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  • Anonymous
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    Post count: 93172

    Hi Bobbi,
    Thanks for getting back to me. I think with feeling so awful and being hit with so much so fast I am getting confused with all of this. My Dr said that I would go in and get hooked up to an IV and then they would be able to do a scan or something. Does this sound familiar to you? I think I am just going to make an appointment just to go an talk to my doc so I can better understand what is going on and what to expect each time I have to go.
    Thanks,
    Deb

    Anonymous
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    Post count: 93172

    I don’t quite understand why the doctor would want you “stabilized” before taking the uptake test. Perhaps it is a different type of test than I had. But the type I did have involved swallowing a small, measured amount of radioactive iodine (a different isotope from the one that is used for RAI treatment, so it does not damage your thyroid). Some hours later (and that varies — for me it was 24 hours) you go back to the nuclear med facility and they position a small metalic rod next to your thyroid. It is like a little geiger counter. Because the thyroid is the only place in the body that collects iodine, they can measure the amount of radioactive iodine that was taken up into your thyroid during that 24 hour period. A “normal” thyroid will take up anywhere from 5% to 30% of the dose that you were given. Anything significantly above that would be an indication that your thyroid is hyperactive. Usually this test is done in conjunction with a scan, which takes pictures of the thyroid (from that same radioactive iodine) and gets a picture of WHERE in the thyroid it went, and tells how big the thyroid itself is. Sometimes someone can have too much thyroid hormone because of a single, called “autonomous”, node on the thyroid. With Graves, however, you would see the iodine everywhere in the thyroid — not in one single spot.

    These tests help diagnostically (to determine if it is Graves’ or not), and also can be used to estimate the amount of RAI needed if you and your doctor decide to treat your Graves’ that way.

    Hope this helps, but remember your doctor might be talking about something else entirely.

    Bobbi

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