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| FEATURES | BY CLAIRE DAVIES |
 Edna Kyrie in front of her computer |
Last month Edna, 38, and her website were honoured in The British Library’s annual report, which highlighted just what was being achieved in the hushed confines of the reading rooms. This recognition has been a huge boost to Edna, who in 1985 was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis – a diagnosis she still questions. In 1998 Edna also found out she had an under-active thyroid, it was this prognosis that encouraged her to found the site. She said: “I read a book on the thyroid and was amazed by how much could be affected by it, I decided to follow up the references at the back of the book, and so the project began.” Today, thyroid.net holds over 1,200 abridged articles on the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid related illness, photocopied from books and journals in The British Library and scanned onto her computer at home. She said: “At one point I was spending £70 a week on photocopying. I just feel so passionately about this.” What has shocked Edna most, and what she talks about most animatedly, is the medical research by long-dead doctors that has been lost over the passage of time. “In the 1880s when they wrote about the thyroid they thought they’d found the elixir of youth. There is all this incredible work that had just been forgotten about.” William Gull, country-lad-turned-physician to Prince Albert is just one of the authors featured on the website. His article published in October 1873 gives a fascinating picture of encroaching hypo-thyroid, watching ‘Mrs B’ Sir Williams says, she “became more and more languid, with general increase of bulk”. “This change went on year to year, her face altering from oval to round, much like the full moon rising,” he said. Such symptoms were immediately familiar to Edna, whose face had blown up prior to her diagnosis of an under-active thyroid. She said: “After going onto thyroid supplementation treatment my health improved dramatically. I had more energy, was mentally sharper and far less prone to infections, unfortunately it seems it is too late to affect my walking or the associated nerve damage. “I think I had been hypo-thyroid for a long time before it was diagnosed, everything was blamed on the multiple sclerosis, you get this one big diagnosis and everything is related back to that. “The website springs from a determination that the knowledge of thyroid function in many common illnesses is made available. I thought at the start if I could just help one person it would be worth it, and now I know I’ve helped more than that.” Edna’s health has declined in recent months and she is not getting to the Library as much as she used to, but she continues adding to the website from a backlog of copied articles. “I worship The British Library and I feel I have this queue of long-dead doctors and physicians looking over my shoulder encouraging me,” she says. “This is what I have built my new life around – before all this happened I was a singer and a psychotherapist, I just can’t believe how much things have changed.” |
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