Special Medications for You - Overview
If you have autoimmune thyroid disease including the hyperthyroidism
of Graves’ disease or hypothyroidism due to chronic thyroiditis
(Hashimoto’s disease) you have inherited a tendency to other
medical conditions as well. Some of these are autoimmune disorders
caused by antibodies against your body’s tissues. These include
Type I (juvenile) diabetes requiring insulin for control, rheumatoid
arthritis, pernicious anemia, and bowel inflammations of the upper
intestine (regional enderitis) or the lower intestine (ulcerative
colitis).
Since these autoimmune disorders occur with increased frequency
in you and your close your relatives compared to the general population,
it is likely that one or more of your family members may develop
one of these conditions and require treatment.
There are other medical conditions or traits that happen in thyroid
families as well. Although there is no evidence that these conditions
are due autoimmune processes, you and your family are more likely
to have one or more of these conditions as well. These include an
increased likelihood of developing a heart arrhythmia known as atrial
fibrillation and migraine headaches.
Now that physicians are performing bone density tests with increasing
frequency, especially in post-menopausal women, we are beginning
to learn just how common the weakened bones of osteoporosis are
in the general population. This is a special situation for some
thyroid patients as well, for the hyperthyroidism due to Graves’
disease or a toxic nodular thyroid can accelerate bone loss on its
own as excessive levels of thyroid hormone accelerate calcium depletion
from the skeleton. If hyperthyroidism continues for years or if
a patient is made hyperthyroid by excessive doses of thyroid hormone
treatment, the loss of bone will exceed bone formation accelerating
the tendency toward osteoporosis.
Similarly, a patient with thyroid cancer often must take excessive
amounts of thyroid hormone so as to surpress pituitary production
of thyroid stimulating hormone in an effort supress the growth of
any remaining cancerous tissue left despite treatment by surgery
and radioactive iodine.
Because TFA believes that it is important for thyroid patients
to keep up to date about these other conditions, we are introducing
you to some of them here and invite you to revisit our new and improved
TFA Web site where more detailed information about these medications
may be found. As with all our programs we invite you to comment
on this new program and give us your experiences using these medications.
Collaboration in this manner is in the spirit of the Thyroid Foundation
of American family.
|
