Anxiety plus

I have been diagnosed with a hyperthyroid and it has come with all sorts of challenging symptoms such as fear, anxiety, weight loss, feelings of just being hyper. The most disturbing symptom, lately, has been palpitations all over the place (not just the heart). It has caused me a lot of anxiety. The other scary thing for me has been my bizarre sleeping patterns including what I can only call night terrors where I wake up with my hand down my throat, its as if I'm trying to rip out my thyroid in my sleep along with this is a very unpleasant feeling of gasping for air. I could go on and on, but this will do for now.

[Fruitandnutcase]

I don't know if you have Graves (hyper with antibodies) but in the beginning it is all very nasty as you are finding out. Are you being treated and what meds have you been given. Things will settle down, at the start I couldn't see that ever happening but it did.

What I did find though was that I had palps when I was overactive and also when I needed my thyroxine increased. I was treated with block and replace where they give you carbimazole to stop your body producing thyroid hormones then replace them with artificial thyroxine until they get your levels where they want them then they stop all the meds and wait to see what happens, I found when I needed my thyroxine increased I got palps again, it's a weird disease.

Post your results with their ranges along with anything else you have had tested - B12, vitamin D, folates and ferritin. You want all of these to be at the top end of their ranges in order to feel good.

[Hidden in reply to Fruitandnutcase]

Thank you so much for your response. I was diagnosed a few years ago with Hyper I ended up going to see an environmentalist Dr who specialized in these type of conditions. The last few weeks have been difficult I've never had palps as bad as this before. My mother just passed away and I found myself in the midst of a great deal of stress (due to family pressures). My weight has also dropped and I find myself feeling somewhat manic, anxious hyper and have trouble sleeping sometimes waking up in a state of hi pitched fear often with my hand down my throat (weird! but its been happing for many decades now) feeling like I'm not breathing. I'm thankful my sister pointed me to this website. I also think the gluten issue is part of this. I would be most grateful for any suggestions you, or others, would care to make. Thank you once again.

[Fruitandnutcase in reply to Hidden]

I think stress is a big thing with Graves and I'm sure that contributed to mine although I've got a feeling that I was probably hyper for a long time until stress tipped me over the edge into crisis point where I couldn't go on any longer.

It also made me much very intolerant - I lost someone I had been friends with for years because I was no longer prepared to put up with things I had put up with for years. My husband said he wasn't surprised I ended the friendship - he felt it had been in the cards for years and he was right but still I blamed my Graves for finally ending it.

I was just like you, massive weight loss - so much that I looked terrific! I felt SO ill though, looking back I don't know how I kept going. I was very hyper, I was mega anxious all the time and being a passenger in a car was a nightmare. I didn't waken up clutching my throat but my palpitations woke me up every night. I couldn't put my arm over my stomach, neither could my husband because it made the palps worse basically to take my pulse all I had to do was put my hand on my abdomen. It was wierd.

I used to waken dripping with sweat every night. I went to bed at about half past six at night, I could fall asleep then and was really tired but I woke up without fail with the sweating with pounding heart. It felt like my whole personality had changed and definitely not fir the better. Sometimes I felt that people were gazing at me in amazement when I was speaking to them. It wasn't nice.

Unfortunately what you are experiencing sounds pretty much par for the course with Graves.

Maybe the time has come to go and see an endocrinologist and have blood tests done.

Ask for a complete thyroid profile, antibodies, B12, vitamin D, ferritin and folates. Get a copy of your results along with the lab ranges then post them and people with experience will give you more advice.

Have you looked on the Thyroid UK website too? If not Google for that - there is a wealth of information on there that will help you.

If you smoke and have Graves you should give up right away. A lot of people have gone onto GF diets and that seems to help reduce their antibodies.