[Seanbro85]

#1058833

I have been diagnosed with Graves for about 2 years now. I have gone thru my Radioiodine (I -131) Therapy for Hyperthyroidism. I am now on 200 MCG of Levothyroxine and my labs are finally normal. About 2 months ago i quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey from about 2 packs a day to 0. Over the past month or so I have been having minor panic attacks and that are increasing as weeks go by. Started with 1 a week or so up to about 1 every 2-3 days. Does the quitting of the cigarettes have anything to do? I do not want to go back to smoking to get rid of the attacks.

[Ski]

#1170300

Hi Seanbro,

I quit smoking before I ended up with Graves’, so I can’t speak from personal experience on this one. I’ve also not heard others complain about this, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened… Naturally, no one would tell you to go back to smoking, there is so much damage and death caused by cigarettes every day, that just can’t be the best answer.

It’d be a good idea to check in with your doctor and get your thyroid hormone levels tested — it may not have anything to do with quitting smoking, but if your thyroid hormone levels have changed, panic attacks could result. Our body’s requirement for thyroid hormone can change over time, due to age, activity level, hormonal shifts, weight — so it’s not beyond the scope of reason to think that quitting smoking could change things as well. It might change the way you absorb the replacement hormone, or the way your body uses it — by the way, I do not KNOW whether those things can happen as a result of quitting smoking, but in any event, the fact that you’re having these symptoms, and they could potentially track back to thyroid hormone levels, would be a good reason just to check. A blood test is easy enough. If your hormone levels are good, then take a look at your doctor and ask “what else could it be?” Get the doctor on your team and get some help figuring this out.

I hope you get some relief, soon!

[Bobbi]

#1170301

I finally was able to quit smoking by recognizing the subtle — and sneaky — ways that my addicted brain tried to get me to start smoking again. I would be in a stressful situation where I normally would have smoked, and suddenly, all these rationalizations would start to come into my thoughts: just one cigarette might help; just one won’t hurt; yada yada. You haven’t been off the cigarettes for that long, and I bet there are residual urges still very much a part of your brain’s patterns. Especially when you are so uncomfortable in a panic attack, it is likely that the old urges will rear up. So, really, really try to hang in there. Over time, the addict brain gives up. But it takes more than a couple of months off the cigarettes to completely get rid of the urges.

Panic attacks have a finite duration — the body cannot sustain the elevated levels of adrenalin or whatever is going on, for more than 15 or 20 minutes. Knowing that helped me to weather the attacks when I was having them due to the Graves. Obviously, it would help if you could figure out how to STOP them from occurring — which is why Ski’s suggestion to have your thyroid levels checked is a good one.

[GabalaErenn]

#1170302

My experience is that Graves (thyroid) has a pretty big effect on mental health, anxiety etc and that even getting back to normal thyroid blood levels does not lead to any immediate relief of the mental things.
About 3 years after getting nuked I stopped smoking and I didn’t notice any side effects other than what I expected from normally stopping smoking.

However – my mental state for the first 6 months or so after getting blood levels correct was a bit of a problem though … I found a few ways to de-stress my life and either that or time (plus thyroid meds) was a big help for me.

[Ski]

#1170303

Actually, getting back to normal blood levels is only the first step on the road to normal anything with Graves’ — our body is unable to even start the healing process until the thyroid hormone levels are right — so it’s not all that uncommon for people to have a period of time after reaching stable, normal thyroid hormone levels in which they still feel unwell. It gets better as healing continues, and over time (as you correctly surmise) you DO heal completely and finally stop thinking about what is or isn’t related to Graves’ today…

[Author]

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