[Anonymous]

#1025609

Is it Graves’ or IBS?

This topic has been seen on the Internet now for a few months. I can understand how the two might seem to be linked or even the same problem. However, they are not.

One of the symptoms of Graves’ disease is frequent bowel movements. Since our bodies are running in overdrive so is our metabolism. Blood moves through our veins faster (rapid heart beat). Food moves through our digestive track faster and our bodies get these weird tremors or we have anger we cannot explain. Those are symptoms of Graves’ disease.

The “average” person with Graves’ is a woman who is in menopause or per-menopause. The age is from 40 to 60 for the majority of women. If there is a family history of thyroid disease the doctor may look asking for a thyroid panel to rule out thyroid disease. If you do not fit this profile the doctors will usually look elsewhere for an answer to your symptoms.

They look at a few of the symptoms of Graves’ and since you do not fit the profile of a person who may have Graves’ disease the doctor looks at your symptoms and looks at other causes that are more in tune with your age, diet and medical history.

Almost all the men on here were misdiagnosed for long periods of time because 8 times more women then men get Graves’ disease. The doctors just do not look for it if we do not fit the profile.

Same thing applies for children and young adults. They do not fit the profile so they are often diagnosed as hyperactive, stress, IBS, or just considered by the doctors to be a problem because we do not fit the medical profile and they start to look at other things other than Graves’. They usually do not find it until more symptoms come into play then they make the connections. Not knocking doctors but it happens.

So when a symptom of Graves’ is misdiagnosed as something else we often continue to think we have the other problem. I will use Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) as an example. IBS is not a disease. It is a syndrome that the doctors find meets a set of criteria to make a diagnosis. Problem is hyperthyroid people can have frequent bowel movements to the point that a visit to a gastroenterologist will lead them to look at IBS as the cause. Since a Gastro doc is trained to find gastro problems he will see them behind every rock and bush. Ok just kidding a bit there but you get the idea. They are not “trained” to look out side their field of experience. If they cannot explain why you are moving your bowels more that a kid who found a bar of exlax and thought it was candy they say you have IBS.

Now you are happy as a clam. You know what is wrong with you. Or at least you have a name to spread at the water cooler at work. So now your co-workers know you do not have a phone in the stall at the office John. “Yep I live in there because I got IBS.” It gives us a sense of control that we know what we have. Or do we really?

Soon another symptom pops in and you start to get hand tremors. You think “got to knock off the extra coffee”, or chalk it up to stress. Rapid heartbeat kicks in and you start to wonder what is going on. Off to the doctor you go and fill out your medical history. You tell the doctor you have IBS and now you have tremors and rapid heart beat.

Now the problem is most doctors do not question another doctor’s diagnosis. Since you went to the Gastro and he or she said you have IBS then the current doctor takes that away from the list he looks at to make a diagnosis. So you still do not fit the medical profile and you just have two symptoms instead of three. So they go off looking at something else. They may or may not find another syndrome but you leave happy knowing that the doctors found what was wrong with you.

But still get sicker. Off to the same or different doctor and you now tell the new doctor you have IBS and chronic stress. He takes what the other doctors found at face value and does not look at the new symptoms with the old to see if they lead to a different diagnosis.

I bet this sounds familiar to about 50% of the folks who were misdiagnosed. I know it happened to me. In my case I was told I had chronic stress syndrome, chronic eye infections and told to cut back on coffee and to use a prescription eye drop. I went for a reenlistment physical in the Navy and my ships corpsman looked at my pulse and it was 108 resting. Tapped my knee and my leg jerked more than usual. He asked if I had lost a lot of weight and I said I had. He sent me to the hospital and I was almost admitted for thyroid storm. My doctor missed it because he took each symptom as a separate problem. Over the course of years they found a syndrome or name for each of them.

Problem was they did have a name. It was Graves’ disease. I had to rethink my disease and treatments. I too wanted to believe the doctors that it was something else. But it was not. Once I was treated for Graves’ disease the other problems went away. I did not have chronic stress. I did not have IBS. I did not have chronic eye infections. I had Graves’ disease. Each symptom was just that. A clue to what was wrong.

So when you look at what may or may not have been diagnosed prior to Graves’ disease look at it in a new light. The doctor may have been wrong in their diagnosis. Ask your doctor if it is possible that what you were treated for before may now be Graves’ all along. It may help you to better understand your disease and how important it is to get treated and follow the prescribed treatment plan for you.

We are only a click away.

Jake
On-line Facilitator
Co-Author “Graves’ Disease In Our Own Words”

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