[Leahrae]

#1058742

Hello everyone,
My name is Leah. I am 25 years old. I was diagnosed with Graves the first week of december 2011 and had my RAI treatment dec 9th. I have extreme pressure in my eyes. I went to the eye doctor two days before treatment. My eyes were not protruding but I did have a slight eyelid lag. Does this pressure on my eyes mean that they will protrude? i am new to graves and have no idea what is going on. Also, along with my graves, I have been suffering from anorexia for 7 years now. How much weight will i gain from treatment or is everyone different?

Thanks, Leah

[Bobbi]

#1169759

Hi, Leah, and welcome to our board.

If you saw the opthamologist two days before your RAI, and there was no eye disease present, two days after your RAI, whatever is going on is most likely due to some other cause. Sometimes, in a distinct minority of cases, RAI causes an immune response, which can lead to a temporary increase in symptoms of the eye disease. But RAI does not cause the eye disease to occur. But right after RAI, we tend to be very hyper — and we get more hyper during the first week or so thereafter — so there can be increased symptoms related to hyper, which include stress, anxiety, you name it.

There can be weight gain after any successful treatment of your hyperthyroidism. Basically, there are two things going on. Your metabolism reverts to normal, and you may not be able to eat as much as you did while hyper. But more importantly, we lost actual muscle mass while hyper. Muscle weighs more than other tissues, but its presence RAISES our metabolism, allowing us to eat more without gaining weight. AFter successful treatment of the hyperthyroidism, that muscle we lost starts to slowly return. This looks like weight gain, but it is good weight to gain. In my case, I gained about 15 pounds without changing my clothing size one bit. (Muscle is more compact that flab….) How much anyone gains of the good muscle weight varies from one person to the next. But I would suggest that you watch your clothing size, rather than the scales.

[Leahrae]

#1169760

Thank you so much for the fast response Bobbi. I can tell i am very very hyper right now. Kind of scary. Hope it goes away soon. I just got scared because my eyes felt so weird. I notice one eye is more swollen then the other so maybe once my stress goes down the eye will go back to normal. ” title=”Smile” /> This site is very helpful. Everything happened so fast I had no time to ask the doctor questions and I had no time to research anything until after I got the treatment. What dosage of RAI does everyone usually get? I got 6.9. Is that considered high?

Leah

[MNMama]

#1169761

Hi:

I have had RAI twice and have had eye pressure and my eyes ached for a week following treatment both times. I do have to say that mine was temporary, and did go away both times. I do have some peri-orbital edema currently, but (knock on wood) no eye protrusion, but I have had this for a year and a half and it was indeed worse when hyper. I also noticed as soon as I became hypo, my actual eye LID had a very puffy look which was a new symptom for me. This eyelid puffiness has gone away since I have been put on replacement meds. I had my first treatment almost a year ago and the second RAI about 7 weeks ago. My eyes were much more sensitive to light, ached, puffy and watery when I was extremely hyper. I hope this info. helps ease your mind, it could very well be related to your higher levels right now after RAI and may get better in the weeks to come. I do know that it is important for your doctor to watch carefully so you do not become extremely hypo after RAI which can make your eyes worse. I was started on levothyroxine 3 weeks after my second RAI as I became hypo very quickly after my second treatment, but I did alot of research and recognized the hypo symptoms and called my doctor and she had me go in for blood work early which was good as I was VERY low. Good luck and Happy Holidays!

[Bobbi]

#1169762

What dose we get of RAI depends upon the size of the thyroid and the degree of uptake, typically, so there is no "standard" dose given. But 6.9 is not a very high dose at all, in general. What you want is for it to be the right dose for you … one that gets rid of enough thyroid tissue that you are no longer going to be hyperthyroid, ever.

Wishing you good luck with that.

[Author]

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