more on thyroid
 

Wow, of all places, I read about this in the costco "Healthy Living" magazine you get for free at their pharmacy. Ironic, I know, to get a healthy living magazine at the same place you are getting prescription pills.

But in this month's magazine, lo and behold, an article entitled:
"Tired? Foregetful? The culprit could be your thyroid". Here's what it says, in a nutshell:

1.when the thyroid is not producing enough T3 (triiodothyronine) and T4 (thyroxine), hypothryroidism occurs. (Note: I am curious to see whether T3 is related to iodine, which lack of causes goiter, a neck bulge...in which case simply making sure you get enough iodine might improve things)

2. hypothyroidism, according to the article, is typically caused by an autoimmune disease. When levels of T4 are low "all the body's processes begin to slow, from the brain to the bowels. This can cause a variety of symptoms, including fatigue, intolerance to cold, loss of appetite, constipation, depression, difficulty losing weight, muscle cramps, and hair loss...brittle fingernails and dry skin....sounds a lot like many of the symptoms of PD to me.

More: women are more likely to suffer from this than men, and are at greater risk during pregnancy, after giving birth (Conductor71, this may be you), and around menopause. The risk also increases with age.

You can treat hypothyroidism with T4 supplements, which should diminish symptoms 6-10 weeks. You can tell if you have this with a blood test, and also, by self exam: look in a mirror and watch your throat as you swallow...if you notice any bulges or protrusions when you swallow, you could have hypothyroidism.

I found it particularly interesting that insufficient T4 levels causes all body processes to slow...this is what I think of as "aging", everything slows down.

hypo & hashimoto's
 

I've been hypothyroid since I was 16 years old - dx'd with Hashimoto's. On thryoid supplements 40+ years now.

Jean

adddingI've been saying this for years to the point of thinking reserach has some sexism involved.

two pregnancies in early thirties - nursed each for two years [at night]

menopause began after second pregnancy - mid to late 30s

diagnosed hypothyroid

motor symptoms of pd, but now realize i had most of the pre symptoms including stress of raising a family

diagnoses of pd

how couldn't there be a connection? poisoned in hawaii before it all began.

supplements?
 

That's three people here on the forum....Paula, do you take thyroid supplements also and if so, which ones and for how long?

yes
 

synthroid but generic now - levothyroxine - for life. It's a prescribed medication so I don't think of it as a supplement. It was one in a string of health issues that i can't help but associate with pesticide poisoning and parkinson's.

Very true - synthroid and levothyroxine are medications and not health food supplements. I merely meant that due to low output of my thyroid gland, for the past 40 years I have had to supplement my thyroid gland's output by taking synthroid or levothyroxine. I hope this clears up any confusion about my earlier post.

Jean

Make that 4 people on this forum.

I am convinced that during my recent stress meltdown that I was slipping from a sub-clinical state to an active hyperthyroid one. The following symptoms are fromthe Mayo clinic site with my comments-

Symptoms:
Hyperthyroidism can mimic other health problems, which may make it difficult for your doctor to diagnose. It can also cause a wide variety of signs and symptoms, including:

* Sudden weight loss, even when your appetite and diet remain normal or even increase
* Rapid heartbeat (tachycardia) — commonly more than 100 beats a minute — irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) or pounding of your heart (palpitations) My pulse approached 100 during the period from its usual 75 or so.
* Increased appetite
* Nervousness, anxiety and irritability I had a minor panic attack during this time.
* Tremor — usually a fine trembling in your hands and fingers Worsened.
* Sweating Several instances.
* Changes in menstrual patterns
* Increased sensitivity to heat Worsened.
* Changes in bowel patterns, especially more frequent bowel movements Yes. Almost daily from every two weeks.
* An enlarged thyroid gland (goiter), which may appear as a swelling at the base of your neck
* Fatigue, muscle weakness Had extreme bouts which continue.
* Difficulty sleeping Yes but sporadic.

Older adults are more likely to have either no signs or symptoms or subtle ones, such as an increased heart rate, heat intolerance and a tendency to become tired during ordinary activities. Medications called beta blockers, which are used to treat high blood pressure and other conditions, can mask many of the signs of hyperthyroidism. The same might be true of PWP.
In addition I noted signs of increased metabolism – hot flashes and slightly elevated body temperature. Several times face flushed enough that my wife noticed it. Most worrisome were spikes in blood pressure as high as 200/120.

I am becoming more and more convinced that there is something important here. Thyroid problems are slippery little devils at best.

Make that 5...I am also Hypothyroid and have been on Synthroid for 20 yrs. About 5 years ago suffered from Hyperthyroidism for about 6 months for no explained reason. I was diagnosed 2 years later with PD.

Suzie

more of everything
 

Laura found literature that says one can be dx hyperthyroid and then it changes to hypothyroid....which is another match in my background. i have never had any noticeable symptoms of thyroid disease. Doctor found it was enlarged during a routine exam and i had a scan.

i wish pd was as easily treated - never gave the thyroid much thought.

oh and i know of one male pwp on this forum who had his thyroid removed if we are counting. Also wonder who had early onset menopause, and nursed their children. [if you don't mind sharing] perhaps age at which we had children is a factor. i waited till my 30s.

this is interesting because we suspect autoimmune components and thyroid is auto immune disease right? [thought i read that somewhere]
so pd could have come first. or i picture pd formed like a storm. Storms start under similar conditions, but no two are alike. Some become hurricanes or tornadoes, others just thunder and lightning or rain. some move faster than others. Degrees of damage vary. etc

this is off topic but while in the science mode i'm going to put it where science readers are. the rest is a summary of science needed for the book.

at what point do we start apoptosis and what is that alpha synuclein's normal function? when do we begin to self destruct? Are we injesting something from someone else's body in our water? are we full of fungus - i recently read that fungus and cancer look alike - hard to tell the difference. i have a recurring fungus so maybe we should take a tally of those who have fungus in their system. fungus can become cancer; what else can it do?

so what came first to cause an autoimmune reaction so serious as to shut down or overstimulate the thyroid?i knew a girl growing up who took the iodine. i think i'll look her up on facebook and see how she is doing today.

there isthe possibility and this has been theorized, that whatever pd is could have come first. maybe pd really is just being poisoned with chemicals; then it's a real crap shoot. we are all taking in different chemicals...rick mentioned soot, i grew up with soot from the steel mills always on the window sills - you wipe them and it comes right back and pd is high in pittsburgh of course. There is a nuclear power plant nearby too;we attended the 4th of july carnival and fireworks where the towers of the nuke plant are last week..it's very clean compared to the steel mills.

somehow we end up losing smell, [not everyone tho] slowing up of everything which points to mitochondria, then there are neuro transmitters .....i think if i was playing pin the tale on the donkey, i'd aim for the metabolism and endocrine system and the acetycholine neural pathways, based on what i've researched so far. Dopamine is responsible for much of our strange behaviors, our strange appearance, our off and ons, our addictions, but it also helps restless legs, which i also had off and on growing up and just hated it. Is restless leg defined - do they know the origin? That sounds like a transmitter imbalance but i haven't looked it up.

And i haven't even mentioned genetics. i am glad we are exploring the thyroid because it is a symptom of poisoning. People who live near toxic sites or radiation exposed exhibit thyroid abnormalities. My mother had to have her thyroid removed; gosh do I know anyone at home [pittsburgh] who isn't on thyroid med?

I am writing on neural transmitters for the book and we have set an August 15 deadline for all writing. so if you have any information on neuro transmitters please post it or send me PM. They are all important but pwp may as a whole lack GABA, which is all your emotions to simplify it and hardly do it justice,have too much acetylcholine, which i suspect until someone proves differently can poison our own brains. it's in the literature that it stops dopamine production. Have you ever seen an advanced patient who shows motor symptoms more than cognitive?I cannot verbally communicate after a certain amount of dopamine is in my system. i am befuddled thru and thru. perhaps in the elderly, our acetylcholine decreases, which helps the dopamine, but makes us mostly look demented or cognitively impaired. motor stops progressing - i can't remember if i actually heard someone say that but let me know if you have a source.

We're not doing this to show our stuff. This is pure patient empowerment and some of the activists are getting very very tired. Forum members are who itis about and science must be up to date so post what you see that is relevant please till aug. 14.... this will be r first complete [well sort of] draft and we already have to update some of our work.

This forum is a lifesaver. No reason we can't save the world. hah it's sinemet ramble hour. I lose all sense of time but find this whole thing - the human body computer - so fascinating. We'd love to have a draft to show at the wpc so guest writers on your mark...we need you now.

thanks and if you have questions kindly start a new thread. my last efforts are going to be hitting at the science so this thread is related enough hopefully to put this here.keep the science coming.

suzie that was perfect timing = your first statement validated mine , whiich was actually provided by laura.

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

great article, with some things discussed here
 

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.

Another PDer with Hypothyroidism
 

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

My experience very much the same, but with a twist
 

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

More intrigue for women and maybe some science for us all
 

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. :D

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.