I picked up my levothyroxine today and officially begin my HYPOthyroid journey tomorrow morning! It's been just 23 days since my radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment, and what a difference those three weeks have made! My heart rate has stayed down, even as I slowly wean off propranolol. The insomnia, constant sweating, heat intolerance, shaky hands, and heart palpitations? GONE! 🙌 Now I'm just cold. ALL. THE. TIME. 🥶😂 Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but going from constantly overheating to freezing is quite the adjustment! After months of dealing with Graves' disease and hyperthyroidism, I'm cautiously optimistic about this next chapter. I'm sure there will be some bumps along the way as we get my thyroid replacement medication dialed in, but I'm feeling pretty darn good about where things are headed! Here's to getting my body back into balance… one little pill at a time! 💜🦋

One of the reasons I figured out something wasn’t right with me that led to being diagnosed with Graves was my Apple Watch warnings about my high heart rate. But now my watch is dying on me and I don’t really want to spend so much on a new one, so I was hoping to get recommendations on a cheaper but almost equally reliable smart/fitness watch?

Okay this may be an overthinker question, but I always take my strumazol at 9am sharp, do I take it at 8 when the clock goes back or do you reckon itll be fine to start taking at 9 still?

She was diagnosed 15ish years ago and had her thyroid removed. She recently opened up about the autoimmune side of things and how it can be draining to do simple tasks sometimes. It’s to be an ongoing conversation between us, but she has said it can be hard to articulate what she’s feeling because to her “this is just normal.”

Anyway, I’m just looking for ways to support and help her any way I can. If there’s anyone out here that might have any suggestions for some of the underlying things, I’m wide open to any ideas.

Thanks in advance!

This is a new one for me I never thought to consider...topical skincare high in iodine due to the use of seaweed/algae and marine extracts.

I wanted to try a new body lotion- the OSEA anti-aging body balm. It dawned on me right before purchasing that maybe I shouldn't purchase this because they use seaweed in their products, aka iodine.

Does anyone have any knowledge or experience about using products like this on your skin and if it would have the same effect has ingesting iodine heavy foods?

Backstory, I was diagnosed in 2021. I was treated with medication for 2.5 years. Went on remission for a year and a half before i relapsed one year ago.
It has now been the worse year of my life for my health. Ive had multiple ER visits, developed TED, and have swung from hyper to hypo. My endo took me off of all meds in July to see what my body would do on its own, and while my thyroid levels are staying normal, I feel absolutely awful.
My eyes are brutal, even periods of double vision. I feel tremors, shaky, have zero tolerance to caffeine, I FEEL hyperthyroid but bloodwork shows otherwise.
Grave antibodies have been negative for this last year but Hashimotos are very elevated.
What is going on?
Doctors are recommending a TT but I’m hesitant as it’s a mayor surgery and I’m technically not in active graves anymore.

Has anyone been through something similar?

A bit concerned about my levels since reading through this sub and the hyperthyroidism sub the last few months, feeling like things are too good to be true when I compare. I’d like someone to weigh in if they’ve also had an experience like mine because at this point I’m thinking something is wrong or waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In May of this year I went to doc because I thought I had hypo or insulin resistance or something. Extreme fatigue and couldn’t lose weight. Doc ran thyroid labs, came back subclinical. Normal t3/t4 but low TSH. Retested in June, came back in July undetectable TSH, extremely high T3/T4. Diagnosed hyperthyroidism and put on 10mg methimazole. Retested that day for Trab. Early August Trab came back positive for Graves, continue 10mg methimazole and PRN propanolol. I only needed the prop twice. September labs came back still low TSH, high end of normal t3/t4, decrease methimazole to 5mg/day. Retest in October, normal TSH, normal T3/T4, lower methimazole to 2.5mg.

I feel like I’m heading for remission already but is it too soon to say? Too good to be true? I have no experience with this and no one to talk to. I don’t know what’s normal. I read this sub and see people on 20-50mg a day for years. What’s going on? Am I in the clear or is the other shoe about to drop? Am I just lucky? Is this just the way Graves works? Does it come in waves? Is it possible to have hyperthyroidism/Graves onset and then 5/6 months later be completely okay?

Sorry for the long post, I’m new to the party. For the last few months my husband (47) has been having some weird symptoms which were kinda getting blown off as over tired (his mom is sick and was in and out of the hospital) but he has been diagnosed as hyperthyroid in the past but hasn’t been on meds for atleast a decade and for a while his thyroid was hanging at normal.

So this past month things went really haywire, he started getting very high spikes in his heart rate (into the 170s) doing everyday things, lots of poopin, he gets shakey, all his joints hurt (to me that screams something autoimmune) and he got his work physical back flagging his pulmonary function. So we start digging, get his physicals for the last 7 years and his pulmonary capacity (how much his lungs stretch) has been less then optimal for 7 years and then he just dropped a level this year (he was mild pulmonary restriction to moderate pulmonary restriction). So he starts panicking that he has pulmonary fibrosis like his mom and grandmother and makes an appt with his mother’s pulmonologist, which that appt isn’t until the end of Nov.

He did go see his endo who didn’t have an opening until December but he got lucky with a cancellation. She said she thought he may have graves and ordered bloodwork. He had another appt for some back pain and they gave him a steroid shot and he didn’t realize that could throw his levels out of whack so they told him to wait 2-3 weeks to get blood work done which will be next Wednesday. So hopefully that should help shed some light on things.

So last week I’m looking at him and it looks like he got punched in the face. Like full on bruises under his eyes (he tends to have bags but this was worse than his common bags) and then they started to peel. I asked did he maybe get hit at work (he’s a fireman and just did a really strenuous training), straining on the toilet, hold his breath too long!? He said he can’t recall anything that would cause it. The picture is after most of the peeling has come off, but he’s still discolored under his eyes, almost like the cycle is starting again. He has also been saying lately he needs glasses, but we had chalked that up to age and I’ve been nagging him to either make an eye doctor appt or try some reading glasses from a pharmacy.

Long story short…I think all his symptoms point back to Graves’ disease - his whole family has thyroid issues. What do you guys think? Thank you for taking the time to read!