subarachnoid haemorrhage as a cause of hypothyroidism

[Guest dorina]

This is interesting to read on the internet. I'm not sure of the correct wording but basically the research shows that the symptoms reported by SAH patients mirror hypothyroidism and that when tested some where I can'rt think of the word but their thyroid function was low. even if the thyroid readings are in the "normal" range your thyroid can be malfunctioning. My physcitrist picked this up and has started me on thyroxin. I keep a brief diary every night just how many headaches how many dizzies and give them a rating of 1 to 6 or rather displayed as 25 to 150 so they register onthe graph also how many extra mins sleep.

I have been on the thyroxin 5 months and the first graph showed no headache/dizzy days the second month showed 7% good days increasing slightly as the dose has increased todays graph for April shows 30% good days.

The reason for the physcitrist was the neuro consultant said the reason you'll love this was hyperventilation.

He Had me sit on the bed and pant until I was Dizzy and said does it feel like that I said yes and he said the reason you are dizzy is because you hyperventilate I was so shocked I just left .He could have said drink this half bottle of scoth do you feel dizzy thats because your a drunk.

the silly man made me feel I was the only person after a SAH who had ever had dizzy spells.

My GP said why not try a physcitrist so I went and he refered me to a physcologist who had me do about 6 hours of tests. and she found that the cause of the damage was physical not mental

So I now have the proof I wasn't hyperventilating

We are now trying to find out if the cause of these symptoms are thyroid related due to damage of the SAH.

I'll keep you posted put at the rate that the tablets are increased it looks like it won't be until the end of the year

The headache diary is a good thing though because if some of you are anything like me I can' remember at the end of the week if I had good days at the begining of the week and this way you can see at a glance the peeks and troughs and see your progress. sorry this was a bit long but I thought it might be of iterest.

the reason I wrote it was Karen saying how thin her hair was Since the SAH. There are sites on the internet where you can do thyroid tests on line.

Love for now Doreen

[rince]

This has the potential to be very interesting. When I try and ask about why I'm dizzy all the time I don't get any straight answers. Upto now I've just written it off as one of the effects of SAH and accepted it.

Scott

[Karen]

Hiya,

Yes, it is very interesting ..... I've had my thyroid tested and the results were okay. However, I'm now having to take calcium tabs, as my calcium levels were abnormally low and I nearly ended up back in hospital with the posibility of being put onto a drip. I'm on these tabs until June and I shall be tested again at this point. I believe that lack of calcium can also cause dizziness etc.....but I'm still not finding that the dizzy spells have improved greatly.....yes, I get the odd day, like Saturday and life felt wonderful, however, yesterday they were back again.

If somebody knows of a miracle cure then please let me know.... :?

[sue]

Hi everyone,

my thyroid story is a bit different but makes me wonder if there is some link somewhere along the line. Years ago I was diagnosed as having a very overactive thyroid, had some radioactive iodine treatment which actually overshot the mark a bit and it became a bit underactive, for years now I have taken 100mc of thyroxine every day, not long before the SAH I went to my GP feeling generally unwell, he sent me for blood tests, this was during the week before Christmas, I had the SAH on 31st December so didn't get my results untill after I came out of hospital, they showed that my thyroid at that time had been grossly underactive, my GP said it was probably that that saved my life, cos everything in my body was slowed down at the time of the SAH, he was reluctant at first to give me a higher dose of thyroxine as it was not long since the bleed but has now upped it to 125mcg per day and on this dose my thyroid has levelled out. Who knows? It all seems a bit odd! All interesting stuff though.

[Guest dorina]

Hi Karen , the thyroid test free t4 level is from 11.8 to 24 mine was 12 so inside the range but all my symptoms were shouting underactive feeling cold,loss of hair not only on head but all over body as well not a hair on my legs or arms.a sure sign is eyebrows if only 3/4 and thining its a sure sign.headache especially first thing in the morning,

, dizzy,lethargy especially in the morning even after a good nights sleeps,depression,constipation, dry skin especially feet.

,difficulty in loosing weight do not sweat even with heavy exersize , poor memory, poor concentration, low sex drive, puffy eyelids, bags under the eyes face looks bloated , slow thinking

joint stiffness and pains,need a lot of sleep these were all me. I must do the test again and see what my score is this time.Luckily my physcatrist is very understanding and willing to let me have the thyroxin even though I am with in the range. I am currently on 75 mg thyroxine but if I am haveing really bad spell of dizzy and headaches I take between 6 and 12 kelp a day for about 4 days this usually helps, Its only seaweed so it can't do much harm but it ups the trace minerals and boosts the metabolic rate via the thyroid. I

At the moment I am pleased with the results from the thyroxin and if good days can be improved to 50% that will do me after years of no good days

Doreen

[Guest dorina]

Hi everyone,

my thyroid story is a bit different but makes me wonder if there is some link somewhere along the line. Years ago I was diagnosed as having a very overactive thyroid, had some radioactive iodine treatment which actually overshot the mark a bit and it became a bit underactive, for years now I have taken 100mc of thyroxine every day, not long before the SAH I went to my GP feeling generally unwell, he sent me for blood tests, this was during the week before Christmas, I had the SAH on 31st December so didn't get my results untill after I came out of hospital, they showed that my thyroid at that time had been grossly underactive, my GP said it was probably that that saved my life, cos everything in my body was slowed down at the time of the SAH, he was reluctant at first to give me a higher dose of thyroxine as it was not long since the bleed but has now upped it to 125mcg per day and on this dose my thyroid has levelled out. Who knows? It all seems a bit odd! All interesting stuff though.

Sue do you get headaches and dizzy as well

Doreen

[Karen]

Hi Doreen,

It's very interesting stuff.....I think that I'll have to do yet another "Google" search! Will mention it to my Doc when I'm next due to see him. Do you find that the kelp supplements really help? I'm willing to try anything to lose the dizziness.... :?

[sue]

Hi Doreen,

yes, I do get headaches and dizziness as well but much more since the SAH. Must admit though post SAH symptoms are very much the same as Hypothyroidism, even my GP says the same.

[Guest dorina]

Hi karen , yes Ireally do.I originally used to take them if I felt low and neaded a boost I used to take between 10 and 12 and they give you energy, Last year when my neice was staying with me I needed to extract the honey from my bee hives .Last year was the best I have had in my 5 years keeping bees and I knew it would be a long day so I took 6 tablets in the morning and another 6 tablets at midday. by 8pm I was really tired and my neice said to me do you realise you haven;t had a dizzy spell or a headache all day.so I repeated the same for the next 4 days for 3 and a half days I had no headaches or dizzy.I left it two weeks and tried againthis time it workked for 2 days. so now if I have a nasty run I repeat itBut only save it for when I am desperate when the headaches and dizzies last all day long and the co codamol and zomig arn't keeping them at bay,

I think its worth a try its only seaweed and if it doesn;t do you any good it wont do you any harm its not like a drug its only classed as a food,

Love for now Doreen

[Karen]

Hi Doreen,

I will definetly pick up some kelp supplements when I next hit the shops....is there any particular brand or strength?

[Annie]

Oh Karen, I would be SO happy if this helped you!!!

xo,

annie

[Karen]

Hi Annie,

I'm definetly going to find out from the Doc what my t4 level was when I last had the test...... but going to try out the kelp supplements first and see if they help any ....

[Guest dorina]

[

I really hope it works for you as it does for me.

I've had a real (excuse me) shitty day today I am under a lot of stress my mum is in hospital shes 89 so its a worry ,Anyway woke up after 12 hours sleep feeling dizzy and headache took my usual zomig and co codamol but it wwould not go away at about slept from 9.30 until 11.30 took 6 kelp nothing happend 5pm took 6 more 7.30 felt better headache gone dizzy gone its now after 11pm I have just given the bathroom a really good clean about to start on kitchen. Looks like i'm goimg to be on the night shift but I 'm feeling a lot better

love for now Doreen

quote=Karen]Hi Annie,

I'm definetly going to find out from the Doc what my t4 level was when I last had the test...... but going to try out the kelp supplements first and see if they help any ....

[Karen]

Hi Doreen,

Sorry to hear about your Mum, parents are quite a worry aren't they.

If you did the nightshift last night, you're probably in bed now, so hope that you have a better day .... stress and tiredness, always makes my dizziness worse.

I had a fairly busy day, yesterday and managed to achieve a lot more than I usually do, so that was good......I'm also finding that the lighter evenings help me on the energy front too.

Hope that you have a good day.....

[Louise]

Lighter evenings & brighter days always a good thing in my book.

Louise.x

[Annie]

Hi Doreen and all,

You have really started my wheels turning on this thyroid thing. I know it's a bad habit to be self diagnosing, but I am wondering if I suffer some of the same thing. I did a little online research too, Karen. Here's the thing for me.... the fatigue and WEIGHT GAIN! Ok, it could be part of the menopausal process, but this is ridiculous. I ride horseback, I walk miles, I do Pilates, I watch what I eat, and the pounds are just PACKING on. It's so depressing. So when I look at that plus the fatigue factor, I have to wonder. I mean, if there's a PILL that would help this.... let me at it!!! I don't have the headache/dizzy thing very often at all. Mostly when there's weather changes, so I'm pretty sure that's not related.

Would those of you who have experience with the hormone or other treatments please share what your T4 level was/is? Mine is 2.5. I am told by my British acupuncturist that in the states being over 2 means "normal", but that in Britain, they consider 4 to be the lower end of normal. Who knows why.

Thanks!!!

Annie

[Karen]

Annie,

It's a very interesting subject and I'm going to have to write it down and share it with my Doc when I next see him .... it certainly makes you wonder....but I haven't a clue what my levels were, when he last tested me. Basically he's testing me for everything going at the minute and he's also going to try and find out why my body isn't absorbing calcium.

I know why I'm stacking the weight on, mainly because I can't walk as far as I once used to ... and I cook too well, being at home all day...but, my hair seems to be thinning again and if it carries on at this rate, I'm going to be bald!

Let me know if you find any interesting links to this subject....

[sue]

Hi Annie, Karen Doreen,

my T4 level was 2.4, as told to me by the receptionist at the GP's. My GP had already upped my thyroxine from 100mcg to 125mcg (spoke about this in an earlier post) do feel a little better but still extremely tired, what makes me think there maybe a link between underactive thyroid and SAH is the fact that I had felt so unwell generally for a few weeks pre SAH,had blood tests the week before, didn't get results till after the SAH, (sorry if i'm repeating myself!) Only to find that my already (but controlled by mediation) underactive thyroid had dropped drastically, as I said my GP thinks it probably saved my life because it was so slow, but my question is this, why did it drop just before SAH? (I do have regular thyroid tests).

With me its not a case of SAH causing the problem but the problem seemed to occur pre SAH? Hope that makes sense.

I'm going to see my GP next week to discuss this all with him, will let you know the outcome

Love Suexx

[sue]

Sorry! just a bit more!!

when describing all my post SAH symptoms to my GP, every one seemed to mirror the symptoms of hypothyroidism, so how do we know the difference???

Well, yes, the MRA that shows what happened to my brain plus the CT scans etc. but very odd, the similarities are amazing. Myabe we should search the net and see what we find?

Suexx

[Karen]

Hi Sue,

Hmmm.... I know what you mean .... there are a lot of symptoms for other problems that do mirror the after affects from the SAH ... I've been quite lucky and found a really good GP that's willing to rule out other problems and hence another round of blood tests in a month.

[Guest dorina]

Hi Annie ,The thing about self diagnosis at the end of the day its your body and you know how you feel better than anyone else. I have been pestinging various GPs I have had over the last 14 years.apart from my post SAH and no one would listen I have always known there was something else as well. I had got to a point were I never had a good day dizzyheads especially when I had been up in the morning for about an hour then the headaches would set in. then a couple of hours sleep then a feeling of total exhaustion The symptoms so like the post SAH I really can't say which is which.but all I can tell you isI am now on 75mg of thyroxin and I am now getting 33 1/3% good days . I have a few hairs growing on my arms so something good is happening . All my body hair having disappeared apart from about 12 pubic hairs . eye brows and eyelashes down by about 60% My weight gain was about 75 lbs and would not move except upwards .I was very depressed .I am due to visit my physciatrist on the 14th June and I am going to ask for the dose to be increased to 100mg. It has taken 6 months to get my T4 levels to 14. I have heard some people Don't function well if it is under 20 ,so if thats the case I'm prepared for my level to go up to the maximum 24 if I get a good quality of life.My weight hasn't started to drop yet I'm living in hopes though. I@ll keep the site informed of my progress ,and hope it might be of some help to someone else.

[Liz D]

I've just found this thread!

I have hypothyroidism caused by a malfunctioning pituitary gland. My problems go back as far 1991 when I had my third child. My GP thought my sypmtoms were due to my thyroid. I went from a size 10 to a very "tight" size 14 in 8 months. My hair was falling out, from all over my body and I had lost a lot of my eyebrows. I would get terrible aches and pains, especially in my feet! the headahces were horrendous. I would get "brain fog" and this was when I had to start using lists or I would forget things. I would get very fatigued. I would get a "dip" in the afternoon and eventually this turned into a 2 hour nap!

These symptoms steadily got worse. At first the "dips" were every few days but eventually they became daily. I have had quite few thryoid blood tests over the years! My TSH was 1.2 (reference range 1.2 to 5.5) my T4 was 11 (range 10 to 24). However, the important hormone is T3. You have to convery T4 to T3 (your liver does this) to have energy. Very few NHS labs will test your T3 levels if, in their opinion, you T4 is "in range"!

For years I went backandf forth to my GP but always the same - "I was within range". They had no idea what was causing my symptons.

I eventually went to see a very controversial (private) doctor, who specialises in hypothyroidism. He looked at my blood results and told me that they pointed to a problem with my pituitary gland. He suggested I pay for a scan, but I asked would this make any difference to treatment and he said no, so I declined (this would have found my aneurysm)! He started me on thyroid meds, I declined the synthetic thyroxine and opted for natural dessicated porcine thyroid. I have never looked back from then. The NHS will not treat me because of these wretched "reference ranges". The doctor I saw used my symptoms for a diagnoses.

I now know I had a SAH when I was 37 (1997) and it was after that my energy levels, hair loss, weight etc really caused me problems. My aneurysm was on my left vertebral artery, beside my pituitary gland. I would say that I have headaches at 9.5 on the pain scale 0 to 10! I believe I have been having tiny bleeds since 1997, affecting my health.

Once my thryoid was treated, I got my health and energy back. My headaches stopped. This was 2004. Then in 2008 the headaches reappeared, as did some of my hypothyroid symptoms. My health started to go down hill. My doc started to slowly increase my throid meds but there was no relief from my symptoms. Then I had my SAh Feb 2009.

My thryoid started to give me problems again. The after effects of a SAH have very similar symptoms to hypothyroidism. After a lot of trial and error I now take Cytomel. This is just the T3 hormone. It looks like my body's ability to convet T4 to T3 is now nil! My weight had started to creep up again after the SAH but it is now going back down. The dark circles have gone from beneath my eyes and the days I am fatigued have nothing to do with my thyroid but are down to the SAH. However, if it were down to the NHS my thyroid still would not be treated because of their insistence of sticking to these "reference ranges", even though for 70 years people were diagnosed as being hypothyroid, from symptoms, until the ranges were brought in during the early 70's. Initially to aid diagnoses but to be used in conjuction with symptoms. But now the ranges are used as a diagnostic tool!

My fatigue is now caused by either doing a lot of physical things ie travel or being in company for a length of time and have to concentrate. My fatigue is now caused by using brain and having it excercised. No longer do I have fatigue for no reason!

Sorry I have gone on a bit but I was so surpised to find this thread!

Liz

[JayKay]

This is an interesting thread, but I must caution against self diagnosis and self medication. I had Graves' Disease (overactive thyroid) in my twenties - went undiagnosed for a year because instead of rapidly losing weight and having bulging eyes I put ON weight. I gained about 20kgs and then when I was diagnosed I gained another 10 in about a month.

I was treated with tablets for 2 years then stopped, but was told I might relapse. This is what happens, so I was treated with radio-iodine and eventually went underactive, which is very common.

I was convinced my metabolism was "different" to everyone else's... until I started working for a Consultant Endocrinologist (who was head of the Endocrine section at the Royal College of Physicians). I now know that most people lose weight with an overactive gland, but by no means every person reacts the same.

When you are on Thyroxine, the doctors should aim for your TSH to be low (towards 1) and the T4 towards the upper end of the range, around 20. GPs tend to see the results and say that anywhere in the range is ok. This is true if you are NOT on medication, but the specialists say that "optimum" is the levels I state at the beginning of this paragraph.

There is no hard clinical evidence to say that Armour Thyroid, T3 etc is of any use at all. In fact my boss gets a LOT of patients who have been given Thyroxine when they didn't have an underactive gland to start with, and this causes all kinds of problems with the pituitary axis long term. Your body converts the T4 to T3. You can read the British Thyroid Association's opinion on this here.

(ETA: In England, the reference ranges are in mIU/L for the TSH and mmol/L for the T4, just in case anyone is reading in the USA or elsewhere and the numbers don't seem right!!)

Edited May 10, 2010 by JayKay

[michelle C]

Hi all

I have just found this thread its very intersting reading the week before i had my SAH i had a Thyroid test for underactive thyroid and i had a scan of my thyroid done during that week and they found black benign nodules on it which resulted in me having blood tests every 6 months because the doctor said i would at some point in my life have underactive thyroid (dont know wich that one is hyper or hypo). So far fingers crossed as i have just had another blood test done last week everything is ok:-D.

This definatly an intersting thread and one i will keep reading.

Thanks.

Love luck and laughter

Michelle c

[JayKay]

Hypo is underactive, hyper is overactive. Is the doctor planning to do a fine needle aspiration of a nodule?