Sorry you had to see those - they're a bit nauseating. I'll read the articles you've referred to this weekend. I read slowly and don't understand a lot of it, don't take much in :(
I had a look at your pics. It could be pretibial myxedema. I did find this about the duration of pretibal mxyedema...
"The condition may persist for months or years but often regresses spontaneously, accompanied by a parallel decline in, or disappearance of, serum anti-TSH-receptor autoantibody levels." - Pathogenesis and treatment of pretibial myxedema. Endocrinol Metab Clin North Am. 1987 Jun;16(2):409-15.
I've uploaded the photos - thanks for looking!
I've since read about Hashitoxicosis. Sounds about right. Shame GP wouldn't check antibodies. Lab keeps sample for one month so I'll ask her to reconsider.
Thanks for this Red_Star!
I also have Hashi's, and though I've had TPO antibodies testing with every labs (USA) GP wouldn't add it to the lab slip. Is that what you mean by a flare up or would I get a flare up from my thyroid trying to kick in despite thyroid meds or too much thyroid meds despite low Frees?
Your description describes mine except it was just one spot, on one shin (left), the hair follicle openings were really obvious, pink/orange/red, raised, lumpy, somehow shiny, but seems to have come and gone in less 24 hours from when I noticed it. Today I had "inflammation on almost the entire length of my shin, but I can only tell that from "sheet marks" which I get on my face and skin when an area's swollen.
While my right shin has something that looks completely different for about 3 weeks now and is so hard for me to describe so maybe I can just send you a picture?
I had a two month Hashitoxicosis flare up (I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis) and one of the symptoms was pretibal myxedema. My pretibal myxedema was a pink/red, lumpy (looked like orange peel), shiny area about 10 cm long x 5 cm wide on the front of my left shin. It was itchy sometimes. This condition finally disappeared about a year after the hyperthyroid flare up was over.
Do you mean you use to get dry patches on your shin when you were hypo or what looked like Peritibial myxedema, but wasn't due to the fact that you were hypo?
Pretibial myxedema is usually associated with Graves Disease, which you don't have and as has been discussed in your other thread, your labs are far from hyper. You're taking Cytomel, so TSH is irrelevant.
There are many things that can cause the type of rash you describe, including simply being hypo because dry skin is a common symptom of hypothyroidism. I used to get patches like that when I was hypo.
Am J Clin Dermatol 2005 - Pretibial Myxedema...
"Ninety percent of patients with pretibial myxedema have a history of hyperthyroidism.[5,6] The other 10% are either hypothyroid or euthyroid.[5,6,16] Rare patients may have had hypothyroidism in the past and then developed hyperthyroidism associated with systemic manifestations of Graves’ disease. All these patients have laboratory evidence of autoimmune thyroid disease. All patients with active thyroid dermopathy have positive levels of thyroid-stimulating immunoglobulin and laboratory evidence of
thyroid autoimmunity,[5,6,54] including antibodies against the TSH receptor.[55]"