Contents
What is thyrotoxicosis?
Thyrotoxicosis is a process that occurs in the human body due to a persistent increase in the number of thyroid hormones. In medical practice, the synonym “hyperthyroidism” is also used, which means an increase in thyroid function. However, the latter can also occur in everyday conditions, for example, in women during pregnancy, so it is the term “thyrotoxicosis” that allows us to most fully reveal the meaning of the disease (intoxication with thyroid hormones, otherwise poisoning).
Thyrotoxicosis is a pathology, but the opposite of hypothyroidism. The point is that with a low content of thyroid hormones, the speed of all processes functioning in the human body decreases, and with thyrotoxicosis, on the contrary: metabolism goes to the greatest extent with maximum activity.
Thyrotoxicosis symptoms
The main symptoms of thyrotoxicosis are a regular feeling of heat in patients, as well as increased sweating, the skin of such patients is moist and hot. These symptoms are expressed even in the absence of fever. Often there are also sharp “inflows” of blood to the head, face, neck; many suffering from thyrotoxicosis have a sharp hair loss, while the hair itself is thin and brittle.
Patients need the help of a specialist, since all of them have mental disorders expressed in the form of aggression, mild excitability, and excessive fussiness. Their state is constantly changing: from a feeling of joy, euphoria, it abruptly turns into tearfulness, despondency and even depression.
Criteria for assessing the severity of thyrotoxicosis
Severity Criteria | Degrees of severity | ||
Uterine | Average | severe | |
Heart rate (bpm) | 80-100 | 100-120 | over 120 |
Weight loss (from baseline) | up to 10-15% | up to 15-30% | more 30% |
Presence of complications | no |
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Causes of thyrotoxicosis
The main cause of thyrotoxicosis is Graves-Basedow’s disease, which is otherwise called diffuse toxic goiter. It is fixed in seventy-five percent of patients. This disease is in most cases hereditary and may be present in conjunction with other autoimmune diseases – for example, autoimmune thyroiditis, this is caused by the involvement of this disease in the type of autoimmune.
If there is a group of genes or at least one gene responsible for the spread of this disease within the same family, then diffuse toxic goiter and autoimmune thyroiditis will be observed in those of its members who are their carriers. There are rare cases when infants or children suffered from this disease, in most cases these are persons between the ages of twenty and forty.
Many believe that human immunity forms certain antibodies that target thyroid cells (namely, the thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor), which are the reasons for the appearance of such a phenomenon as an autoimmune process in diffuse toxic goiter. In the future, there is an increase in the number of hormones in the blood, since the functional activity of the gland is increased many times over.
It is impossible to determine why these antibodies appear, but there is an assumption that all sorts of microbes are to blame, which cause the further spread of the disease.
There is a version that patients in whom the disease progresses have abnormal thyroid-stimulating hormone receptors, and the immune system in this case will perceive them as foreign. The second option is that the prerequisites for the disease are impaired immunity, which does not stop the immune response against its tissues.
Forms of thyrotoxicosis
There are three forms of thyrotoxicosis – severe, moderate and mild.
Heavy form Thyrotoxicosis is diagnosed in cases where a violation of the functioning of the thyroid gland was observed earlier, but was not cured or the wrong treatment was prescribed. As a result of this form, other systems and organs are also affected, causing their severe dysfunction.
Medium form thyrotoxicosis is characterized by a high heartbeat of the patient (usually about one hundred and twenty beats per minute), he loses a lot of weight. A regular tachycardia appears, which is not affected by either the position of the body or sleep. Characteristic signs are digestive disorders, as a result of which diarrhea is observed, symptoms of adrenal insufficiency occur, cholesterol levels decrease, carbohydrate metabolism problems arise, changes in the heartbeat occur, which, although temporary, are no less harmful.
Easy form thyrotoxicosis causes weight loss, but within normal limits, the heartbeat is about a hundred beats per minute, and the tachycardia is mild. Here, dysfunction occurs only in the area of the thyroid gland, there is no effect on other organs, heart contractions are within the normal range.
The causes of all three forms are toxic diffuse goiter, but sometimes the causes may be a high content of iodine (usually caused by the use of drugs that contain it) and a large amount of thyroid hormones that enter the body from the environment. Also, if the mother suffers from an increase in the functioning of the thyroid gland, then thyrotoxicosis may appear in the infant.
Treatment
In the treatment of thyrotoxicosis, the main methods are usually used:
Conservative medical treatment with thyreostatic drugs. Antithyroid drugs prevent the accumulation of iodine in the gland, which is essential for the production of hormones. As a result, there is a decrease in its function.
Therapy with radioactive iodine (I 131). The doctor prescribes a one-time ingestion of a capsule with radioactive iodine. With the blood flow, iodine quickly reaches only those cells of the thyroid gland that have increased activity and within a few weeks damages the cells that have accumulated it. As a result, the size of the gland decreases, the production of hormones decreases, and their content in the blood falls to normal.
Surgery. Removal of part of the thyroid gland.
Non-drug treatment. Restriction of physical activity, healthy sleep, smoking cessation, stress prevention.