Rarely, complications can result in severe life-threatening depression, heart failure, or coma. Left untreated, the symptoms of hypothyroidism will usually progress. This extra work at signaling the thyroid gland to keep producing TSH may cause it to become enlarged, leading to he formation of a goiter (termed a "compensatory goiter"). Potential Dangers of Having Hypothyroidismīecause the body is expecting a certain amount of thyroid hormone, the pituitary will make additional thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) as a way to prompt the thyroid to produce more hormone. If you have already been diagnosed and treated for hypothyroidism and continue to have any or all of these symptoms, you need to discuss it with your physician. Additionally, you may need to seek the skills of an endocrinologist.
If you have these symptoms, you need to discuss them with your doctor. Occasionally, some patients with hypothyroidism have no symptoms at all, or they are just so subtle that they go unnoticed. Most people will have a combination of these symptoms. You may have one of these symptoms as your main complaint, while another will not have that problem at all and will be suffering from an entirely different symptom. If you have one or more of these symptoms contact your doctor.Įach individual patient may have any number of these symptoms, and they will vary with the severity of the thyroid hormone deficiency and the length of time the body has been deprived of the proper amount of hormone. Muscle cramps and frequent muscle aches.Cold intolerance (you can't tolerate cold temperatures like those around you).Weight gain or increased difficulty losing weight.If the pituitary does not produce enough thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) then the thyroid simply does not have the "signal" to make hormone. There are several other rare causes of hypothyroidism, one of them being a completely "normal" thyroid gland that is not making enough hormone because of a problem in the pituitary gland. Learn More about Hypothyroidism: Hypothyroidism Slideshow: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatments However, this is usually greatly preferred over the original problem. Occasionally, the result of radioactive iodine treatment will be that too many cells are damaged so the patient often becomes hypothyroid within a year or two. The aim of the radioactive iodine therapy (for benign conditions) is to kill a portion of the thyroid to prevent goiters from growing larger or producing too much hormone ( hyperthyroidism). Similarly, goiters and some other thyroid conditions can be treated with radioactive iodine therapy. For other patients, however, it may become apparent years later that the remaining thyroid just can't quite keep up with demand. Sometimes, this remaining thyroid lobe and isthmus will produce enough hormone to meet the demands of the body. Remember, this is often the goal of the surgery for thyroid cancer.īut at other times, the surgery will be to remove a worrisome nodule, leaving half of the thyroid in the neck undisturbed. If the total mass of thyroid producing cells left within the body is not enough to meet the needs of the body, the patient will develop hypothyroidism. The second major cause is the broad category of "medical treatments." The treatment of many thyroid conditions warrants surgical removal of a portion or all of the thyroid gland. The most common cause of thyroid gland failure is called autoimmune thyroiditis (also called Hashimoto's thyroiditis), a form of thyroid inflammation caused by the patient's own immune system. The first is a result of previous (or currently ongoing) inflammation of the thyroid gland, which leaves a large percentage of the cells of the thyroid damaged (or dead) and incapable of producing sufficient hormone. There are two fairly common causes of hypothyroidism. For an overview of how thyroid hormone is produced and how its production is regulated, check out our thyroid hormone production page. Hypothyroidism is more common than you would believe, and millions of people are currently hypothyroid and don't know it. When your thyroid gland isn't able to produce normal amounts of thyroid hormones, you'll receive a diagnosis of hypothyroidism. In fact, as many as 10% of women may have some degree of thyroid hormone deficiency. While the estimates vary, approximately 10 million Americans are likely to have this common medical condition. Since the main purpose of thyroid hormone is to "run the body's metabolism," it is understandable that people with this condition will have symptoms associated with a slow metabolism. Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid gland is not able to produce enough thyroid hormone.