Hi Hopeful23,
I’m sorry to hear of your diagnosis.
Just to echo what Bobbi and Ski are saying, you really need to be consistent with your medication, especially in the first couple of months. PTU (and also Methimazole) don’t just work overnight. You need to consistently take the drug to reduce the levels of thyroid hormones in your circulation and to reach a stable level.
It seems to me that consistency and stability is key with Graves’. I had RAI for my thyroid last month and I’m still all over the place emotionally even though my levels of thyroid hormone are almost within normal range (hooray!). Your body will react to changes and every time you take your meds and then don’t take your meds you’re subjecting your body to constant change.
I also wanted to make a second point (and I’m sure you know this as a Nursing major) which is even though you have been diagnosed with GD, it may not exist in isolation. Just because you have Graves’ it doesn’t mean that you might not also have other things to address. It sounds as though you have had some awful experiences that have led to significant obstacles associated with taking medication. Could you try talk therapy to work through that? I started therapy just before I found out that I had Graves’ (before diagnosis I really thought I was borderline psychotic) and it has really helped me throughout, even when I was fully medicated and balanced on a hormonal level. Just finding out that you have a chronic condition can affect your mental well-being.
Anyway, I hope that I’m not being too intrusive. I just wanted to let you know that therapy has helped me for the most part (although there will always be bad days) and although it’s not going to help your GD directly it may help you with the horrible experiences that you’ve had with medication in the past.
I hope that you can find some balance and start to feel better soon.
Jo
Kimberly
jclark3