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Hyperthyroidism + Graves Disease
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Been climbing for about 2.5 years now. At one point I was ripped and climbing in the low 12s. In the last few months I've been struggling to do low 11s and been losing weight and feeling tired. Got some blood work done to check it out and turns out I have an overactive thyroid. My metabolism is running on overdrive. And it's due to Graves Disease. All my muscle is disappearing rapidly. And now I'm struggling on 5.9s. Went to the gym today and I was only able to do 2 routes before I had to call it quits. Really depressing. But hopefully I can get a handle on it. Anybody else have experience with this and climbing? |
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Feel for you. I had muscle wasting from statin damage, which I never fully recovered from, and have had a physiological crash from hormone related issues since May. Mine includes hypothyroid/hashimotos's so kind of opposite your hyperthyroid problem. Climbed the first time since May just last week. The biggest struggle is having to lower my own expectations of myself through being ill, and fighting associated depression. Sorry I don't know a lot about Graves, seems I remember that there are anti thyroid meds, and in serious cases, the thyroid can be removed then you get put on replacement thyroid. I have been researching my own condition and came across this recently, don;t know if it will be of help: http://www.tiredthyroid.com/graves.html There is a lot of controversy over mainstream vs progressive medicine when it comes to thyroid treatment. I am not sure how this pertains to hyper, but for hypo thyroid, it seems there are thousands of people who are being treated by a cookie cutter approach where endos only look at TSH, often deny there is a problem due to whacked "normal range" BS while ignoring symptoms, and when they do treat prescribe only synthroid, which may not work well at all, whereas Integrative/functional docs and hormone replacement specialists will look at it more comprehensively, looking at all related factors (Free T3, free T4 Reverse T3, antibodies, cortisol/adrenal, iron ferritin etc) and offer much more specific and appropriate treatment. I've been half way to hell and am on the slow road back after finding such a specialist who is doing this comprehensively with me. Good Luck to you! |
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Graves is a tough illness but treatment is fairly effective. Look up Bobby Engram if you want some encouragement. He was a NFL wide receiver diagnosed with graves about 10 years ago and came back from it. I hope you can get back to climbing well too. Best of luck. Be careful of alternative medicine for thyroid disorders, you can waste a lot of money and not get much result. |
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Yeah, I've been reading up on it a lot in the last few days. Seems it goes something like this for Graves Disease: 1. Anti-hormone drugs for 1-2 years. So, yay. Seems like modern medicine completely ignores searching for the underlying CAUSE of why your body creates antibodies that target its own thyroid in the first place. In any event, I'm just utterly exhausted all the time right now. I used to be able to do 100 pushups every morning when I got out of bed. Now I'm struggling to do 25. My legs shake when going up/down stairs. I can barely do two pull-ups. And I'm out of breath after doing two warm-up routes at the gym. And this all happened in about two months. I definitely think it's been going on a lot longer. I just never noticed a decline in health/performance until recently. |
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I have hypothyroidism and am a climber. Though it's not exactly the same, I do know what it's like to have wacky thyroid levels and continue trying to climb. The best things I can tell you from my experience are: 1. It's a bit of a rough patch until you get your thyroid levels straightened out. That being said, it will straighten out. It won't be as fast as you want it to be (I'm not patient so I know how frustrating it can be), but know that it will get better. 2. Maybe this is a good time to focus on other styles of climbing. For me, powerful sport is always the first to go. But developing good technique on vertical faces, slabs, and corners are easier when I'm feeling weaker. I don't know what styles of climbing you do most frequently, but the above styles should place much less emphasis on strength and allow you to make progress while you are working through this. 3. Look at the positive... As I said above, it will get better! It's not like arthritis, spinal cord injury, etc. Having a reduction in strength can actually result in positive gains later because it will force you to focus on technique. Then, when you are able to regain full strength, you will be a better climber in the long run. There are also other areas of climbing than just physical strength where one can improve. Look for gains in these other areas of the sport, such as mental toughness/focus, faster gear placements (if you do trad), and better footwork. I agree with what you said about finding a cause, though I haven't been successful in gaining more information on that topic. Though I'm not in exactly the same situation as you, I'd be happy to share my experience. Feel free to pm me. Good luck and get healthy! |
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I had this. Lost all of my muscle. Just walking down the hall or taking a shower would make my heart rate skyrocket. Emotional wreck. All kinds of bad stuff. Do not have any kind of surgery, radiation, thyroid removal. That's all crazy. You just need to take methimazole & maybe beta blockers (or just beta blockers) until you get it calmed down. It will most like go away. Follow what Elaine Moore says. She has a forum you can check out..................she's very helpful..............deserves a humanitarian award or something. For most people this will go away in a few months & you'll be back to normal. For some people you'll go slightly hypo & stay there...........that's kind of where I am at the moment. Let me know if you have any questions. I read a ton of stuff. (By the way all of my muscle is back & never had the extremely scary eye problem that can occur with Graves............still scares me to think about that as I know the antibodies are still floating around) |
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I was diagnosed with Graves Disease in 2010 (as a 25 y/o male). Similar to your story, lost weight (~30 pounds), very high resting heart rate and blood pressure, and had a low grade fever for over a month before it was appropriately diagnosed. I went on a less well known drug called PTU to manage the symptoms because I had a bad reaction to methimozale. (PTU is used more often in Europe.) Maintained steady, then incrementally decreasing dose of PTU until 2015, when I was declared in remission. I went from climbing 12s to not being able to do a pull up. However, once the symptoms were managed, I quickly regained muscle and my climbing strength. So, have hope! I believe it’s not prudent to remove the thryoid unless absolutely necessary. The key to understanding Graves is that your thyroid is the victim, not the problem. Your autoimmune system is the problem. You have to address the underlying root cause. Otherwise you’re simply getting rid of the part of your body that is communicating that something is systemically off. A word of caution: auto immune issues don’t fall within cleanly categorized lines. Rather. they often come in pairs and threes. For example, I’ve now gone the opposite direction and was just diagnosed with Hashimodos, which is a very common HYPOthryoid autoimmune condition. In short, don’t expect quick fixes and steel yourself for a life of managing your thyroid (whether you keep or remove it). But, it can be managed and you will still be able to enjoy climbing! |
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FOLLOW UP: Been on Methimazole and Beta blocker since November 2017. My thyroid hormone levels have slowly been returning to within range. And endocrinologist has been reducing my dosage little by little. Started on 20mg MMI and 50mg Atenolol. Down to 2.5mg MMI and stopped beta blocker. While on beta blocker, resting heart rate was normal (55bpm). But now after stopping beta blocker, it's back up to like 65, sometimes in the 70s. So maybe I need to work on my cardio. All the symptoms of hyperthyroidism are gone. Most of the strength is back. Hell, I can actually bench more now than before. But my climbing game isn't back. I was just peaking into the 12s before, right now still having a hard time with anything over 11b. Latest blood tests show I'm close to going hypO. So doc wants to monitor me closely. I'll know in another week or so if my thyroid levels have come back up now that MMI has been reduced again. I felt my best when my thyroid hormone levels were in the middle or upper third of the population reference range. Right now I'm at the bare minimum level before you're technically hypo. Oh and I do have some eye involvement. It's small, but one of my eyes has bulged a bit. Don't really notice it if you didn't know I had Graves. But if you look closely and I said yeah this eye is bulging a bit, you'd go oh yeah I can see it now. |
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Glad you're doing ok. You may go hypo for a short time before returning to normal. Some people remain mildly hypo. I wonder if that's because they lose so much muscle & don't work to gain it back. Could be a factor. I would just concentrate on being healthy. Eat highly nutritious foods, get lots of sun, try to avoid too much stress, don't smoke or ingest other toxic stuff, etc. I think I have a slightly bulging eye also or a bigger eye or something, but I'm not sure if maybe it was like that prior. I see lots of people who have eyes that aren't quite identical. I think I'm the only one who notices it, but I did go the opthamologist when this all happened & it was measured larger. She would never answer my damn question though as to if that was indicative of the Grave's Disease or if it was just a normal occurrence. So anyway this Grave's is scary stuff. I have to admit I went to a dark place when it all happened. I felt awful & I kept imagining my eyes bulging out of my head. Hope that's all behind me now. Hope you make a full recovery! |
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By the way why do you think this all happened? You probably know better than your doctor. I was extremely stressed out & being an idiot & was taking a large iodine supplement for a while. Both stress & iodine supplements have been known to trigger Grave's Disease, so I think the combo is what got me. |
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I hesitate to comment on something as complicated as Graves Disease, but the unanimous rejection in this thread of I-131 for organ ablation is perhaps exaggerated. My wife developed Graves Disease 40 or so years ago. Had radioactive ablation. Has been on Synthroid since then with good health and no side effects or complications. YMMV Rob.calm |
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I'm glad you're wife is doing well. Back then it wasn't as well-known or maybe the meds weren't available, but nowadays there is no reason to remove the thyroid gland. You can easily control the hyper symptoms until the antibodies calm down & the disease goes into remission (hopefully permanent remission). I would 1000% rather do that than have part of my body removed using radiation or any other method. Now I think there probably are cases where removal of the gland is necessary if a person just can't get the disease under control, but I would advise against it until you are absolutely 100% certain there is no other way. The snythroid works for many people but it's not the same as having a functioning thyroid gland. The thyroid gland constantly regulates the amount of hormone produced throughout the day based on a myriad of factors; with synthroid & no thyroid gland your body no longer has that control. But many people say they feel just fine on synthroid, so it just depends on the person I guess. |
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? Unfortunately if you have thyroid cancer, removal is sometimes the only course of action. I believe the biggest risk of going on synthetic thyroid hormones is the risk of being without them in a long term situation: for example, the Apocalypse. One of the worst relationships in my life was with someone with I believe hypo. The never knew when they were hungry or whatever and their mood swings were intense and sometimes violent. They wouldnt take synth. Sigh. |
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I'm currently feeling great. My endurance is up. My strength is up. I'm doing like 3- or 4-hour sessions in the gym. I'm wearing out my climbing partners lol. Back up to leading 5.11b. I've put on a lot of weight. But I think it's mostly muscle. I've been around 176 lbs. for the last 3-4 years. But I'm like 186 now. Gonna hit up Red Rock Canyon in a couple of weeks. My antibody levels are dropping slowly. My hormone levels are within range. But my TSH is still suppressed. So I'm headed in the right direction. Every month my doc changes my MMI dose so I don't go hypO or hypER. And it takes a week or two for my body to adjust to the dosage change. But once I do, I feel great. Gotta get my calcium levels checked next to make sure I don't have a parathyroid problem along with the thyroid problem. Apparently they are common to have together. If my calcium levels are too high, that indicates a parathyroid tumor, which would require removal. I hear the surgery is really simple, though. And it completely cures the problem. Steve Mack wrote: No way of knowing the "why" or "how". But last year was overly stressful for me. Auto-immune disease like Graves is genetic in nature. Just a matter of what activates the gene that causes it. Could be stress. Could be a virus and your body responds to the attack. Could be environmental. Diet. Whatever. rob.calm wrote: My endocrinologist said radioactive iodine treatment is not the first line treatment. Why? Well let me ask you this: would you rather take a pill to manage the disease, or would you rather take a radioactive substance to kill an organ, and then still have to take a pill to manage the disease? I'd rather do the first option. That said, my primary care doc said that conversely, taking thyroid supplement hormone pill is better since that is a hormone your body naturally produces and needs, whereas anti-thyroid drugs like methimazole aren't. But I figure it's better to try MMI first instead of destroying my thyroid and see how that goes. |
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I had Grave’s disease and had radioablation of my thyroid back in 2006. At the time of my ablation my antibodies were through the roof and my symptoms were pretty severe. I’m pretty sure the whole thing set off by a severe illness that I had a few years prior. Ironically enough, I’m in the medical profession and has no idea this was happening to me until someone pointed out I had a goiter (I thought it was from working out and playing lots of ultimate). It’s true what they say that you can’t diagnose yourself. After my thyroid was ablated, my metabolism went completely crazy and I gained a bunch of weight. During it, I was taking methamazole and propranolol, which they tapered down as my thyroid started slowing down. It took about a year for everything to simmer down. I’ve been on synthroid since then and have had no problems with it at all. I started climbing in 2010 and haven’t had any issues with strength or weakness. I also had some eye bulging btw-I developed blurry vision at one point and freaked out since bulging eyes can impinge your optic nerve, but it was ok. I do see an ophtho every few years though to make sure everything is ok. If I did it again, I’m probably wouldn’t radioablate first and would try the meds for a while first, like you’re doing—to see if it all will go away. At the time, radioablation was standard practice, so that is what my endocrinologist recommended. That being said, MMI and PTU do have side effects and the refractory rate is about 50 percent compared to 15 percent with Rai — see this article ( ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl…). And I can say my quality of life has been great on synthroid so I have no complaints—as long as there’s no Armageddon that takes out the drug stores at least. |
Anfarwal Vr wrote: If you feel great then just ignore, but you may want to add just a tiny amount of T3 to you daily dose. You could add synthetic T3 or 1/2-grain or less of NDT (which contains T1, T2, T3, T4). Some of the reading I've done has stated this could be beneficial. I have a book here by Kenneth Blanchard who treated lots of patients for lots of years, and he found this to work the best. But like I said if you feel great then don't do anything. Seems like every study or experience has it's opposite, so you have to listen to your own body. |
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Contracted Graves when it was still putting people in there grave 35 years ago, I was 20. Lost 1/3 of my body weight, and had a resting heart rate of 120 bpm...Doctor tried for a year to get the thyroid re-correct using tapizal. Got radioablation and have lived with synthroid since. Began needing glasses. Synthroid Levels adjusted over the last couple of years (and the price has gone up 10X), partially that the science matured and also i matured, (physically not mentally...). A friend of mine is considering a research project on things that instigate the disease. She thinks, getting sick (flu or virus) will start the body attacking itself. |
Dash rip rock wrote: Yes, that is one hypothesized cause. Body's reaction to some type of virus or illness activates the genes that cause the auto-immune response. Could also be environmental. Or purely genetic. Or diet. Or allergy. Or... who knows. |
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Well, something new has developed, if anybody knows about these new labs. Reference range in parentheses. TSH: 0.05 mIU/L (0.4 - 4.5) I'm on Methimazole for the thyroid hormones, which seems to be working ok. I feel fine. But I'm obviously Vitamin D deficient, my calcium is right on the boarder of being too high, and my Parathyroid Hormone level is elevated. From my reading on the all-mighty interwebs, it would appear I've got a possible parathyroid adenoma. Meaning one of my parathyroid glands is secreting too much hormone, causing the hypercalcemia and low Vitamin D. Or... I simply have a Vitamin D deficiency because I stay out of the sun since I'm super freakin' white. Or... possibly some other problem. But many sources say doctors tend to want to "monitor" the problem over time and basically do nothing, all the while a parathyroid tumor gets worse and worse. I mean, hypercalcemia and elevated PTH is like 99% a parathyroid problem according to most sources. And they rag on doctors who want to sit back and do nothing for months and months while they just "monitor" the problem. Well that's what my doctor wants to do. She wants me to do a 24-hour urine test to see how much calcium I'm pissing away. And then take Vitamin D supplements for like 3-4 months. And then she'll check my calcium, vitamin d, and PTH levels again. I'm curious if anybody has run into this sort of thing before? Anyway, I'm off to Red Rock Canyon for a week to climb. My doc said that's ok. |
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You may want to post this on Elaine Moore's forum. It will take her a few days to respond & you can't go back & forth with her, so make sure you post exactly what you want to post. I think you could probably lower your methimazole dose some, but I'm not sure. I think the Free T's are a little low. Vitamin D super low like you say. Should be 40 according to some & higher according to some others. Maybe this article applies: http://elaine-moore.com/Blog/tabid/60/Post/531/Hyperparathyroidism-in-Graves-Patients |
Steve Mack wrote: Cool, I'll try that. My doc wants to raise my methimazole dose based on my numbers. I disagreed with her. Said I feel better when my FT3 and FT4 are higher up in the range. But she's the doctor and I'm not... |
