Graves Success!!!!!

[onefootinthegrave]

In my mid-70s, I was diagnosed with Graves disease in April and put on 20mg Carbimazole daily. This made me feel so ill that after a week I unilaterally put it down to 10mg. Saw Endo in June and he said I should increase to 15mg daily. After 3 weeks on 15mg I started running a high temperature at nights. Stopped the Carbimazole, went to A&E where they said my white blood cell count was down, so stayed off the pills. After a couple of weeks I became hyper-hyper - raging insomnia (though bags of energy by day - managed to get loads done!). GP said I should go back onto Carbimazole and gradually build up. So I started on 5mg a day (no effect) then put it up to 10mg.

At the same time I decided to address the underlying auto-immune condition and excluded all dairy and all gluten from my diet - inconvenient but not impossible. After a couple of months I was feeling fine, and at my October appointment the Endo said that all is back to normal and that I am now euthyroid! He then said I should continue to take Carb 10mg a day for the time being. However since it seems to have done its job (and since - in my case - there has been a history of over-prescribing this very potent medication) I have unilaterally put it down to 7.5mg a day, and still feel fine - indeed I'm now wondering whether to reduce to 5mg or whether to wait for my next blood test in January to see how things are.

I think the reason that the medication has been so effective is the other things I've been doing to treat the underlying auto-immune cause of the thyroid problem (i.e. the exclusion diet and also acupuncture once every 2 weeks). I'm posting this in the hope that this approach will work for others (I found out about it from Susan Blum's book "The Immune System Recovery Plan", which I therefore strongly recommend).

Very best wishes and best of luck to everyone, whether hyper- or hypo, and fingers crossed that we can all become, and remain, very well indeed.

[galathea]

I think you may be right... Glad it worked for you.

Xx. G

[faith63]

Good for you!!! For, not listening to those mainstream doctors and repairing your immune system!!! I see so few on here, looking beyond what type of thyroid meds to take. It is much more than that.

[faith63]

What diet are your doing and which food testing did you do?

[onefootinthegrave]

Initially I excluded corn, soya, dairy and gluten, as recommended in Susan Blum's book. Then I reintroduced corn and soya (separately) and seem fine on these. I also seem OK on sheep's cheese (Roquefort and manchego) in small quantities, but otherwise no gluten or dairy. So it's millet flakes porridge for breakfast, rice (or sometimes soya) milk, gluten-free bread (sometimes bought, sometimes home-made). Lots of herb teas (nettle, peppermint, camomile) and hardly any coffee..... Also taking vit D, vit E, vit B12, selenium, kelp (low dosage), folic acid

I haven't had any formal testing, just go by how I'm feeling....

Cheers!