Hi Ski,
Two years ago, my daughter (8 years old now) was diagnosed with ADHD and on medication (Ritalin) for for about 1 1/2 years until her psychiatrist discovered she had elevated thyroid levels during her periodic blood testing. After additional testing, she was diagnosed with Graves disease. The endochrinologist has been able to bring her levels to normal with methimazole, but she would like us to have her undergo RAI this summer.
In the meantime, she has been having increasing difficulty paying attention in school and the school has placed her in a Special Education class. Most of her attention issues have subsided, but are still present to a small extent. She still requires 5 mg of Methimazole/day.
My questions are:
Is it common to mis-diagnose Graves’ disease as ADHD?
Should her distractability symptoms have gone away completely since her blood test results indicate her T4 levels are normal?
Do the blood test results correlate to behavioral symptoms returning to normal?
Will the RAI my further improvements into her behavior or will there be another period of mood swings and attention problems while the dose of the thyroid replacement drug is established?
What are the side effects of the RAI? Is it better to put it off as long as possible (after puberty – will it effect her growth?) or just get it over with?
I know these are a lot of questions, but I’m trying to get her placed back into the regular classroom at school and I am trying to understand what she will be going through in the future, in order to make the best choices for her. The special ed. classroom is very stressful for her because it is only boys and many of them have ADHD and the teacher is really only spending time disciplining the other children. Any help or advice you can give would be greatly appreciated!
Kind regards,
Carole
