w00t w00t booyah

thyroid might be a lovely place, too, especially given the cancer.

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inagawayuu.livejournal.com

Thanks for the link! And Miwa says Hi :) (I'm his wife)

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Oh yay! Hi!

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lesliepear.livejournal.com

I also had papillary cancer (not Hashimoto's though). I'd be glad to help or she can check out www.thyca.org

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Ditto on the papillary, and I'd be happy to help as well.

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inagawayuu.livejournal.com

Wow! Thank you to everyone!

I dont have too many questions right now, except for what to really expect once I go on the Radioactive Iodine, and how long the normal recovery time is from surgery.

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OK. I went in for surgery on Wednesday morning, went home Thursday afternoon, and was back at my desk job on the following Monday. Really getting back to truly 100% took a month or so, but I was at 85% that first Monday back at work. Part of what it took to really get back to 100% was getting the T4 levels right, and part of it was just time healing. Until your T4 is correct, you won't have quite the energy level you're used to, particularly with exercise.

As for RAI. They'll take you off your T4 medicine (Synthroid/levothyroxine) for two weeks. The second week, you'll go on a low-iodine diet; you'll pretty much need to cook everything you eat fresh. Eating out ist verboten. After that, on a Friday, they'll give you a small dose of radioactive iodine. The following Monday, they'll take a scan, then give you the ablation dose. You may be a little queasy for a couple hours. Depending on the hospital and what state you're in, and whether you have small children, they may want to lock you up in the iso ward, or they may simply let you go home and follow radiation precautions, which basically amount to be extremely careful with body fluids and with staying too close to anyone for too long. But the diet, the radiation precautions, and the mild gassiness were the worst of it. You're going to keep all your hair, you're not going to get real sick, and you're probably going to have a reasonably normal life when all this is over. You will have to take medicine every morning for the rest of your life, and wait after taking it before eating (this is important! if you take your T4 with food it's less effective, particularly with calcium or zinc), and you'll get real familiar with your doctor(s)... but other than that? If you have to face the dreaded "C" word, this is *the* kind to get.

And there's a total metric truckload of information about this on the web. www.thyca.org is a good starting point; I think the most important thing we found on the web is recipes, becaue this low-iodine diet thing is kind of a pain...

(Please note: Once you've had your RAI, and your thyroid is no more, you basically don't care about iodine anymore until they want you to do another scan. This isn't permanent, just about a week and a half. It's just that *every meal* has to be planned in detail...)

Oh, I missed something. Definitely take extra C for a week or so starting when you go back on your normal diet after your RAI ablation dose. I didn't, and I got a nasty sinus infection - it lowers your resistance. But don't take the C during your low-iodine period without checking your specific brand with your doc; some of them have iodine-based dyes in them that you don't want...

Feel free to ask all the questions you want. If I don't know I'll say so. The obvious email address works as well, and we probably should do it that way to avoid spamming poor

kyburg's inbox too badly.. :)

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You know, I don't mind being reminded what helpful friends I have on my FL - not at all.

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You're welcome. I can't *not* help, you know?

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I know the feeling, bubba. I do, indeed.

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No, no, no. I'm Billy-Joe-Bob. He's Bubba.

:) :) :) :)

(Dang. That's the second time in a week I've needed a "johnny reb" icon.)

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Or we can just call you Uncle Junior - I acquired one of those with marriage the last time. It's truly hysterical.

Junior is over 6' tall and 300 lbs. He's also a great-grandfather (I think) -

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Reminds me of a once-friend of mine, who would make wry comments about his baby brother... McClueless was about 5'5" and might've weighted 160lbs soaking wet. Scoot, the "baby brother", was several years younger, but 6'2" and about 200.

But that's Weird Uncle Technoshaman. A la Godfather Drosselmeir. :)

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eve-dallas.livejournal.com

For Hashimoto's, there is also the autoimmune community.

Please give her a hug from me.

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caitlin.livejournal.com

Hashimoto's thyroiditis?

terredancer has it too...

Just FYI. (And I think she's ok with my saying so... if she isn't, she can yell at me. *wry*)

C.

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terredancer.livejournal.com

*peers out from the hypothyroid books*

Not yelling. All's to the good.

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Hashi's is incredibly common. Folks on

thyroid sometimes come in new and almost panicking: "Help, I've got this disease, and I have to take this medicine EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!" Folks take birth control pills every day without as much fuss. But I think some doctors don't do enough to help folks realize that having Hashi's is about as bad as having, say, grey hair or sagging boobs. It happens to a lot of people, and is more treatable than those conditions.

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inagawayuu.livejournal.com

What I don't get is if Hashi's is fairly common, why don't they test for it when PCP's do basic bloodwork tests in checkups? I've had a lot of bloodwork done in this last year, and I always got back results that my thryoid was slightly hyperactive, but within what's considered normal ranges. It wasn't until after I saw the Endocrinologist and she did the specific tests that anything abnormal showed up.

I know that they can't test for every little thing at the doctor's office, but they do try to hit the most common ones, and if Hashi's is one of those, it should stand to reason that it may need to be on that 'List' of standardized bloodwork scans.

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Mine did, that's how it was caught. He says he routinely tests everyone with hashi's in her family (most folks who get it are female, but not all) and he tests all women over 30. I said I didn't have it in my family, but I found out after I was diagnosed that I do. Everyone in my family has Hashi's, in runs in families. My partner's sister has it, a good 10% of the people on my own f'list have it. It's something like 10% of women over 30. Folks can get it sooner (a friend developed it at 10 or 11) but mostly it catches up once folks hit 30. It should be on a standard scan, at least when folks hit 30.

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chefbigdaddy.livejournal.com

just a note to say thank you for the shoes, they arrived to day and we were gonna wait till xmas...but curiosity got the better of us. They are awesome. Thanks again

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