Noticing My Eyes After Treatments for Hyperthyroidism

When I first started seeing my endocrinologist she put me on tapaszole for my hyperthyroidism. I was on that for a while. I was also put on a beta-blocker because my heart was racing too fast, due to hyperthyroidism. My endocrinologist would check my blood work and see how my thyroid levels were. It was working for a while and it even looked like it was putting me in remission, but then it stopped working. I felt a ton of frustration. Actually, frustration was an understatement. I was doing everything the doctor told me and I was not getting better. I remember that was how I was thinking and feeling.

A disease like I had does not always work like that. You cannot just take a pill and after a little while everything is better, you are completely healed and feel totally normal. Sometimes it takes more than that. Sometimes it’s a longer road than that, but I did not realize this at the time. In my mind I was thinking about how I am taking medication, so that should solve all of my problems. I remember asking myself, "why?" Why is the medication not working? Isn’t that how things like this work? If something is wrong with you, you take medication, if needed, and you are supposed to get better. That is not at all how my thyroid disease journey went. To this day, it needs to be monitored.

Two options: surgery or radioactive iodine treatment

Eventually, my doctor came to the determination that it was not really getting any better. I then had two options, surgery or this thing called a radioactive iodine treatment. I remember thinking, "what is that?!" After talking things over with my parents and my doctor we all decided the radioactive iodine treatment was the right move for me. The surgery was a bit more risky. I was in my mid-twenties and my doctor thought that would be better for me. So that is what I did.

I had to swallow medicine that was supposed to destroy my thyroid to the point where it would not work anymore. It was a strange process. I had to take a few days off of work to go to my doctor to take the pills and then I had to quarantine. I could not be around anyone, not even my family so I was confined to my room. That was hard, considering I was the type of person who could not really sit around and do nothing. It was the longest few days, but in the end, I do believe it was the right decision. I did not want to have to go through surgery if there were other options.

How I found out I had thyroid eye disease

I am now currently on Levothyroxine, the generic for Synthroid. My endocrinologist still checks my levels and will adjust my medication if she doesn’t like where the levels are. I meet with her every 6 months to check-in and get the blood work done.

The one thing that did not improve during my thyroid disease treatment was my eyes. They were definitely not bulging as much, which was good, but after this whole process, I really started to notice my eye issues and found out I had thyroid eye disease (TED). What I did not realize was that thyroid eye disease was going to be a journey in and of itself.