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  • Anonymous
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    Post count: 93172

    Bobbi, Thanks so much for your further explanation. It really helped me out and I think now I “get” the whole thing. I appreciate the time you took to reply.

    Anonymous
    Participant
    Post count: 93172

    No, Stephanie, it’s not quite that simple. Your thyroid hormone levels have nothing to do with your eye issues. Both the thyroid problems and the eye disease are caused by the same sets of antibodies, and it’s possible that they can run somewhat of a parallel course (having eye problems and thyroid problems at the same time), but they don’t always. The culprit is the antibodies. I remember being massively upset when I found out that getting control of the thyroid hormones would not keep my eyes from flaring up. My mom has Graves, and I had always thought that the reason her eyes went completely wonky was because the doctors took forever to diagnose her thyroid problem. When I started having the same thyroid symptoms, I became a REAL nag with my doctor, thinking that if I got the thyroid under control, FAST, my eyes would be safe. That is when I got the lesson in antibodies. My doctor told me that I had the tail wagging the dog, so to speak, by blaming the thyroid hormone levels. The “dog” is the antibodies; the “tails” are the eye muscles and the thyroid itself.

    What I tried to say in my previous post to you was that once enough of our thyroids have been destroyed, it doesn’t really matter whether we have antibodies or not as far as our HEALTH is concerned: without sufficient thyroid tissue to make a difference, our general health issues will become stable, and stay that way. But since the antibodies in question don’t destroy the eye muscles (only enflame them, and cause them to thicken), I don’t know whether or not the persistence of the antibodies can continue, forever, to cause us eye problems. Generally speaking, my doctors have led me to believe that they won’t, but I don’t know that that is necessarily true for everybody. Jake, for instance, has had a long history of eye problems. Most people, though, seem to go through one “hot phase” of problems, and then seem to be left in peace.

    I don’t know if I’ve been clear enough here. It’s a complicated issue. But basically, you will have the antibodies, in varying numbers, forever. All of us will. But once we’ve “fixed” the problems they’ve created, we can go on with our lives, relatively confidant that we have put the whole thing behind us.

    Bobbi

    Anonymous
    Participant
    Post count: 93172

    thank you everyone that responded to my eye disease posting – what a generous, supportive group this is!!
    good luck to everyone,
    janet

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