Is hypothyroidism considered related?

[ICLori]

I can't remember now if hypothyroidism is one of the things we get more often when we have IC.

Anyway, they thought my thyroid was getting better, but then it went the other way again and I'm absolutely hypothyroid without a doubt. I have been feeling not myself the last several months really. I guess your thyroid being out of whack can really affect so many things, even mood.

I just feel kind of low energy and like my brain is in a fog. Otherwise, I'm fine. No depression right now. Just feeling kind of lazy and I can't get my brain to work right.

Anyway, the (civilian) endocrinologist started me on synthroid last week and said we would have to work up to the right dose. So it may take a few months before I really am back to normal.

In the meantime I guess I'll just be Zombie-Lori for awhile, LOL. Well, there are certainly worse things in life. All I have to do for this is take a pill each day and I will be fine. Much better than having another incurable illness like IC!

Blessings,
Lori

[sacausa]

Personally, I think autoimmune Hashimoto's thyroiditis (which is a form of hypothyroidism) is definitely IC related... as are other autoimmune diseases...

[ICLori]

Hmmm....sometimes I really think IC is a systemic illness, because there seem to be so many other illnesses that occur so frequently with IC...

Blessings,
Lori

[sacausa]

I think so also! and I would NOT be surprised if it was auto immune... especially since it seems to run in families...

[Silverfox]

There is some research saying that hypothyroidism can be related to IC.

In my case I have been hypothyroid from birth, I inherited from my Mother's side of the family. My Mother and her three daughters are hypothyroid and we all developed symptoms of ic. We have to take thyroid hormones everyday for the rest of our lives. I tried many thyroid hormones and have found that the natural dessicated Armour thyroid works the best for me. If you are not seeing improvement in how you feel in a few months ask the Doctor if you can give Armour thyroid a try. I started with Armour thyroid and then a new Doctor changed me to Synthroid and all then my symptoms were coming back after several months. I demanded he put me back on Armour thyroid.

My Internal medicine Doctor tells my my thyroid is not autoimmune. He says that my hypothyroidism is what has caused me to suffer with IC symptoms.
He explains that I was not treated for many years and I became severely hypothyroid and all during those years the hypo disease was doing damage to the peripheral nerves throughout my body. I asked him to tell me just which nerves were damaged and he explained it's all thoughout my poor body and that caused me to feel so sick and have lots of painful symptoms throughout my life. If the doctors had put me on Armour thyroid when I was a baby I would not have suffered with all this pain and nasty ic symptoms.

They have now diagnosed my nerve damage as sensorimotor polyneuropathy.
This is a bigger name for damage to the afferent nerves in my bladder and urethra. Afferent nerves are the sensory pain nerves that send pain messages to your brain informing you that they are injured. Ask your Doctor if this is what you might suffer with. If you do have nerve damage, do not dispair because nerves take a long time to heal and it can be short like a few months to many years. Everyone is different. I also have some autonomic nerve damage and motor nerve damage. Autonomic nerve damage can be dangerous if it affects the heart.

The good news is that if the nerves are not too badly damaged they can recover and heal. Some do recover and have no more bladder symptoms, my older sister has not had any bladder symptoms for 20 years now.

There is hope that someday they can use nerve growth factor to help heal the nerves on patients that have nerve damage. I wish it was ready to try but I read there were side affects and they are looking at trying to trick the body with something like nerve growth factor. I might like to volunteer for research with nerve growth factor.

The truth is my Doctor told me "that I should tell others what happened to me, so we can change medicine." He also explained that if I went to the endocrinologists at this medical school they would not treat me for my hypothyroidism with my beloved Armour thyroid. He said that I was right about my hypothyroidism causing me the nerve damage, he has studied this and discussed with experts in the field of endocrinology and neurology You can do your own searches to learn more about hypothyroid neuropathy.

I am so happy that they discovered your hypothyroid condition and you must work with your doctors getting your hormones right. The best thing for you to help yourself is to educate yourself so you can really play a part in getting well. Do just think your Doctor knows it all because I found out the hard way that my Doctors were ignorant about thyroid.

As my IC Doc always explains, "identifying the source of the pain is not the same as defining the disease".

Love from the older but wiser Silver Fox