Just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. I am 34 years old, live in Las Vegas NV, was diagnosed in Dec of 2000 with graves. At the time, I had just moved from California to Ohio to live with a guy I was dating, and his mom was a nurse. We got to talking one day and I was telling her about all these odd symptoms I had been dealing with for many many years. Resting heart rate of 160+, my hands never stopped shaking, I only slept about 3 hours a day and sometimes even that was a struggle, I felt as if my body was unable to be still for even the slightest amount of time, the more I ate the more weight I would loose (which wasn’t so bad now that I deal with the complete opposite). Anyhow, she had me go see the PCP she worked for, I told him I had many doctors tell me for many years my thyroid labs were fine, but they had only ever checked my TSH and T4, never my T3. So he ran my T3 and it was insane! But here I am, just before my 21st birthday, I had no family around, I had no health insurance and I had all these doctors telling me they were not sure how my heart had not exploded, they totally freaked me out. So I had that blood work done one day, they rushed it and I got my results the following morning, that afternoon I went in to see an endo and get an uptake scan done and the very next morning they gave me RAI.
I feel like my body went on strike from that moment forward and has just given me the bird and does not want me to ever feel good again. I have been on 300mcg of synthroid and 10mcg of cytomel for approx. 10 years now. But ever since the treatment I have battled with hypo symptoms mixed in with some hyper symptoms…I seem to be all over the place. Most recently I have been having problems with heat intolerance (I am hot when it’s snowing), my hair coming out in handfuls, my whole body hurts so bad I feel like I can’t move, I have over the last 2 months developed severe anxiety and panic attacks to where I can’t even leave my house…it’s completely put my life on hold and I can’t take it anymore. I had been seeing an endo since Jan of this year, told him my symptoms just kept steadily progressing, told him I was developing the anxiety problems…his answer to me was that my levels are fine and maybe I need to take up yoga.
Last week, I finally made it to a doctor’s appointment with a new PCP and I at least have a little hope that she may be the one to finally help me after all these years. I was going over my history with her, told her I had graves and her response to me was “oh so do I”….I think I almost immediately relaxed, a doctor who has dealt with graves, with RAI…she gets it! She thinks I have gone hyper again, I am wanting to talk to her when I go back in next friday for lab results about trying armour, I have always been told I am not able to take it because I take so much T4 but this makes no sense to me. I am just wondering if anyone has been on as high of synthroid/cytomel doses and successfully switched over? I want my life back, and am willing to do just about anything at this point to get there.
