On 25th May, I'm walking the Yorkshire Three Peaks.

Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough — 38.6 km and 1,585 metres of ascent across the Yorkshire Dales, in a single push, aiming for nine to ten hours.

The 25th is World Thyroid Day, and I'm fundraising for Thyroid UK.

Thyroid disease is one of the most common chronic conditions in the country, yet it remains one of the least-discussed.

The UK is on track for around three million people on thyroid medication this year — and the everyday reality of those diagnoses, the slow road to the right test, the fight for the right dose, the gap between feeling well and being told you're "in range," sits almost entirely outside public conversation.

Thyroid UK campaigns for diagnosis and treatment that fits the patient rather than the population average — including the long-running fight to keep alternative thyroid medications available on the NHS for patients who don't do well on the standard ones. It's the part of the cause I find most worth backing.

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's at sixteen, and I'll be on thyroid replacement hormone for the rest of my life — which, contrary to how it sounds, is the start of the management rather than the end of it. It's certainly had its moments over the years, but on balance, I've been one of the lucky ones: caught early, generally responsive to standard treatment, and mostly in a place where it sits in the background of a normal life rather than running it. Not everyone gets that, and I would like for that to be changed.

If you'd like to chip in, the button above does it. If you can't, sharing the page is just as useful — awareness is half of what this is for.

Thanks for reading.

Nick