Читать книгу The Healthy Thyroid: What you can do to prevent and alleviate thyroid imbalance - Patsy Westcott - Страница 52

Overproduction of thyroid hormones – hyperthyroidism – is caused by an overactive thyroid. The state of being hyperthyroid, called thyrotoxicosis, is sometimes easier to spot than hypothyroidism, partly because there may be rather dramatic mental and physical effects. However, symptoms are not always obvious, but may just creep up on you. It may only be when someone else comments on how you have changed or when your doctor notices some signs that the condition is diagnosed.

Whereas an underactive thyroid slows your body down, an overactive one speeds it up, causing your metabolism to race uncontrollably. As Jan, who has Graves’ disease, the most common cause of hyperthyroidism, describes it:

I’d had a lot of trouble in my marriage and a lot of stress generally after I left. The first thing I noticed was that I was full of energy. I couldn’t sit still, I had to be working, working out, cooking or doing something with the kids all the time. I started to drink to try and slow myself down. As time went on, I couldn’t sit down long enough to think and I became totally exhausted. My muscles started to waste away, even though I was exercising so much. My periods stopped. I had bouts of breathlessness, which were diagnosed as asthma. I couldn’t think straight, my mind was so overactive. I felt as if my head was full of twittering sparrows and I had what I can only describe as an ‘electrical buzzing’ in my head.

As Jan’s account illustrates, when the thyroid becomes overactive, the body burns energy at a tremendous rate. If you are affected, you can eat like an elephant without putting on weight; in fact, more often than not, you will lose pounds instead.

As the gland continues to step up production, you may feel constantly hot and sweaty, and find yourself stripping off and throwing windows open, even on cold days. You may also notice a change in bowel habits – needing to go more often and sometimes having diarrhoea, a symptom so common that it’s not unusual for hyperthyroidism to be first diagnosed at a gastroenterology clinic. Some of those affected experience a raging thirst and pass large amounts of urine, similar to that seen in people with undiagnosed diabetes.

Anyone who has been around someone with an overactive thyroid can’t fail to notice their boundless ‘get up and go’. Sufferers pace like caged lions, talking 19 to the dozen, yet are unable to muster any concentration. Their energy never flags for a second, even at bedtime. Recalls Louise, 38:

I couldn’t settle for the jumble of racing thoughts that were flying around my brain. My sex drive increased, too – I wouldn’t leave my husband alone.

Louise’s experience echoes that of many others, and is thought to occur because of the increased turnover of male-type sex hormones – androgens – which control the libido and are converted into the female hormone – oestrogen – in the body.