[SueAndHerZoo]

#1060590

I know you guys can’t answer this but I thought I’d throw it out there because I trust the feedback and responses from this forum more than I do my endo (sad but true, and I’m sure probably the case with most of you).

In addition to having Graves Disease I also have collagenous colitis, an auto-immune disease that was diagnosed about 11 years ago. Medication helps keep it pretty much under control but I have the occasional flare-ups that require a change in medication, change in dosage, etc. I’m going through a flare now so the gastro doc has me doubling my colitis meds for four weeks to try to get it back under control. It’s working somewhat, but not as well as I had hoped. So of course, I’m trying to figure out what changed over the past month: more stress? Different foods? Illness?

It occurred to me a few days ago that I am having these nervous stomach clenches that I recognize as the same ones that happen when either I’m anxious/excited/nervous about something, or that happen when I’m changing doses of thyroid meds. So it would seem that, yes, these stomach clenches are related to my thyroid and probably irritating my colitis. What DOESN’T make sense is why I would be getting these clenches again now that my TSH is at the highest it’s been since my surgery. When my TSH was even lower a few months ago my colitis was fine. Now that I am finally creeping up towards a decent TSH level, why would these stomach spasms be happening?

Maybe none of it is related, but as you know, we have to be our own doctors and figure this stuff out by ourselves, so any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated. I’ve been at the same dose of Levo for three months now so why would my stomach spasms be happening at this point? This used to happen only when I was CHANGING doses. (shrug).

Thanks in advance for any theories.
Sue

[Liz1967]

#1183550

Sue, you sound just like me! I just had colonoscopy and EGD for the same clenching sensation in my stomach. I had had a slightly high side of normal TSH a few months back, now corrected, but I was sure it was related to that. The minute the gastro doc started talking about the mind gut axis, I knew. All was normal and the clenching stopped almost immediately after I determined I wasn’t dying of anything! I don’t know if this applies at all, but this disease is so stressful and I think the stress complicates everything. I have TED also, and I seem to have one stress related symptom after another. I do know when your thyroid hormone levels are optimal, your mental status improves too. If I get a lab that looks good, it might be a month or two after before I feel better. It seems to work in reverse too, you get a low result and you don’t feel worse for a few weeks, even though you may be correcting the dose.

[SueAndHerZoo]

#1183551

Thanks, Liz….. nice to know you can relate and glad to hear yours has cleared up. Yes, my nerves have always been in my stomach (even as a kid) so I’m totally aware of the connection. But when you are sitting on the couch watching tv and perfectly relaxed and you can feel the spasms and clenches, you know that it’s coming from somewhere other than stress. My chore is to figure out if it’s the colitis flaring up or the TSH level doing it. At this point I have doubled the colitis meds but now I wonder if I should tweak my Levothyroxine a little more to get my TSH a little higher.

Normally I would say this is a no-brainer and that it’s the TSH level causing my colitis flare, but what puzzles me is that even when my TSH was LOWER than this, my intestines were behaving. Maybe this is yet another delayed reaction to the changes we go through with this lovely disease.

Thanks for replying.
Sue

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