Graves' disease and weight gain

[Suebu63]

Hi, just feeling a bit frustrated as I know this is probably just a normal part of getting levels right but I'm gaining weight so fast at the moment it's scary. I didn't really loose that much when I was first diagnosed with graves so I'm finding it so unfair that I'm possibly hypo and I'm gaining.

At my last endo appointment, my GP had messed up with my blood test so couldn't really get a true picture of what was happening, but my cholesterol was very high, endo said not to worry too much as this should settle once my levels are sorted. I'm currently on 10 mg of carbimazole.

Is it worth even trying to loose weight? I'm still eating a normal healthy diet, not too restricting, but i feel if I go on a very strict diet and don't loose weight, this is going to be very disheartening if you see what I mean

[Arab]

Hi Suebu63,

Carbimazole treatment will in most cases cause a gain in weight.

Don't despair. It's more important to get the symptoms under control. The weight can be lost when you become euthyroid.

I know from experience that it's frustrating, but bear with it and try not to worry too much.

Arab. 🙂

[Suebu63 in reply to Arab]

Thank you for the reply, I feel awful, I know it isn't permanent and asking how long this will last will be like asking how long is a piece of string. This is why I love this site as you all know and understand what it's like.

[Arab in reply to Suebu63]

Hi Suebu63,

I guess on our Graves journey we're all different, but have certain similar experiences.

I was on Carbimazole for a year, and came off it because I was unhappy with the side effects - weight gain being one of them.

However, I went onto an alternative treatment, Traditional Chinese Medicine, which worked well, but I didn't really lose any weight.

In the end, I had to knuckle down and make a supreme effort to calorie count, which worked. Boring but effective!

Good luck, and I hope you improve quickly.

Arab.🙂

[Ianswife]

I also gained lots of weight with Graves , 2st weight gain.

[Suebu63 in reply to Ianswife]

I've put on 5lb in a week, don't have my next endo appointment until October so it's probably going to be about 2st for me if I don't watch what I'm doing.

I'm certainly not buying any new clothes, I would begrudge spending the money to be quite honest. My T1 son follows a low carb diet and I'm going to join him, at least this will help me control some of the gain.

[Fruitandnutcase]

Sorry to say I put on all the weight I lost when my Graves was at its worst - I lost three stones and went down three dress sizes, apart from feeling incredibly I'll it was lovely. Trouble was I looked so good people didn't realise how ill I was which was the down side.

I read in a book that people with Graves tend to regain all the weight they lose once they are stabilised and sadly I did.

After I had been in remission for about three years I developed T2 diabetes as a result of taking steroids for inflammatory arthritis.

I found an amazing book on how to reverse your T2 diabetes, bought myself a blood glucose meter, tested before and two hours after every meal, I've recorded everything I ate since December last year and cut out anything that spiked my blood glucose levels - basically I 'ate to the test'.

I eat extremely well and I eat a lot, I'm never hungry but I don't eat anything that increases my blood sugar - in my case anything that involves grain of any sort - good grains / bad grains - it's all the same to me, I eat a few boiled new potatoes but not jacket potatoes, basically my diet is low carb, high fat LCHF - I eat lots of carbs but they come from carby vegetables now rather than from grains. When I told my diabetes nurse I had abandoned the 'healthy plate food pyramid advice leaflet I was given she said 'Oh, you're eating low GI foods', I wasn't but I suppose you could say there are similarities. I hate to think that if I had stuck to that advice I would still have T2.

The downside is that I think how I ate might only have worked for me because I was T2 and before that I was pre diabetic, it doesn't seem to have work for my husband who isn't diabetic but again he wasn't as strick and determined as I was. It might be worth you looking at low GI foods though and giving them a try.

Just try eating differently, don't starve yourself - as you say it is very depressing to cut back then not lose weight.

[Suebu63 in reply to Fruitandnutcase]

Thanks for this. Unfortunately I'm one of the few that have hardly lost any weight despite having graves, this makes it so much more frustrating

I have quite a healthy diet anyway as I find if I eat unhealthy, it aggravates my symptoms, I've stopped all alcohol as this really aggravates them.

I do find that if I eat high protein this keeps me feeling full, so will be eating more of this to try to help myself.

[Fruitandnutcase in reply to Suebu63]

Perhaps if you haven't lost all that much you won't put much on. I was convinced I wouldn't gain what I had lost so I was pretty disappointed to see that I did, wonder what would have happened if I had changed my diet back then. Good luck with it all anyway.

[Suebu63]

Thank you. I'm scared to go on the scales now, I'm just going to eat as healthy as I can and not stress about it, there's not much else I can do really, and to be honest, stressing about it is probably going to make me worse as this will once again aggregate my symptoms, I just can't win.

I can imagine how disappointed you were to put the weight on, it must have been so frustrating.