The Paradox of HyperThyroidism

I often find myself writing about this paradox when on Inspire.  So, I thought I'd blog about it here and then direct some of the Inspire folks here - just to save myself some typing ;-)

So, why is hyperthyroidism a paradox?  Because when hyper, one should lose weight.  Instead we gain.  At the thyroid cancer conference, another veteran and facilitator told me the average weight gain after diagnosis is 40 pounds.  In this case, I don't like being "above average."  So, how does it happen?

Well, when naturally hyperthyroid, a symptom is weight loss.  But with iatrogenic (doctor induced) hyperthyroidism, we are hyper due to a synthetic pill.  The result is that we are hyper all the time - even when we are trying to sleep.  Sleep becomes elusive, and the sleep we do get is often not restful.  We are constantly "racing."  Racing heart, sweating, etc.  This in turn makes us tired.  When tired, we don't exercise.  So, the lack of exercise becomes part of the paradox. 

Also, when hyperthyroid the body is truly hungry.  It thinks it has to eat since the metabolic rate is so high.  So, there is extra caloric intake if not very strict about counting calories or points or carbs or something.  So, another paradox is that we tend to get more calories due to being so hyper and thus being hungry.

Thus, the paradox of hyperthyroidism is that we should lose weight and we should have more energy, but instead we are tired and we gain weight.  This paradox is annoying as heck.