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in reply to: In a rush? #1169572
It’s good to hear that you are feeling better. It’s also good that you think you have a doctor you can trust to monitor you well. What I have found in the past fifteen years, is that when my levels go wonky temporarily (and they have perhaps two or three times) that the dose change recommendations made by my GP (who runs the bloodwork when I’m at my second home) and the recommendations from my endocrinologist (once the bloodwork is sent to her) are typically exactly the same. It has given me some confidance that the GP could, in a pinch, or over the long run, make the same decisions as my endo concerning dosage issues.
in reply to: breastfeeding/beta blocker/labs/uninsured #1169677Just a word of advice, regarding your question about whether anyone had taken beta blockers while nursing. In this internet world, you may, indeed, find individuals who continued beta blockers while they breast fed a baby. This doesn’t mean that they SHOULD have done it. Even if they report "no problems," you should –for your baby’s sake — ONLY use reliable medical recommendations, which would come either from your doctor, or your pharmacist (pharmacists tend to know a lot about drugs and their side-effect issues), or both.
in reply to: Newly Diagnosed and New to the Board #1169679Hi, Brelki, and welcome to the Board.
Yes, our brains go into over-drive while we are hyperthyroid, just like the rest of our body’s processes. Our emotional response to events becomes very unreliable. It will help you — and your family — a lot, if you can keep this fact in mind, and try to put some distance between an emotional response to an event, and the expression of that response. I relied on "I" messages: "I know this isn’t your fault, but I am just so angry right now about….." Doing this most likely didn’t help my family completely, but it was a whole lot better than the, "You guys are driving me CRAZY…." that I would have said otherwise. (I had teenagers… )
Once your thyroid levels get back under control, your emotional response to things will definitely moderate — or go back to normal, whatever that might be.
Part of the problem is that we don’t get restful sleep while seriously hyperthyroid, which just enhances the effects of the excess hormone. So it is very important that you do what you can to minimize stresses, demands, and try to get more relaxation, if not actual sleep. Even non-hyperthyroid people get crankier when they are sleep-deprived. Keep in mind that this state of affairs is temporary, we do get well again typically, and cut yourself as much slack as you can until your thyroid hormone levels are under control.
As for sleep problems, I began wearing ear plugs. In my state of heightened awareness, while hyperthyroid, it seemed like every little noise would wake me up and I would have trouble getting back to sleep. If that is happening to you, consider ear plugs to block the minor noises. I didn’t get full nights of sleep until my hormones were back under control, but it did help me to sleep a bit better.
in reply to: New Graves Diagnosis #1062131The dose of RAI that we take is typically designed based on the size of our thyroid and the percentage level of uptake, so it varies — widely sometimes — from one patient to another. If you and another person had exactly the same size thyroid, but very different uptake percentages, the person with the greater uptake would be given a smaller dose, to get the same amount of RAI into the thyroid cells. So, DarcRaven, that’s the long way of saying we cannot tell you whether 18 mcuries is a big dose or not. ; )
in reply to: Commuting and thyroid #1169729Some — perhaps a lot — of research has shown that stress has an influence on the immune system. A lot of times, stressful situations seem to suppress the immune system: for one thing, it has been shown that people tend to get sick after very stressful periods. ANYTHING that causes reactions in the immune system, whether to enhance it, or suppress it, will affect our numbers if it goes on long enough. Most of us assume, if we have had RAI or surgical removal of our thyroids, that our thyroids are completely "gone." This is not necessarily true, even if we went hypothyroid after the procedure. There can be "some" thyroid tissue left. With thyroidectomies, for example, surgeons try to protect the parathyroid region, and the region around the nerve that services the vocal chords. Evidence of this can be found in the fact that thyroid cancer patients have thyroidectomies AND huge doses of RAI to make sure that all thyroid cells have been eliminated. If there is some thyroid, alive and kicking, then it is possible for our numbers to fluctuate with immune system changes. If we have minimal amounts of thyroid left, minor changes in our replacement hormone can "fix" it.
A second piece of information: it is impossible to avoid stress. We can try to structure our lives to avoid some types of unnecessary stress, but we cannot avoid seasonal stresses, deaths in the family, the birth of new children (whether ours or our children’s) etc.
Just recognize that if you are going through major stress from some cause or other, it might, temporarily at least, throw your numbers off, especially if it goes on long enough.
Keep in mind, Romina, that people who do not have thyroid problems can have insomnia. Insomnia is so common when we are hyperthyroid that we do cite it as a symptom of hyper. But it is not necessarily common to have insomnia while hypo, so it isn’t (to my current knowledge) listed as a symptom of hypo. Our sleep does sometimes get disturbed while hypo, by muscle cramps, which are a symptom.
I will "ditto" gatorgirly’s comments on the Kindle. I have had a Kindle now for three years. You can adjust the font to a size that feels comfortable to you (within limitations, obviously), and the fact that it is not backlit makes it much, much easier on our eyes. It does not tire my eyes out the way the computer screen does (or my iPad).
Hi, LEahrae:
I had my RAI right before Thanksgiving one year, and five weeks later was slightly hypothyroid, and started replacement hormone. I felt fine at that point. I was surprised to find that I was, in fact, hypo. And I was delighted to hear my endocrinologist tell me that this was the "worst" of it, over.
There can be successful RAIs, however, that take a bit longer in their effect.
There’s been a definite uptick in the amount of spam making its way into the email account I use for this board — and I’m starting to see foreign sourcing (i.e. posts in cyrillic script, Spanish, etc.)
Obviously, I cannot trace it to my postings here, necessarily, but since you asked……
What dose we get of RAI depends upon the size of the thyroid and the degree of uptake, typically, so there is no "standard" dose given. But 6.9 is not a very high dose at all, in general. What you want is for it to be the right dose for you … one that gets rid of enough thyroid tissue that you are no longer going to be hyperthyroid, ever.
Wishing you good luck with that.
Hi, Leah, and welcome to our board.
If you saw the opthamologist two days before your RAI, and there was no eye disease present, two days after your RAI, whatever is going on is most likely due to some other cause. Sometimes, in a distinct minority of cases, RAI causes an immune response, which can lead to a temporary increase in symptoms of the eye disease. But RAI does not cause the eye disease to occur. But right after RAI, we tend to be very hyper — and we get more hyper during the first week or so thereafter — so there can be increased symptoms related to hyper, which include stress, anxiety, you name it.
There can be weight gain after any successful treatment of your hyperthyroidism. Basically, there are two things going on. Your metabolism reverts to normal, and you may not be able to eat as much as you did while hyper. But more importantly, we lost actual muscle mass while hyper. Muscle weighs more than other tissues, but its presence RAISES our metabolism, allowing us to eat more without gaining weight. AFter successful treatment of the hyperthyroidism, that muscle we lost starts to slowly return. This looks like weight gain, but it is good weight to gain. In my case, I gained about 15 pounds without changing my clothing size one bit. (Muscle is more compact that flab….) How much anyone gains of the good muscle weight varies from one person to the next. But I would suggest that you watch your clothing size, rather than the scales.
in reply to: Will I Ever Be Normal? #1169778The recommendations for how soon to get pregnant after RAI vary from doctor to doctor. They have two different bases. First: You need to get healthy again before starting a pregnancy. This can take many months at normal levels of thyroid hormone. Since it can take some months after RAI to get to normal, controlled thyroid hormone levels, and since it can take months AT those levels before your body heals and you are healthy again, a year is probably an appropriate guess.
Second, most of the eggs in a woman’s uterus, are not "mature" at any given time. The most mature eggs, the ones that are about to be released by the ovaries, are the ones that would most likely be exposed to radiation from the RAI going through the bladder, being expelled from the body. Therefore, some doctors like to space pregnancies at least 6 months after RAI to assure that those eggs most likely to be exposed to RAI were released without being fertilized.
in reply to: Will I Ever Be Normal? #1169768Having aberrant thyroid levels does create emotional havoc, NikkiDay. Our emotional response to things becomes totally unreliable until we get things back under control. One of my friends said she had a sign on her refrigerator that said, "Zero to Bitch in 3 seconds." So try to keep in mind that your fears right now are being fed by the same, unreliable emotions. Your nervous system is "off," you are anxious and tense, and, yes, it all feeds into fears and tears and what have you.
Do not anticipate a "constant effort to maintain your hormone levels" for the rest of your life. That will be the norm for a while, but not necessarily forever. In large part it depends upon which treatment option you choose, and how volatile your own individual antibody levels are. Antibody levels rise and fall for no well-understood reason. Some folks have more trouble than others with swings. While you still maintain your thyroid, you may have more adjustments to make than someone who gets their thyroids rather completely removed, but the norm is for medication levels to stay somewhat constant, within the normal zone, without wild swings.
So, take a deep, calming breath, and try to relax just a wee bit. We do get well again, over time. And welcome to our board.
in reply to: Just diagnosed and weighing treatment options #1169781What do the high TRab antibodies have to do with the pregnancy decision, Kimberly? Do they have an affect on the pregnancy itself? I’m not sure how to use this info.
And, to ksale: You will find that women who have posted here over the years have used each and every one of the treatment options prior to pregnancy. One, significant issue that you need to keep in mind, however, as you weigh the pros and cons of each one, is that, optimally, you need to be healthy when you start the pregnancy. None of the options works instantly to give you your health back. It isn’t as simple as "getting surgery/RAI" or "taking the meds" and you are healthy again. The body suffers while hyperthyroid, and it takes time AT NORMAL LEVELS of thyroid hormone — months of time at normal levels — for the body to heal. I mention this because all too often we expect to feel normal as soon as we get to normal thyroid levels, and it can be a source of frustration. Stamina and energy will return. We do get well again. But it takes some healing time.
Wishing you good luck with your decision.
A thought came to me about this topic this morning. It is only one person’s experience, not validated by research. But about ten years ago, I went to doctors seeking help with nausea. My GP happens to be of the old school — "Let’s see if it is something you are eating…." So, I paid attention to those types of things, and wondered if perhaps the sugar free gum I was chewing in significant quantities could be the cause. So, I gave it up — these gums have sucrose, or some such artificial sweetener in them, known to cause gas, and perhaps diarrhea, but not nausea. My nausea cleared up. A few months later, I was eating some "sugar-free" ice cream, and within the hour was feeling nauseated. I looked at the ingredients, and, sure enough, the same artificial sweetener. So, while I don’t think it’s the thyroid that adversely interacts with artificial sweeteners (because I eliminated my thyroid 15 years ago), I do think that they can cause problems for some individuals.
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