[JFeese]

#1058677

Hello. This is my first post on this forum. I was diagnosed a little more than three weeks ago, so am still rather unfamiliar with the disease. Anyways, I’m 23 year old guy, and prior up to this January, quite the gym rat. I then began to experience severe fatigue, and my workouts became less frequent, then non-existent. I started loosing body weight too, but I attributed it to my lack of weight training. By the time i was diagnosed last month, I was 150, and had lost almost 40 lbs of very hard earned muscle.

Are there any others who have shared my plight? Did you ever get back on track? If you did, how? I know I need to check on my heart rate, but is there anything else i need to watch?

[Bobbi]

#1169310

We lose actual muscle while we are hyperthyroid. When we get back to controlled normal levels of hormone (whichever treatment we use) the muscle slowly starts to come back. I’m not sure whether or not all of it comes back, but we do regain strength over time, especially if we work intelligently with the process. The important thing is to take baby steps at the beginning, when your doctor tells you that it is OK to start exercising again. LISTEN to your body, and start off very slowly. I went to an exercise physiologist at the local hospital for help, and he analyzed things and told me that I had 8% of the strength of a normal woman my age. Yes EIGHT. So, when I began "pumping iron" the "iron" were two, rather thin paperback books. You might be in better shape, but you want to start slowly to avoid straining muscles that have already been abused by thyroid hormone aberrations. Start with walks, rather than jogs. Keep things short and sweet and then pay attention to how you feel. Are you energized? Or pooped? Your body will tell you, if you pay attention.

[GoodLi]

#1169311

With this disease, you have to be more patient than ever. There are no shortcuts, and it would be easy for a "gym rat" like yourself to get frustrated. With the right medical attention, you can gain muscle. But there are no guarantees you’ll look like you used to.

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