[snelsen]

#1063018

hi, ewmb! You’re right! Haven’t heard from you for a while! Welcome back.
Well, my thought is that you are 100% right, and you know it. As you said, he should have been followed all these years.
His health care providers are really done a disservice to him by not correlating his labs with how he is feeling, and prescribing his replacement hormone accordingly, which really is sad.

After my surgery, I was "normal" or euthyroid for almost 20 years. But did have labs, and felt fine. Then I tanked, felt all the symptoms of hypo, the labs reflected it. Began Synthroid, have been on it ever since. THAT’S how it should work.

I do think, too, that he needs a different endo. What she says, does not make any sense to me. In my opinion, she either is definitely discriminating against an elderly man, and/or her medical training, or common sense, is sadly lacking in the endocrine system and Graves’. The TSH is climbing, and he has hypo symptoms all over the place. Why not begin Synthroid, see if he feels better?

I guess the next step for you is to advocate for and with him, if he will accept that. Find another endo, or maybe even go to his primary doc with him, do another lab, and see if this doc will begin some replacement to see if it helps your dad. I sure know how I FELT, and my TSH had climbed, but was still in the normal range. I was HYPO AND MISERABLE!

How are YOU doing??
Shirley

[ewmb]

#1018157

Hi,
I haven’t posted in a while. I have a question for anyone who has dealt with RAI and then had a "normally" functioning TSH after RAI. My father has Graves. Had RAI in 1999. He in now almost 80 and is having several Hypo symptoms that are really interfering with his quality of life; dry skin, intolerance to cold, memory issues, weight gain, soreness. He has never been under the care of a endo until my Mom insisted that he go to one just a few weeks ago. Over the last 10 years after RAI his TSH has been on the increase but never out of the range of normal. This last one was 3.84. I know that he’s an odd bird for the endo who is really young. She says that she has worked with Graves patients and that because he is so old she wouldn’t treat him with any hormone replacement until his TSH got to 10 or above. I think this really ignores his quality of life and am frustrated. I wasn’t there at the appointment so couldn’t put my 2 cents in. I have read articles about sub clinical hypo in the elderly that seem to say that if there are no real symptoms that treating these patients wouldn’t really make a difference. I think that since he had RAI that he shouldn’t be considered in a population that had never had any thyroid issues and a subclinical TSH was found in a routine checkup kind of thing. Has anyone else encountered this attitude about elderly patients?

Any thoughts or help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
ewmb

[ewmb]

#1063019

Shirley,
I am feeling a lot more normal but my TSH says I’m still off. My periods are wacky and since I am in perimenopause that’s par for the course. Dry skin, constipation are my other symptoms so I think I really am a little hypo now. My Dad is so hard to get to go to the doctor and I live three hours away and wasn’t driving long distances for several years, I’m still not really. The problem now is that his memory is so bad that he can’t remember things from one day to the next and my Mom doesn’t drive etc.. It took her several months to get up the courage to sort of force him to go to the endo. This endo is really just out of school but was the only one they could get an appointment with close enough for my Dad to drive there. Their primary is old too and my Mom thinks he’s no good but…… One day at a time. I know that stress isn’t good for my levels either. Son dropped out of college for a semester, in an odd office situation at work, senior high school autistic daughter not able to get into college at this point, test scores not good enough, snow and cold so a little pitiful today. At least I’m in a warm house and have my husband home with me today.

If you don’t mind me asking, how old were you when you started the synthroid?

ewmb

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