RE: delusions of grandeur?

November 14, 2002

,

Any doctor that touches your thyroid hard enough to cause after pain is a

BAD doctor. You may now have extra thyroid hormone being released and feel

more hyper for a couple of days. So don't panic if this happens.

A proper feeling of the thyroid gland is putting both his hands GENTLY on

your neck from behind , so you just barely feel his hands, and then you are

asked to swallow.

I have had both. Never went back to the rough guys, not only because of

this, but they were the same ones that did not have a clue about anything

else.

ALL endos say diet makes no difference. I suffered needlessly for three

years because of this.

Yes, if you get an unexplained fever and sore throat, DO go to emergency.

But have them do a white blood count, and liver panel. This is the only way

to know if the reaction is truly one that will cause you to stop the Tap.

I thought they were going to do that today ?

What's the deal ? If he says you are allergic and does not do the blood

tests ???

What is wrong with this picture ???

Maybe I need to go back and see what else you wrote today...think I say

something when I was here earlier on my break. But I will send this now, so

you know I am here. :-)

-Pam L-

November 14, 2002

,

Any doctor that touches your thyroid hard enough to cause after pain is a

BAD doctor. You may now have extra thyroid hormone being released and feel

more hyper for a couple of days. So don't panic if this happens.

A proper feeling of the thyroid gland is putting both his hands GENTLY on

your neck from behind , so you just barely feel his hands, and then you are

asked to swallow.

I have had both. Never went back to the rough guys, not only because of

this, but they were the same ones that did not have a clue about anything

else.

ALL endos say diet makes no difference. I suffered needlessly for three

years because of this.

Yes, if you get an unexplained fever and sore throat, DO go to emergency.

But have them do a white blood count, and liver panel. This is the only way

to know if the reaction is truly one that will cause you to stop the Tap.

I thought they were going to do that today ?

What's the deal ? If he says you are allergic and does not do the blood

tests ???

What is wrong with this picture ???

Maybe I need to go back and see what else you wrote today...think I say

something when I was here earlier on my break. But I will send this now, so

you know I am here. :-)

-Pam L-

November 14, 2002

OH ,

Your story sounds all too familiar. I had an endo who was just as calm and

self assured. The nimwit put me in the emergency room eventually. Every

doctor I've had, even my current doc, tells me that diet makes no

difference. When I had the hives, they told me it wasn't thyroid related,

but that I could have a serious reaction to tap and better do the RAI ASAP.

The doctor freaked me out so much, harping on the sore throat leading to my

own death, that I went to the ER the day after xmas to find out I had a

cold. I'm not saying you shouldn't see a doctor if you fall ill, but the

agranulocytosis is a very RARE reaction. My docs all made me think I was a

ticking time bomb, just waiting for the whiplash of tapazole to strike. The

only problem I had was short term hives while on the higher dose and

HYPOthyroidism, caused by a crazy doc putting me on 60 mg of tap a day. I

know how you feel when these docs talk with such confidence and so much

condensation (sp?), but you are on the right track if you ask me. Stick

with it and keep looking for an endo you can talk to. My current doctor,

listed as a top doc by the city of Dallas, is OK for now because she lets me

get blood tests whenever I want. She also mentions my needing RAI

eventually, every time I see her. I just smile and say 'no thanks'. I know

some graves patients have found good doctors, but I feel like I'm basically

treating myself. I go to the doctor for the script and blood tests. That's

about it. Before I was diagnosed with Graves, I never would have thought I

could have such an attitude, but Graves teaches you a lot. You hang in

there and make sure you don't ignore your own gut feelings about your

condition! Nobody knows your body better than you do.

I'm really wondering what they teach these endos in med school...I really

wonder. Every endo I've seen seems to know little or NOTHING about the

thyroid!

KRisti

delusions of grandeur?

> Pam L, I hope you're still on.

>

> New endo was very nice, but he also will not prescribe PTU because

> it's too close to Tapazole. He calmly and nonthreateningly asked me

> what my reasons were for resisting RAI. I gave him 3 reasons, all of

> which he refuted quite smoothly. I told him I think I'm a good

> candidate for remission, as I'm young and my RAI uptake levels were

> borderline and my labs are improving (he also made the same deduction

> that we all did, that possibly the TSH is lagging behind FT3 & FT4).

> I told him that itching is a classic symptom of GD and that I was

> itchy before I ever heard the word Tapazole, and he conceded on that

> point. He said that that was all well and good except for the hives,

> which negate all progress because I could still have a deathly

> allergic reaction. I told him I still want to think about it and

> keep taking the Tapazole at 15mg. He made me to promise to go to

> emergency room if I had the sore throat or fever and he'll see me in

> one week with another lab. I was so proud of my dietary changes and

> he said they wouldn't make a difference. I had to pick my jaw up

> off the floor.

>

> He said all of this so sweetly and with such seeming regard for my

> welfare that I'm wondering if I really am just deluded. Is he

> simply worried about being the doctor who allowed me to have an

> allergic reaction to ATD's? He did mention it...

>

> Funny, I found out I had Graves because the tech at United Blood

> Services said my HR was too high. They wouldn't let me donate my B+

> blood that day, which alarmed me all the way to the urgent care.

>

> So now I'm home, my throat really is a bit tender from all the dang

> squeezing he did and I'm having a fit of despair.

>

> --

> Tap (15mg) and Top (50mg)

> DX 10-15-02

>

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November 14, 2002

,

I bet if you did a poll of all of us, not a one of our doctors would count

nutrition as having any effect at all on GD. They are just not trained to

think that way, since proper nutrition is something they (and the pharm co's

too) can't make a buck on.

I think one can go too far with the nutritional prohibitions, though. No way

I'd cut garlic out, nor have I ever noticed it have any effect on me. But

then, I eat seafood, too and have not noticed any discernible difference

when I do. Maybe I'm just strange. I can also have an espresso and then go

to sleep for the night, no problem.

Terry

>

> Reply-To: graves_support

> Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 04:33:23 -0000

> To: graves_support

> Subject: delusions of grandeur?

>

> I was so proud of my dietary changes and

> he said they wouldn't make a difference. I had to pick my jaw up

> off the floor.

>

> He said all of this so sweetly and with such seeming regard for my

> welfare that I'm wondering if I really am just deluded.

November 14, 2002

,

I bet if you did a poll of all of us, not a one of our doctors would count

nutrition as having any effect at all on GD. They are just not trained to

think that way, since proper nutrition is something they (and the pharm co's

too) can't make a buck on.

I think one can go too far with the nutritional prohibitions, though. No way

I'd cut garlic out, nor have I ever noticed it have any effect on me. But

then, I eat seafood, too and have not noticed any discernible difference

when I do. Maybe I'm just strange. I can also have an espresso and then go

to sleep for the night, no problem.

Terry

>

> Reply-To: graves_support

> Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 04:33:23 -0000

> To: graves_support

> Subject: delusions of grandeur?

>

> I was so proud of my dietary changes and

> he said they wouldn't make a difference. I had to pick my jaw up

> off the floor.

>

> He said all of this so sweetly and with such seeming regard for my

> welfare that I'm wondering if I really am just deluded.

November 15, 2002

There are doctors at the University of Kentucky who do nothing but study the

relationship between diet and automimmune disorders, so there must be

somebody out there who thinks there is a link. I think it's ludicrous for a

medical doctor to EVER discount that what we eat has an effect on us. What

we eat has EVERTHING to do with our health. I'll go so far to say that I

think if people made 95% of their diet plant foods (fruits, veggies, grains,

nuts, seeds) and everything was natural and free of chemical and

preservatives, and the other 5% was fish (that was free of chemicals) and

possibly dairy, that there would be almost no illness in the world. But, of