Guest guest Posted May 12, 2004 Report Share Posted May 12, 2004 Hi , Thanks for what you've written here, sounds like you've had a tough time of it too. What thyroid meds do you take now if you don't mind me asking. Do you take any psychiatric stuff? I was hoping that my Auntie's diagnosis was going to be so simple. Something somewhere is definitely spirally out of control but I can't imagine her taking ATD's as I'm certain it's more thyroid hormone she needs & not less. Perhaps not Armour though as her T3 is so high? Who knows. I'll get the antibodies & ask them to re-test T3. Her TSH last time was 5.75 so it seems that is zipping around too. It seems in the 70s when my Aunt was diagnosed bi-polar she was actually having a thyroid storm a bit like the one I had at the same age as her - I got a fever, heart racing, sweating, vomiting, that's how they worked out I had Graves, I guess with her they just thought she was mentally ill. It's such an outrage, I just want her to come back & feel her symptoms are so similar to my Mum who's just been diagnosed hypo that the treatment has to be the same. Lithium must have masked the problem methinks. Sorry I'm rambling, time for bed. Thanks again, Fee x x x snip: " " <marin@q...> wrote: > Holy cow!! I cannot believe that your Auntie's thyroid has survived this long! At least at the time of these tests, she was definitely HYPERthyroid, regardless of the TSH testing. The T3 indicates this, positively. From '88 to about '93, I too was diagnosed Bipolar, that is until I took it upon myself to go searching for other answers. I begged 4 different doctors to do thyroid testing on me, after what little researching I did, at that time. Then, in '94, my thyroid crashed and did an about-face to HYPO, since it just couldn't take anymore of this upward spiral. I was in my early 40s then, but your aunt is in her late 60s, so, at this point, some of her symptoms would be different from a younger person. Hyperthyroidism does present differently in the elderly because of so many other changes going on, some due to the hyperthyroidism. I do work with geriatric patients everyday of my life, and they may present with lethargy, dementia, sluggishness, not the hyperkenetics of younger people. I hate to think that your aunt has been suffering this this many yrs, and having a label put on her of mental illness, although thyroid disease that goes untreated for a long time does have it's own brand of mental illness. This is when I get angry. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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