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I have know several people this has happened to. It's very hard to believe that doctors really Don't know this in this day and age.
When Thyroid Disease Masquerades As Psychiatric... - Thyroid UK
When Thyroid Disease Masquerades As Psychiatric Disorder
Written by
greygoose
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helvellaAdministratorThyroid UK
If you have never seen the first paper, prepare yourself, it is severely unsettling.
Br Med J. 1949 Sep 10; 2(4627): 555–562.
PMCID: PMC2051123
Myxoedematous Madness
R. Asher
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
J R Soc Med. 1998 Mar; 91(3): 149–151.
PMCID: PMC1296569
Myxoedematous madness and The Citadel.
R I Bayliss
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Myxoedema madness
Myxoedema madness Sir Richard Bayliss's article (March 1998 JRSM, pp. 149-51) made me wonder whether Henry VIII ought to be considered as a possible case of myxoedema madness. Certainly more than one of his portraits here (as has been pointed out to me by Professor WW Jacobson) shows attenuation of the outer third of the eyebrows; and it could be that his paranoia about being unable to father a son was prompted by a degree of impotence secondary to panhypopituitarism. If so, one could imagine the full-blooded Anne Boleyn turning to other men after achieving the marriage for which she was ambitious-in which case her daughter may not have had any royal blood (and none the worse a queen for that!). Perhaps Edward VI also was someone else's child (given that not conceiving a son was as dangerous as taking a lover), though more probably he represented Henry's swansong as a sire. It is interesting to reflect that if both Mary and Elizabeth were illegitimate (the former considered so by the Anglicans, the latter by the Roman Catholics), Mary Queen of Scots and Lady Jane Grey, descendants of Henry's sisters, both had a better claim to the throne than the two queens regnant, and the Stuarts were the true heirs to the Tudor/Plantagenets. It has always been a bit of a puzzle why Henry VIII, after his happy childhood and promising youth, should have become the monster of legend; and it might therefore be sensible to look for a physical cause for his subsequent nastiness (or was it the evil influence of Saint Thomas More, our own Torquemada).
John A Davis
1 Cambridge Road, Great Shelford,
Cambridge CB2 5JE, UK
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
I often look at historical portraits and think 'thyroid', but it's usually more TED I see. Perhaps my obsessed imagination, but I do think there's always been a lot of it about, it just wasn't diagnosed.
Well, he DID have gout. He had non healing sores on his legs as well. And constipation. Terrible constipation.
He must have smelt to high heaven! I Don't know how his wives managed to sleep with him without vomiting - that could have had something to do with his lack of an heir, too!
(How do you know about the constipation? Not in any history book I've read! lol)
His constipation is famous. They gave him enemas.
Actually Henry VIII was very particular about hygiene. He would move the court so the other palace could be well cleaned before he'd move back. He also supervised the kitchen to ensure the food was prepared from quality fresh stuff so no one would get sick. He was actually quite ahead of his time in certain things.
But it is true: he was a sick man.
Nevertheless, when mental symptoms that have been present in a hypothyroid patient for many months clear dramatically within a few weeks of starting thyroid it is reasonably certain that they were due to myxoedema.
This is what happened to me. No amount of medication reduced my "mental" symptoms so they prescribed t3 to enhance the effects of the antidepressants. I experienced a miraculous recovery. I was able to work, lost the excess weight, enjoyed hobbies and life in general and it was as if I never had a serious mental illness (probably because I never had a serious mental illness!). Of course, once I was "cured" they stopped the t3 and my symptoms returned. I was no longer able to work or do anything. I was even hospitalised again. So they tried the t3 again and it was followed by another miraculous recovery. Even then it never occurred to anyone (other than me) that my thyroid could be to blame because my TSH was within range (t4 was at the bottom of the range). I asked about it several times and was always told " your thyroid is fine".
Now that I have finally been diagnosed and am finally back on t3, I have no "mental" symptoms at all. I can't believe that all these doctors failed to see the pattern!
Oh, I can believe it! There's none so blind as those that have been to med school!
I am so glad YOU realized it CarolynB! This is why we need to be our own advocates.
Out of curiosity ,do you know what y4 dose you were on that didn't work ,and what dose of t3 you got which did work? Also did you take t3 with t4 ( for recovery )or just t3 alone .Ta
My GP - who was so happy she'd found a hypo/hippo - with a TSH of 19.7 to boot (I just said that in a squeeky voice for some strange reason...)
her be quoting a 'myxodema madness' paper (think it was a warning of some sort, you can't scare me - I've already 'ad me throat cut mon) - I confess I wasn't listening as I was trying to formulate a plan WITH her... could of (arhghh! wind up - "of's" not a verb, slight pet hate there... )
could 'have' been paranoia - they're all out to get us welshies after all....
J 
(monster of legend)
Well done for the 'could have'! Pet hate of mine, too.
People, you cannot put a preposition after a modal verb (or an auxiliary). 'of' is a preposition. Therefore it cannot go after 'could', which is a modal verb : I could have, I should have, I must have, etc.
And that ends todays lesson. Thank you.
And paranoia is a hypo symptom. However, just because you're paranoid, Don't mean they ain't out to get ya!
I thought Henry I am had Syphilis...
Presume you watched Wolf Hall Rod - are you adding him to the hit list? 
The missing hair & eyebrows could be due to the lime & wigs...
No - I didn't feel like watching Wolf Hall - having recently read the books, I needed a longer break. The snippets I did see looked impressive.
Not sure about HVIII on the list - would happily add if the evidence somehow were more certain. Maybe I will add with a question mark?
They do in general, they choose to ignore it!
I completely agree with this. Before I was diagnosed with Hashi's I was diagnosed with Bipolar. As soon as I was on NDT the symptoms completely went away. My daughter was developing the same symptoms, so I asked the Doctor to test her even though she was only 18 and she has Hashi's too. I wonder how many other people are misdiagnosed with a psychiatric disorder when they have hypo, hyper or Hashi's? I can see how the going back and forth from hypo to hyper when the immune system is attacking the thyroid would make a person think of bipolar, if they didn't run an antibody test.
They Don't seem tolike running any sort of tests at all, and that's the problem. I have a friend who spent years in a mental hospital and had electiric shock treatment, when all along it was her thyroid - and she knew it! They just refused to test.
I think that should be malpractice.
Yeah, but what you going to do?
Educate the public to demand testing before accepting a Psych diagnosis. I know I am dreaming.
Oh, yes, right, educate the public. Most of them seem to think that having a thyroid problem is akin to having an STD. And those that obviously have a thyroid problem are in total denial, and Don't want to know. I've tried. It doesn't work. Dream on! lol
there does seem to be a stigma attached - why?
Just 'cos we used to be classed as mur mur m...mad...? anyway...
No sexy new disease (before time & even bell bottoms)
Who'd want one that makes you gain weight, slow down, get ugly (..er in my case) sleep all hours & feel miserable... ('brown bear hibernation syndrome' would be better)...
Even - let us have one with an 'algia' instead....
and worst of all - ignored?
Not saying this is the same for all - just 3 of us....
mini rant over - I can do better! J
When I was a kid, when the adults saw an over-weight person, they would start muttering and mouthing 'must be her glands'.
But nothing was really said out loud, as if it was something you didn't really talk about. I, of course, had not idea what a gland was...
Some fifty years later I was diagnosed, and discovered that the thyroid was a gland!!! Ahhhhhh A light-bulb moment! So that was why I'd always been fat! Why didn't anyone think of that before???
And I was delighted with my diagnosis because I thought, at last! All my troubles are at an end! I'm going to be slim and beautiful!
Little did I know that it was going to be 15 years before the slim(ish) bit happened. And I'm still waiting for the beautiful!
Yes I think I posted something a while back about not seeing so many overweight children back in the day... it was quite rare and Yes, I heard 'glands' mentioned too in a 'keep it quiet' way...
I think checking your glands was just forgotten (in favour of blood tests).
I was a stick upto age 16 then was a size 16, thinking back, then size 12 for most adult life, 'til 15 years ago - put on 4 stone, lost 4 stone, now put on 6! (never dieted, same habits/activity - well apart from quitting smoking).
When did the slim bit happen - when optimally medicated?
Started when over-medicated! But is continuing on what I fondly think of as optimal. BUT the difference between 75 mcg T3 only (slimming down) and 6 grains of NDT (putting on weight at a speed faster than light), is that I've addressed my nutritional deficiencies, which I think is so important.
One would imagine so, yes.
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