Hi all,
I’m a 27 year old female, doing my residency in internal medicine. I have one more year before I’m done with residency.
I was diagnosed with Grave’s last week and I’m getting RAI tomorrow. Despite the fact (or because of the fact?) that I am a doctor I AM CRAZY NERVOUS! I have been reading the literature and am becoming increasingly irrational. After reading articles about the incidence of weight gain due to inadequate T4 replacement and not being able to find any articles citing the true incidence of hair loss I started to cry. For some reason, I am really honing in on the post radiation hypothyroidism, fatigue, hair loss, and weight gain.
My current symptoms are not bad at all. I’ve been working, taking 30 hour overnight call, no problems. My job requires me to work many busy hours but I’ve been doing this fine. Looking at me, you wouldn’t know that my TSH is 0.007, Free T4 11.7 and thyroid stimulating antibodies 2519. I’m usually tired, but heck I’m a resident. I started atenolol last week and feel better than ever!
Therefore I’m grappling with the question: I feel fine now, why should i walk into this treatment that might make me feel terrible and unable to work, unleash a thyroid storm upon me and my poor fiance who lives with me, and make me lose my hair and gain 20 lbs?? Maybe it’s because I’m hyperthyroid right now and everything freaks me out. The thought of being unable to work, or developing body image issues feels debilitating and unacceptable to me.
I’ve been reading the success stories on this forum and that’s the only thing that’s brought me a little bit of solace. I think this forum is great because it is providing so much support to people. I think what I need is a hug (a virtual hug while I’m radioactive). Wish me luck for tomorrow and the subsequent days.
Thanks for reading,
Quyen
