Christine
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Aug 31, 1999
- Messages
- 32,569
Your thyrogen question reminded me of a question I have for Christine if she knows. My doctor said they would not do thyrogen for the therapy dose only for my 6 month WBS to see how the RAI is working. Is there a reason why some doctors use thyrogen for the theraputic RAI and some make you go naturally hypo?
It's one of those "balances of benefits" thing.
Having a "hypo" therapy dose is the best thing for treatment. Being truly hypo with a high TSH cause the thyroid gland to be truly avid and makes it really *want* to suck up iodine. The medical community relies on this to make sure the patient gets the ultimate/best scenario during the first treatment. Optimal treatment during the first dose ensures a much better outcome, long term. This is why many doctors also recommend the LID and have moved away from using tracer doses of RAI prior to the therapy dose. The goal is to make the thyroid absolutely starved.
The thought is that Thyrogen does not produce that sane effect. TSH rates do not generally rise as high as they do during withdrawal and the window for the rise in TSH is about 3 days. While treatment can be given with Thyrogen as well as scans, the general consensus is that the it doesn't do it as well as being off meds. For some, being off meds is a health risk (the elderly or people with other health complications) so a Thyrogen therapy dose is the next best thing for them.