As this is thyroid awareness month I decided I wanted to share my story on the huge impact the small butterfly shaped gland in my neck had on my health at a very young age.

There’s often a misconception that people only really encounter thyroid problems later on in life, but this isn’t always the case.

While people aged 60 and over are more at risk of being diagnosed with thyroid complications, the warning signs of an overactive or underactive thyroid shouldn’t be ignored by any age group.

It’s important to know the signs to look out for so you can get treated as soon as possible.

From the age of ten I trained as a figure skater, competing both solo and with my synchronised skating team. I trained five days a week and worked my way up to represent Great Britain alongside my team mates.

Skating was my whole life, but little did I know the intense training I had spent years doing would also play a part in saving my life at just 15.

At the last competition I competed in in 2013, I remember losing my breath completely and wondering how I’d make it to the end of our routine.

On the train home from the competition, I kept feeling as though I was passing out, something doctors later told me was most likely me slipping in and out of a coma.

Luckily, one of the parents of the skaters was a nurse and told my mum I should go and have a blood test to check my thyroid.

Within weeks of my last competition, I was diagnosed with an overactive thyroid which was on the verge of thyroid storm. Some people can also suffer with an underactive thyroid.

An overactive thyroid, known as hyperthyroidism, is where the gland produces too much of the thyroid hormone. Signs of this include heart palpitations, trembling, weight loss and persistent weakness. You can also have difficulty sleeping, become sensitive to heat and have a swollen neck – known as a goitre.

I had every symptom listed above but had no idea these were symptoms of an overactive thyroid until my diagnosis.

Thyroid storm is a life-threatening health condition and occurs when an overactive thyroid has been left untreated. Thyroid storm can see your heart rate and blood pressure soar to dangerously high levels.

With a resting heart rate of 160bpm when I was first diagnosed, doctors said if it wasn’t for how fit I was from the amount of training and exercise I had done for skating, I may not be here today.

On my worst days, I remember feeling parts of my body shutting down and my heart beating so loud and fast I thought it would explode out of my chest. I couldn’t climb a flight of stairs without having to sit down, gasping for air and breaking out in a sweat. And while it was incredibly rare for someone of my age to suffer so severely, it can still happen.

After allergies to thyroid medication, two lots of radioiodine treatment and a year out of school, my heart rate was finally stable enough for me to have my thyroid removed on August 19 2014, aged 16.

I now take levothyroxine every day as a supplement for my thyroid and I couldn’t be healthier – a very different story to seven years ago.

Before my diagnosis, I had no idea what a thyroid was, nor the impact it could have on my health. I wanted to share my journey to stress the importance of knowing what symptoms to look out for and when to get checked for thyroid problems – no matter your age.