It has been about 18 months since i stopped taking medicine for the second time due to Graves disease flaring up. It was also time for potentially my last call/visit (again) with the docter depending on the latest bloodtest. But also an uncertain feeling popping up.
The call
Since we are still in a lockdown a visit to the hospital was switched to a phonecall which i got on a tuesday morning. So, not unexpected, the results were good. Otherwise i would have noticed something by now (i hope). The call was short and ended with the fact that she would now transfer care to my local doctor. Which basically meant that i was ‘fired’ from her care.
I did ask about numbers and percentages for cases like mine, see said she didn’t have a lot of numbers but said that cases like mine still had a high percentage of coming back. And even if not, she mentioned that my thyroid would eventually ‘deplete’ and start going into hypothyroidsm. But when is uncertain.
The procedure now is that i have to do a bloodtest once a year for a checkup, which i have to schedule myself. Or, if think i have certain symptoms, do a bloodtest then.
The results
Above you can see the latest results, they are both within the boundaries of a goodworking thyroid. However when i look at the trend for the T4 (graph below) i do have some concerns since it’s an upward trend.
I’m less concerned with the TSH values since they are low in the bandwidth.
Hairloss on shins and calfs
A thing i noticed is that i am losing hair on the outside of my shins and calfs on both legs. A search on the internet resulted in a few hits but this report caught my eye which is named ‘anterolateral leg alopecia’, a form of hairloss on the legs which might related to the auto-immune system. So this is something to keep an eye on. I had it before but then it grew back (slowly) but now it’s receding again.
Now what?
I have ambiguous feelings, although it feels good to have been fired from care, the fact that the numbers are showing an increase and seeing how the previous ‘episode’ went takes me in uncertain territory.
Regarding the numbers, of course i would ideally have more testresults over a longer period to see about the trend. So my idea is not get tested once a year but at least 3 times a year. Especially since i was too late the second time.
Do i have a better feeling about it that last time? Yes, i am more optimistic because i’ve also change my diet to glutenfree and cowdairyfree (i do eat a bit of goat/sheep cheese now and then) since then. Also due to the changes in supplements, see this blog at the bottom (although i’ve stopped taking Q10) and adding gypsywort which is a plant that has supposed thyroid supporting capabilities.
The trick is to at least see how the next half year goes, since that was when it went wrong last time. So hopefully i can give a positive update before the summer. But after that…..we’ll see.
Always Learning 