All about thyrotoxicosis

Imagine finding out your child has been having a medical condition for years and you didn’t know! You have taken this child to hospital severally and even admitted but the condition was missed! This is what happened to me. On April 13th, 2023 my third-born, 7-year-old daughter was diagnosed with thyrotoxicosis. What a big word!

Looking back all the signs were there only that I didn’t pay much attention. Some years back in church someone asked me what was going on with my daughter since she seemed to have lost so much weight! In my mind, I thought “Nosy”. So I answered that she is growing in height and she is bound to lose some weight. the matter rested!

My daughter had beautiful thick hair then suddenly it became thin and she started losing her hair. I blamed the hair salons. I her for overtreating my daughter’s hair. Being an African mother I brought my own superstitions, “the stylist has bad eyes and hands and so she looked at my daughter’s beautiful hair and that is why her hair lost its volume”. Then followed two admissions both due to convulsions. On both occasions, she had infected tonsils. the doctors told us she had fibril convulsions. She didn’t have any more convulsions. During the second admission, we asked the doctor why her hands always had tremors especially when she is holding something. they recommended an MRI be done. the results were good. The advice was to give it time and the tremors will end. In the event that the tremors continue, then we would have to a neurologist. So the matter rested. The infections were treated.

On December 16th, 2022 we were again in the hospital to see the pediatrician. My daughter was complaining of stomach ache and loose stool. I remember telling the doctor that I was tired of treating the recurrent stomach aches and loose stool. I even told her  I had stopped going to the hospital for the condition and that was giving my child over-the-counter medication. Which helped for some time but then she will go back to having loose stool.

This time God intervened. The doctor told me that she would think out of the box. The doctor did a physical exam. On examining the neck area she asked if I had observed the swollen thyroid area. I told her I wouldn’t know the difference. So she requested an ultrasound and thyroid blood test. the result: excess hormone being produced. She advised that we must see a pediatric endocrinologist.

I went into denial. I thought to myself that it is not possible. So I never followed up. In any case, my daughter was not so sick anyway. In March 2023 we found ourselves in the hospital once again. this time I requested that a repeat thyroid test be done. the results: same as before! and that is how we ended up at the pediatric endocrinologist clinic. Then I realized that there were so many symptoms that we should have looked out for.

What is thyrotoxicosis?

This is a clinical condition of high levels of circulating thyroid hormones in the body from any cause.

1. What are the symptoms?

• heat intolerance
• palpitations
• anxiety
• fatigue
• weight loss
• muscle weakness
• in women irregular menses
• tremors
• increased heart rate (usually more than 100 beats per minute)
• lid log (a static condition in which the upper eyelid is higher than usual while the eye is in a downgaze)
• warm moist skin

2. Causes of thyrotoxicosis

• graves disease
• toxic multinodular goiter (an enlarged thyroid gland that contains a small rounded mass or masses called nodules, which produce too much thyroid hormone)
• toxic thyroid adenoma (a single large thyroid nodule accompanied by clinical and biochemical hyperthyroidism)
• painless thyroid
• gestational hyperthyroidism