Guest Author - Jim Lowrance

As I began developing hypothyroidism from autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's), I began having serious anxiety attacks and panic attacks. Many patients experience these, just as the thyroid gland begins to fail and become hypothyroid. With Grave's Disease patients (Autoimmune-Hyperthyroidism), they too will have the anxiety symptoms but many times are continuous, until they can begin treatment to slow down the overproduction of their thyroid glands.

My anxiety was intermittent and would alternate with spells of depression. Researchers describe the anxiety symptoms from autoimmune hypothyroidism, as sometimes being caused by the gland's attempt to "sputter back to life" as it begins to fail in attempt to fight off the autoimmune attack. The actual medical term for this is "Hashitoxicosis" and patients will have it to varying degrees but usually it is a milder form that can still causes significant anxiety symptoms.

What are the symptoms of anxiety? Here are some of the more common symptoms of anxiety; sudden intense feelings of fear, rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, rapid breathing (hyperventilation), sweating, trembling, muscle tension with pain (including chest area). There can also be anxiety that is more of a constant type keyed-up feeling, called "free floating anxiety" that causes a continuous nervous feeling of being on-edge that thyroid patients can experience. This also brings on feelings of constant, chronic worry that is referred to as "Generalized Anxiety Disorder". The more intense episodes of anxiety come under the heading of "anxiety attacks" and "panic attacks". These obviously are very unpleasant and there were times I would experience these, during the night, causing me to awaken in a cold sweat, while also experiencing the other described symptoms.

There are also the symptoms of depression that are common to thyroid disease patients, especially prior to being treated. The more common ones are; feeling slowed down, inability to enjoy things, sadness, irritability, anger, feelings of hopelessness (sometimes including suicidal thoughts), feeling tired and lethargic. The symptoms of depression can co-exist with anxiety or sometimes will alternate so that a thyroid patient experiences anxiety part of the time and depression the other part of the time.

My emotional symptoms were some of the first to resolve with thyroid hormone replacement therapy. I still have occasional mild flares of anxiety and depression symptoms due to having the autoimmune thyroid disease but the improvements over my pre-treatment state have been significant.

Thyroid patients suffering emotional symptoms should be encouraged to know that hormone replacement therapy can potentially improve these symptoms significantly. If it does not do so adequately in some patients, there are medication options out there that are effective in treating emotional symptoms.