Re: Radioactive Iodine for Hashimotos/Thyroid resistance - morphed to a LONG Topper ramble

[Guest guest]

That brings something to light....

It seems that, for most, the best way to go about suppressing antibody

activity, while still having a gland, is to increase the replacement dose

to 'full replacement dose'. The idea is that if the gland is dormant it

won't trigger antibody attacks. I hope I said that right....

anyway...

You say that the doc has been adjusting your dose according to labs.... I

know you have to reduce going into a Hashi hyper cycle... but I'm now

wondering of part of what is going on is that your dose isn't getting

kicked back up soon enough after a hyper phase has passed...

Following my thinking? Your dose has been reduced in response to the

hyper flare... your antibodies back off in response to the reduced gland

activity ... this is coming out inside out..... ummmmmmm....

Thyroid produces hormone, triggering antibodies. Antibody levels pick up

and begin attacking the gland, Attack to the gland causes tissue damage.

As more and more tissue is damaged/destroyed hormone production

decreases. The activity of the gland, which stimulates the antibodies,

decreases. So the level of the antibodies decreases and the attack on the

gland decreases. The gland regroups, tries to make a comeback, over

charging (for lack of a better phrase) the remaining tissue in an attempt

put out as much hormone as it can to make up for the period of time that

the hormone output was less than the body's needs.

Now the gland activity has kicked up again and that triggers the next

antibody attack.. as the gland activity and antibodies increase the next

cycle of attack against the gland starts up... killing more tissue....

reducing gland activity again....

If your doc is continually adjusting your dose, trying to 'catch up' to

the cycles....

Where my mind is thinking is that if he's dropping it during a hyper

phase and not kicking it back up right way when the hyper phase tops off,

turns and starts to drop, production drops and you swing toward a hypo

phase.... your body will be going into an actual hypo phase.. with all

the misery....... and the reduced gland activity at that point will cause

the gland to kick things up in that 'panic got to make it up mode'

causing your swings to be more severe.

I know what I'm trying to say... hope it's coming out right....

I'm wondering if it might work out to concentrate on working toward a

consistent dose of replacement (Armour) and work toward that 'full

replacement dose', working toward as much gland suppression as possible,

in order to slow, halt, reduce the antibody and gland production cycling.

Suppression of that gland, is, for 'most folks' a TSH approaching zero

with the thyroid levels being 'about mid range' for Free T4 and 'near the

top or slightly over' for Free T3. (That varies for different people...

some need both frees toward the top.. that's another reason I consider,

for myself, basal monitoring to be more accurate) ... anyway....

I KNOW that some of you guys can't do that very easily and end up dealing

with it until you can get it figured out or until the gland has just

sustained so much damage that there isn't enough productive tissue left

to trigger big antibody attacks ....

I'm not trying to get this to make sense as a way of talking you out of

RAI (you know how I feel about it so won't even go into that) I say it as

a way of taking a closer look at that part of your treatment

protocol/history so that you are sure in your mind that all the steps

have been taken to make it first.... A review of how the cycles work and

that it's possible that, depending on how much gland is destroyed during

the RAI dosing that some of this may still exist after (if there is still

too much tissue remaining if the RAI dose is not high enough).

RAI might be the best way for you to go with how your body is responding

and reacting to with the antibodies and if it is... go for it... I'll

share what tips I have on that matter.... but it'd be a B****ch if you

thought if it AFTER that replacement dosing was off when it came to gland

suppression.

Okay... the other part... if the Armour isn't working for you so hot now

is there going to be problems with it after the gland is nuked in that

the Armour might not work? No way to know.. right now you are dealing

with two huge variables... the fluctuation of the gland and antibodies as

well as the fluctuation in your meds dosing... It's not working at a

level that makes you feel well may or may not be related to how your body

is responding to the Armour (natural thyroid) itself.. but the delayed

responses involved with the fluctuations in gland, antibody and med

dosing/timing....

.... gosh... I just confused the heck out of me.

Ummmm tracking your cycles... have you been charting between blood draws

(labs) so that you have a more accurate picture of when your metabolic

rate is doing a shift in response to hormone levels? I'm wondering if you

are seeing a picture there, in the rise and fall of your basals that will

give a more accurate cue to adjust dosage????

Follow the direction my mind is going with that? We can see in our basals

(waking temp and resting pulse) the shift as our bodies react to

changes..... since we can do those observations daily we will know sooner

when there is a shift occurring than if we wait until the next scheduled

labs..... say for example your gland either surges or drops a week or two

after you've had a blood draw you're going to be dealing with that shift

in hormone levels, that are directly linked to your gland's ability to

function, for more than a month (assuming labs every six weeks) before

labs are done and the doc determines if he wants to make another

adjustment...

That adjustment could actually be occurring at a time when your body is

already doing another shift in response to the change in gland activity

and the resulting change in antibody activity and level......

Picture it like you are watching TV. You're into a really good movie and

suddenly the commercial comes on, the volume on tooo many commercials now

is louder than the show that you are watching. You also have to go pee...

You're remote is broken so you can't just mute the sound for the

commercial so you get up, turn down the volume, go to the bathroom, come

back in and get all cozy in your chair and settle down to watch the

movie. You are just comfy.. the commercial ends. Your movie comes on....

and you can't hear it cuz you turned down the sound for the blasted

commercials.... so you have to get back up out of your chair to walk over

to the TV so that you can hear the show and then go sit down and get

comfy again... You're all comfy and happy and enjoying the show... and

the NEXT commercial comes on and you either have to deal with it blowing

out your ear drums or you have to get up AGAIN to turn it down til the

commercial is over....

Kinda get the idea? Our thyroids are the automatic volume control that

levels out the sound.... the remote is our replacement meds with the

correct dose.... and our getting up and down to use the control on the TV

is not getting the dosage of the meds correct to keep things even.

Any idea how fast you are cycling between hyper and hypo or is it all

confuddled?

I don't have Hashi's... so I can't really relate to what it's like to

deal with constant fluctuations... for me it's a downward cycle when I'm

low on meds and an upward cycle as I bring my levels back up, like what

I'm going through now. For me... even though my perceived peaks and

valleys cover spans of a year or more... it still sucks... I can only

imagine what it would be like to go through them in cycles of days or

weeks.

I do know that, from how my body reacts... I'm adding meds now...

starting up from zero cuz I'd run out of meds... one of the first things

that kicks in for me is appetite.... the body wants to get things kicked

up and working again and part of that is the need for energy.. but it

takes time for the body to be actually strong enough to perform more

energetic stuff.. it needs to increase it's oxygenation, endurance and

strength after being through a hypo phase.... So you are warmer,

hungrier, feel like doing more... but the body isn't quite ready yet..

that's that fatigued hypo feeling part.... Just my take on that aspect.

Thyroid hormone resistance.. that's a hard one to spot in some folks...

my first thought when you asked that was this... if you are hormone

resistant it should show as your having unusually high levels of thyroid

hormone at the same time you have unusually high levels of TSH.

Consider that the labs are testing for the levels of thyroid hormones

that are free and available in the blood.

Consider that TSH is the stimulating hormone that is released as a signal

to the thyroid gland to increase production.

If thyroid hormone levels (free T4 and Free T3) and TSH is high.. that

would be your red flag to look closer to see why....

If you are hyper, thyroid hormone levels in your blood higher than what

your body needs to be healthy causing an unhealthy increase in body

response and function... your labs should be showing low TSH and high

thyroid hormones. TSH signal to the gland reduced to reduce hormone

production because blood levels are too high.

If you are hypo, thyroid hormone levels in your blood lower than what

your body needs to be healthy causing and unhealthy decrease in body

response and function... your labs should be showing high TSH and low

thyroid hormone... TSH signal to the gland increased to increase hormone

production because the blood levels are too low.

Both of those examples are true if your body is acting like 'most

people'.

Hashi's antibodies cause the fluctuations in things which may or may not

result in a delayed body response and therefore a delay in TSH levels

being adjusted by the body... there again we get into the labs maybe not

being the most accurate too to use in determining the change in your

gland's function and antibody activity.

TSH response is (for most folks) days or weeks behind in reacting to a

shift in gland production and hormone levels... and for some that

response is even longer... That's why some folks can go for years and

decades in such a slow and gradual change to an extreme of either hypo or

hyper so as to not really notice... Like me.... I started going hyper at

puberty and continued to gradually increase as the years passed until 20

years later I was in thyroid storm.. granted.. in my case it was all due

to a hormone receptor defect.. but the point is that it happened so

gradually and over such a long period of time that my point of reference

didn't even realize that my body was not acting/behaving like other

people's bodies did.

TSH, testing for you, might not be an accurate guideline.... IF that is

what the doc is focusing on...

Might be a good time to post your last few sets of labs again so that we

can do some comparisons of levels and dosages and time intervals. Lets

see if taking another look at things, focusing on a cycle pattern... that

maybe our communal minds here might spot something that we've not noticed

before....

Just a thought.

You might be at the point where you don't have the resources inside of

you to keep fighting... and I wouldn't blame you there at all...

I'm just letting the words fall out of my brain... my gut reaction to

your comments and questions as your come closer to narrowing down your

decision.

Topper ()

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 05:35:55 -0800 (PST) " J. McCormick "

mccormicklj@...> writes:

> Hi everyone,

>

> Please see the earlier emails below...I'm really

> leaning towards getting the RAI for my thyroid

> becasuse I'm so sick of the Hashimotos causing me to

> fluctuate. My mood in particular is so unpredictable

> anymore - sometimes I feel like I'm crazy.

>

> Topper, I guess I'm ready to accept the risks

> involved. But as I was thinking about it, I came up

> with one more concern. Even though my thyroid isn't

> dead yet, my doc has been treating me with Armour

> Thyroid for the past year (fluctuating the dose with

> my swings) in order to keep me " balanced " . However, I

> haven't really been balanced AND the Armour has never

> really given me energy. I had other effects, such as

> rapid heartbeat, sensitivity to heat, hunger, but no

> energy...

>

> ...He told me I might be thyroid resistant...even

> though my bloodwork shows me as HYPERthyroid, many of

> my symptoms are HYPOthyroid. OR is it that Armour

> doesn't work for me? Anyway, my concern is this: what

> if I get the RAI and the Armour doesn't help me?? I

> won't have any of my own gland left to back me up at

> all. I'm confused and worried. Any thoughts?

>

> Thanks so much!

>

> M.