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Hyperthyroidism, or just plain ole' anxiety?

Posted , 4 users are following.

kelly58470
kelly58470

Hi! I'm hoping to get some insight on my current situation.

?Five years ago, I went through a really bad patch of anxiety, and was put on an SSRI (antidepressant). It's helped immensely, and I haven't had any anxiety issues since.

?This past March, I started to notice some minor but a bit odd symptoms. When I ran my hands through my (fairly long) hair, I would often get small hairballs that would be tangled up in my hand.  I'd wake up in the mornings absolutely drenched in sweat. And, at times I started to notice my heart racing. It would happen out of the blue, for no reason: while vaccuming, or while on the computer.

?In April, my anxiety got really bad again. I thought maybe my antidepressant had quit working, so I went into the doctor. My heart was really racing, with some irregular beats. They also did blood work, which showed my thyroid levels being normal. I no longer remember what the specific numbers were, and unfortunately I threw the letter from the doctor's away. I just know that they were within the normal ranges, and everything else checked out fine.

?So, I figured it must just be my good buddy anxiety again, and figured I'd have to switch meds. I decided to wait a few weeks, and see if the anxiety would let up on it's own. It did. But, then it came back again after two weeks. That's where I'm at now: day 4 of being anxious again. Besides the anxiety, I've also been having insomnia (this happened to me also when my anxiety was bad 5 years ago), and digestive troubles (did not happen to me 5 years ago). I'm still having the hair loss , although at a much lesser extent, and the overnight sweating is gone.

?When I was telling my Mom about all this tonight, she mentioned that before her thyroid gave out completely 15 years ago, she had about a year where she would have bad anxiety, heart racing, insomnia, etc. off and on. It would show up for a week, and then be gone for several weeks, then come back again. She went into the doctor 2 or 3 times during all that to get her thyroid levels checked, and they always came back as normal. Several months after her last episode, she went in for routine blood work and found out that her thyroid had quit completely.

?What I'm wondering now is if I'm having the same experience she did. Is it possible to have normal thyroid blood levels, but still have an overactive thyroid? Before a thyroid quits, can you have periods of time where the thyroid is overactive, like just for a week or so at a time?

?

0 likes, 2 replies

2 Replies

  • linda187
    linda187 kelly58470

    Posted

    My thyroid disease was triggered by stress due to an abusive co-worker.  Is there a particular stress in your life?  As well, I have heard that adrenal problems can cause thyroid problems especially intermittently as you describe.  You can ask your doctor about that.  You might want to ask your doc to test your for Hashimoto antibodies and also it is important that you take vitamin D as many people are deficient in this and it is necessary for good thyroid health.
  • james22918
    james22918 kelly58470

    Posted

    Hi Kelly, the exact same thing happened to me after going on antidepressants and have bloods done to say that I’m normal and my mum had Graves’ disease and after years of coucnelling and getting worse and worse my mum made me have another blood test for the 10th time and I got diagnosed with Graves.  My endo said that Graves’ disease doesn’t work like this and it doesn’t get worse intermittently and that it just happens in one hit but I think he’s wrong due to the amount of people who have written on here that they think their thyroid and mental health are connected prior to being diagnosed with a thyroid issue.  Have you had all you thyroid levels checked including T3, T4 and TSH as comeitime the doc said don’t check all of em and one may be out. 
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