Turns out my son, that was just being checked for depression, has a hyperactive thyroid. Some of his recent issues may be partly caused by this. I'm glad he didn't start taking the Zoloft and I think it's shows the doctor should have waited to prescribe it before having lab tests done.

His grandmother has thyroid problems but I don't know exactly what. My son is freaking out and worried about Graves disease.

Anyhow I'm wondering about treatments that people take and side affects, etc. I am hoping to reassure him that it is manageable and won't screw up his life. He is 17.

.... not a doctor.


Get a thyroid scan for your son. It will show hot and cold spots. Hot spots can signal the thyroid not listening to TSH and going rogue.

OTH, your son is young for this problem.

Reliable info is here.

And info on Graves’ Disease .

Mental health issues are real and not a cause for shame.

quote:

Originally posted by MtnPlinker:
.... not a doctor.


Get a thyroid scan for your son. It will show hot and cold spots. Hot spots can signal the thyroid not listening to TSH and going rogue.

OTH, your son is young for this problem.

Reliable info is here.

And info on Graves’ Disease .

Mental health issues are real and not a cause for shame.

Thank you. He is going to see an endocrinologist. Hopefully we will find out more soon.

quote:

Thank you. He is going to see an endocrinologist. Hopefully we will find out more soon.

Yep. Good choice that is the logical next step. It is treatable. Important that it is caught early. Keep us posted.

Graves' Disease is about the only thing in internal medicine that can be completely cured.

My wife has had this for over 45 years. She developed it a few months after our wedding - she was 23. (Blames it on the stress of marrying me )

She had radioactive iodine treatment and has been taking synthroid or something similar for all these years. Her biggest challenge is always keeping the dosage regulated correctly. She is an RN and pays close attention to these things. Too much or too little can cause rapid heart rate, weight gain / loss and other symptoms. As you get older and your body changes, you may have to keep adjusting the dosage. Regular blood tests (every 1-2 yrs) are a must. She has had 4 kids so a lot of changes throughout these 45 yrs!

While it gets annoying once in a while, it certainly doesn't mean his life is over! My wife does whatever she wants to do without regard for this. It has never been an issue getting health insurance or life insurance.

Almost anything else you can name is worse than this! Good luck

We have a family friend who has severe hyperthyroid, and it really messed her up in many ways. After it was properly diagnosed and after the medication levels were properly adjusted, she feels completely normal and life is much better for her. I am the opposite, I take synthetic thyroid. As time marches on, my dosage creeps up slightly from time to time, but if it's adjusted correctly, you live a normal life. God bless your son, but you should be able to figure this out and get him back to normality with due diligence and a good physician.

Hyperactive or actual Graves disease?

I went through this in 2014. Feel free to email me.

I will update when I am not on my phone.



OK, with the update and my story.

Back in 2014 I started out the year with some weird weight loss. I've always been on the slender side, but I started the year at 5'10" and 170lbs in decent shape. Over about 4 months, I went from that to 120 lbs. I hadn't been 120lbs since freshman year of high school back in 1996.

I was also involuntarily shaking. Imagine shivering like you were cold, but at about half speed. Same thing, you could not control it, but it was slower than if you jumped in an icy river.

It got so bad that my coworkers noticed it, and were asking me if i was drinking too much (due to my hands shaking) or what not. THen, the straw that broke the camel's back was a suspect's mom noticed it on a call and called in a complaint, trying to tell my Sgt that I was "scared" because I was shaking on a call.

It was all involuntary due to Grave's Disease.

I also was extremely sensitive to heat, and nearly impervious to cold. I was eating 6000 calories a day. I could literally order the most fattening, highest calorie item, 6 times a day from ANYWHERE and still lose weight.

I looked like a damn skeleton or meth addict. I had a friend actually pull me aside and ask me if i was on illegal drugs (he knew my work at the time).

Long story short, I finally manned up and went to the doctor. They did a test, with putting an isotope of Iodine into my blood that allowed them to measure my thyroid's activity and figured it was going into hyperdrive.

My thyroid basically went fucking bonkers and kicked into hyperdrive and they decided it was full blown Grave's Disease.

Now when you research it, it IS SCARY AS FUCK. They talk about going blind, and all the other complications from it. The good news is, that that is both rare, and mostly, if you ignore the thing. DO NOT IGNORE IT, GET TREATED. IT DOES NOT HURT, OR SUCK MUCH.

The treatment, as my non medical mind understands, is that they basically "kill" your thyroid. You take a different or stronger radioactive isotope of Iodine and it destroys it.

The fallout from that is that you have to take a synthetic hormone for the rest of your life. You thyroid basically controls your metabolism by producing this one hormone, and with Grave's you produce WAY more of it that you are supposed to. So by killing the thyroid and putting you an a synthetic, they basically make it a man made thing as opposed to natural thing.

Fair warning, I'm a bit pissed at my doctor. They have increased my dosage of my synthetic hormone 5 times in 4 years. I have gone back up to my normal weight of 175 and even gotten up to 205. Despite me telling him my dose was too low, he REFUSED to increase it other than tiny increments.

So now i have to be much more careful what I eat and drink because the doc either doens't want to admit that he killed more of the thyroid than he intended, or doesn't want to admit he has underestimated the dosage for 4 years.

Lastly, according to the pharmicist, the drug is difficult to get into your system.

I'm told that I need to take the pill with water, and absolutely NO food for at bare min 30 mins after taking it. I also should not take the pill on anything other than an empty stomach. That leaves you with taking it IMMEDIATELY when you wake up, and hoping you have 30 mins to wait before breakfast. That may take some discipline.

Good luck, and obviously, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me, or give me a number and I'll call you and discuss it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KevinCW,

Before being diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2009, my thyroid went 10-8 (hyper). I lost about 45 pounds in a short amount of time, had no energy but always moving or fidgeting. My dog started staring at me constantly, even in my sleep, always looking worried. The Docs even thought I was anorexic till they saw how much I was eating in the hospital. By happenstance, a Doc noticed my thyroid at the very tippy top of a chest CAT scan, soon after came the cancer diagnosis. One of the easiest to treat cancers. Out came my thyroid, then radiation of any remaining thyroid tissue to kill it all. Been on Synthroid ever since and feel good, even gained those 45 pounds (and more) back. Biggest thing really is HAVING to take that synthroid pill EVERY morning.

Not trying to shake you, but IF you do hear hear the C word thrown around, don't worry too much. E-mail if you want to talk.

Thanks for all the info. We will have to wait for the specialist before we know more. We don't know if it's Graves or not. I don't have a lot of detail but his grandmother has thyroid issues. She will usually say her thyroid is acting up. But it's my ex wife's mom and communication isn't great so I don't know what she is diagnosed with but she lives a healthy happy life.

I'm just really worried because I don't want him to have to go through a life of dealing with pills and treatment stuff. This kid has horrible luck. He has pulmonary stenosis. As a baby he had urinary dialysis, had a spinal tap for infection once, had tubes in his ears at 6 months and had surgery for an undescended testicle. His brother hasn't had one medical issue.

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:

I'm just really worried because I don't want him to have to go through a life of dealing with pills and treatment stuff.

As a fellow parent I see your worries for your child as valid. However, all is not lost in the arena of having to take pills the rest of your life if diagnosed with a thyroid condition.

I was diagnosed in 1994 with Graves Disease. I had the greatest of luck to be seen by an 80yr old endocrinologist who direct commissioned into the Navy as Captain/0-6. She was a small town Dr. for much of her life. At some point her kids and other relatives moved away and the practice she was in closed. So she volunteered to serve her country. Talking to a 24yr old kid who had never heard of a Graves or any other thyroid condition. She laid it out for me. Basically 3 treatment options at the time. Thyroid oblete, using radioactive iodine to kill off part of the thyroid. Surgery to remove the thyroid or part of it. And finally taking a medication called Methimazole/Tapazole. After a couple of appointments and me trying to figure out what to do, she gave me a book about thyroid diseases to read. Still clueless she suggested the medication route. The idea behind Tapazole is that it will "train" your thyroid not to put out excessive amounts of hormones. She suggested this because it was the least invasive method and if it did not work then we could consider the other options. He prognosis was that although my thyroid levels were horrible, there was little risk of going the medication route for a couple months or longer to see what the effect might be.

My thyroid hormone levels were super high and like KevinCW I had gone from a healthy 5'10" 160lb US Navy Sailor down to around 120. Thin as a rail and could eat as I please. Was sleeping about 2 hours a day and constantly super amped up with energy. Additionally like kevin I had the shakes/tremors repeatedly and consistent regular headaches.

Taking the medication worked for me. I took it daily for 11 months. My thyroid has been in remission since October 1995. I have had my thyroid battery tests done yearly since then and 3 times my levels have been been found to have miniscule out of range elevation, but testing less than 30 days later found them to be in the normal range. Because of that, I am fully aware of the symptoms that can indicate a relapse which are essentially those noted above by KevinCW and myself.

I didn't get off scot free though. With Graves you will read about eye bulging and eyelid retraction. It only affected my right eye. Initially after my thyroid was in remission, I had 9 surgeries in 1995/96. These surgeries corrected the eyelid muscles, oculare muscle deterioration, and included a bony decompression (removal of part of the eye socket lower shelf bone) and some reconstructive work to make me not look like a cross eyed monster. Things went well for 25 years after that. However, in 2010 I started having muscular issues in the right eye dues to scar tissue build up and age. Being both retired and my wife active duty I was working with the VA and portsmouth naval hospital. I took some effort, but I was able to get a referral to Johns Hopkins Wilmer eye Institute and Dr. David Guyton. I had my first follow on surgery in 2015 and 5 more over the next 24 months, 2 at Portsmouth Naval Hospital by and awesome pediatric Opthomoligist named LTCDR Mike Miller, and the other 4 at Johns Hopkins. I now have a titanium plate in my right eye socket and can see so much better than years prior. Some things were not correctable. There is a lot of scare tissue in there that will just continue to be an issue. I may require more surgeries, but if it takes another 20 years for those, I'll call the entire episode a win win.

My best advise, not all endocrinologists specialise in thyroid issues and not all of them specialize in Graves Disease. If your son does in fact have a thyroid condition, find the right endocrinologist. About 15yrs ago I had a craptastic navy LTCDR who wanted to go ahead and remove my thyroid to "prevent possible future issues" because i had one thyroid battery that showed slightly elevated results. I told that guy he wasn't gonna cut inches from my arteries and wind pipe just because. He was an ass when I demanded to have a second opinion. But push came to shove and I got the second, and third opinion. Been fine for those 15yrs. Fuck that asshole, did I mention that you need to find the right endocrinologist?

Also, if it is graves related thyroid issue, he will need to be seen by an Opthamologist that is intimately aware of the graves related aspects and or specializes in graves ocular related issues. I had a couple of those fights too while seeking treatment. For 10yrs after I retired from the Navy and before I was treated at Johns Hopkins, I was treated/monitored by the Doc I mentioned above, LCDR/0-5 Mike Miller. His specialty was/is pediatric strabismus and ocular treatment, but he also knew all about Graves Disease.

Advocate, Educate, and seek the right docs. Email in my profile, shoot me a number and I'll be happy to talk about it all.

quote:

Originally posted by Sigolicious:

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:

I'm just really worried because I don't want him to have to go through a life of dealing with pills and treatment stuff.

As a fellow parent I see your worries for your child as valid. However, all is not lost in the arena of having to take pills the rest of your life if diagnosed with a thyroid condition.



Advocate, Educate, and seek the right docs. Email in my profile, shoot me a number and I'll be happy to talk about it all.

Hey, somehow I missed this post the other day. I want to thank you for all the detail. I can't say it's making me feel any better. I didn't realize the eye issues could be so severe with the treatments available today. The eye issues are the first thing my son noticed when he looked online and he is scared. I'm scared for him. I can't imagine him having to go through surgeries or all that stuff.

I will keep all this in mind when we finally get the next appointment.

If he starts having an irregular heartbeat, it could be caused by his thyroid problem as was mine last summer.
It caused me to be short of breath and always tired out.
Might try to add a daily dose of Dulse to his diet.

fryedends, I wanted to follow up and see how things are going. Any new news?

Hey! Thanks for following up. I meant to post an update and completely forgot. So my ex had not provided some detail to me. It turns out the test was just slightly out of normal range. My son had gone through some depression due to issues with friends (not clinical depression it turns out ) and lost a lot of weight. So he finally got in to the endocrinologist and was tested again and it was normal so just a “keep an eye knot “ thing. Thank god. Thanks for all the info I got here luckily it seems crisis averted.