5/13/08

Hyper' again!

As many of you already know, I have Graves Disease, which is an auto-immune Thyroid disease where you basically swing back and forth between being Hyper/Hypothyroid and the ultimate aim is to get you Euthyroid (remission).

I was diagnosed initially March 30 2007 on the verge of a full thyroid storm and since then have been taking Anti-Thyroid Drug therapy as treatment. Zapping my thyroid with a high dose of radiation (the common treatment here) is not an option, as I am in the 25% of Graves patients with the added complication of Graves Opthamology eye disease. Surgery is also not the best option because of this, as they often take too much away and then the eye disease, which manifests itself as bulgy eyes can get very bad. Having the eye disease also gives you a much lower % chance of remission, but I refuse to give up hope.

So I have regular bloodwork and have learned in the past year to be acutely aware of my body changing and the symptoms; I can tell when I am going off without the bloodwork usually.

For the past 3 weeks my resting BP and Heart Rate and have been steadily rising daily, plus I can eat anything and not gain (the only positive), my nails and hair are on hyperspeed growth, I am covered in bruises, much more jittery/anxious and warmer all of a sudden, when usually I am always cold! So I went for bloodwork last week and found out today I am Hyperthyroid once again and back where I was aprox' last May/June.

I won't bore you with the actual bloodwork (for those who posted last time though, I did get and am waiting on a TSI result), but there are certain levels we have figured out I feel best at and they are all skewed again. We have been steadily decreasing my meds, but it seems it was too fast and so my Dr has increased them all upwards again. Now I go a month and get the tests run and we will see whether the increase has been enough to reverse the slide and get me back in range shortly. Apart from the symptoms I listed above, I am actually doing ok and can work if I don't push myself too hard.

This past year has been an interesting experience for me and has really taught me that nobody knows your body better than you do. I told my Dr today if the tests had not comeback as they did, I'd have called the Lab' a liar I was that certain!

So if you feel things are changing in your body, but not hugely or seriously, maybe just a feeling you have - then please listen to those signs and see your Dr. Last year if I had waited another 48hrs I could have gone into a full thyroid storm which is deadly serious and in extreme cases can be fatal.

So here we go again, but I will keep plugging away and eventually I will get this beat or at the very least get off this up/down rollercoaster!

4 comments:

Pam said...

girl you hang in there and continue being your best advocate for your health. getting the meds right is no fun, especially i can imagine when your body is fluctuating on its own. grrrrrr. i feel your pain!

Tess Kincaid said...

Hey, I have thyroid problems, too. They run in my family. Mine is hypothyroidism. Icky.

Rhea said...

I'm glad you know your body well and listen to it. I'm sorry you're having to go through a "hyper" stage again. It sounds complicated, achieving the right balance of meds and all.

Hang in there, and thanks for the message about listing to our bodies. I agree with you!!

Unknown said...

Hi Sarah! I left a message for you at FBI but havent seen you about there for a few days so came here to see how you are doing.

Sorry to read you have gone Hyper again..hope you feel better again soon..thinking of you x