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This must be extremely frightening to you.
I don’t think this situation can wait; you need an answer and peace of mind.
Call there tomorrow and tell them how critical your situation is; call them again tomorrow as early as possible.
The important issue here will be normalizing your thyroid levels as soon as possible, so i agree with Madam X that seeing a doctor can’t wait. Are you still hyperthyroid, or have you become hypothyroid yet? It will be important that you do not remain hypothyroid and that your thyroid levels don’t fall behind where they should be, which is difficult enough at this point following RAI even for women who aren’t pregnant.
A recent study indicates that about 25-30% of doctors involved in treating pregnant patients are not up to date on the information they need to give pregnant thyroid patients proper care, so you will have to be especially careful in finding a doctor capable of properly advising you. This is a case where getting multiple opinions is definitely in order if you have any reservations about advice you’re receiving.
Ideally you will be able to find an ob/gyn who will work directly with your endocrinologist so that your baby’s well-being can be balanced with yours every step of the way. I would think you will need especially tight monitoring, beginning NOW, and I hope you won’t wait a month for your appointment, since both your well-being and your baby’s are at stake. At the same time, I don’t want to see you worry too much, as I think there’s every chance your baby will be okay.
Please let us know when you have found some expert help with this!
Best wishes,
Oh, sorry–I misread what you said. I thought you couldn’t get an appointment for a month, but you actually said next week. You can probably wait a week if you have to, but obviously for your peace of mind it would be better if the doctor could see you right away and test your thyroid levels, especially if you think you may have a major change that should be attended to. Use your judgment on that. If your levels seem stable it’s probably not as vital that you be seen right away. If you think your levels might need to be adjusted, then that probably is important for your baby.
Hi guys, I was diganosed 2 years ago with Graves. Finally, I recieved my RAI treatment in November 4th of last year. Surprisingly enough yesterday I found out I am 4 wks pregnant. Unfortunately, can’t get an appt untlil next week and I’m starting to get worried that something could happen to my baby..any help??
If you search for "pregnancy after rai" in Google, you will see a PubMed publication about women who conceived children after RAI (some as soon as 1 month after RAI). Their RAI treatment was done for thyroid carcinoma though, and as I understand the levels of radioactive iodine given to cancer patients are much higher, in tens of times, than to Graves’ Disease patients.
The general outcome of pregnancies was comparable to the general population outcome. They did mention though that there was not enough data to say if there were any lasting effects on the children. Remember, however, those women received hundreds of radioactive units (mci), not a few units like Graves’ patients.
I actually asked my endo this exact question today because I am heading towards RAI if my uptake scan is good in a few weeks and I wondered how soon I could get pregnant again. Everything I read online seemed to say that you need to wait at least 6 months, some say as long as a year, before getting pregnant or there would be negative effects on the baby. However, my endo said today that you only need to wait 1 month to get it out of your system and then the concern is just making sure the hypothyroid stuff is controlled during your pregnancy; I couldn’t tell from your post which end you were concerned about (the fact that you had the radioactive in you or the hypothyroid you will be dealing with now) but at least as far as the radioactive stuff goes at least from what my doc said, it shouldn’t have any negative effect on your baby. Good luck! Cath
Typically doctors suggest you can begin trying to get pregnant about six months after RAI, but that presumes that your levels are good at that point. Some people get there in six months, others do not.
As far as protecting yourself from any effects of the RAI, first you should know that some people have become pregnant sooner and had healthy, beautiful children. The precautions are based on the IDEA that there may be exposure, not on the FACT that there ever has been evidence of "too early" a pregnancy. The idea is that the RAI we do not take up in our thyroid is excreted, mostly through the urine, in the first couple of days after the dose is taken. The urinary tract travels near the ovaries. In order to affect an egg in the ovary, the egg must be reaching maturity. For that reason, doctor "guess" that having six cycles pass after RAI will remove the likelihood that any of the six most-recently developing eggs will be fertilized. Again, it HAS happened, the babies are healthy and beautiful. The doctors, avoiding any possibility of contact with any possibly affected tissue, go further than they believe is absolutely necessary.
The next issue is your health. If you plan to embark on a pregnancy and parenthood, you need to be at your absolute best. That means you still need to reach, and maintain, healthy thyroid hormone levels so you can go into a pregnancy from the best possible position. Now that can take a little time, and waiting for it will be to your advantage, but if your biological clock is ticking loudly in your ears, with diligence perhaps you can reach that point more quickly.
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