Re: New Labs---Elaine.--or any of the other wise people here.

December 12, 2002

" cinephilef " wrote:

>

> P.S. By the way...I don't think I had mentioned this...but...the

> first time I saw the endo he said he didn't have any problem with me

> choosing ATDs but said one thing that could happen would

> be " depletion of bone marrow " and then it could be serious...I had

> not heard that one...Anyone else?

That will be agranulocytosis, already well discuseed in the

archive for the group.

Bone marrow makes neutrophils which are matured into proper

immune cells (at least some of this happens in the thymus),

" depletion of bone marrow " thus leads to less of an immune

system and ultimately to nasty infections.

It is potentially an extremely serious side effect of

antithyroid drugs, but quite rare, and usually gives itself away

early (fungal, or other aggressive infections in the mouth are a

common early problem, at which point you dash down the doctors

for a quick blood test).

In the old days a significant proportion of patients who got

this side effect died, but we now have a treatment to stimulate

the bone marrow to do it's job, another miracle of modern

medicine, but it is only used on the chronically sick.

December 13, 2002

Hi Connie,

Your thyroid levels are a bit low. You could ask about lowering the dose to

1.25 since you're responding so well to 2.5 mg. Could it be your diastolic

blood pressure that's rising? This is the bottom number and it rises in

hypothyroidism. This happens pretty often when people move into hypo.

ATDs have a mild immune suppressing effect so they mildly slow down the bone

marrow's production of white blood cells on occasion. Less than 1% of people

on ATDs have this happen. When they do it's an idiosyncratic reaction that

generally occurs within the first four weeks on ATDs and there are drugs to

reverse it.

You might want to have a TSI next time around to see if you're moving toward

remission. With your low thyroid hormone levels on such a small dose of ATDs,

this is possible. Take care, Elaine

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