[Anonymous]

#1037827

If you are up tp this point you clearly ignored the title… either that or you are one of the people that asks someone running very fast which way the lion is after its been annonced it escaped from the zoo.

Anyways back to thoughts.. today has been one of the strange reflective days. I suspect the fact that I locked the door to the office at about 1pm and tok the phone off the hook may have had something to do with this but at least I finally got a chance to get on with work.

The thought occured to me that lack of knowledge and education is a good seed for fear, though conversly a total lack of understanding can be a catalyst for calm I guess it depends on what kind of person you are…… are you the kind of person that has always got to ask WHY or WHAT IF or HOW CAN YOU BE SURE. I know I am.. unless I am otherwise distracted…. when I first started up with GD diagnosis I was otherwise distracted… as such I never noticed what was happening to me….. were it not for a very good friedn at the time I think the only thing that would have woken me up was waking up in the ER.

There I was… I didnt know what the deal was… I was keeping myself very very busy for other reasons I wont go into and was preocupied and didnt notice what was happening to me.. or at least I dont think I did.. I think a certain amount of denial and ignoring the truth was present…. though at the time I was not scared because I never registered a problem. I started suspecting a problem after passing out during taekwando training but this i put down to lack of sleep… (oh gee… its obvious.. nI know this now )

When I learned a boit about GD I was somewhat fearful though all in all I have gotten away scot free for the most part. No meds, no major eye problems except the excess tearing and very slight bulging causing a few minor problems which were easily overcome by plennty of drops plenty of the time… I learned that you cant really overdoo it on eye drops.

Then comes the time when you know enough that you are able to see things commig…. this is an interesting place to be…. in some ways you are calm because you know what is comming but in other ways your are scared silly becausde you know what is comming. Strange really isnt it! It brings to mind the age old discussion about RAI and Surgery etc.
Surgery doesnt appeal to me cos I dont trust people and dont like the idea of someone I dont know poking round my throat witha very sharp knife. Of course I dont much like the idea of purposely swallowing something that you would normally store in a lead box for safety reasons.

You are faced with the problem of which is worse.. the illness or the cure…. trickly one there… especially since they dont actually treat the illness… either options is really just a permenent treatment for the symptoms.

Then we have option number 3… ATDs… this is really a temporary fix to see if your body sorts itself out….but ATDs have their draw backs… some people just straight out reject them and their bodys cant handle em and others mange okay for a while then some are okay on them for years. I think I did well lasting fr a little over 3 years. Here in the UK the normal the they will keep you on them is 18months before RAI or surgery. I undrstand that in the US they tend to have a more aggressive stance… each has its merits I suppose. The age old arguament will go on for ever. Or at least untill a cure to the REAL problem is found.

Oh incidentally.. just out of curiosity… how many of you out there tended to find that you were very rarely sick or when you were because it was a bug that was going round you only got it very mild…. I always noticed this but never though much of it…. guess its that over enthusiastic immune system.. guess I should have tried to cath more illnesses to keep it busy in other areas! Maybe thats what the deal was when they treated GD with malaria!

But then there is the final option… BRT (block and replace therapy) there has been a great deal of arguament on the BB about this and I dont want to be the start of the next lot. Having spoken to a few Dr’s over here about it there seems to be a split.. perhaps this is laregly based on how up to date your Dr with reading medical texts. While I was at college my College GP was puching for RAI and I was in agreement with him at the time… my endo agreed kind of but wanted to wait a few month (I think there was a waiting list or something) and my home GP who was all for BRT… though this is the Dr who said my painfull eyes were due to blocked sinuses… granted I did have an infection but they got worse after that was cleared and he still said it was my sinuses….. he was one of the Drs that doesnt listen too much.. but I guess he was good in some areas, though unfortunatly he did seem to be somewhat deficient in the thyroid knowledge department since when he described the treatement action he wated to taek and I said Ah BRT he didnt know what I was talking about.

Okat that aside and my appologese if I was Dr bashing.. back to BRT. This is by no means fact its merely my 2 cents basd on what I have learned. BRT was not good for me because I have been in remission a couple times and relapsed.. from my readins this does not make me a good candidate for it… also I am not very good at sticking to scrict treatment protocols which I understand BRT (for it to work best) requires.

Hmm.. there we are.. lots to think about… .thats some of what I thought about today… and my conclusion was this. We have no easy choices when we reach a cross roads on our path. It seems that no matter what path we choose we will face some form of pain or hardship, but perhaps it is worth bearing in mind that what is born of that pain or hardship is the promise of a brighter future. The path is not easy….. it was never meant to be easy….. If the path were easy then we would not be drawn together to help eachother along the way.

It doesnt matter if you have GD or not.. if you know someone with GD or any other kind of thyroid problem then you have lived through what this does to people…. it can be a quite a scary thing… there are worse things in life but then we deal with these things as we go…. no one gave us a manual for life…. its the kind of thing you can only write when you have finished.. trouble is by then its no good for anyone else cos you can write it. For now I can only go by a piece of advice given to me by my father many years ago that I have never yeat heard anything more noteworthy

“Everyone has their story. Everyone can teach you something, from the scientist down the road to the tramp in the street.. they all have their truths to tell. But dont forget, so do you! You are no less or more important than anyone else!”

We may not be able to get the whole manual, but perhaps if we get to know enough peopel we will all be able to piece together enough of the pieces to get by.

Thats it… I know it was a long ramble with not much focus but its been one of those days.

take care my friends, I think maybe we have enough in here someplace for at leats a chapter or two!

Andy

[Anonymous]

#1124066

Andy,

I really liked your Run for Cover posting, it was a good musing on the dilemmas of having GD. I’m fairly new at this (diagnosed 5 months ago), and it was helpful to have you spell out the catch-22 of treating this disease. This dilemma is exactly what I’ve been thinking about lately, as I try to decide what the best course of treatment will be for me in the long run.

I was also intrigued by your illness question – I rarely become ill. In fact, until I was diagnosed with GD, I hadn’t had a regular doctor since I was a small child, and I haven’t had anything more serious than a bad cold since I was a small child as well (I am now 30). Even when the inevitable flu bug rolls around, I never get it (unless it’s the stomach flu), even though I’ve been exposed many, many times, and I never have had a flu shot – somehow I manage to always avoid getting ill with anything worse than a cold, even when almost everyone around me is sick as a dog. I caught the chickenpox when I was 21, after my sister gave it to me (she was 10 at the time), and though I’ve heard that if you catch it as an adult it’s usually much worse than when you’re a kid, my case was very mild – no fever, no aches, just the usual itching, and the disease ran its course in a few days with only a few small scars to show for it. I also do not suffer from any allergies, which is a real blessing.

I really wonder now if hyperthyroidism/GD has had a part in my general state of well-being? How ironic if it has.

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