Suspected Grave's disease and gentle exercise

Pity you didn't have time to ask him why no exercise. We normally tell hypos to restrict their exercise to gentle walking or swimming, but that's because they don't have enough T3 to support anything more exerting. But, if you are hyper, you must have plenty of T3, so I can't imagine why you shouldn't go for a gentle swim. I'm probably missing something, here.

Is your heart rate high ? If so that's probably the reason to not exercise.

I’m in remission from Graves. I used to be a great long distance walker but just couldn’t do it back when I was being treated with block and replace. I have asthma so I wasn’t given beta blockers. I was utterly exhausted all the time before I was treated and pretty tired a lot of the time I was. Back at the start I slept most of the day, did nothing around the house I was so tired and ill

I kept going to my Pilates class and my twice weekly gym sessions though because it was something good I always enjoyed and it was something that made me feel human.

I did massively reduce the amount of effort I put in at the gym though and my Pilates teacher is a physiotherapist so that was carefully monitored.

It took me a long time to get back to the long distance walking though. I did short walks for a while then one day I just had the urge to go further and I felt ok.

I was never told not to exercise but I’d say just take it very easy and don’t do anything where you burn yourself out. It’s not going to do you any good at all to overdo things.

Thighs - my thighs were so weak I couldn’t get up off the ground if I got down low - I just thought I had too much junk in my back pack. How wrong I was.

I was Hyper in 1970 and diagnosed very late. My pulse was 160 when I took it myself sitting still and feeling my heart rate racing but in those days no beta blockers were given only the Carbimazole. I was training as a ballet teacher and became so weak it took me 20 seconds to climb each step on the stairs and so breathless. All this and other things are typical Hyper symptoms.

48 years later and post sub-total Thyroidectomy I have an aortic valve regurgitation and was recently put on beta blockers but for me they caused a Zombie effect and I couldn't function at all so stopped them.

After the op, I retrained as an educational dance teacher and my fitness and agility improved greatly. Like all illnesses people react differently, but with Hyper the main risk is damaging the heart due to the high pulse rate so exercise must be light - Pilates would be fine for you but swimming is hard cardio work and also running, jumping, weight lifting etc.

So take it easy and look after yourself.

Oh, yes, and Yoga too if you enjoy that.

I posted for the first time this week and subsequently am weaning myself of propranolol. My last proper walk before diagnosis was the ‘Coffin Route’ in the Lake District, the next day driving back to London was the worst experience of my life as I had anxiety, panic attacks and my heart never went below 108; I was misdiagnosed in October last year as having stress and anxiety and given a self referral website for counselling, I decided to quit a stressful job and give myself positive goals including signing up to walking the moon walk, I looked at my life and thought I had nothing to be depressed about and discovered my blood sugar was 3 so adopted some healthier eating habits and began pushing the miles, it was gruelling, in fact the worse my physical symptoms got the harder I pushed myself; after the disastrous drive my youngest daughter made a Drs appointment for me with a different Dr and following blood test I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and prescribed carbimazole and propranolol, the beta blockers stopped me doing anything and my asthma brought me to this website; I plan to start walking again this week but, will listen to my body, I’m not an expert but in hindsight if I had listened to my body sooner I would have got that second opinion sooner. My endocrinologist did not say anything about exercise, I will discuss this with my dr when I see her to translate my test results.. I will let you know what she says.

I can't remember where I read this, but both hypo and hyper people have the problem that muscle tissue is not properly supplied with hotmone. And that the muscles aren't able to work properly in either case.

I read that it is dangerous to exert muscle tissue when it is in either of those states (too much or too little hotmone). I got the impression that with hyper the danger is much more ripping and tearing of tissue. But overall these are complex tissues, and a lot of processes are going on to cope with and benefit from exercise.

For hypo, I got the impression that new muscle can't be built, but I wasn't paying as much attention to hyper. Overall I'd assume the same is true - most of the benefits of exercise, growing muscle, increasing heart and lung stamina, etc, can't happen.

I have managed to get stronger at some exercises while I've been very hypo, so it can't be completely true that muscles can't strengthen. But in fact I've got a much larger improvement in muscle strength by getting closer to my ideal dose then by repeated exercise - when at my most hypo I repeated 2 physio exercises every day for a year or more, and barely increased what I could do

My largely uninformed advice would be that as long as it's for stretching and relaxing muscles, and not about strengthening, stamina, increasing capacity of heart or lungs then you should be fine!

You may be able to design a routine that cuts down considerably on what you did before you were ill, but maintains the positive benefits you are looking for. I think often doing the same movements, but cutting down on speed, weights and repetitions works well. So maybe swim as slow as you can comfortably do, and as soon as you get comfortable in the water and into your stride, what you used to consider the start of the workout, time to get out! Then go home and pay attention to how you feel. If you get small bad effects, do even less next time (maybe just walk a couple of laps, or mess about in the shallow end and do some stretches?)., if you feel completely fine after a few days, you can add a tiny bit more if you want (or keep it low for a few weeks, then add 10% or 20% of activity).

Hello again, visited GP this week and asked her about exercise, she advised gentle exercise ie walking, not cardio, she emphasised ‘gentle’ and don’t overdo it.