Advice? Stories?, Health issues

[Tala]

So, two weeks ago I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. They've said that they need to do more tests, and had made me an appointment for today- but when the lady called, I mentioned I'd had shrimp last Tuesday and she made me reschedule for next Thursday. Something about iodine.

They think it's Hashimoto's, but there's also a ton of other things it could be- namely, Grave's and something that sounds horrible.

Anyone been here? Done that? Any advice for me? Something I need to know?

[Tala]

My Thyroid panel came back. Lots of bad things, but this is the most interesting.

Update(cross posted from my Facebook):
So here's what's going on with my thyroid, and I have a fun little comparison with it. In Magic: The Gathering, there's this special shiny awesome red card that basically takes all your goblin cards, and turns them into even more little goblins. It multiplies on every turn. So, you start out with 4 goblins- turn 2, you have eight, turn 3, you have sixteen- so on, so forth. Well, my antibody count is SUPPOSED to be 26. My antibody count is 1,231. Anything bad in my blood, my antibodies basically charge at it like "RAAAAARRRGHGHHHHGGGRRRRRR DIE". To excess.

[Sakora]

I have hyperthyroidism too Tala. Ive had it for 10 years now, so I feel your frusteration.

I dont think it is too serious for me, but everyone freaked because I was just a little kid, and six year olds arent auppose to develop hyperthyroidism. Besides being called rather mean names and having rumors spread about me having eating disorders even though I was just 30-50 lbs underweight because of my thyroid, it isnt that hard to life with. It certainly explained my hyper activiy and why I was eating everything in sight. And missing gym class and being banned from running anywhere was kinda annoying. In a fetal attempt to make me gain weight they told me to eat five meals a day and not exercise...or run. Their plan didnt work, obviously. >_>

The pill/medicine schedule can get kinda annoying sometimes. There was a point I was taking 6 different pills at 4 different points of the day, and remembering the certain times to take which one kinda got in the way sometimes I learned to manage it.

I guess the blood tests can be hard for some people? I mean, when I was six I would scream bloody murder at by twice monthly blood tests, but after 5 years I kinda said, screw it, and got over my fear, because I knew I had hundreds more needles to endure, and being scared at this point was stupid. And now, ten years later I dont even flinch anymore. It gets getting used to.

Luckily, since I was/am still a child/tenn, surgery was out of the option for me, but if it doesnt get better in a few more years i might have to go under the knife to get it shrunk. Hopedully that wont be the case, because for the past two years I have had a normal size neck, and that is apparently a good sign.

So, yeah, I am there. With you. <3

[Tala]

In my case, Hashimoto's has the side effect of weight gain, so. That's nice. But on a different case, I lost sixty pounds when I lived in Iowa. I thought it was because I was starving, but who knows at this point, honestly.

I'm nineteen and according to them, this has been developing since I turned 12. It causes messed up menstrual cycles, and my doctors mistook it for PCOS and put me on birth control when I was 14. The risk of complications is high because one of my test results came back way under the normal range. They'll probably send me for surgery as soon as they get my uptake results back; apparently I'm in an "emergency" range.

Thank you, though. <3 It helps me to know what's happened with you. Do they know your specific cause?

[Sakora]

It was pretty simple frnm. My thryoid was just wonky and wasnt producing the right levels of hormones, which made it grow and swell among other things. It was easy to diagnose, but treating was tricky because they didnt know how much medicine I needed and how effective different ones would be. They experiment with the doses a lot, but figured it out for a while until I hit puberty nd they had to start experimenting again.