Thyroid, Apnea, & Fatigue

[lilly747]

I have been wanting to post this for a long time now. But for some reason, I haven't felt comfortable to do so. However, I see so many posts about continuing fatigue after being on CPAP. So I would like to share my story concerning my fatigue, thyroid, and apnea.

Some years ago, I had my Thyroid removed.


I went to see the doctor because I was exhausted all the time. My thyroid tests came back with in range. The doctor said my thyroid levels were fine. Six months later and still exhausted, I went to see a Natural Path. Low and behold, he dare touch me, yes he did. He told me I had 3 lumps on my thyroid, and sent me back to my regular doctor with this news. Short story, the lumps were not cancerous, but I ended up with the thyroid being removed and put on a synthetic thyroid replacement.

My TSH was triturate up with Synthroid until it reached 1.0 and I felt much better for a long time. However, over time I again became exhausted. I really hit bottom when my doctor lowered my thyroid medication because my TSH was out of range. My TSH was triturated to 1.5 from 0.05 (the range is usually ABOUT 0.5 to 4.0)


I went to a Natural Path and she had my TSH, FreeT3, Total 3T, Reverse T3, FreeT4, and TotalT4 checked. The readings were all in range, but they were bad. My TSH was now at 1.0, a very good reading. My T3 was way too low, but in range. My Reverse T3 was way too high, but in range.

Short story, I was told I did not utilize the synthetic thyroid well and put on a natural thyroid supplement. Now my TSH is still 1.0, my T3 is much higher, and my ReverseT3 is much lower. I took all the test results to my doctor, who says the readings are great. I tell her my energy level is much better, but I still don't have near the energy I should. I am checked out with all kind of tests. Everything looks good. The doctor sends me on my way.

Getting nowhere with my doctor, I go back to a Natural Path. She sends me home with an oximenter. It showed my oxygen level at night was dropping too low. So she send my back to my doctor with the results. My doctor sent me for a sleep study. The results showed I had apnea and was put on CPAP. Now I have great energy and am thankful.

My thyroid was a big part of my fatigue, as was my apnea.

Through all of this, before and after my thyroid removal, my thyroid readings were in range.

Also TSH is not made or produced by the thyroid.

Sorry this is a book.

[SleepingUgly]

If you had undiagnosed apnea, how do you know any of your symptoms of fatigue were due to your thyroid?

[cosmo]

What was your rate before the procedures?

[lilly747]

If you had undiagnosed apnea, how do you know any of your symptoms of fatigue were due to your thyroid?

When I got the thyroid problem fixed, my energy level improved greatly. I was able to function. I still napped 2 hours every day and felt bad and not motivated. Things got better much, but they were not good enough.

[lilly747]

What was your rate before the procedures?

This is what I have. I'm still a little tired but not fatigued.

I am not a doctor. I was however told my doctor when i had my thyroid removed, they were looking for a target reading of 1.0 to 1.5 for TSH.

[avi123]

In my opinion you were not properly treated before and after your Thyroid was removed, by a specialist endocrinologist MD. You keep repeating in your post "MY DOC" but no where do you explain what kind of a Doc was it. Usually, treating Thyroid disorders is very successful if done by endocrinologists. Once your benign growth were removed together with the Thyroid gland intself, it should have been easy and reliable to continue with Thyroid hormones Rx. Overall, hyper- Thyroid = Grave's Disease, leads to fatigue, and loss of weight, while hypo- Thyroid = Hashimoto disease, leads to overweight, and sleep apnea. The prescribed Thyroid hormones Rx should have been balancing and keep you in a euthyroid condition between the two illnesses, without ill effects.

[DreamStalker]

Sorry they took your thyroid, that makes you dependent on them for the rest of your life.

Very similar thing happened to me ... they found benign nodules and first thing she wanted to do was surgical removal. Went for a second opinion and they wanted to take my parathyroid ... I thought these idiots have no clue what they are doing so I began doing my own research and went to a third endo and he said not to worry. Took 4 periodic fine needle biopsies over course of a year and said I'd be fine. Afterwards, he also had me on synthroid for a year as an experimental procedure to see if he could get any reaction from the nodules ... and there was none. So he said for me to go live my life free of synthroid and surgery and if the nodules began to give me any problems to go back and he would re-evaluate. I've had no problems.

Let me tell you the first endo was bizzare. Her office was set up like a cattle run with a full waiting room having 30 to 40 patients going through the run at any one time from station to station with several nurses and PA's doing most of the work. At the end of the run, if you were lucky, the endo would come in and spend a couple of minutes saying "emm hmmm ... I think we can remove it on Tuesday or Thursday, which would you prefer?" No explanation or anything, just when would you like to have your thyroid removed. I knew right away there was something wrong with that get up.

Unfortunately, I think it's almost impossible for them to balance your hormones anywhere near how well your own body can do it. I wish I had better advice for you but all I have is to always get 2nd and 3rd and even 4th opinions when it comes to letting any of those "docs" remove any part of your body just because it makes their life easier. Used to be you had a headache and doc would tell you to take a couple of aspirin and call back in the morning ... now they say we can remove your head on Tuesday or Thursday just make an appointment at the front desk.

I wish you the best and hope you are able to manage with all the doctors, drugs, and CPAP.

[lilly747]

In my opinion you were not properly treated before and after your Thyroid was removed, by a specialist endocrinologist MD. You keep repeating in your post "MY DOC" but no where do you explain what kind of a Doc was it. Usually, treating Thyroid disorders is very successful if done by endocrinologists. Once your benign growth were removed together with the Thyroid gland intself, it should have been easy and reliable to continue with Thyroid hormones Rx. Overall, hyper- Thyroid = Grave's Disease, leads to fatigue, and loss of weight, while hypo- Thyroid = Hashimoto disease, leads to overweight, and sleep apnea. The prescribed Thyroid hormones Rx should have been balancing and keep you in a euthyroid condition between the two illnesses, without ill effects.

I could have wrote a 500 page book. I left out most of the pages.

Yes I had an endocrinologisist.

In fact I went to a very well known teaching/research hospital and saw their specialists.

I don't want to debate anything.....this is jusst my story......short form.

Could not just remove the lumps.....did not have any of the diseases you talk about.

[lilly747]

Sorry they took your thyroid, that makes you dependent on them for the rest of your life.

Very similar thing happened to me ... they found benign nodules and first thing she wanted to do was surgical removal. Went for a second opinion and they wanted to take my parathyroid ... I thought these idiots have no clue what they are doing so I began doing my own research and went to a third endo and he said not to worry. Took 4 periodic fine needle biopsies over course of a year and said I'd be fine. Afterwards, he also had me on synthroid for a year as an experimental procedure to see if he could get any reaction from the nodules ... and there was none. So he said for me to go live my life free of synthroid and surgery and if the nodules began to give me any problems to go back and he would re-evaluate. I've had no problems.

Let me tell you the first endo was bizzare. Her office was set up like a cattle run with a full waiting room having 30 to 40 patients going through the run at any one time from station to station with several nurses and PA's doing most of the work. At the end of the run, if you were lucky, the endo would come in and spend a couple of minutes saying "emm hmmm ... I think we can remove it on Tuesday or Thursday, which would you prefer?" No explanation or anything, just when would you like to have your thyroid removed. I knew right away there was something wrong with that get up.

Unfortunately, I think it's almost impossible for them to balance your hormones anywhere near how well your own body can do it. I wish I had better advice for you but all I have is to always get 2nd and 3rd and even 4th opinions when it comes to letting any of those "docs" remove any part of your body just because it makes their life easier. Used to be you had a headache and doc would tell you to take a couple of aspirin and call back in the morning ... now they say we can remove your head on Tuesday or Thursday just make an appointment at the front desk.

I wish you the best and hope you are able to manage with all the doctors, drugs, and CPAP.

Yes it is very hard to balance hormones.

They gave me the choice of trying to treat with drugs or have it removed. After a lot of my own research, I decided to have it removed. I did try radioactive iodine first with less than optimal results.

[DreamStalker]

Sorry they took your thyroid, that makes you dependent on them for the rest of your life.

Very similar thing happened to me ... they found benign nodules and first thing she wanted to do was surgical removal. Went for a second opinion and they wanted to take my parathyroid ... I thought these idiots have no clue what they are doing so I began doing my own research and went to a third endo and he said not to worry. Took 4 periodic fine needle biopsies over course of a year and said I'd be fine. Afterwards, he also had me on synthroid for a year as an experimental procedure to see if he could get any reaction from the nodules ... and there was none. So he said for me to go live my life free of synthroid and surgery and if the nodules began to give me any problems to go back and he would re-evaluate. I've had no problems.

Let me tell you the first endo was bizzare. Her office was set up like a cattle run with a full waiting room having 30 to 40 patients going through the run at any one time from station to station with several nurses and PA's doing most of the work. At the end of the run, if you were lucky, the endo would come in and spend a couple of minutes saying "emm hmmm ... I think we can remove it on Tuesday or Thursday, which would you prefer?" No explanation or anything, just when would you like to have your thyroid removed. I knew right away there was something wrong with that get up.

Unfortunately, I think it's almost impossible for them to balance your hormones anywhere near how well your own body can do it. I wish I had better advice for you but all I have is to always get 2nd and 3rd and even 4th opinions when it comes to letting any of those "docs" remove any part of your body just because it makes their life easier. Used to be you had a headache and doc would tell you to take a couple of aspirin and call back in the morning ... now they say we can remove your head on Tuesday or Thursday just make an appointment at the front desk.

I wish you the best and hope you are able to manage with all the doctors, drugs, and CPAP.

Yes it is very hard to balance hormones.

They gave me the choice of trying to treat with drugs or have it removed. After a lot of my own research, I decided to have it removed. I did try radioactive iodine first with less than optimal results.

Yep, they gave me the glow in the dark iodine too and told me to stay away from other people for a day or two The radioactive iodine was just so they could take imagery to determine hot and cold (active/inactive) portions of the thyroid. IMO, a lot of doctors are just too quick to remove your thyroid, or your gall bladder, or your ovaries, or whatever rather than seeking out the cause of the problem. The cause takes more time and effort and thinking and all most of them want to do is make as much money as fast as possible to pay off their student loans and jaguar payments.

[lilly747]

I shared this for thoses who have their CPAP treatment working good, but still feel very tired, and have had their doctors say their thyroid readings are within range.

It might be in your interest to do your own research on thyroid levels.....just because the levels are in does not mean they are at a level that is good for you. Maybe they are fine, and maybe they are not. TSH is only one level that needs to be considered. T3 is very important.

Get your readings and do your own research.

[Sir NoddinOff]

Before I went on CPAP about a year ago, my GP said two of my thyroid levels were off. He suggested that I go see a specialist. At exactly the same time I started CPAP and figured I'd just wait a bit and see what happened before I jumped into the deep end of the thyroid therapy pool. Good decision. After three months of successful CPaP therapy I had my thyroid workups redone and, surprise, surprise... everything was normal. In my case, and a I suspect in a lot of cases poor sleep quality contributes to thyroid disfunction. Is this always the case for everybody? Certainly not - but don't commit to having your thyroid tweaked or even removed until you've gotten it tested while you're getting restful sleep and experiencing the healing which CPAP can provide... IMO, cuz I'm not a doctor.

[lilly747]

Before I went on CPAP about a year ago, my GP said two of my thyroid levels were off. He suggested that I go see a specialist. At exactly the same time I started CPAP and figured I'd just wait a bit and see what happened before I jumped into the deep end of the thyroid therapy pool. Good decision. After three months of successful CPaP therapy I had my thyroid workups redone and, surprise, surprise... everything was normal. In my case, and a I suspect in a lot of cases poor sleep quality contributes to thyroid disfunction. Is this always the case for everybody? Certainly not - but don't commit to having your thyroid tweaked or even removed until you've gotten it tested while you're getting restful sleep and experiencing the healing which CPAP can provide... IMO, cuz I'm not a doctor.

I agree. And I am glad you got your thyroid working as it should. It's important.

[SleepingUgly]

Before I went on CPAP about a year ago, my GP said two of my thyroid levels were off. He suggested that I go see a specialist. At exactly the same time I started CPAP and figured I'd just wait a bit and see what happened before I jumped into the deep end of the thyroid therapy pool. Good decision. After three months of successful CPaP therapy I had my thyroid workups redone and, surprise, surprise... everything was normal. In my case, and a I suspect in a lot of cases poor sleep quality contributes to thyroid disfunction. Is this always the case for everybody? Certainly not - but don't commit to having your thyroid tweaked or even removed until you've gotten it tested while you're getting restful sleep and experiencing the healing which CPAP can provide... IMO, cuz I'm not a doctor.

If it were me, I'd keep testing it every 6 months to make sure it's not just swinging this way and that before it completely goes out.

[avi123]

My Sleep Doc routinely wants to see Thyroid function results before prescribing XPAPs. If the T3 or T4 hormones blood levels are NOT in order then they are first dealt with by using medications, surgery, radiation, etc., and once treated, a sleep study is the next in line. A malfunctioning thyroid is a co morbid of sleep apnea, similar to heart problems, diabetics, etc. There is nothing complicated about diagnosing Thyroid problems. It's straight forward but needs to be done.



The TSH hormone level in the blood is tested if there are indications that the pituitary gland in the brain is secreting too much TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) b/c of tumors in the gland. The TSH is controlling the Thyroid gland function to secrete its T3 or T4 into the blood depending on the metabolic activity needs of the person's body.

But, I have not heard that use of XPAP could lead to Thyroid problems.


http://www.bing.com/search?q=use%20of%2 ... owAppsUI=1