[Ski]

#1062758

You certainly have come a long way, what a great success story! Thanks for sharing!

Just one clarification I’d like to make ~ being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes was NOT a "direct result" of having Graves’. It’s true that those of us with one autoimmune disease have a slightly higher chance of ending up with a second, but it does not mean that one causes the other. All it means is that our body has contracted two different autoimmune diseases due to the same root cause, a small genetic defect. For the reason WHY our body ends up with one or another of the autoimmune diseases, we must all stay tuned, because the science is still out on that one.

[Elise33]

#1018113

hello everyone. I’m new to the forum and wanted to introduce myself and share my journey with graves disease and how i cope with it today.
I guess you could call me a success story. I was diagnosed with graves disease 9 years ago and now I only have to take a small pill everyday and have learned to deal with the psychological and physical side effects. My dosage hasn’t changed in a year. I’m going to school during the day and work at night. Me and my fiance are really strong in our relationship and we have our own place. I would say we’re doing pretty well. I say all of this because it wasn’t anything like this in the beginning of my story. I’ve come a VERY long way. And I just want to share it with everyone..because as hopeless as you might feel, there are people in the same situation who have gon through exactly what your going through, and have gotten through it! So, anyway, this was how it started.
I went to the family doctor because I wasn’t feeling good when i was 11. the doctor decided to feel my throat and noticed a large goiter (it’s about time they noticed it, we can see it in pictures from when i was 5) they send me to an endocrinologist to see whats up. they run some tests, you know how it goes. the endocrinologist gets back with us and tell me and my mom to come back immediately. my TSH levels were the highest she had ever seen. i was at risks for thyroid storms. After she explained what they were we figured out i had already had several of them. each time i had gone to a hospital because my stomach would really hurt. one time i was at 4-h camp while i had a thyroid storm…we didn’t know what it was at the time, and the camp thought i was just homesick. puking and everything. it’s a wonder i didn’t die. so the endocrinologist immediately prescribed me something to keep my heart rate down. i had one thyroid storm after that, they wouldn’t let me out of the hospital until my heart rate was under 100. then i had radioactive iodine treatment to kill my thyroid. thankfully that was successful and i was prescribed synthroid which i take until this day. see, it got so bad because i had the symptoms my whole life and didn’t know anything different. i was always hyper and ate like a freakin pig, never gained weight or anything. at 11 i was 50 pounds. we don’t know exactly how long it was overactive but we’re glad SOMEONE caught it before it took my life. i’ve read several different articles on how graves disease might affect someone psychologically and they all say that the longer you’ve had it and the worse it was, the worse the effects are. once i started growing up and figuring out what i had been through (i was 11, and NO ONE told me what was going on…all i knew was that i had a problem and they were fixing it) I started getting really super depressed. i didn’t want any friends, hated school, no one understood me at all. some people would say i was the "classical teenager" but it was much worse than that. i’ve come to the conclusion that graves disease makes you FEEL more. like, when we have a certain emotion we completely encompass that emotion and have absolutely NO CONTROL. i felt like that for soooo long, i didn’t even want to be "here". i didn’t want to be me. i was super shy around anybody, barely even able to go through life. eventually i made friends and they helped me a lot to find out who i am, and certain friends even understood i couldn’t really control myself and put up with it. i was finally starting to feel better. THEN my junoir year of high school i was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. a direct result of having graves. 2 auto immune diseases. i cried that day. it set me back a little bit on my path to recovery. but i just kept on going, kept trying to make myself into a better person, force myself to accept what i had and realize that i control my body and emotions, they don’t control me. and now i’m here. in school, working and LIVING LIFE. ahhh, it feels great lol. there’s always that "grave’s disease me" that tries to get out sometimes but its happening a lot less. it’s a long, hard road, but I think it teaches you a lot of valuable lessons about life. it may suck to have such a disease, but don’t think about it like "i have a disease oh, poor me" look at it like "i have a disease…and i can live with it…i am stronger than people know." and just keep that in the back of your head.
well there’s my story, and feel free to comment or ask questions or anything. ” title=”Smile” />

[MeganD]

#1062759

WOW you have seriously inspired me that there is hope(: I am a 16 year old girl who has been suffering from graves for the past 3 and a half years and know exactly what you went through! What horrible luck to be diagnosed with graves then type 1 diabetes, I thought just having graves was hard enough. If you don’t mind me asking what or who helped you deal with it all and how did it effect your high school years?

[Elise33]

#1062760

I would say that spirituality helped me the most. Not religion, spirituality. I believe in karma and I really just wanted to be a better person. I was angry a lot, and very depressed. But through spirituality I found the will to live, to WANT to experience life and this beautiful planet. And to help others as well. One reason I joined this site was to share my story and try to help where I can. As for high school, I ended up dropping out. I DO NOT recommend it. Everything ended up working out, but it’s soo much easier just to get through school. You’ll regret it if you don’t. Honestly the the reason i dropped out was because it wasn’t hard. I didn’t feel challenged at all, didn’t do the homework or anything. Also when my blood sugar was too low or too high they wouldn’t let me on the bus and I would have to walk home. Very dangerous in my opinion. There are options though, in most states they offer online schooling, which I tried but didn’t have the focus to finish it. But I think it’s a good alternative. School can be really hard but you don’t realize how important it is until later years. So just try and stick it out. GED is okayyy…but graduating high school looks a lot better. The road is hard, and you’ll face many challenges, but in the end you will have learned valuable life lessons that many people will never understand. Just keep going, you can do it lol ” title=”Smile” />

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