Advice please, Worried for my 33 year old son.

[Beverleyb]

my sons heart rate is 125,double what it should be,GP sent him for a heart scan everything ok,he is exhausted all the time and sweats a lot. His TSH was 1.3 range 0.3- 4.20, could he be hyperthyroid? I had a tt due to a goiter and my brother and sister both had graves, so it obviously runs in the family. what he doesn't want is to be prescribed beta blockers ,he wants to find out the cause,could someone advise what tests to go for? Very grateful for any advise ,many thanks! Bev.

[LouiseRoberts]

Hi Bev

TSH on its own is of no real use to anyone!

Info here which might help...

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/diagno...

L

x

[Beverleyb in reply to LouiseRoberts]

Thanks for your reply Louise,I gave my son the leaflet on hyperthyroidism I received from my membership pack,I have also told him the problems we have with GP etc,his reply,"I will see if my test results come back ok,then I will put it down to stress" I feel like banging my head against a wall!!!!!

[shaws Administrator]

The pulse rate is classified as normal between 60 and 100. If your son's is round about 70 then 125 will feel too fast.

If he can afford a private consultation, email [e-mail] for a list of doctors, one of whom may be near you. It would do no harm to take a small dose of beta-blocker till he finds out what the problem is. It does calm your heart rate and makes you feel more comfortable.

Seeing it runs in your family, there is a probability that he has a thyroid gland problem - it is just getting diagnosed.

Before I was diagnosed as hypo, my heart was playing up and I felt very unwell.

heartdisease.about.com/od/l...

[plm1 in reply to shaws]

Thank you for email address for list of doctors.

[Beverleyb in reply to shaws]

Thank you shaws for your reply,I will pass the information on to him.

[vajra]

There seem to be a number of hormonal imbalances (there's potentially lots of other causes too) that can give rise to sweating in addtion to hyperthyroidism B - with cortisol, testerone and related metabolic issues in general high up the list.

I've no experience with testosterone issues, but it's not impossible (but just a possibility) that his symptoms could relate to chronic stress or cortisol levels raised for some other reason too.

TSH can be misleading, but against that it wouldn't from my own experience be typical for a person to be hyperthyroid at 1.5.

If the problem was to turn out to be high cortisol (the Genova adrenal stress test is a good place to start finding out if this is the case - see the Thyroid UK site for access info) then there's quite a range of potential causes including physical issues - although it's seemingly at times the result of a predisposition or womb induced tendency, or post traumatic or current stress issue too.

I've posted quite a bit on my own experience so far of working with adaptogens to lower cosrtisol levels - part of the issue it seems can be that the brain and the adrenals (the HPA - hypothalamic/pituitary/adrenal axis) can become trained/conditioned to over respond to what for most would be moderate stress levels.

Chronic stress/an exaggerated stress response has long been fingered as a common underlying cause not only of their own symptoms, but also of gut, adrenal, sugar intolerance/insulin resistance, auto immune and other problems - often leading to chronic fatigue and if not rapidly sorted initially primary but eventually very likely to especially auto immune thyroid trouble.

Root causes can it seems be wide ranging - lifestyle, mental habits, diet, circumstances, relationships, heredity, inherited behaviours etc. It can be very difficult to perceive/see what's really going on in our own lives - we very quickly come to regard what's always around as 'normal'....

Conservative medicine seems to be reluctant to get involved in treating moderately raised (but still potentially very unhealthy) cortisol levels because it can be hard to decide what's circumstantial, and what's down to some sort of abnormality/'disease' process. (actually an arbitrary and unreal distinction)

I've with others put up these before, but here's one well regarded book: moodcure.com/correcting_cor...

This manual sets out what seems to be a fairly common approach to working with adaptogens: clymer-healing.myshopify.co...

One lady's experience of working with an adaptogen much as above (4 linked pages): medicinegarden.com/2011/02/...

Seriphos (one of the most commonly used adaptogens) seems from my own recent experience to work well, although it's not clear yet whether it'll pull off the re-programming mentioned above in my specific case. Others are rhodiola rosea and lactium. (no idea how they (relatively speaking work)

I've not been able to run down good information on any of these beyond limited data sheets, but most are sold as a supplements and is not a prescription drugs or anything like that.

ian

[Beverleyb in reply to vajra]

Thank you so much for your reply Ian,very interesting and informative ,I will pass this on to my son.Bev