17th September 2006
Hello Maria-
I too was diagnosed with graves disease in May of this year. I am not familiar with carbamazole but I am assuming it is in the anti-thyroid family such as tapazole??? Please correct me if I am wrong. I take methimazole which is generic tapazole.
How often are your levels being checked? With the tiredness, heavy legs, symptoms you are having that sounds like classic hypothyroid. Your ptu might need to be reduced and your current endo probably is not monitering your dose careful enough. You should be having labs every 4 weeks.
As far as the RAI- If my endo was letting me live in hypo-land I don't think I would be so trusting to talk me into to it. There are alot of reproccusions with the RAI. You really need to do your research before considering it. It will irreversibly make you hypo-t as it is permanant. At least with the meds you can come out of the hypo.
I also saw on your post that the meds have given your liver trouble. I am very sorry you are having to go through that. That is an uncommon side effect from what I have read.
If I had to have my thyroid die due to this I would opt. for surgery. The idea of radioactive anything going into my body scares the daylights out of me, although it had been a tempatation in the past. The more I asked questions and researched I soon realized that down the road there could be some serious side effects with it.
Hypothyroidism
Thyroid eye disease can be thrown into overdrive
You will have to avoid contact with anything living for at least 8 days
studies of possible cancers being caused from it
The biggest concern I had was that graves is an autoimmune disease. It produces antibodies that are attacking your thyroid. It is graves disease making your thyroid sick. The thyroid is a victim not the cause. RAI does nothing but kill the thyroid and aggrivate and stir up these antibodies. Antithyroid meds calm them down enough that remission is possible with graves. With RAI there is no going back.
Take Care-Nikki
I too was diagnosed with graves disease in May of this year. I am not familiar with carbamazole but I am assuming it is in the anti-thyroid family such as tapazole??? Please correct me if I am wrong. I take methimazole which is generic tapazole.
How often are your levels being checked? With the tiredness, heavy legs, symptoms you are having that sounds like classic hypothyroid. Your ptu might need to be reduced and your current endo probably is not monitering your dose careful enough. You should be having labs every 4 weeks.
As far as the RAI- If my endo was letting me live in hypo-land I don't think I would be so trusting to talk me into to it. There are alot of reproccusions with the RAI. You really need to do your research before considering it. It will irreversibly make you hypo-t as it is permanant. At least with the meds you can come out of the hypo.
I also saw on your post that the meds have given your liver trouble. I am very sorry you are having to go through that. That is an uncommon side effect from what I have read.
If I had to have my thyroid die due to this I would opt. for surgery. The idea of radioactive anything going into my body scares the daylights out of me, although it had been a tempatation in the past. The more I asked questions and researched I soon realized that down the road there could be some serious side effects with it.
Hypothyroidism
Thyroid eye disease can be thrown into overdrive
You will have to avoid contact with anything living for at least 8 days
studies of possible cancers being caused from it
The biggest concern I had was that graves is an autoimmune disease. It produces antibodies that are attacking your thyroid. It is graves disease making your thyroid sick. The thyroid is a victim not the cause. RAI does nothing but kill the thyroid and aggrivate and stir up these antibodies. Antithyroid meds calm them down enough that remission is possible with graves. With RAI there is no going back.
Take Care-Nikki