Hi Group,
I am new and just wanted to share an update I posted on another
board:
I went and saw my Endo yesterday. I wasn't due to see her till a
week from next Tuesday but had had a bit of a flare up the past two
weeks so they had me come in earlier when they got a cancellation.
Two weeks ago I started having rapid heart rate, more agitation, more
labored breathing, more insomnia, shaking hands again etc. and felt
really bad so I called the office. At first they had me take the
Betablockers I already had for the symptoms, which I just took for
the weekend since I don't like how they make me feel and then they
had me do the Thyroid labs again even though I had just had them done
two weeks before.
Luckily, my labs show me still in the normal range, which has just
started to happen in the past month on PTU, after having been
diagnosed with Hyperthroidism in Feb. They also ran a liver enzyme
and blood count test, which I appreciated, to make sure sure I wasn't
having a bad reaction to the meds.
I had my holistic practioner do two things to try and help. He
tried to clear an "allergic" reaction to the meds that he was picking
up from Kinesiology testing and tried to rebalance my hormone
levels. My symptoms get worse at certain times of the month.
I was pleased with my endo appointment. She explained that
these "flare ups" could be due to two reasons. One that even though
the blood is showing fine, my tissues may not be where my blood is
yet. Meaning it is going to take longer for the rest of my body to
feel better and have all the excess thyroid leave my system. She
also said that the heart had memory and since it has been reactive
for over a year since my pregnancy, it may just take longer for it to
stop responding in this way. That all made me feel better and having
her tell me things are looking good and should hopefully be getting
better and better. She reminded me that my body has been through so
much with my pregnancy and then a year postpartum of this building
terrible Hyper state - oh what a year! And that it takes time for
everything to get back to normal. She also encouraged me to rest
more and take better care of myself. I have been staying up way too
late and need to lower my stress level, eat better and exercise
more! I am feeling better today after going to bed earlier and
having a massage/cranosacrial treatment last night.
I was also so happy because I have been wanting to get her to order
a TSI (antibody test) in addition to the T3, T4 and TSH she has been
ordering monthly and she agreed this time - yippee!!! It was a funny
reason she agreed. It wasn't because I wanted it to help me see if
this is in fact Graves or not (she is convinced it is/I am still
hoping it is more of a postpartum thyroid problem and not Graves) but
because I said that maybe down the line we want to have more children
she wanted to order it. She said that I should wait at least 6
months before getting pregnant again and that if my TSI was high she
would more likely want to give me PTU during a pregnancy but if the
TSI was low I could more likely wean off the PTU prior to getting
pregnant. A lot of autoimmune problems do go into remission during
pregnancies and it is alright to take PTU at low doses during
pregnancy and breastfeeding.
She also said that if my TSH gets pulled up from the low normal
range to more in the middle over the next few months I could cut my
meds in half again and maybe over more time come off of them and see
if I go into "remission". I sure hope that is what happens! She
said that being under 40 and not smoking puts me in a better category
for remission from Graves.
I did share with her that I had read that in Japan and Europe it
is standard to test TSI and that having the TSI levels drop is a
better indicator than just testing TSH as to whether one has a better
chance at remission. She wasn't sure about that but (it isn't done
in offices here) but it made sense to me.
Anyways, just wanted to share as I am excited and more hopeful
(don't want to get my hopes up too much) and I hope that this info
might be helpful to someone else. I feel lucky that I did end up
with an endo that is nice, takes a lot of time with me and listens to
me.
Nicole