Trauma Triggered Hypothyroidism

[gillingham_01]

hi to everyone here,

Has anyone experienced hypothyroidism that was triggered by very severe, continuous emotional trauma?  My story is long and profoundly painful, so much so that I am unable to write about it all in detail.. All I am able to say here is that the first of what were a succession of  very severe physical and emotional traumas happened to me starting in the Fall of 2011. Before this, I felt I was very healthy and my thyroid was functioning well.  In January 2012 my hair started falling out, and it has not stopped since.  There is also no regrowth.  In August 2014 I began to develop numerous symptoms of hypothyroidism, and is when my thyroid tests began to suggest my thyroid function was starting to decline.

Does anyone know if severe physical and emotional trauma of long duration permanently damages the thyroid, or is there a possibility it could recover on it's own without having to go on thyroid medication.  I am female and now 56 yrs old.

Thank you to everyone who reads my post,
hoping someone might have some experience/insight into what has happened to me.

[Rai_Rai]

I also have some of the symptoms like my eyebrows are thinning, lack of stamina, brain fog. The worse for me is the anxiety and sweating even when its not hot my face just feels like a hot flush and it starts pouring with sweat.
I've recently had my blood test done again because I think I'm under medicated, still waiting on those results. But in the mean time I found going to the gym helps and drinking freshly made fruit juices and trying to relax with yoga or just doing things you like, sometimes I feel like I have to fight against my body to get past the fatigue, frustrating!!

[gillingham_01]

my list of symptoms is very lengthy gimel:

- along with my severe hair loss, my eyebrows are falling out.  I have always had thick eyebrows. I suddenly noticed a few months ago that the outer edges of my eyebrows have just about disappeared, and what's left continues to get thinner and thinner
- profound fatigue, my stamina is gone
- my motivation is gone
- increasing brain fog
- increasing slowness in my ability to think clearly
- in the morning when I wake up, I literally can't move.  I have never know fatigue as severe as it is when I wake up.
- my sleep pattern has become very disrupted, very hard to fall asleep, wake up every few hours
- this past weekend I slept nearly all day both days. This happens very often
- I've worked full time in high stress, demanding jobs for nearly 40 years, but now I cannot work more than two days in a row because of the profound fatigue I have every day.
- I have severe problems with my digestion, have greatly decreased digestive motility
- when I eat something, it feels like I've swallowed a rock, and I immediately become even colder than I already feel almost all the time.

- when I eat anything, even if it's only a few crackers, my stomach swells up
- constipation, at times severe
- I am gaining weight, yet I eat very little because I have no appetite.
- I have nausea that comes and goes most days, especially in the morning
- I also become especially cold at about the same time every day - between 1-3 pm.
- I used to walk 2-3 miles nearly every evening, for very many years.  I cannot do this anymore.  It is with great effort that I just walk 2 blocks to the mailbox and back.
- my eyes have started to bother me since this all happened to me.  They now hurt, burn, itch, my vision is becoming more blurry.  I can't read newsprint anymore now.
- my eyes have always been sensitive to sunlight, but this has now become severe
- my legs have now started to hurt and ache
- I wake up with unexplained bruises on my legs
- intolerance to both hot and cold temperatures
- my voice has been strange for the last several months now.  Is hard to explain, but it's like there's something stuck in my throat, and I have trouble speaking at length.  My voice sort of cracks and fades away.  I can't get the words out.
- frequent dermatitis on my fingers has recently been starting to happen, it comes and goes
- extreme sensitivity to noise
- have heart flutters that come and go
- severe anxiety with severe episodes of heat with profuse sweating.  This is the worse in the morning, but I also have these episodes throughout the day, every single day

I have always been extremely in tune with my body, have always been athletic all my life, tried to take care of myself, but since this has happened to me, I feel as though I am now existing in a very ill, foreign body.  I do not feel myself anymore. I am in extreme emotional distress because of what is happening to me.

[gimel]

In another site, that same doctor said, "Since NDT has more T3 than the human thyroid gland produces, the well-replaced patient’s FT4 will be below the middle of its range, and the FT3 will be high “normal” or slightly high before the next AM dose."  My FT4 and FT3 results are consistent with that.  

Before going further, can you please list the symptoms you have, besides hair loss.  

[gillingham_01]

I'm sorry, I made another typo when I posted my most recent lab values a few days ago.  Here is my corrected FT3 value:

TSH
Range           0.450-4.5
My value        5.26

FT4
Range            0.82-1.77
my value        1.46

FT3
Range             2.0-4.4
my value         3.6        (not 3.36)

When I was well before all this happened to me, I wouldn't have made mistakes like this.  My sustained concentration and focus are really being affected.

[gillingham_01]

Thank you again for offering your thoughts and comments Gimel. The information you provided that you say is from a good thyroid doctor is very helpful to me.  I've not come across this piece of information in all of the searching and reading I have done.

Could I ask you what your FT4 and FT3 levels are? (the levels that you feel relief from your symptoms)?

Could I ask another question?  Have you or anyone on the forum suffered very severe hair loss with no regrowth where it started to come back again after being on Armour?  I can't tell you how distraught I am with now having lost nearly all of my hair.

[gimel]

You expressed concern that the thyroid hormone was not finding its way to the cells of your body.  Perhaps it is more likely that your levels are just too low.  Have a look at this info.

In the words of a good thyroid doctor, "The free T3 is not as helpful in untreated persons as the free T4 because in the light of a rather low FT4 the body will convert more T4 to T3 to maintain thyroid effect as well as is possible. So the person with a rather low FT4 and high-in-range FT3 may still be hypothyroid. However, if the FT4 is below 1.3 and the FT3 is also rather low, say below 3.4 (range 2 to 4.4 at LabCorp) then its likely that hypothyroidism is the cause of a person's symptoms."

In addition, every person has slightly different levels at which they feel best.  I think it is worth a therapeutic trial of thyroid meds, adequate to raise your Free T4 and Free T3 levels.  Many members, myself included, say that relief from hypo symptoms required Free T4 at the middle of its range, at minimum, and Free T3 in the upper third of its range, or as necessary to relieve symptoms.