>From: Holly Jagger <[log in to unmask]> >When we are told we have autoimmune hypothyroidism, does this definitely >indicate the gland will decline in function more and more until it is >totally destroyed? In a summary of an endo journal on a med school website, I read about a patient coming in with adrenal crises. He historically had high Hashimoto's titters, but after they treated him with corticosteroids they fixed the adrenal crises, he also no longer had Hashi's antibodies, and the course of the treatment was only short term. So, sometimes hydrocortisone or other corticosteroids can cure Hashimoto's, if patients on thyroid replacment, the antibodies frequently go down, and in one of the better but more techinical sites about thyroid problems, they say that it goes away on its own sometimes - http://thyroidmanager.org/Chapter8/8-frame.htm "However, it is now clear that up to one-fourth of patients who are hypothyroid may spontaneously return to normal function over the course of several years. This sequence may reflect the initial effect of high titers of thyroid stimulation blocking antibodies which fall with time and allow thyroid function to return(23)." Which means sometimes thyroid medication isn't necessary forever. They go on further to talk about it in combo with Addison's - "Hashimoto's thyroiditis and hypothyroidism are associated with Addison's disease, diabetes mellitus, hypogonadism, hypopara-thyroidism, and pernicious anemia. Such combinations are described as the polyglandular failure syndrome. " Anyway, according to Arem in "The Thyroid Solution", up to 10% of those who have Hashimoto's can be detected by some kind of ultrasound, but they don't know how to test for all the antibodies. I would say if your antibodies weren't going down, the treatment isn't the best one for you, but that's kind of hard to measure when they're not the detectable antibodies. Skipper _________________________________________________________________ Check the weather nationwide with MSN Search: Try it now! http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=weather&FORM=WLMTAG _______________________________________________________________ Snip, Please If you "Reply" to a message, and *you* fail to erase or delete the previous message, *your* message cannot be distributed. Why not ask a question? If we're not currently talking about what *you* want to hear about, ask about another topic! Or make a statement. To be prepared, you might want to search the Thyroid Archives http://www.Emissary.Net/thyroid/index.html to see what has been said before about any thyroid-related topic. _______________________________________________________________