Thyroid

[Harrop]

Hi I only have my left lobe left after surgery 10yrs ago and I've missed my tablets for 5 days what problems will this cause

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Harrop Why have you missed your tablets? What do you normally take?

[humanbean]

I don't know how quickly it will happen - it could be a few days it might be 2 or 3 weeks - but eventually you will start developing hypothyroid symptoms, assuming that your remaining thyroid lobe is unable to produce sufficient thyroid hormones for your needs.

The first thing is likely to be tiredness/fatigue. Getting upstairs, and carrying shopping or children will become harder. Muscles will start to ache, and if you don't already suffer from insomnia, you will probably soon develop it.

Your body will try to substitute for your missing thyroid hormones by substituting cortisol and adrenalin. This will make you feel even more fatigued than you were. But to make things worse you will probably start to feel anxious, depressed, and possibly jittery.

Your digestion may become a bit dodgy, and you might develop indigestion and constipation.

When you do fall asleep one of two things might happen - either you sleep lightly and poorly and wake up a lot, or you sleep heavily, for a long time, and find it very, very difficult to wake yourself up and get up.

For a full list of possible hypothyroid symptoms, see these lists :

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/about_...

hypothyroidmom.com/300-hypo...

I would say that nobody has all the symptoms listed. And some symptoms don't develop until people have been hypothyroid and untreated for quite a long time.

[Hidden]

It all depends on what exactly is wrong with you. After a partial thyroidectomy in 1989, the remainder, eventually after 3-4 months, became fully functional until it also had to be removed in 2005 when it went totally berserk with a benign multinodular goitre.

What advice did you receive from your doc as to the possibility of yours starting up again?

Stopping taking levo will probably improve your symptoms for a few days and then you will get progressively worse, unless, of course, this is the catalyst for your fully functional but redundant thyroid to burst back into action.

Be careful how you go. Speak to your doc. You never know, he may actually understand the situation, that is what he is paid for after all.

[Harrop in reply to Hidden]

Thanks had right lobe removed as getn bigger Snead pressing on wind pipe but once removed it was cancerous they had removed it all. I've said to him in past I have never felt so tired and drained since it's bn removed. But when I font tke mess I feel better. But he doesn't want me to stop as my left side would have to double the work and it would eventually not work. Xx