Thyroid Disease and in particular, Hashi's Disease mentally, is like someone giving you a healthy dose of happiness followed by a long drawn out dose of sadness.  It makes you think you are nuts, flat out.  In seeking treatment, I've been diagnosed with Bipolar, Panic Disorder, Schizophrenia and just about every other mental disorder known to man until finally getting diagnosed with Hashi's.

The nature of Hashi's presents lots and lots of mental problems, which is probably one of the worst symptoms of the disease.  Its not that either of the emotions that Hashi's triggers is very difficult to deal with on its own, its the fact that the disease continuously causes changes.  One minute you feel relatively perfect....just like before you ever had problems.  Next minute out of nowhere your heart is racing, your legs are weak and you are jumping out of your skin with anxiety.  Next minute you are sleepy, exhausted and crampy.  The cause of all this up and down is due to antibodies attacking your Thyroid gland.  Some people, like me for instance, can toggle every 20 or 30 minutes during the day when my antibodies are flaring up and then at other times, I feel perfect for a few weeks at a time.

The problem lies in the fact that you never know when another "attack" is going to come and that is a bit unsettling.  You can be walking in the park on a gorgeous day and everything is fine and then out of the blue you turn Hyper because your antibodies start killing off lots of Thyroid cells at one time and you go from perfectly normal to shaky and nervous to the point its debilitating.  These actions can lead to Agoraphobia and then your world becomes smaller and smaller unless you get help.  Many people start associating these attacks with places they've been and will want to try to avoid them in the future to the point where they become a complete recluse and never leave the house.

For me, a prescription of Propranolol, which is a beta-blocker helps with these attacks.  Beta Blockers help block epinephrine and slow your heart rate slightly and lower your blood pressure.  Just having this drug around in the event of emergencies is not a bad idea and might make you feel more secure in getting on with your life. 

Soon I will most likely be getting my Thyroid "zapped" as I call it - ablated with Radioactive Iodine, or removed.  I have not made up my mind yet which of the two evils I prefer.  Nonetheless the outcome of Hashi's is almost always the same - your Thyroid will eventually drop dead on its own and the antibodies will never go away for 90% of the people with this disease.  Now the question I am faced with is do I want to wait 20 years for my Thyroid to drop dead on my own and continue feeling crappy or do I go and get my Thyroid removed and get on with life?  I think I am opting for the latter personally.  Why wait?

Getting back to the craziness.  A lot of docs will think you are nuts, particularly with Hashi's.  I've had almost perfect Thyroid panel results several times when I still feel like shit.  However, upon thorough inspection, my antibodies are raging like crazy, throwing everything else out of wack.  It even has effects on blood sugar levels.  When Im HypER, my blood sugar tends to stay elevated much longer than normal.  For doctors, upon examination, the first thing they think of is diabetes, which is not the case.  Next, when you toggle back to HypO, your blood sugar is difficult to keep up into the normal ranges.