamins and minerals I added to my diet. However, my newfound gut protocol is where I started to feel a difference that no supplement alone could have given me. Treating them as three separate problems was never going to work. The last piece that helped was stress, which is the one I most definitely underestimated. My naturopath had me start with daily meditation and breathwork before we even discussed adaptogens. These practices became the baseline of my entire routine. I would get out of bed every morning and meditate. I had no clue prior to speaking with my naturopath how tightly stress, my gut, and my thyroid were interconnected. Treating them as three separate problems was never going to work. All of this (the nutrients, gut protocol, and stress monitoring) is what my naturopath and I tried before we ever got to a conversation about synthetic hormone replacement like levothyroxine. Now, that's not the case for every woman with this diagnosis. Plenty of us need hormone replacement from day one, and there's definitely no shame in that. But I didn't know that I could even try something else first until it was offered to me. What worked for my body took a while, not just days, and although I know now what to do to make my body feel good, it's still a work in progress. Resources for women newly diagnosed (or still advocating for an answer) If you're still advocating for something that just doesn't feel right, or maybe you just got your Hashimoto's diagnosis, instead of spiraling, here's where I would start: Ask specifically for a full thyroid antibody panel (TPO and thyroglobulin antibodies), not just a standard TSH test. A "normal" TSH does not rule out Hashimoto's. Mine was called normal more than once before my naturopath checked further. If your regular primary care provider stops at "Your labs are within range," consider a second opinion. Advocate for yourself using a practitioner who will run the fuller panel. It may mean paying out of pocket, and I know that's not a small ask, it wasn't for me either, but it's what got me an actual answer. Find community. In my experience, the isolation can feel harder than the disease itself, and it doesn't have to be. Clearly, there are far more of us out there who are willing to talk about it all. You were never the only one There isn't one answer as to why this is happening. There are several, all colliding at once. Better testing catches more of us, but it doesn't explain the increase. Our biology makes women more susceptible from birth. Chemical exposures that continue to rise, a virus that almost all of us are carrying, and stress we were never taught to metabolize… All of it stacks differently for each of us. Years ago, I was convinced I was the only one. I was wrong. So, if you're sitting with the same thoughts and Google searches: start with a full panel, advocate for a practitioner who will actually run it, and know you're not early to something that is rare. You're right on time to something we're all talking about. I know I won't stop. Come find me. Amanda Jung is a writer exploring life, health, money, love, and career as one story instead of four because that's how it actually feels to live it. She writes at Amanda Marie Jung on Substack and shares more at @amandamjung on Instagram.