Editorial: Crosstalk between Thyroid and Heart

[helvella]

The journal Frontiers in Endocrinology has a special focus issue.

At this moment, even this abstract is just Provisionally accepted - and for that reason, I'll only post the heading and link. When it is finalised, I intend to add its full text.

The issues are of massive importance. But there is a terrible tendency for the details to be ignored and the story to be, umm, dumbed down and trivialised to the point of assuming too much thyroid hormone always causes high heart rate. And that is about it.

Editorial: Crosstalk between Thyroid and Heart

Alessandro Pingitore Alessandro Pingitore 1*Iordanis Mourouzis Iordanis Mourouzis 2Fausto Bogazzi Fausto Bogazzi 3

frontiersin.org/journals/en...

[arTistapple]

I can hardly bear to read this. From first look there is nothing new but also it’s a confirmation of much that has already gone before. Why does this keep happening? But most importantly nothing changes! Cardiology are unaware of this stuff (or so they say) and endocrinology bow to cardiology. It’s too late by the time you get to cardiology (or even too soon).

Like so many I just have to suck it up, self medicate and hope for the best.

[FancyPants54]

It's going over my head today. I'm not in the mood for concentrating that hard.

I can't get anywhere near optimally medicated, no matter what I take. My AF is fast and so whenever I raise my thyroid levels a bit the heart gets even faster. Just before Christmas a GP freaked out (I was very stressed at the time) and doubled my beta blocker and booked me in to see cardiology (April). It took a couple of weeks so I didn't realise what was doing it, but my goodness! Those doubled beta blockers turned me into a zombie. I could barely keep awake or move. No follow-up by GP of course. I had to realise and stop the new dose myself to work it out. So it 5mcg Nebivolol did that to me, I wonder if my lack of energy and stamina is caused by the 2.5mcg Nebivolol I've been on or a long time now or if it's down to the low thyroid.

So hard. So little help. But plenty of ridicule and raised eyebrows for trying.

[helvella in reply to FancyPants54]

I'm very aware that we are all different - sometimes massively. This is just an endorsement of your frustration with afib.

My dose had been reduced from 125 to 112.5 but I was regularly seeing spikes over 200.

I upped my dose to 125. Since when I rarely see it go above around 130. And when I do, it is usually a momentary rise - as in exertion - not when sitting calm and relaxed which is what happened a lot.

I'm sure my previous GP would have refused the increase - but my current one is much more amenable to discussion rather than ranting about his own qualifications. Having raised it myself (luckily had enough on hand), and then had GP blood test, and discussed dose and heart rate, she has been happy.

Yesterday I got my repeat prescription changed to Vencamil (at last) and she didn't even push me to get a blood test.

[FancyPants54 in reply to helvella]

You've made me feel better. My fast AF isn't spiking at 200. I've had a few 148 and even 150 but only for a very short spike according to my watch. The different GP I saw before christmas freaked out with a HR of around 115 in a stressful situation. That's why he muttered "heart failure" and doubled my beta blocker.

He may be a GP to avoid. I'd not seen him before.

But if I raise my Armour (or T3 if I were using that with Levo) my general HR will go up from the late 80's and lower 90's to mid 90's and 112 sort of level and my resting HR for the day will go up from lower 80's to higher 80's and low 90's. It is so frustrating. I also get extremely anxious when I increase.

I'm currently trying to hold at 2 grains of Armour which gives me around 75 T4 and 18T3 and keeps HR down a bit and anxiety at bay, but has me falling spontaneously asleep all over the place at certain times of day, and adding in Levo at 50mcg currently.

Yesterday I felt good and moved about freely and could think straight. Today I'm giving a Sloth a run for it's money and can't focus or think and my eyes are closing every moment they can.

[helvella in reply to FancyPants54]

At the worst, I was going between 39 and 210.

And I have been on a proper medical ECG watching my heart rate changing from something like 150 to over 200 - and back - within the time it takes for the display to scroll across.

(My really lucky factor is that (much of the time) I feel nothing and have no idea without looking at a device.)

[FancyPants54 in reply to helvella]

Same here. I never feel the spikes. I feel it if I walk up a hill, but not the normal everyday spikes.