Re: Hashimoto's

January 4, 2005

Before the gland in Hashi's dies, it can have major swings from hypo to

hyper to normal and back again. More extensive reading on it will bring

this to light for you. The symptoms you gave are PART of a list of symptoms

for hypothyroidism, which is what will eventually happen with Hashi's.

Hashi's has a long ongoing history in a person and is never completely

cured, only tried to control with thyroid hormone. The autoantibodies are

what cause the exaccerbations back and forth at certain thyroid receptor

sites. Hashi's is a very detailed confusing thyroid disorder. I have it

myself, and my presentation with it yrs ago was a very hyperthyroid stage,

before it was under massive destruction from the autoantibodies. It is the

most common cause of thyroid disease, with Grave's coming in second. There

are other forms of the thyroid disorders, but some are thought to be waning

and waxing variants of these two. As a matter of fact, some believe that

Grave's and Hashi's are simply variants of each other, just with different

antibodies, and a couple of those antibodies can be common to both. You

won't know until you have the antibodies tests run.

Hashimoto's

>

> When I first joined this group last week, someone suggested that it

sounded

> like I have Hashimoto's.

>

> I looked up the symptoms and have to disagree..

>

> Some patients with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis may have no symptoms. However,

> the common symptoms are fatigue, depression, and sensitivity to cold,

weight

> gain, muscle weakness, coarsening of the skin, dry or brittle hair,

> constipation, muscle cramps, increased menstrual flow, and goiter

> (enlargement of the thyroid gland).

>

> I am not sensitive to cold, in fact I am hot most of the time while

everyone

> else is cold.

>

> I am not constipated..but that is due to the fact that I have IBS-D.

>

> I have only had two periods in the last two years.

>

> Angel

January 4, 2005

Yeh, and you know the weird part? I can tolerate NEITHER extreme of cold or heat. Any change in the temp outside, if it is humid and hot, I can't tolerate that. If it's too cold, I can't tolerate that. When we were recently in the 20s here on the Gulf Coast, I was tolerating it better than in the past 10 yrs (more proper treatment), so I can't immagine what that would have been like just a yr or two ago (we rarely get that cold, plus a half ft of snow, to boot, lol!). During the time that I believe that the thyroid disease started, I have had trouble even tolerating 80 degree weather, with the kind of humidity we've had down here, then cold weather, the same thing, with the dampness. I can remember just 12 short yrs ago, I LOVED the cold weather, but liked to bask in the sun also. Now they're both a nightmare. I think that the hypothalamus does this gyration back and forth too, in this disease, since it's actually our body temp sensor for this. Schiz! and can't really keep up with the difference any more, so I believe that this organ is VERY affected by any thyroid disease, depending on how much damage was done all over the body. Since the production of the thyroid hormone is never again what it was before, we have to depend on upping and lowering our extra hormone we're taking, and that isn't perfect because we can't go perfectly up and down on it the way a healthy brain structure used to be able to do, giving all the right signals and timing between each organ involved. This is something that has been SO hard for me to accept, that I may feel better and better, but it will never be perfect again. Lamentations, lol!

Re: Hashimoto's

Angel,

First, it's good to question, it's good to research. It's good to never just sit back and let others decide for you....

But I'd like to share some of the things that we've learned here, through first hand experience and through research....

Hashimoto's thyroiditis involves auto antibodies that attack the thyroid gland with the ultimate intent of totally destroying it... As antibody levels increase and the attack on the thyroid gland increases more of the gland is destroyed and it's production drops... as the production drops the antibody levels drop. As the antibody levels drop the thyroid starts to pick up production, less than before the last attack, but enough to trigger an increase in the level of the antibodies which then renew their attack on the thyroid gland.

The cycle between higher and lower levels of thyroid hormone can vary, from days to weeks to months to years - depending on many factors. For some the thyroid gland dies in a relatively short period of time, for others it may continue to sputter back and forth for the person's lifetime. It's all very individual.

The only way to know for sure if you are dealing with an auto immune form of thyroid disease is to test for antibodies. And even with testing, depending at which stage of attack is in effect that test could actually show normal levels, if the symptoms are there that means repeated testing to see if the antibody levels fluctuate.

I've been both hyper and hypo and have always been heat sensitive, not every one is the same. I know hyper folks that are heavy and hypo folks that are slender.. there is a propensity toward certain symptoms being 'classic indicators' of either hyper or hypo but, again, it varies from individual to individual and when antibodies are involved can change in the same person depending on the cyclical nature of the antibody levels.

Hyper, in me, meant no periods. Hypo in me meant a return of my periods. When my thyroid med doses were low, or non existent my periods were irregular. By calendar and by flow. As my meds and hormone levels were optimized my periods became VERY regular....

... for others that is also different... so again, the only way to be sure is to have your blood levels tested. And that means more than just TSH, you need to have the antibodies tested as well as the available thyroid hormone, Free T4 and Free T3. TSH alone doesn't tell enough to let you know what is going on with your thyroid health.

You may chose to have the proper tests taken.. or may not. Only you can decide which direction you want to go.. either way.. we'll be here....

Topper ()

January 4, 2005

You've just answered a question that I've been having about myself, .... I can't stand heat... even now.. it's 65 in the house and I'm wearing a t-shirt, calf length pants and I'm barefoot.. and quite comfy.... over night I had the thermostat down to 60 and slept like a baby with just the bedspread pulled up. (my sleep cycle is back to normal)

I think my thermostat is stuck on 'heat production mode'.

On Thursday, the folks come home and the thermostat goes back up to 80, round the clock... I'll be back to being miserably overheated again.

....sigh...

Topper ()

On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 07:01:57 -0600 " " writes:

Yeh, and you know the weird part? I can tolerate NEITHER extreme of cold or heat. Any change in the temp outside, if it is humid and hot, I can't tolerate that. If it's too cold, I can't tolerate that. When we were recently in the 20s here on the Gulf Coast, I was tolerating it better than in the past 10 yrs (more proper treatment), so I can't immagine what that would have been like just a yr or two ago (we rarely get that cold, plus a half ft of snow, to boot, lol!). During the time that I believe that the thyroid disease started, I have had trouble even tolerating 80 degree weather, with the kind of humidity we've had down here, then cold weather, the same thing, with the dampness. I can remember just 12 short yrs ago, I LOVED the cold weather, but liked to bask in the sun also. Now they're both a nightmare. I think that the hypothalamus does this gyration back and forth too, in this disease, since it's actually our body temp sensor for this. Schiz! and can't really keep up with the difference any more, so I believe that this organ is VERY affected by any thyroid disease, depending on how much damage was done all over the body. Since the production of the thyroid hormone is never again what it was before, we have to depend on upping and lowering our extra hormone we're taking, and that isn't perfect because we can't go perfectly up and down on it the way a healthy brain structure used to be able to do, giving all the right signals and timing between each organ involved. This is something that has been SO hard for me to accept, that I may feel better and better, but it will never be perfect again. Lamentations, lol!

January 4, 2005

I wonder if coditions like heat exhaustion or heat stroke have any bearing.....Or frostbite. I remember about 15 years ago I had heat exhaustion.I was walking miles in Vegas in the 100 degress temp.(I was not gambling- lived there and that was my form of transportation then)