why do doctors look at us like we are nuts

[wendypartridge]

I would like to know why doctors dont like to admitt anything about the thyroid .. its like playing a game for them ... i just dont get it ..I have Graves and accourding to my doc .. well nothing is to do with graves .. sweating shaking .. depression back pain .. but its nothing to do with graves off you jolly well go mad woman

[Clutter]

W3endy, It's easier to assume your female patient is hysterical, hypochondriac, menopausal and mad than to accept, as a GP, you are totally ignorant about most things thyroid. GPs should refer hyperthyroid patients to an endocrinologist for management.

NICE recommendations state:

"If the TSH is abnormal in association with an abnormal FT4 and/or an abnormal FT3, refer for specialist investigations of the cause.

Graves' disease is confirmed in secondary care by testing for thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor antibodies (TSH-RAb, commonly shortened to TRAb)."

cks.nice.org.uk/hyperthyroi...

[shaws Administrator]

Well, Wendy, as they say 'ignorance is bliss'. That's the problem with a thyroid gland dysfunction. They haven't a clue. They have passed the exams - not us.

These are a couple of links and someone who has/had Graves will respond.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/203...

Some of our members have found this book very helpful:-

thyroidlifestyle.com/#!auth...

[Lizzy1606]

I had shaking and sweating ,and would drop cups etc,and my whole body felt like i had run the london marathen a few times ,thats when i was not sleeping due to the palpitions. It took just over 4 years for me to get a diagnosis and it did not come from my GP but a nurse visiting a friend .So i walked in to his office and asked for the blood test and he said he would do them but he did not think that i had Graves .My eyes were popping out of my head and he still said i did not have Graves ,yet that was how the nurse knew.I was refered to the hospital for management.

[Hidden]

Ì know the look, being a Graves patient trying to describe Graves and restless legs syndrome! X

[Mauds in reply to Hidden]

I haven't graves but at the moment I'm overmedicated and boy do I know it. Those tremors are bloody awful and the palps. I'm being put on 7 day heart monitor tomorrow and I know it's my thyroid that's causing all of these symptoms nothing wrong with my heart. Why won't they listen to us

[wendypartridge]

thanks guys for replies X but I think it is digusting the way we are treated .. I read recenty that many years ago people with Graves used to be locked away thought of as mad .. says it all really X

[Clutter in reply to wendypartridge]

Hypo patients too, W3ndy. Untreated thyroid dysfunction can cause psychosis and there have been numerous suicides and misdiagnosed mental illnesses.

[Hidden]

I agree, it is so frustrating and upsetting. Was un-diagnosed for about 10 years with hypothyroidism, symptoms started when I was about 18 and I became quite ill.

I bought a medical book in desperation (no internet in those days) and eventually found Thyroid problems. I had every symptom mentioned for hypothyroidism including very unstable behaviour and thoughts! I had previously told my GP I thought I was going mad. When I presented all my findings to the Doctor, he agreed to giving me a blood test.

I cannot remember the results, ( if he actually gave them to me) but his comment was, "Your results are surprisingly high! I guess he meant my TSH levels.

It is heart-breaking really. I have since had several periods when symptoms have returned (never as severe) but they tell me I am depressed/a woman of a certain age/blood tests are fine etc.I have never been referred to an endocrinologist. I just stopped going to the Drs for years and struggle on.

Thank goodness for this site and I do hope you receive some adequate treatment soon. I do think our GPs are overworked and I can sympathise but they definitely need more training with regard to Thyroid disease etc..

[Kathy21 in reply to Hidden]

Hi Firecrest, I was almost identical to you. Took me 11 yrs to get diagnosed, in the end I went to GP and suggested the things that could be wrong with me eg: glandular fever, heart problem, anaemia Or under active thyroid. He did several blood tests and I was diagnosed with severe Mixadema. That was almost 30 years ago.

[Kathy21]

I think it's because most GPs don't know as much about thyroid problems as we do, because when you have a condition you find out more about it. I also am type one Diabetic and I find them the same with that. Good luck.

[greygoose]

Doctors are not adequately educated in thyroid problems. Why? Because Big Pharma has a huge influence on the training of doctors and it is not in their interests that ANYBODY knows about thyroid! They are making a fortune out of us with all the add-on drugs that they sell to us : slimming aids, blood pressure meds, heart meds, statins, etc etc etc. If we were treated properly and got well, we wouldn't need all that! Think of the money they would lose! So, they try to keep us all in the dark about how to diagnose and treat thyroid.

This all started when they discovered how to make synthetic hormones and set about convincing everyone that synthetic was better than the usual NDT that had been used up until then. It wasn't. And patients started complaining about continuing symptoms. So... they developed the TSH test to prove that it worked (usually, you didn't have to take a very high dose of synthetic T4 to make the TSH drop) and convinced everyone that this was the gold standard test. And the rest is history!

Big Pharma is thoroughly immoral and doesn't care about people suffering. They don't create cures, they create customers! (I pinched that one from Facebook. lol But it's true!) And we thyroid sufferers are their number one customers. So, doctor training is not going to improve until Big Pharma has been toppled from its pedistal. Vive la revolution!

OK, enough of the marxist propaganda. lol But that, dear readers, is the reason why.

Hugs, Grey

[BeansMummy]

I guess I accept that my GP might not be a leading authority on Hashimoto's, but don't understand why she wouldn't then read up on it seeing as she has at least one patient (me!) with it. I try very hard not to sound as if I know more about it when I see her, because I need her to be on my side, but it is still so frustrating.