Friday, December 26, 2014

Effects of Hyperthyroidism on body

As previously mentioned, hyperthyroidism is a medical condition in which the thyroid glands produces too much of the thyroid hormones which are responsible for the body’s growth and metabolism.

So you could probably guess that having too much of thyroid hormones in your body will increase the body’s normal metabolic functions which leads to severe weight loss, increased appetite, fast or irregular heartbeat, sweating, nervousness, irritability, fatigue, and muscle weakness.

Here’s a summary of the common signs and symptoms of hyperthyroidism in a picture diagram:


Most people with hyperthyroidism do not have all the symptoms but a combination of two or more is common. Symptoms usually develop slowly over several weeks. All the symptoms can be caused by other problems and so the diagnosis may not be obvious at first. Symptoms may be mild to start with but become worse as the level of thyroxine (T-4) in the blood gradually rise.

Symptoms specific to Graves' disease

Thyroid eye disease

Also known as exopthalmus, is present in almost all patients with Graves' disease. The condition is usually mild and does not progess after hyperthyroidism is under control.

When eye disease is present, the skin covering the eye and the muscles within the orbit (bony part of the skull where the eyes sit) become swelled and puffy. Since there is a limited space within the orbit, this will force the swollen skin and muscle to push forward and if it is pushed forward far enough, your eyelids cannot close fully, resulting in irritation and redness of eyeball.

People with thyroid eye disease may also suffer from double vision, tearing and photophobia.

Thyroid skin disease

Is the abnormal thickening of the skin, usually in the front of the lower leg. It may also affects the other parts of the body, such as the thighs, shoulders, and forearms but it is not as common. These problems may last for months or longer and will gradually improve.

Patient's fingers become wider and may experience arthritic damage to the joints of fingers. 

3 comments:

  1. how comment is all this diseases?? lol

    ReplyDelete
  2. So hyperthyroidism can result in different types of diseases? Like there are Graves disease and thyroid skin disease. Are there any other type of diseases caused by hyperthyroidism? :O

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes there is, there are many kinds of diseases cause by Hyperthyroidism. Others such as Toxic multinodular goitre where thyroids hormones are produced even without stimulation of Thyroid stimulating Hormones, Toxic thyroid adenoma where too much secretion of thyroid hormones causes tumor in the thyroid glands.

    ReplyDelete