My Battle With Graves Disease, Part 13: back on track

Since my last post things have been going be the FT4 value was over 50 (when it’s supposed to be within the 9-25 range). The first check was good in the sense that the FT4 value was a bit above 25, which is down by a half. The other value which they usually check, the TSH value, was still negligible which is still a concern when it should be between 0.4 and 4.0 mU/l.

I also started feeling better and the most important change was my heart which was way more relaxed. My weight also was stable and rising a bit, after loosing 6kg in 1 – 2 months. As a result I started sleeping better as well. We cut down the amount of medication in half so now I was back to 30mg of Strumazol (a.k.a Thiamazole).

Corona

Corona also started rearing it’s ugly head in our household and I was sick for 2 or 3 days but mostly my throat was really swollen which was really painfull. I was afraid that this would impact my auto-immune system in such a way that it might trigger Graves disease and that the medication wasn’t going to cut it. But after a week I started feeling better, still pretty tired which is a common symptom. Then started picking up Crossfit again but still had to be carefull, because I was still feeling the after-effect of Corona and still getting back from almost zero after the third episode of Graves-disease (which started in hindsight after the summer of 2021 and reached a critical point in December 2021).

Second Bloodcheck

The second check last week was good in the sense that the FT4 (see graph below) was even lower which, even on the low side which meant we could cut the medication in half again.

The TSH level (see graph below) was actually too high now, also a result of too much medication. The graph below is actually not accurate as values below 0.01 don’t show up as datapoints and there were some since December. The other effect was that my thyroid was actually a bit slow, which showed in the weight gain as I am now for the first time (ever?) over 100kg. Hopefully with less medication I can cut some of that weight.

Back on track (for now)

So all in all this was good news and as a result I’m now on 15mg of Strumazol, down by half. This also reflected how I felt and slept and also the workouts were getting better in terms of strength. In terms of conditioning I still have a way to go.

So in 6 weeks we’ll do another check and the goal is to cut the medication back to 5mg and take that for a longer time. I also have been reading up on the alternative (iodine-radiation therapy) and although it still feels weird to partly destroy a healthy organ (because it’s the auto-immune and the brain that causes Graves disease, not the thyroid itself) I think I’m getting around to accepting that if things still don’t work then that is the way to go as a next step and that i’ve done everything in my power to try to avoid that. Sometimes is just about accepting things and moving on.

Hoping to write new blog in about 6-8 weeks about the progress.