Hi my name is Courtney. I am 21 years old and recently diagnosed with Graves' Disease. There is so much I would like to share, but do not know exactly where to start, probably because I am no the greatest writer in the world, but I thought by doing this site and getting some things off my chest that it would help and make me understand a little more about what my future will look like. I am still learning about this disease each day and each time I visit my endocrinologist.
About six months ago I started having a lot of symptoms that I had never experienced before things such as; sensitivity to heat, frequent bowel movements, rapid heard beat, enlarged thyroid gland, difficulty sleeping, muscular weakness, aches and pains, racing thoughts, loss of concentration (which was beginning to effect my job) and the main symptom was weightloss. I went from about 140lbs to 122lbs in less than 3 months from what I can remember correctly.
I noticed the weightloss because I had been planning to start a diet and go back to the gym within the next few days or so. Within one day at work I had three people ask me if I was on a diet, which I found weird because I was just thinking of going on one soon. I had not actually been on one at that point in time. So went home that same day and noticed the huge decrease in my weight. Which that is where I began to make excuses for my body and say well I am 20 maybe my metabolism just spiked up all of a sudden for no reason. That is where I was completely wrong. I began waking up from a dead sleep four to five times a night starving. I would eat anything! cake, chocolate, bread, chips. Anything that was visible, was probably going to get eaten by me.
Finally one day at work one of the Physician Assistants came up to me and asked how much weight I had loss. I told her close to twenty pounds, she mentioned to me that she noticed how my face was beginning to sink into my cheek bones and I just looked very pale. Which for some odd reason I did not notice any of the paleness of my face. We began to discuss my symptoms and at first she thought I might have had juvenile diabetes, but she said being a young white female it is very unlikely to develop juvenile diabetes in your early twenties. So she moved onto saying that it could have been something called hyperthyroidism. Well in my experience of working in the medical field, which lets say I do not have much experience ha! I have heard of hypothyroidism and was familiar with that term, but not familiar with the term hyperthyroidism.
I went onto asking the doctor I worked with if he noticed me loosing any weight and as to my surprise he said no, but I began to think well he is working side by side with me five days out of the week and he might have no noticed it honestly. I asked him to check my pulse and it was a outrageous 115 beats a minute. I mentioned to him what one of the Physician Assistants had thought I might have. He proceeded to call his wife who is the only pediatric endocrinologist where we are. She immediately asked him to order blood work. So I went directly to get my bloodwork done and I waited two days before the results came back. Luckily the came on the same day I had an appointment with his wife who was going to treat me until I got in to see an adult endocrinologist. We met and she examined me and discussed what she thought I might have, not to mention my pulse was up to 140 beats a minute. She left the room for a while and came back and thats when I heard the words Courtney, I believe you have Graves' Disease.
I began to get a little teary eyed because the night before I researched hyperthyroidism, but nothing about Graves' Disease. She simply explained to me that hyperthyroidism just means it runs through the family and Graves' means that it is a auto immune disease. Basically my immune system was attacking my thyroid and causing it to produce too much thyroxine.
I started taking methimazole 10mg three times daily for a month, along with a heart medication called propranolol to slow my heart beat down so I would not have a heart attack. After a months time I went back to see my adult endocrinologist which I got established with in the meantime. He ordered bloodwork to see how the past month of taking all these pills went and obviously it did well because my levels were starting to come down already. They were not exactly where he wanted to see them, but he said they were better than my original blood work. He then dropped the methimazole down to twice daily and one propranolol. I went by this for about two months and saw him back again. The bloodwork came back very good again and the then decreased my medication for the final time. So by my third visit I was down to taking only one methimazole a day and I was completely off of the propranolol.
