[Anonymous August 14, 1997 at 9:59 pm Post count: 93172]

#1158100

There are a number of web sources, Mary, that have concise lists of symptoms for both hypo and hyper conditions.

If the web addresses have not changed, these are some of them:

http://www.aace.com/ This gets you to the American Assoc. of Clinical Endocrinologists, and there’s a page in there about diagnostic guidelines and treatments.

http://www.io.org/~thyroid/Canada.html This gets you to the excellent page of the Canadian Thyroid Assn. and there are links to other sources. They have a good FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) sheet.

http://www.thyroid.org/ For the American Thyroid Assn.

As to your questions, the face bloating and the weight gain, coupled with your doctor’s recommendation of synthroid, makes it sound like you could be hypo at this point. When I went hypo, briefly, after RAI treatment, my face was quite swollen, and that went away once my hormone levels were raised with the synthroid.

[Anonymous August 14, 1997 at 11:49 pm Post count: 93172]

#1054189

Please help. I was just diagnosed with hype( not sure if I have graves) .
From my reading , I m confused . It looks as if my case follows from an initial experience of sub- acute Thyroiditis ( sore throat , fever ) My
Dr. treated the symptoms with tapazole and propanolol. I gained back the 12 lbs I lost plus another 8lbs. in the last 2 of the 3 months I’ve been taking these drugs. If these numbers mean anything , my 1st blood test showed T-4 at 25 & T-3 at 50. After 1 month of drugs the levels came down to 3 .8 & 2.8 respectively . Then after 2 more months of drugs I had another blood test 2 days ago which showed that I needed some synthroid . The Dr. suspected I had crossed over to the hypo stage by my physical appearance. Here are my questions: Is my face looking bloated because my thyroid is under active or is it the excessive weight gain? Will taking the synthroid reduce the swelling in my face & thyroid gland? Are there any past postings that can help me better understand the progression of thyroid disorders & which symptoms are normal or abnormal?

[Anonymous February 26, 2005 at 11:41 pm Post count: 93172]

#1158101

i’m not sure if you have a good psychiatrist who specializes in chronic illness, but if you don’t i think you might look into it. i was diagnozed in nov. of this year and went through the depression, panic, etc, and am slowly moving into the world. you might also look into support groups even if they are no people with graves. i have a close friend with ms and have gone to her groups as company for her. there is help out there.

[Anonymous February 27, 2005 at 8:43 am Post count: 93172]

#1158102

You might want to consider getting a second opinion from another endocrinologist, just to double check that all of the possible medical resources you need to get well again are being employed.

Also, I don’t know how long you’ve been on the methimazole, but it does take some time for you to feel its effects. 1) The thyroid stores hormone, which it can release at will. The methimazole only slows the production of “new” hormone. So until the stored supplies have been used up you could still have too much hormone. This usually only takes a matter of weeks, but we often expect the pills to make us feel better immediately, and they do not. They cannot.

2) Also, part of how we feel is based on the level of damage that excess thyroid hormone has done to various body parts. Once we get to controlled normal levels of hormone, the body starts to recover, to heal, but it can take some months for us, AT normal levels of hormone, before we start to feel more completely “normal” again. In other words, it is a process back to normal and recovery, not any immediate sense of being well again.

Wishing you good luck, and I hope you are feeling better soon.
Bobbi — NGDF Online Facilitator

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