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in reply to: THINNING HAIR and HAIR LOSS #1062823
First off, every plumber that has come to my house in recent years has warned me not to use Drano type products. So, you might want to purchase one of those plastic hair "traps" that fit over shower drains.
Hair is not considered "essential" by the body. That statement comes from my dermatologist. Hair is one of the first things to lose nutrients when we are ill, and one of the last things to regain "health" once we are well again. So. While you are in the throes of this metabolic disaster called Graves, you need to be very tender with your hair. Use gentle shampoos. Don’t tease it, or overly brush it, or use any harsh chemicals on it. There were times when my hair was falling out in clumps, like the fur on my collies. But once my thyroid levels were regulated properly everything returned — eventually — to normal.
in reply to: jazzercise and graves #1062832The only person who can tell you what level of exercise you may do at this point in time is your doctor.
There are a variety of reasons why exercise while hyperthyroid is problematic, if not downright dangerous. First, the dangerous part — while we are hyperthyroid our hearts are stressed. If you ever did aerobic exercises you may remember how we checked for our heart rate during the course of the program, to make sure that we were exercising at the proper level, the target heart rate, and not too high. It involved taking the pulse for ten seconds and multiplying by six (to get beats per minute). Anyway, while I was hyperthyroid a slow walk out to my mailbox on the street put my heart rate in the target zone. So, slow walking (not even boogying) was doing the job that exercise had previously done while I was hyperthyroid — at least as far as my heart was concerned. In addition, however, and worse, too high a level of thyroid hormone has been shown to cause heart arrythmias — i.e. excess thyroid interferes with the proper beat rhythm of the heart. Exercise can increase that danger. So, only your doctor can tell you when it is safe for you to exercise.
Once your doctor has given you permission to exercise again, you must start very slowly. Baby steps. We lose actual muscle while hyperthyroid. And trying to go back to previous levels of exercise too quickily can result in strains, pulls and tears, not to speak of shin splints.
Try to keep in mind that this, too shall pass. We do get well again. And we get well the quickest by working at whatever level is appropriate at the time. My "exercise" until I got my thyroid levels under control was rocking in a rocking chair (it utilizes muscles) and doing gentle, thorough stretching exercises on the floor. That was a bit of quasi-yoga. I had lost too much strength to do yoga poses, but I could do the breathing and some gentle stretches, and it DID relieve stress.
Wishing you good health again and soon.
in reply to: After thyroidectomy…do I still avoid iodine? #1062838Try to keep in mind that while you are hypothyroid — technically, if not literally — you are not hypo in the same way that someone with a full thyroid that doesn’t work is hypothyroid. You no longer need iodine (to make thyroid hormone), but if you ingest it, it is not going to do anything bad to you. Also, while you have had your thyroid surgically removed, you may in fact still have a wee bit of thyroid tissue left that would need a bit of iodine to function properly.
One thing to keep in mind, Rebecca, is that the many, many people who get definitive treatment (whatever type) and get well again do NOT populate these online boards. The online boards are skewed towards recently ill, and those people who for one reason or another are not doing well. Sometimes, it is the additional complication of the eye disease. Sometimes, they just don’t (for whatever reason) "feel well." But if you will go back through our archives and look, the stories remain the same. The cast of characters, however, changes every four to six months or so. If you look at posts and go to six months previous, and six months before that, you will tend to see a whole different list of posters. The NGDF likes to have healthy people as "moderators." Kimberly, Ski and I fill that role at the moment. We can provide you with perspectives that other boards don’t have. We’ve been where you are, we know how you feel. But we got well again. One of our previous moderators used to sign all of his posts with "I have Graves, and life is good." It’s really helpful to have that perspective.
I know of no body of research that suggests that people cannot tolerate the active ingredient of levothyroxin. None. Levothyroxin is chemically identical to your body’s own T4. Period. It is used precisely as the body uses T4. The only side effects are hyper symptoms if you are getting to much of it, and hypo symptoms if you are getting too little. There ARE some folks who are allergic to one or more of the inert ingredients that are used to make the levothyroxin into pill form. The most typical problems are either lactose intolerance (one brand uses a lactose ingredient), or (and more common), a reaction to the food coloring that is used to distinguish one dose of pill from another. There are pills made without the food coloring, however. But intolerance to one brand does not mean an intolerance to levothyroxin, the active ingredient, and there are lots of brands to try.
I think you should be proud of your accomplishment, staying clean and sober for eight years. Addictions are hideously difficult to overcome. Good job, Rebecca.
in reply to: surgery- after #1062863Issues with talking after surgery, yes, I’ve heard of some. The nerve that serves the vocal cords runs through the thyroid. Sometimes, the surgery aggravates that nerve, and there can be a period of hoarseness that follows. Sometimes the surgeon severs the nerve (but rarely). Anyway, damage of any kind to that nerve can result in voice issues.
in reply to: Post RAI – tentatively optimistic #1062858It is terrific news to hear that you are feeling better.
in reply to: Tearing eyes #1062880Some folks get something called a plug inserted into the tear ducts to try to moderate the problem of excessive tearing. I don’t know how they work because I never went to that point. But you could try running a search of posts on the board, or in the archives, to see what other folks have said about the issue. I don’t think that would help, however, with the light sensitivity that we get.
The important thing to determine now is whether the high doses of methimazole made you hypothyroid, or something else. One way to do that is, of course, the lower dose of antithyroid med, which is what your doctor is suggesting. I don’t know if you have had antibody tests done, but some folks have the antibodies for both Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (which causes hypothyroidism) and Graves (hyperthyroidism). In that case, sometimes the diseases rotate back and forth in an unpredictable fashion, making life miserable.
The puffy face could be due to the hypothyroid levels of hormone, and would resolve if the lower dose of methimazole brings you back into more normal territory.
in reply to: Living with both Graves and Hashi. #1063642One thing that I discovered was that if I am not taking enough synthroid (i.e. am hypothyroid) I have more doubling of my vision than when I do take enough. The explanation was that "being" hypo interferes with muscle action, so the eye muscles don’t work as well together when I am hypo as when I am at normal levels, hence more doubling. Hopefully you will experience improvement as well.
in reply to: Living with both Graves and Hashi. #1063639I have read that some doctors believe it is easier to regulate thyroid levels if the thyroid is removed, in cases like this. The theory is, as far as I can tell, that once the thyroid is gone, antibody action becomes irrelevant. In other words, it can no longer throw your thyroid hormone level off. I’m just throwing this comment out there for you to know about it. If the constant fluctuations are making your life hellish, it might be worth talking this type of thing over with your doctors.
in reply to: RAI dosage #1062888Some perspective: While 20 seems like a reasonably large number, it must be related to the units being measured. So, if you were going for a walk, a 20 inch walk would be much easier, and much, much smaller than a 20 mile walk. When it comes to our dose of RAI the unit is MILLIcuries. One one-thousandth of a curie. It is a wee unit of measurement. And it is being used to give a dose of a radioactive isotope that has a VERY short life span. 8. 1 days in the spectrum of the life spans of radioactive elements is an eye blink compared with other such elements.
As to the 10 half life period: I haven’t done the math. But I saw a chart that had the amount of radioactive element left after 7 half life periods being slightly less than one percent….rounded up, you could say it was 0.8%. So, of that original 20 MILLIcurie dose that will be given, after only seven half lives (49 days for I131), you would have 1.6 ten-thousandths of a curie left .
So where does prudence lie? How much time should we take with our precautions? Rational people can come up with different ideas — and they obviously do, which is what creates so much confusion for us– but the bottom line is we are dealing with VERY SMALL QUANTITIES. Those very small amounts of I131 have not been shown to harm US over the long term. So it stands to reason that the dose is not going to harm someone else, either. Take the advice of the professionals with whom you are dealing. And take a deep breath and try to relax.
in reply to: Not understanding some symptoms #1062905I’m not sure what you mean by finger joints that "catch". Shirley mentioned the ATDs because sometimes they cause arthritis-like symptoms. If the problem may be occurring due to muscle cramping (Shirley thought of that, too), or spasming, that problem does occur while our thyroid levels are out of whack. Usually we see folks report it about the larger muscles though, not the smaller ones. Anyway, I do hope it goes away, and soon, after your treatment. ; ) It doesn’t sound like fun.
Good luck, and I hope you are feeling much better soon.
in reply to: Puffy bags under eyes #1062910As we get older, our skin looses its ability to bounce back from swelling, etc. So, how much those bags under your eyes might recede depends a lot on your age and skin condition.
And, on another point: you should never, ever go that hypo if appropriately timed blood tests are ordered. If you were ignoring advice to get blood tests, that’s one thing. But if you were never told to have the dose checked periodically, you might want to find a different doctor.
in reply to: After RAI when am I safe to be around my baby? #1062930Instead of a geiger counter, please take a deep breath. What is known. The RAI we take has not been shown to harm US and we carry it around in our bodies for a few weeks. It does harm the thyroid, yes. That’s why we ingest it. But it has not been shown, after over fifty years of scientists actively LOOKING for problems, to harm us long term in any other way. That’s number one. So, that being the case, any precautions for other people are not about imminent, or even long term, harm. The precautions that we are given about others are, as you have found out, guesses, but they are to protect them from UNNECESSARY exposure to radiation.
Throughout the years here on the board, the main advice for parents of small children (and, btw, the owners of small animals) is to maintain distance (a few feet) for a week. Ten days, as you have planned, sounds both prudent and rational. Use the time to pamper yourself: you’ve been sick and stressed.
I hope you are feeling well again, soon.
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