Diagnosed but no meds!!???

Is your consultant a physician or a naturopath?  Hopefully it's a physician.  It sounds like you have Graves disease and Graves eye disease.  When I was diagnosed, I had blood tests for TSH, Free T3 and Free T4 as well as for Graves antibodies.  I also had a radioactive iodine uptake test and a thyroid ultrasound.  If Graves is confirmed, you will require medication to block your excessive thyroid hormones.  I would get a new physician.  Also, while you are waiting to have all this done, one thing you can do is start on L-Carnitine 1,000 mg and Acetyl-L-Carnitine 1,000 mg. daily.  You can take them together and if you get medication added, you can also take that together with the Carnitines until your TSH level normalizes.  Then you can with your doctor's assistance, decrease the amount of medication and just continue on the carnitines.  At diagnosis I was treated with 10 mg of Methimazole (same as Carbimazole in the UK) for 2 years and my TSH blood result was not even on the map.  Then when I added the Carnitines it rose very quickly to normal levels.  Most recently, my eye irritation has abated so I think if you take the Carntines until you can get a new doc, it will help replace the carnitine that is lost in your muscles through urine in hyperthyroid patients and it should help how you feel.  Please keep us posted as to how you are doing.

PS to Paula

You can find the L-Carnitines in Health Food Stores or ask them to order for you.

Linda

Hi Paula, so sorry to hear all that, why so long i cant understand it, can you not try see someone else, ive been going through it for about 6 weeks now, still waiting for an appointment with an.endoc. Consultant, getting bad headaches, feeling v.poorly and just want help to get on the right meds. It looks like you just hVe to keep pushing things, its awful to feel so poorly and we just seem to be left to suffer.

i wish you luck, but do try to see someone else. Cathy.

No, your consultant should have given you meds not told you to pay for them yourself!!

Has to be said, if the 'consultant' won't discuss it with you then get another!!

I was horrified to read this.  Sometimes you have to make a fuss to get treatment.  I got my gp to prescribe a low dose of carbimazole while I was waiting to see the endo.  It helped a lot.  .  The symptoms can be so severe I can quite understand your concern.  Message to Linda:  I'm trying the carnitine supplements.  Thanks for the tip. 

I would get an appointment with your GP as soon as possible as I assume it was your GP who referred you in the first place.  If so, your GP must have suspected Graves and probably took a blood test, if so, what were the results? If you post your results, along with ranges, someone on this site will advise you.

Paula, it's unimaginable to me that you have presented to your physician with the symptoms you mentioned, especially the eye problems and they don't know that it is Graves?  I met a lady at a thyroid conference here in Toronto who had a bulging eye and problems with the other eye and she told me she had seen 5 physicians before she was diagnosed with Graves.  When I told my GP that and another physician, they were shocked!