Dear Bobbie and fellow TED patients,
Thanks, Bobbie, for your message. I admit to being confused re all the different medical recommendations I’ve been hearing and receiving. My “second opinion” endocrinologist recently presented my case to a panel of about 20 endocrinoloists and the consensus of opinions was that a thyroidectomy probably would be beneficial in getting the thyroid gland under control and, in the long run, might benefit my eyes ( which seem to be stable at this point ). This summer the eye MD strongly pushed the orbital decompression surgery, but agreed to let me try radiation treatments to the eyes which seems to have helped. I guess only time will tell. My daily Prednisone dosage has been now tapered to 25 mg q day for the next 2 weeks. I guess I’m just not emotionally ready to have a thyroidectomy; I’m very fearful that I might not be a good surgical risk because of my age of 66 and my moderate COPD. I’ve never smoked or been around significant amounts of second hand smoke. I need more time to digest all this, since I was just officially diagnosed with Graves Disease less than a year ago, and my eye symptoms were mild until this past May. I will discuss the thyroidectomy with the endo MD when I next see him in a month. Have you heard of many people having complications after this surgery — such as bleeding, breathing difficulties necessitating a tracheostomy, etc? I must admit to thinking of the worst scenarios, because of my nursing background. Thanks again for responding to my messages. Lolita
