Can Thyroid Eye Disease be reversed?

[Kari55]

After the most rough time that my husband had with his medication for hyperthyroidism (Graves disease) we are quite surprised that his eyes have improved dramatically. He was taking prednisolone eye drops for 6 weeks and his ophthalmologist was surprised himself that the entire inflammation around his eyes is gone. Not sure if this is due to the drops, the fact that his levels are within normal ranges, or maybe it has something to do with selenium and lutein, or autoimmune diet? Would that mean that his antibodies have dropped or not necessarily? Did anyone manage to reverse TED?

[Saya85]

Hi kari,

That’s excellent news for your husband. TED can be very frustrating !

Yes TeD can be entirely reversible as it only occurs usually with an uncontrolled thyroid condition.

If inflammation was his only problem then all your interventions would certainly have contributed to reducing/curing it.

The speed of recovery is probably what’s more surprising to the ophthalmologist than the fact it’s recovered.

But that shouldn’t be surprising as you are probably aware by now using this forum that doctors are always surprised when diet and lifestyle interventions help a patients health instead of just meds (!)

But yes controlling the Graves would have had a massive impact- hopefully the TED won’t return but if it does try and get on top of it as quickly as possible.

The antibodies could be reduced - but immune response can vary over time anyway. Reducing inflammation in the body will help dampen the response and keep it at bay. Selenium will help absorb and improve the antioxidant effect from thyroxine production.

All in all- keep doing what you’re doing 👍🏻

[Kari55 in reply to Saya85]

Thanks for your response Saya85. Yes, you are right, the doctors are always shocked if the diet helped to solve some issues. We are going to carry on with what we are doing. Not quite out of the woods yet, but when something positive finally happens it is very motivating

[Saya85 in reply to Kari55]

Well as an optometrist I am not shocked at all ☺️ Lol

Maybe our medical education didn’t progress to complete indoctrination and we stopped just in time 😂

Either way I’m glad I feel I have the best of both worlds - but a massive learning curve for us all(!)

[adin]

Taking prednisolone it's not the best choice for long term, i think. But a new hope rising; teprotumumab.

liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

[Kari55 in reply to adin]

Thanks for the link adin. Always good to know. He wasn’t taking it long term, only 6 weeks.