[Ski]

#1073822

It’s still a little early (believe it or not) to determine whether the PTU is working for you. It can take up to six weeks for our body just to flush out the excess thyroid hormone that existed before you started taking the PTU.

As far as connections to radioactive events ~ when I first asked my endocrinologist, "how did I get this?" he asked if I lived near Three-Mile Island at the time of the accident, and my answer was YES, which is surprising (both that he asked, and that I could say YES), since now I live in the San Francisco Bay Area! I did a little online research and found suggestions that crystallized radioiodine was released at that accident, and now the incidence of thyroid conditions in the outlying area was extremely high. Within about six months, the "official" site no longer said that. I thought that interesting, since we were already 20 years beyond the event.

Bottom line, though ~ no matter what caused it, we must treat it.

If it is ultimately determined that PTU is not working for you, you still have three options. You can try methimazole (the other ATD) to see if you respond better to that. Or you can proceed to either surgery or RAI treatment.

Talk with your doctor though ~ you may want to wait just a little longer to see about the PTU.

[MonikaOH]

#1019746

My thyroid is not responding at all to PTU.
After 3 weeks of huge doese I am at exactly the same lab test I was before medication.
I got bumps on my neck, hot flashes at night and nausea on PTU.
My white blood cells where low even before PTU.
Does anyone know what’s next?
I also might have suffered from radioactive cloud exposure after Czarnobyl almost 20 years ago.
Can that have an effect?
I was in Poland then, and now there is epidemic thyroid issues outbreak there.

[grekson]

#1073823

I have about the same specific numbers as you.We should get together.We can comfort each other.

[grekson]

#1073824

Most people in Poland are healthy.However Minsk had plenty of victims from what i heard a few days ago.You know I passed Nuclear Power plant in South Carolina while on an Amtrak train and I may have driven by in a car as well.I wasn’t worried and I don’t think it caused my Hyper Graves now.

[Ski]

#1073825

Nuclear plants by themselves wouldn’t be a hazard. The Three-Mile Island accident was one event where nuclear material was released into the air and spread by the lovely spring breeze for at least an hour before the release was stopped. As locals, we were told that there was nothing to worry about, but warned that we might want to avoid drinking milk from local cows for a while (since they would be eating the grass that was potentially affected).

I should point out that I don’t think any potential exposure may have caused my Graves’ Disease. It was a theory my endo mentioned when I was first diagnosed. I think there are at least several elements involved in finally getting Graves’, and the very first thing is a predisposition to autoimmune disease. After that, there are probably several triggers that need to be pulled before the disease shows up. I suppose that may have been one of them, but I didn’t exhibit symptoms that triggered diagnosis for nearly 20 years, so maybe not.

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