Sunday, December 26, 2010

Introduction

12-26-07 Hello. I am a 42 year old nursing student who has come down with Graves' disease, a form of autoimmune hyperthyroidism, that also attacks the eyes and sometimes other areas of the skin. I will be logging aspects of my experience with Graves' in hopes of helping others who suffer from it.

I have been having intermittent symptoms of the disease for about a year: hot flashes, irregular heartbeat, tremors, surges of high systolic BP, thinning hair, and so forth. The symptoms set in to stay in September, my eyes swelled in October, and in November, I started to get the anxiety, tremors, weakness and cognitive problems of mild thyrotoxicosis, and the labs reflected that.

When I went in with the swollen eye, my physician thought it was a beginning of cellulitis, or a sympathetic swelling from a sinus infection, but a sinus CT ruled that out. I finally asked her to check my thyroid hormone levels, and they showed hyperthyroidism, And my TSH receptor antibody titer was high, pointing to Graves'.

I thought it might be useful to post a photograph of what my eyes look like currently. The right eye has a lot of periorbital swelling and other symptoms, which wax and wane. The other eye is swollen, too, but only minimally.

So . . . I intend to post from time to time with progress notes. At least one hopes for progress.

As for the name of this blog, it stems from where I live, in northern Wisconsin, where all those beautiful white pines that fed the Cornell, Weyerhaueser, Knapp and Stout companies grew. The second generation is back and towering! This blog was meant for reporting on environmental topics in northwest Wisconsin, but, eh, life—and Graves' disease—got in the way.

Monday, May 10, 2010

"Persistent remission"

From my endocrinologist:

"It appears you are in persistent remission from the Graves' disease."

And he discharged me to the care of my primary physician! How cool is that?

Remission has lasted almost a year, thus far. The last remission was about 14 years.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Still in remission

My first remission from Graves' lasted from age 28 until age 41 or so, and I have my hopes up for another long remission. Whenever I feel out of sorts or get heart palpitations, I begin to wonder if the hyperthyroid symptoms are returning, but so far, so good. The last set of labs showed TSH at 1.2 and everything else perfect, too.

And almost 28 months after my thyroid eye disease reappeared, things are much more normal—just a little sweling around the right eye, and a little double vision left in a coupleof peripheral fields. Not sure if this will ever go away (caused by the bellies of the ocular muscles having become swollen, attacked by my own immune system), but I can certainly live with it. I will always have a bit of a bulgy stare, but not severe.

I was worried when I took a job last March as a nurse that the stress of it would make me sick again, but it did not. And I always had blamed the stress and intensity of nursing school for my recurrence, but in truth, having had a baby at age 37 is probably what triggered the relapse. some of the symptoms began when he was still a toddler, and childbirth is a very common trigger. Just some thoughts. Posting a current picture, showing the eyes. My husband says the right one will still sometimes pop open during sleep, but as my ophthalmologist put it, the corneas tend to stay covered during sleep because the eyes naturally roll upward. So, not much chance of corneal ulceration at this point.

That's my update. Best wishes to those of you with Graves' reading this little blog of mine.

About Moi

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Wisconsin, United States
Le blog, c'est moi