I was talking to my sister who is a bit earlier in the hypo journey than me and we got curious about a question I can't seem to find a good answer for: How long does it take hashimotos to destroy the thyroid? This year is the first time since I was about 14 that I haven't had terrible chillblanes and don't have hand and feet like ice: Coinciding with the first year on a good amount of thyroid meds! I also already had thyroid related vitamin deficiencies as a young teenager so now at 24 it would definitely seem I've been noticeably hypo for a decade at least. Is it possible my thyroid is already completely gone? I'm hoping to get an ultrasound in the future to see for myself as I'm very curious!
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owl87
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It can be quick or slow in its action. My medical colleague has studied a patient with Hashimoto's over 9 years and has watched the thyroid values slowly alter but not so far as to make the patient feel ill.
Thats very interesting! All female members in my generation were diagnosed at 15/6 excluding me and my sister as our presentation missed the standard TSH disgnostic so I wonder if genetics plays a role there too
I'm curious too. do tell us when you find out what you have,...or not ;)I think the answer is in the "how long is a piece of string ?" category.
Not because it's so hard to find out , but because it seems not enough people have ever been interested in paying out enough money to doing scans often enough to find out.
mine started going obviously wrong in 1998, i've been on Levo since 2003 ,and i assume i must still have some working thyroid left as last year i got several months of fT4 going through the roof , which must have come from somewhere , cos it wasn't me taking more Levo.How sad is it when "all i want for christmas is a thyroid scan to satisfy my curiousity " ?
I wasn't thinking of 'that' sort of scan that tells you what it's doing..... i would settle for an ultrsound just to see if i've even got one left. ....suppose i could pretend to be pregnant and have a go on myself while they are out of the room.....
This is very interesting! All the women in my generation got life impacting hypo symptoms by 15/6 - when I was finally diagnosed at 22 I had an ft3 under range and was so ill I almost ended up in hospital. Definitely seems to be a huge amount of variation!
I've had hypo symptoms since I was around 8 years old. But, as no-one ever did a thyroid blood test until I was 55 - despite all my many visits to the doctor with possible symptoms - I've no idea if I was just hypo, or if I was already Hashi's.
The Hashi's could have started after one of my three pregnancies - there was certainly a lot of hormone activity going on after each one, but no idea what. Or, it could have been triggered by the iodine I was prescribed when I was about 35. But, as once again, no tests were done, I've no idea.
And, I think that, even if tests are done, it would be very difficult to pin-point the exact beginning of Hashi's, anyway. So, without knowing when it begins, how could you know how long it lasts? And, it's probably different for each individual, as with most things thyroid.
Pretty sure, with hindsight, that my last 'hyper' swing was at 50. But, my thyroid was still capable of pumping out a little hormone when I was 68, when I came off my thyroid hormone replacement - for reasons I won't go into here. Is it dead yet? I've no idea. And, no intention of stopping my TRH again to find out.
Its definitley interesting to know someone else who started showing symptoms as a child! Interestingly all female members of my generation were diganosed/already had life affecting symptoms by 15/16 so I wouldn't be suprised if genetics plays a role in how fast it progresses too! There definitley seems to be some major variations in how long it takes!
I was diagnosed as a child. The medics advised my thyroid was destroyed by a course of radiation treatment for a facial birthmark in the early 1950s when I was a baby. I had radiation treatment up until about age 3 I suspect as I recall having my face “painted “ and a box strapped on. I was diagnosed so long ago I was treated with NDT originally. I have never had Hashimotos although I developed a number of other autoimmune conditions.
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