I had a blood test recently that suggested I have a very overactive thyroid (T3 levels high enough so that the MS nurse that did the test AND my GP rang me about the test results). I feel just the same as usual. Has anyone else had experience of thyroid problems? Would you have known it before you had a blood test?
Having read up about the thyroid, I know what symptoms I might get. Here’s a list of relevant ones from the NHS site: hyperactivity
mood swings – such as anxiety, irritability and nervousness
difficulty sleeping (insomnia)
feeling tired all the time (fatigue)
muscle weakness
needing to pass stools (faeces) or urine more frequently
excess fats in your stools – which can make them greasy and difficult to flush down the toilet (steatorrhoea)
sensitivity to heat and excess sweating
unexplained or unexpected weight loss – despite having an increased appetite (though in a small number of cases, the increase in appetite can lead to weight gain).
I haven’t got any of these, with the exception of muscle weakness. I’m confused (also slightly worried because I have to get my thyroid sorted before I’m allowed to start on Cladribine).
I had an overactive thyroid in my early 20s. It was treated by sub-total thyroidectomy (removal of most of the thyroid gland) eventually. But while it was overactive these are the symptoms I remember:
feeling starving / very greedy all the time, especially eating things like chocolate, never quite having enough
putting weight on (see above!) although most people lose weight
feeling palpitations. I didn’t know what these were at first, it’s really just like becoming aware of your heart racing, especially at night trying to get to sleep. Previously I’d never been aware of my heart beating at all so quite unnerving.
trouble sleeping (see above, palpitations make sleeping quite difficult)
getting out of breath very easily. I hadn’t been the fittest person before, but I couldn’t walk up a hill / flight of stairs without puffing
being fidgety all the time, sort of nervy. At one point my mother asked me if I was taking drugs because I was so fidgety (I wasn’t!)
They need your thyroid gland to stop producing so much thyroxine, in order for the pituitary gland to slow down the production of adrenalin. It’s the excess adrenalin that causes the symptoms I think (don’t forget it’s more than 25 years ago!).
It seems that most people can have their thyroid put right by drug therapy, although the operation I had was because the drugs were just not doing the job very well. A side effect of the thyroidectomy was having my thyroid becoming underactive after a few years. (It’s easier to treat an underactive thyroid than an overactive one.)
Before my thyroid was tested and found to be overactive, my GP gave me some antidepressants. I can’t remember exactly what symptoms I had that made him think that was a good idea. I didn’t take them for long. He also gave me some kind of appetite suppressant. (Which didn’t work). I don’t remember any other symptoms particularly. Even the ones I listed above hadn’t really kicked in initially.
After my thyroid was put right, the weight fell off me within a few months and I was back to being skinny again. Right up until I became disabled by the MS!! Damn it.
By the way, the most common cause of overactive thyroid is what’s known as ‘Graves Disease’, which is another auto-immune disorder just as MS is.
Val, do you mean hashimoto’s endless list of what thyroid deficiency can do? What a terrifying list it is. …enough to make you wanna hang up your boots!
Hashimotos is another auto-immune thing. It’s an underactive thyroid rather than overactive. So has quite different symptoms, but can usually be controlled with thyroxine. Which basically is one of the few drugs that has no side effects (that I know of).
Thanks for all replies. It sounds as if some people had overactive thyroid without any symptoms at first - maybe that’s where I am. My thyroid function showed as normal on blood tests I had in January, so presumably it’s only started overacting quite recently.
Reading again, it sounds as if everyone had symptoms before they knew they had thyroid problems. But I suppose there might be people out there who have had problems but no symptoms, who have never had a blood test. Anyway, my GP is going to treat it if my blood test for him comes back the same and that sounds like the right thing to do. Though God knows I am already on enough pills to stock a small pharmacy.
Hi Sewing chick, I just wanted to check if you are taking biotin as this can make the thyroid blood test falsely high. It happed to me so I had it tested again after a few days off biotin and it was normal.
That’s a really interesting thing. And one which maybe should be more widely known. The last thing you want is to start taking drugs to counteract a side effect from the Biotin.
It highlights the fact that we are often taking supplements which haven’t been medically prescribed. We should all make sure that our GP records show what supplements we’re taking as well as prescription drugs.
I presume you need to go back to your GP Sewingchick and get them to retest your thyroid a few weeks after stopping the Biotin?
You only need to stop tne biotin for a couple of days. It is important to know that the biotin does not make you have an overactive thyriod - it just makes the test results inaccurate. as it interferes with the assays or something. There have been lots of talk about it on the Biotin for progressive MS facebook group about it.
I’ll be speaking to my poor old GP in the next day or two. I had not mentioned the Biotin to him - it didn’t occur to me. I’m having a load of blood tests to celebrate having been on Gilenya for four weeks in a few days. I think they include thyroid stimulating hormone and it should be back to normal by then.
I haven’t been able to see any good effects from the Biotin anyway. Well my hair and nails are great but my walking has got much worse in the time I’ve been on it.
Thank you again to Moyna for telling me about this - it would have been too awful to start suppressing my thyroid without any need to. And it wouldn’t have made any difference to the test results so they still wouldn’t have given me Cladribine…