RE: Re: Appointment Monday, Hung - Changed to mental health

[Guest guest]

Lare,

I totally empathize with your post. I have gone through a sense of mourning for losing 20 years of my own life to hypothyroidism that could have been a much higher quality, especially the years raising my babies. My doctors at least had the excuse that my TSH is normal. But somebody should have listened!

My father died of malignant melanoma. He was grateful for a terminal diagnosis because he struggled terribly with suicidal ideations. At one point, he was admitted to a psychiatric unit of a hospital. Once my father mentioned in the ER that he was having suicidal ideations, there was an instant disconnect as far as any physical issues. I know that they did not even do a physical exam. As soon as he mentioned suicide, they called the mental health team.

He was in congestive heart failure while in the psych unit. Who diagnosed it? My mother! Weren't the psychiatrists physicians before specializing? The nurses insisted that he lay flat in bed (they don't have the fancy hospital beds in the psych unit). My dad complied because he was worried they were going to call security or worse bring a straight jacket out. He literally almost drowned in his own fluids. Once my mother had his cardiologist come see him, he was immediately transferred to intensive care. He lost over 20 pounds of fluid in a few days. I rose heck with the hospital and the department of health. The nurses that made him lay flat were terminated since he was in such obvious physical distress which they completely ignored. The hospital tried to tell me that the ER doctor evaluated him and stated that he had seen his cardiologist the week before so his cardiac condition was "stable". My response was that you can see your cardiologist and drop dead of a heart attack in the parking lot 20 minutes later.

All this to say, that it is so discouraging that physiological reasons for mental health challenges are not looked at more carefully. It makes me sad to think of the poor quality of the last few years of my father's life. None of the antidepressants seem to really help him. I just have to wonder if there was some underlying physiological cause. He was never diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I don't know whether he was ever tested.

Dr Broda book mentions at least one story of a woman who had to be checked into a mental health facility every year, I think during the winter until she was diagnosed and treated for hypothyroidism.

Kim

From: Texas_Thyroid_Groups [mailto:Texas_Thyroid_Groups ] On Behalf Of larenh@...Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 7:36 PMTo: Texas_Thyroid_Groups Subject: RE: Re: Appointment Monday, Hung

Dear group,

I have been a member since August and have been finding out more and more about my family history and am now just devastated to learn what I think might be a connection. What do you think?

I just saw this post about the link between schizophrenia and hypothyroidism. I am just now learning about the possible connection and want to comment to you all on the story of my Mother.

I have believed my entire life that my Mother was a paranoid schizophrenic. In 1968 she was taken all the way from Midland in west Texas , to St. ’s hospital in Galveston and given three months of daily heavy (now illegal) shock treatments. She came home and could not remember how to sew or where the bathroom was in our house. She went again for more treatments a year later and even more of her mind was erased. She stayed on anti psychotic medicine for the rest of her life. She is an extremely talented artist and an intelligent person. Most people who knew her did not know she had a mental illness unless they knew our family. We never hid it. We were all taught that it was just a disease and nothing to be ashamed of.

Now, as an adult in peri-menopause who has had a recent diagnosis and terrible journey finding out what the real problem was with me, I think I have now found out what might have been wrong with my mom, and if it is true then her life was absolutely stolen from her because of the idiocy of doctors and their lack of thoroughly investigating the symptoms.

I was just diagnosed with thyroid disease this summer after many visits to my PC doc, a cardiologist, an orthopedist (for pretibial myxedema---PCP thought I had a sprain I did not know about) and finally a neurologist. Along with an array of seemingly unrelated symptoms I had developed drug resistant depression, and at this point paranoia because I knew good and well that something was very wrong (I had numb arms and a numb chest, heart palps, inability to think, extreme agitation, (my brain basically did not work) the area above my ankle was swollen like I had CHF and so many other bizarre symptoms I knew good and well there was something horrible wrong). The primary care doc sent me to get 1000.00 + worth of test for each individual symptom and I just paid and paid all to be told everything was normal.

Dr. Shank, the neurologist who did the brain MRI finally diagnosed me just before she did an EEG to find out why I had such constant pins and needles and numbness in my chest and down my arms. Before she got started she tested my reflexes and they were completely unresponsive. She looked at me and then said, “Lare, this is not a normal presentation, let me do some further blood work” and low and behold thousand of dollars later she finally found out that my TSH was at 22.5

I got a call when the blood work came back and she told me my PCP could handle this. I at this point was so relieved to know that the terrorists had not poisoned my well and that my husband was not slipping me cyanide or something(I told you I was paranoid) that I took the .75 mg of synthroid with great enthusiasm and waited to get well. That is until I went to the bookstore, and started reading about all the controversy. I then got on line, went to this site, absorbed enough to know to go see Dr. Launius first and then started to finally get well. He laughed at the 75 mg. and said I would never feel better on that, and gave me 4 grains of Armour and that is where I stayed until I backed off to 2.5 via Dr. Gerard at the FEM center and now as I should have known better am going back to 4 grains and Dr. Launius. All those symptoms returned almost immediately, and I called Dr, Launius back up and am grateful to have him.

This is going on too long and I apologize, but here is what I really want you all to know and is the really sad and amazing part. Everyone in my mother’s family (all three sisters and her mother) had thyroid disease. At some point a doctor told mother she needed thyroid medicine but she never took it. Recently I saw a picture of her and she had a huge goiter in her neck when she was just a teenager. Unfortunately, she did not follow up on that part of her health and for years had been considered terribly mentally ill.

I know now that had I not gotten treatment and the right kind then I would could have also been considered absolutely crazy. I feel so bad for my mother and want to have her looked at right away. She is in Austin and I have been her guardian for the last five years. I am going to take her to see Dr. Mansenero in March. I really think this might be the key to her health and if it is true then so much of her life has literally been stolen from her. I am just sick about it. I want to sue every hospital that ever held her and did not do the right test and just kept drugging her and shocking her out of her poor little mind. She was never violent, just scared lethargic and sick.

My devoted Dad was a lawyer and trusted that the doctors were professionals who knew what they were doing. She never responded to any of the traditional medicines for schizophrenia and only to one called Stelazine. I suspect it worked in a different way. She did not have all the classic symptoms of schizophrenia….just some of them. Maybe I am grasping at straws but if their is a possibility that she was misdiagnosed then I find it my responsibility to try to get it straight. Not just for her , but for all the other women to come who might go through the same thing and for my daughter and her daughter. I almost want to get her records from all the mental hospitals from way back and see if she was ever even tested properly. I want to submit our family to a study. I am dumbfounded!!

I am sorry to have taken so much space and time. I guess I just find this story so provoking and so sad that I want all of you out there in Thyroid knowledge land to consider what you think about something like this. One that she was never treated at all and what that could have caused in her brain, and then treated like a schizophrenic and two, that all of us (everyone of her female relatives) have some form of this disease and it has affected us all differently. I can’t tell you how sick I was this summer. I thought I was getting her illness- schizophrenia. Thanks God for Doctor Shank and Dr. Launius. I am now taking 4 grains of Armour and feel almost normal now. It is all so much to absorb though. I would have never even known about her sisters all having thyroid disease had I been finally diagnosed. It just never came up at our family get togethers. It was much more interesting to talk about crazy aunt ______. I did not mind though I just thought mental illness was a part of life. I accepted it 100%. Now I am so sad that she might have really had thyroid disease. Whatever you all can say is much appreciated it. I am grateful to have been able to read all you posts. Thank you for being there for everyone. All of you are pioneers. I think I may take her, myself and my daughter to Lubbock. God bless you!!

Lare

-----Original Message-----From: Texas_Thyroid_Groups [mailto:Texas_Thyroid_Groups ] On Behalf Of Kate GuynnSent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 8:53 PMTo: Texas_Thyroid_Groups Subject: Re: Re: Appointment Monday, Hung

Well, with depression and schizophrenia linked with hypothyroidism, I wonder why we concentrate on getting our thyroid to the appropriate level. the problem is most people are not treated with enough thyroid and still suffer with thyroid symptoms including depression.KateAt 08:46 PM 2/14/2007, you wrote:>However there are many out there who choose to ignore their >neurobiological issues and only want to treat thyroid, appropriate or not.>>>> > > >> > > > Hi, Gang:> > > >> > > I got a list of docs from Women's International Pharmacy, and since> > I> > > > can't seem to get ahold of anyone at Dr. Hartig's office--they're> > > > closed today for a computer upgrade--I made an appointment with Dr.> > > > Hung for Monday. He does take BCBS, but the front office gal> > > > couldn't tell me a thing and all the nurses were in with doctors.> > > > Hoping for a good one for bioidenticals and *maybe* thyroid, too. He> > > > is close to the Ellington Field area, on Beamer off Dixie Farm Road,> > > > so that's an advantage. If he's a bomb, of course, I'll tell y'all> > > > ASAP.> > > >> > > > If anyone knows anything, let me know, email is fine.> > > >> > > > There's a site for single women called don'tdatehimgirl.com, and if> > I> > > > had pictures of a couple of guys I'd post them there. (Maybe I could> > > > gt that blogger jerk on there I dated last year, I could mooch a> > pic> > > > off his website.) Wouldn't it be great if there was a DOCTOR site> > > > like that. . .is there one?> > > >> > > > I'll give a FULL report, of course when I am done. I'm thinking of a> > > > system of three strikes and I walk out, and strikes are for TSH,> > > > Synthroid, and antidepressants/statin drugs. Whaddaya think???> > > >> > > > Amy the Redhead> > > >> > >> >>>No virus found in this incoming message.>Checked by AVG Free Edition.>Version: 7.1.411 / Virus Database: 268.17.39/686 - Release Date: 2/14/2007