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Wondering if any of you have experienced thyroid issues or even been tested for them.

I recently found out that hypothyroidism runs on both sides of my family--brother, maternal aunt, mother, maternal great aunt, and now, paternal grandfather. I got curious and looked up thyroid and MS on the web and found this study, Prevalence of autoimmune thyroiditis and non-immune thyroid disease in multiple sclerosis:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

I just did a massive panel of labs tests today, including thyroid. Will let y'all know.

Interestingly, Campath-1H caused autoimmune hypothyroidism in 30% of the patients using it:

http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/Campath1H.html

This is also interesting...and important...for those of you on interferon:

Long-term follow-up of 106 multiple sclerosis patients undergoing IFN- 1a or 1b therapy: predictive factors of thyroid disease development and duration

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/conten ... 004-2326v1

An excerpt: "Baseline thyroid autoimmunity was detected in 8.5% of patients and hypothyroidism in 2.8%. Thyroid dysfunction (80% hypothyroidism, 92% subclinical, 56% transient) developed in 24% (68% with autoimmunity) of patients and autoimmunity in 22.7% (45.5% with dysfunction), without significant differences between the two cytokines; 68% of dysfunctions occurred within the first year."

Hi Karen G--

You asked:

Wondering if any of you have experienced thyroid issues or even been tested for them.

I had hypothyroidism for at least 15 years before dx with MS. In addition to the great information you provided, I think it's also important for people to consider this abstract entitled Throid hormone administration enhances remyelination in chronic demyelinating inflammatory disease

Thyroid hormone, when administered during the acute phase of the disease, increases expression of platelet-derived growth factor alpha receptor, restores normal levels of myelin basic protein mRNA and protein, and allows an early and morphologically competent reassembly of myelin sheaths. Moreover, thyroid hormone exerts neuroprotective effect with respect to axonal pathology.

There was some discussion of your question in the Drug Pipeline thread as well.

I think it's really good that you're having your thyroid levels evaluated.

Thanks for the information.

Sharon

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for your response and that information. My multiple threads on the topic, which I added in each of the drug sections for the various interferons, started after I did a search on this site on "thyroid" and nothing came up. It just seems so relevant, the whole endocrine topic.

Hopefully, others will chime in.

Hi Kareng7 -

I can chime in regarding thyroid issues - - hyperthyroidism. Grave's disease (hyperthyroid) runs in my family and apparently there is a correlation between that kind of thyroid condition and MS. Grave's apparently is considered an autoimmune disease (which came as a suprise to my family who never understood it that way). Campath can cause Grave's in some people. Grave's is treated relativley easily (something for MS to aspire to).

Hope this helps a bit,
Arcee

FYI, copaxone can cause thyroid disease, both hyper and hypothroidism, as well as goiter. I have developed a goiter but thus far, thyroid hormones ok.

My Mother got hypothroidism from a cardiac drug called cordorone or amiodarone. No one else in my family has it.

Haven't posted here in a while, but read posts quite often. Have found this discussion about thyroid disease and MS interesting. I had optic neuritis 9 months after the birth of my first child. I was dx'd with Grave's about 1 year after the birth of my second child approximately 4 years later. The Grave's was treated with PTU for about 2 years and have not had any further trouble with that. But was dx'd with MS in 1996.

There's a whole endocrine trail to follow when it comes to autoimmune diseases and such. Interesting to hear all your experiences.

I still await my test results. I'm sure they're around--just have to poke a few doctors to get them. I'll be shocked if my thyroid is normal.