Graves Disease
Posted on July 29, 2009 by admin
What is Graves Disease? Graves disease is the known as the most common form of hyperthyroidism. This disease occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the thyroid gland and causes it to overproduce the hormone thyroxine. With the higher thyroxine level, it can lead to host of health problems for the body. These abnormal immune responses may affect the tissue behind the eyes and even parts of your skin. Graves Disease can trigger many allergies which trigger the autoimmune response causing relapse in the patients. Once the autoimmune response is triggered, obtaining sample of the blood to check which allergies are the ones triggering the immune system automation.
Graves’ Disease Treatment
Typically, patients diagnosed with Graves’ disease will be treated with anti-thyroid medications such as methimazole, carbimazole, and propylthiouracil. In other cases, patients may be given radioactive iodine to destroy the hyper secreting thyroid cells. In rare cases, surgery may be required to remove the thyroid gland.
Patients with Graves’ disease who requiring a operation must be treated with propylthiouracil several months prior to undergoing a surgery to control the metabolic rates to normal and dose of iodine one to two weeks before the operation to decrease the swelling and blood supply of the thyroid. Procedures done in such operations are extremely complex and considered as very difficult surgery. In the past the mortality rate in thyroidectomy was high but thanks to modern day medical science and technology, it has been reduced to 1 to every 1000 operations.
