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pingu...

can you tell me about the thyroid/heart issues you mentioned earlier please?

it was my rapid pulse that lead to my diagnosis of hyperthyroidism caused by graves.  it had been seriously rapid for about six months before i did anything about it.  my cardiac doctor told me that it would give me an elderly heart if i left it.  well we didnt leave it and i got medication and have been in remission for over a year. but my heart has been faster than i think it should be ever since.  lately ive been having palpitations and today im wearing a 24 hour tape.   

i dont want to pry, feel free to say you dont want to talk about it,but im really curious now about what you said on the other thead about heart problems... im worried ive got permanent damage.

Replies

  • I had an enormous goitre, when he finally took it out, the surgeon said it was spectacular!

    At the start, that was really my only symptom and eventually they diagnosed hyperthyroidism and put me on tablets - I was pregnant and then breast feeding. Eventually though, the goitre was compressing my windpipe so I was coughing all the time and short of breath so they did ct scan to confirm and my windpipe was oval instead of circular, so I had most of my thyroid removed and now take thyroxine.

    My mum was diagnosed after me and she has a heart condition called AF, possibly/probably caused by the hyperthyroidism - because it speeds everything in your body up, it raises blood pressure which is not good for the heart, long term.  she had the radioactive treatment and is now on a low dose of thyroxine.  She now takes warfarin and beta blockers for the heart problems. But she thinks she probably had the undiagnosed thyroid problems for possibly over ten years and it may even be unrelated so I wouldn't panic.

    As long as you're seeing your doctor and following their advice, I'm sure it will be fine. My mum's problems came because she didn't see a doctor and ignored it for all that time.

    Hope that's not too garbled, I'm pretty worn out, ask anything else you like, I'll be back here tomorrow probably xx

  • Thanks for this, it's all facinating.  So do they think that you and your mums issues aren't autoimmune then?

    I'm just waiting for the results of the tape now, could take 10 days.

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