I've been on levothyroxine since roughly 1990, when lab tests indicated hypothyroidism. Levels were recently adjusted downward.

This is a pretty good article about the thyroid and what happens in hypothyroidism...here's the link:

http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.aspx?Id=528

Note the part about the thyroid getting locked into a negative state in times of stress---sound familiar to anyone?----here's that part:

"However, this response appears to occur to a wide variety of stressors and sometimes this mode is not reversed, even after the stress is removed. This can lead to all of the symptoms and signs of a low thyroid that I have been discussing." (this is at the bottom of page 4 of the article).

So, one may actually have low production of T3 and/or T4, but also may have low T3 and/or T3 because of problems converting T4 to T3, in which case blood tests can show up as normal, but the body is hypothyroid nonetheless. The good news, as I read the article, is that one can "reset" the thyroid with thyroid drugs, assuming all the thyroid nutrient requirements are met...which leads me to another question:

how many here take mineral supplements besides a vitamin/multivitamin
supplement? Most vitamin supplements don't contain minerals, and if they do, the ones I have found don't have the minerals in the right combination and/or form. Minerals appear critical to a healthy thyroid, particularly selenium, magnesium, iodine, copper.

Me too, had an enlarged thyroid as a young adult but function was "normal" per blood work. After baby # 3, about 10 years later, was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism. What if a good % of PD patients are hypothyroid, seems like there has to be a connection. The other thing is the many people(including me) with the illness that are Vitamin D deficient. I wonder about that too. Also, what about the gluten connection? FG

I can pretty much say a resounding "yes" to all that Rick highlighted but want to add that I am now at subclinical hypothyroid level though levodopa lowers the number, so I look normal on paper. The weird thing is...I too am experiencing the symptoms of thyrotoxicosis at the same time! Apparently, according to thyroid disease experts; the patients of course, it is very possible for one to experience too much TSH even if we do have an over all deficit- the point is dysregulation.

Let me just say too much thyroid hormone is like too much dopamine...not a good thing and scarier because it hooks in and grabs hold using your limbic system against you. You end up with panic attacks, hyper-sympathetic nervous system sensations and experiences, but it sucker punches you. It lured me in by at first putting me into an extremely relaxed state; you feel that you might just drift off for a peaceful nap dreaming of warm sand in your toes and cute cabana boys...then all of a sudden you have this overwhelming urge to pee and realize that when you go to stand up, you feel like a jellyfish and cannot even walk, let alone run to the bathroom. This could last 3 hours and levodopa wouldn't do anything. Worse, I have had events like this in mini-form cycle half a day. Needless to say it is exhausting to recover, probably is having a permanent negative effect on my PD, and is sucking away my life - either you are trying to abort an "episode", recovering from one, or trying to figure out what is going on along with the everyday things you need to do in life. Bet they would never show Ann Hathaway scooting around on her bony little tookus trying to get her kid's diaper changed (She is in the YOPD movie slated for release this fall).

More on some interesting research I stumbled upon in another box or two...I just wanted to throw out there that with these thyroid centered episodes:

-Vitamin D brought me back from the brink every time.

-Selenium is vital in thyroid harmony. Not sure of levels yet, but apparently there is a need for supplementation in hypothyroidism.

-Rick is one righteous dude.

Laura

Paula,

At first I was inclined to agree on the scarce amount of research on PD and women, but we do have a champion in Dr. Lisa Shulman. She is the first to come out and say that PD and pregnancy do not mix plus she has looked at estrogen. I have written to thank her and would love to get her input on this thyroid stuff, but feel I need more to go on. Honestly, I think the reason we do not see more on this is because PD "the commodity" is marketed as an old person's malady, so menstruation or childbirth doesn't count.

Funny you bring up Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). It responds to dopa agonist therapy. It is of course also of mysterious and sporadic origin, so it is naturally a potentially informative new neighbor on the block of dopa-centric movement disorders. Even more fascinating is that some brazen new researcher is hypothesizing that the secret to it all lies in the connection between dopamine and thyroid hormone. The researchers also do not overlook the fact it afflicts mainly women and pregnancy for some reason exacerbates it (in fact I will def write to these guys). They also name potential deficiencies in a key enzyme involved in normal dopamine production also known as CYP450

Imbalance between thyroid hormones and the dopaminergic system might be central to the pathophysiology of restless legs syndrome: a hypothesis.


Medical hypothesis. To discuss the theory that thyroid hormones, when not counterbalanced by dopaminergic agonists, may precipitate the signs and symptoms underpinning Restless Legs Syndrome. The main cause of Restless Legs Syndrome might be an imbalance between the dopaminergic agonists system and thyroid hormones.

Might we say that the thyroid for some, may precipitate the signs and symptoms underpinning Parkinson's Disease? Look at our experiences. When I presented with a tremor some eight years ago, my thyroid TSH level was off the chart high (7 with 5.5 as highest norm)- I don't recall my GP telling me this and just ran across the lab report. I was overtly hypothyroid.

I think this is an interesting hypothesis when applied to PD as frankly we have documented cases of longstanding, untreated thyroidism manifesting as Parkinsonism. In some cases the Parkinson's symptoms resolved when thyroid medicine was started. In cases of hyperthyroidism, we see the same only more evidence of it. I am not saying there is a simple cause-effect here, but it has to be more than coincidence that unregulated thyroid hormone symptoms look a lot like PD.

Maybe these guys are not saying not much of anything, but their reference list alone is worth scanning. I think the whole publication is laudable for even including a special area for speculative "what if" thinking.

Any other thoughts on this?

Meant to add that I am not officially diagnosed with any thyroid condition but believe I am hypothyroid. Also children...not pregnant earlier in life though it was tried- pregnant for the first time ever at age 41! I sometimes wonder if levodopa therapy stimulated my hormones - I was pregnant within a few months of starting the drug!

N

Laura

First, I would like to thank Laura for recognizing my innate righteousness.

Second, there seems to be some major linkages beginning to come to light involving, not only thyroid problems but also vitamin D3 and electrolytes and neurological disorders and our misbehaving immune systems. And it is all so stress responsive. In short, all the things we have been blathering about for the last couple of years is lying there in a great big pile if we can just untangle it.

Here is an abstract of interest (full text is available)-


1. Endocrinology. 2009 Feb;150(2):1051-60. Epub 2008 Oct 16.

Vitamin D deficiency modulates Graves' hyperthyroidism induced in BALB/c mice by
thyrotropin receptor immunization.

Misharin A, Hewison M, Chen CR, Lagishetty V, Aliesky HA, Mizutori Y, Rapoport B,
McLachlan SM.

Autoimmune Disease Unit, Cedars-Sinai Research Institute and University of
California Los Angeles, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.

TSH receptor (TSHR) antibodies and hyperthyroidism are induced by immunizing mice
with adenovirus encoding the TSHR or its A-subunit. Depleting regulatory T cells
(Treg) exacerbates thyrotoxicosis in susceptible BALB/c mice and induces
hyperthyroidism in normally resistant C57BL/6 mice. Vitamin D plays an important
role in immunity; high dietary vitamin D intake suppresses (and low intake
enhances) adaptive immune responses. Vitamin D-induced immunosuppression may
enhance Treg. Therefore, we hypothesized that decreased vitamin D intake would
mimic Treg depletion and enhance hyperthyroidism induced by A-subunit adenovirus
immunization. BALB/c mice had a reduced ability vs. C57BL/6 mice to generate the
active metabolite of vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3). Vitamin D deficiency
induced subtle immune changes in BALB/c (not C57BL/6) mice. Compared with mice
fed regular chow, vitamin D-deprived BALB/c mice had fewer splenic B cells and
decreased interferon-gamma responses to mitogen and lacked memory T-cell
responses to A-subunit protein. However, vitamin D deficiency did not alter TSHR
antibody responses measured by ELISA, TSH binding inhibition, or cAMP generation
from TSHR-expressing cells. Unexpectedly, compared with vitamin D-sufficient
mice, vitamin D-deficient BALB/c mice had lower preimmunization T(4) levels and
developed persistent hyperthyroidism. This difference was unrelated to the
immunological changes between vitamin D-deficient or -sufficient animals.
Previously, we found that different chromosomes or loci confer susceptibility to
TSHR antibody induction vs. thyroid function. Our present studies provide
evidence that an environmental factor, vitamin D, has only minor effects on
induced immunity to the TSHR but directly affects thyroid function in mice.

PMCID: PMC2646531
PMID: 18927213 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I have been with hypothyrodism for some time but it was discovered only by chance recently. It seems is has along with PD since the year 1994

kwebiha

Seems a lot of us have thyroid issues.

The plot thickens.