Psychosis prevelance in thyroid cancer patients

[zebady]

I have a referal to the national psychosis unit soon re thyroid psychosis. So for beforehand i did a freedom of information request to the hospital that treated me because i wanted to know the prevelance of serious psychotic ill mental health and thyroid cancer. (I missed psychotic depression sadly (thank brain fog for that!))

Just so you know. The prevelance of schitzophrenia and bipolar is roughly the same at around %1 to %2 of the population depending on where you read... so out of total cancer patients around 400 you'd expect around 6, and of each..... however there were none for bipolar and only 3 for schitzophrenia.

For schitzoaffective disorder prevelance is around %1of the general population so obviously you'd expect around 4 people. However There were none.

I know this is a small sample but it suggests to me that thyroid cancer patients arnt getting diagnosed and treated propperly with these 3 illness'. (And thyroid is maybe being blamed) . Its also usually said that people with the conditions mentioned sometimes don't get physical health diagnosis' because of lesser being able to look after ones self. Sometimes. The data could also suggest that thyroid cancer wards off the 3 illness' too!!! As I say it's a small sample.

Any thoughts anyone?

I'm now wondering who will request one for prevelance of thyroid cancer and pre existing depression. And maybe even graves or hashimotos and depression, and personality disorder!

[Nanaedake]

I think what you're saying is that there is a lower incidence of some mental health conditions for people with thyroid cancer and you are wondering why? Could it be that some people with, seemingly, mental health conditions get diagnosed and treated for thyroid conditions and this resolves their problems and prevents them needing to get treatment for mental health conditions?

Just wondering whether you were given any other medication besides levothryoxine because betablockers can cause psychosis and other side effects. I'm thinking that people without a thyroid are more susceptible to side effects because meds like betablockers block T4 to T3 conversion and the brain is susceptible as drugs like propranolol cross the blood brain barrier. People without a thyroid may be low on T3 anyway so that the side effects might be more dramatic.

There could also be the other effect that people with suppressed thyroid due to high doses of exogenous thyroid hormone and those who are hyperthyroid may have increased drug reactions due to their speeded up metabolism? I don't really know, just thinking about it.

[zebady in reply to Nanaedake]

I think I'm just a bit shocked to be hounest.... its to the contrary to what I would have thought.... I was expecting people with thyroid problems to be diagnosed with bipolar for instance,

[zebady in reply to zebady]

I was expecting people with thyroid problems to be misdiagnosed with bipolar

[Nanaedake in reply to zebady]

Any specific reason for thinking that?

[Nanaedake in reply to Nanaedake]

Just edited my post to make it a bit clearer.

[zebady]

Bipolar people get can get hyper (quick racing thoughts, insomnia, and restlessness) type symptoms. As well as hypo (low mood, depressed, generally slowed down, lack of cognition, changes in food intake,) etc type symptoms as I understand it and psychosis can be an element in both bipolar and thyroid conditions though much rarer like thyroid toxicity, and the tooing and frowing from high to low can be an indicator of is it graves, or hashimotos plus maybe others? (Both Bipolar and thyroid conditions can cycle rapidly Or slowly or be brought out by stress ). and there are lots of people with bipolar biased to one pole, mania or depression.... but interestingly I believe even more commonly schitzoaffective symptoms are the same.

Ie problems in mood. Cognition. And psychosis.

There have been documented misdiagnosis'

I could be wrong and probably am. But the data (too small a sample I know) is interesting IF it is truly representative of the bigger pucture.