Hi Ann,
Again, it was my intent to encourage BB responsibility in reporting symptoms and drawing direct conclusions without quoting medical research support of the same. There are a lot of ill and nervous people out there (I know I certainly was!) who must make a treatment choice and may have understood the posts to mean: RAI treatment for Graves’ = Dental Caries or (Yikes!) Tooth loss. Someone could make a treatment decision based soley on this misunderstanding.
There is some medical research support for patients with thyroid cancer receiving ablation dosages (plural) of I131, much larger than the typical dose (singular) range for GD patients, indicating an increased trend in the reduction of saliva flow rate after RAI compared to the reduction of saliva flow rate attributed to the thyroid malfunction caused by the cancer.
But of more relevance to us I beleive is: Graves’ disease causes not only dry eyes, dry skin, dry hair but also a dry mouth or reduction of the salivary flow rate. The purpose of saliva flow is to clean our mouths and a low flow increases oral sugar clearance time and raises salivary counts of mutans streptococci, lactobacilli and candida. Now, combine this longer tooth enamel exposure to sugar and bacteria with an increased craving of sweets (common to Graves’) and no change in dental hygiene practice (how were we to know?) and voila! – a logical thing happens: a cavity.
Your case may be different Ann, I am primarily paraphrasing from a clincal study of 50 GD patients.
Have a good one,
Claudia
Anonymous
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