New Here, Looking for advice

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Cwtheis
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2018 9:46 pm

New Here, Looking for advice

Post by Cwtheis »

Hello,

I've had quite the ride with my health recently and still no real answers. I was diagnosed last June 2017 (10 months ago) with postpartum thyroiditis and it was very severe. My TSH went up to over 100 when the range is .5-5. Along with that came a cascade of debilitating symptoms I attributed to the thyroid and tried to ignore and push through included body and muscle aches, a raging sore throat, a burning mouth, carpal tunnel syndrome, crushing fatigue, and hair loss. 12 weeks after the diagnosis of thyroiditis, I came down with an acute case of uveitis (September 2017). I went on immediate prednisolone, up to 10 drops a day by my optometrist. I was able to get in with a uveitis ophthalmologist in Seattle two weeks later who did not spot any uveitis, but instead noticed quite a bit of pigment dispersion syndrome. My eye pressure was also up to 35 at this point from the steroid. I tapered down off the prednisilone and my pressure is now about 19 most of the time. Three weeks later I moved to Charleston, SC where I had to find all new doctors. The new ophthalmologist said she also see the pigment and a trace number of white blood cells and has me on flouromethylone drops as needed, which has been the case since October 2017. I was taking one per day, then one every other day and I know I take one drop every five days. I notice that the redness looks much worse when I get out of a hot shower.

In the meantime, I've been medicated for my thyroid as it has become mildly atrophic and I might have had undiagnosed hashimoto's prior to all this potentially (it runs in my family - my mom and her siblings all have it). I STILL have some lingering symptoms of body aches, fatigue, sore throat burning tongue despite "normal" blood levels. I've been blood tested for lots of things like ANA, C reactive protein, rhum factor, sjogrens antibodies, HLA b27, lyme disease, syphilis, TB, chest xray for sarcoids -- nothing has come up on these specific tests. I also had an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy where they found mild chronic inflammation in my left colon, mild gastritis, and positive for h. pylori. I took the antibiotic regimen for the h. pylori in January 2018.

The opthamologist seems genuinely confused as to what could be the cause of this for me because there are so many variables. At my last appointment, she saw the pigment showering starting to decrease and the uveitis is trace. I don't see how this could possibly be idiopathic given the host of other symptoms and potential drivers of this disease. She doesn't seem to think there is much of a strong connection between uveitis and postpartum thyroiditis - I was diagnosed twelve weeks apart from each other - how could this be a coincidence? What about h. pylori - could this be playing a role? I'm assuming it's now eradicated by the antibiotics but I don't know. Could the pigment dispersion be causing uveitis - the doctor says these two things usually aren't linked? And then there are the lingering symptoms despite the normal thyroid tests -- making me think there is some other autoimmune condition that's just yet to be diagnosed that's the actual driver of all these seemingly disconnected symptoms.
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