From Thyroidectomy to TAE: How One Woman Avoided Surgery and Kept Her Thyroid

When Anne Moeller first noticed the lump on her neck back in 2018, she did what most of us do — she covered it up and hoped for the best. A scarf here, a well-angled photograph there. For years, her multinodular goiter was more of an inconvenience than a crisis. Bothersome, yes. Life-altering, not yet.

Then came two pregnancies.

After her second child was born in 2022, Anne's thyroid had grown to the size of a grapefruit. The hormonal shifts of pregnancy had accelerated its growth dramatically, and what had once been a cosmetic concern was now something far more serious. Scans revealed that her trachea — her airway — had become severely compressed and pushed significantly to one side. Her doctors were clear: it was only a matter of time.

By late 2024, that time had come. Anne was experiencing breathing difficulties, and the goiter that she had been quietly managing for years could no longer be ignored. She booked a thyroidectomy.

The Night Everything Changed

With her surgery scheduled for the end of April, Anne did something that many of us have done before a major medical procedure — she went online to research what her life would look like afterwards. She wasn't looking for alternatives. She was simply trying to prepare herself for the road ahead.

What she found changed everything.

Browsing the British Thyroid Foundation website one evening after her children were in bed, Anne came across a small mention of less invasive thyroid treatments — microwave ablation, radiofrequency ablation, and something called thyroid artery embolization, or TAE. It was a tiny section, almost easy to miss. But she didn't miss it.

Over the next two to three weeks, Anne immersed herself in research. She found the Save Your Thyroid YouTube channel. She joined the Facebook community and reached out directly to patients who had been through TAE. She scheduled consultations with doctors in both the United States and Turkey. She went from knowing nothing about non-surgical thyroid treatment to knowing more about it than the thyroid specialists she had been seeing in London for years.

She canceled her surgery.

Why TAE and Not the Other Options

For many patients with thyroid nodules, techniques like radiofrequency ablation or microwave ablation are excellent options. But Anne's goiter was massive. The ablation techniques, which work by inserting a probe directly into the nodule and treating it with heat, cold, or electrical energy, were simply not suited to the scale of what she was dealing with.
Thyroid artery embolization works differently. Rather than targeting the nodule directly, TAE involves threading a catheter through an artery — typically accessed through the wrist — to reach the blood vessels that supply the thyroid gland. Tiny particles are then used to reduce that blood supply, causing the thyroid tissue to shrink gradually over time. For large goiters that are beyond the reach of ablation, TAE offers a path that other techniques simply cannot.
After extensive research and multiple consultations, Anne chose to work with Dr. Juan Camacho in the United States. His responsiveness, his ability to explain the procedure clearly, and his published research showing zero neurovascular complications in a hundred treated patients gave her the confidence she needed to move forward.

What the Procedure Was Actually Like

One of the most valuable things Anne shared in her conversation was what TAE feels like from the patient's perspective — because for many people considering it, the unknown is the scariest part.
Anne actually underwent the procedure twice. Her first procedure addressed the two inferior thyroid arteries via wrist access. Her second, performed five months later, targeted the superior and inferior thyroid arteries on the right side and required groin access instead.

In both cases, her experience was remarkably similar. The preparation involved standard bloodwork, an IV line, and the usual pre-procedure checks. Patients are placed under heavy sedation — conscious but in a blur, aware that something is happening but largely disconnected from the details. The procedure itself, Anne noted, takes only around ten minutes. What takes time is everything surrounding it.

Perhaps most surprising was this: Anne experienced no pain. Not during, and not after. She spent approximately half a day in the hospital on each occasion and went home the same day.

A Gradual Transformation

TAE is not an overnight fix. The shrinkage is gradual, and Anne's experience reflected that. For the first few months, the changes were subtle — a slight easing of the pressure, a breathing that felt incrementally less labored. By the three-month mark she could see the lump on her neck beginning to reduce. By four to five months, it had started to flatten noticeably.
Her thyroid function throughout this process has remained stable — in fact, it has improved slightly. Like many patients with large goiters, Anne had been experiencing TSH levels at the very low end of the normal range, a sign that the oversized gland was producing more thyroid hormone than her body ideally needed. As the goiter has shrunk, her TSH has moved back toward the center of the normal range.

Stepping Outside the Traditional Medical Model

Anne's story is about more than a medical procedure. It's about what happens when a patient decides to stop accepting the first answer she's given and starts asking better questions.

In the UK, the National Health Service provides excellent care, but newer treatments take time to become widely available. TAE is only just beginning to emerge there, with the first procedure performed at a London hospital in 2024 and a trial underway at another facility outside the city. For Anne, waiting for the system to catch up was not an option. She was fortunate enough to have US health insurance coverage through her employer, which made traveling to America for treatment financially viable — a privilege she openly acknowledges not everyone has.

What strikes you most listening to Anne's story is the shift in dynamic she describes. After weeks of intensive self-education, she arrived at her next appointment knowing more about thyroid artery embolization than the thyroid specialists who had been treating her for years. The tables had turned completely, as she put it. She was in the driver's seat.
And what she found when she got there was not resistance. Her doctors, to their credit, were curious. They asked questions. They supported her decision. Her endocrinologist, who has been following her case since 2018, has been actively educating himself about these emerging options ever since.

What Anne Would Tell Someone in Her Situation Today

If you have been told that your goiter is too large to treat without surgery, Anne's message is straightforward: the doctors giving you that advice may be excellent physicians, and they may genuinely believe it. But their knowledge of newer non-surgical options may simply not be current. That is not a criticism — it is the reality of how quickly this field is evolving.
Educate yourself. Seek out patient communities. Ask questions of people who have been through these procedures. And then bring that knowledge into the room with you when you see your doctor.

A year ago, Anne Moeller had a thyroidectomy booked and no idea that anything else existed. Today, her thyroid is intact, her breathing has improved, her labs are stable, and she is watching the results of her second TAE procedure continue to unfold.

She didn't get lucky. She got informed.

Ready to Learn More?

Listen to Anne's full story in Episode 116 of the Save Your Thyroid with Jennifer Holkem podcast, where she shares every detail of her journey in her own words — including what it felt like to sit in that operating room, why she chose Dr. Camacho, and what she would do differently if she had to start over. 

If you are currently facing a thyroid surgery recommendation and want to explore your options, visit the Save Your Thyroid patient community at saveyourthyroid.org, where you can connect with patients like Anne who have been through these procedures and come out the other side.

To stay up to date on new episodes and expert interviews, subscribe to the mailing list at saveyourthyroidwithjen.com.