Thyroid
It is horribly ironic that it appears that the only two academic periods in which I was a full time student and got major medical diagnoses will also be the only two in which my GPA is 4.0.
My gallbladder was removed 4 weeks ago. Surgery went pretty well. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed the week before surgery with hyperthyroidism, and at the moment we are sleuthing to figure out which type of hyperthyroidism I have. I keep being asked if this has anything to do with diabetes. This question is both one I am very curious about, and also one that I find a little bit annoying, because the undertone is, "I'm not vulnerable, right?"
Wrong. Getting a thyroid disease is about as common as developing diabetes, although the risk factors are pretty different.
Here are some things I have learned: In third world countries, low iodine intake is the cause of lots of hypothyroidism, a little hyperthyroidism, and a lot of mental retardation due to congenital hypothyroidism.
In most of the world, iodine is plentiful. Thyroid disorders are still common, but not nearly as common, and especially not in the very young; there are still belts where pollution causes thyroid disease.
Most thyroid disorders are autoimmune, and for that reason, type 1 diabetics are at increased risk of developing Graves' Disease, Hashimoto's Disease, and Plummer's Disease, which are my doctor's top three choices of what might be wrong with me, although so far my results in the screening for these diseases have been normal.
All of the common thyroid diseases are more common in women than in men, although the sex differential is a lot more pronounced as you get older; in young children it's almost an even split.
Diabetics who do not have an autoimmune component to their diabetes (and some people classified type 2 still do have some antibodies, thought the autoimmune process is generally not as intense as in type 1), do not have an increased risk of thyroid disorders.
In fact, being overweight (which tends to go along with type 2 diabetes) is protective against hyperthyroidism.
And of course, because thyroid diseases tend to develop later in life (at 20, I'm pretty young to have a thyroid disease- the likelihood of developing one increases until about age 60), the decreased life expectancy of the diabetic decreases the odds of getting a thyroid disease over the entire lifetime.
My gallbladder was removed 4 weeks ago. Surgery went pretty well. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed the week before surgery with hyperthyroidism, and at the moment we are sleuthing to figure out which type of hyperthyroidism I have. I keep being asked if this has anything to do with diabetes. This question is both one I am very curious about, and also one that I find a little bit annoying, because the undertone is, "I'm not vulnerable, right?"
Wrong. Getting a thyroid disease is about as common as developing diabetes, although the risk factors are pretty different.
Here are some things I have learned: In third world countries, low iodine intake is the cause of lots of hypothyroidism, a little hyperthyroidism, and a lot of mental retardation due to congenital hypothyroidism.
In most of the world, iodine is plentiful. Thyroid disorders are still common, but not nearly as common, and especially not in the very young; there are still belts where pollution causes thyroid disease.
Most thyroid disorders are autoimmune, and for that reason, type 1 diabetics are at increased risk of developing Graves' Disease, Hashimoto's Disease, and Plummer's Disease, which are my doctor's top three choices of what might be wrong with me, although so far my results in the screening for these diseases have been normal.
All of the common thyroid diseases are more common in women than in men, although the sex differential is a lot more pronounced as you get older; in young children it's almost an even split.
Diabetics who do not have an autoimmune component to their diabetes (and some people classified type 2 still do have some antibodies, thought the autoimmune process is generally not as intense as in type 1), do not have an increased risk of thyroid disorders.
In fact, being overweight (which tends to go along with type 2 diabetes) is protective against hyperthyroidism.
And of course, because thyroid diseases tend to develop later in life (at 20, I'm pretty young to have a thyroid disease- the likelihood of developing one increases until about age 60), the decreased life expectancy of the diabetic decreases the odds of getting a thyroid disease over the entire lifetime.