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loss of taste/smell and Neurological-anyone have ????
Hi, I am newly diagnosed and finding that several of my health issues are from Thyroid. I was undiagnosed for years from a CRAPPY Dr. I have a good one now!! The one thing I haven't related
to my thyroid is my loss of smell and taste. I had a CT and my sinus's are all clear and no sign of infection. I have been on a 15 day dose of Pred. but it has not improved and actually gotten worse.
Also wondering about Neurological problems from Thyroid --does anyone have this too???
to my thyroid is my loss of smell and taste. I had a CT and my sinus's are all clear and no sign of infection. I have been on a 15 day dose of Pred. but it has not improved and actually gotten worse.
Also wondering about Neurological problems from Thyroid --does anyone have this too???
i was just diagnosed with hyperthyroid. so its all new but i too lost my sense of smell and taste about years ago. but i also used flonaze for allergies for years so my allergist said its possible i lost it from that but i suspect its thyroid issue as well. time will tell. appearances
Rather than wait until end of the month, how about calling and getting test results and reference ranges for your thyroid related tests, and Vitamin D, B12 and ferritin, if available, so that we can help you get prepared for the appointment with the Endo.
I am sorry I do not know what those ranges are I will have to ask the next time I see my endocrinologist which isn't till the end of the month. thanks for the information on the ferritin I had never heard of that.
Just because tests are in the so-called "normal" range does not mean they are optimal, or even adequate for you. Ferritin is the readily usable form of iron. Adequate levels of ferritin are necessary for proper thyroid metabolism. Low ferritin causes a number of symptoms on its own. I highly recommend testing for ferritin.
Please post your Vitamin D, and B12 results and ranges shown on the lab report so that we can better assess.
Please post your Vitamin D, and B12 results and ranges shown on the lab report so that we can better assess.
i had tests done about a year ago and they were normal. I take vit B and B12. never heard of ferritin before.
Have you ever had any thyroid related tests done? If so,please post results and reference ranges shown on the lab report. Also, same question for Vitamin D, B12 and ferritin.
I am very new to this Hypothyroidism thing but in reading all of these posts I don't feel alone anymore or that I am going crazy. I too have the loss of smell and taste that has been for a couple of years now. I also have the horse throat, feeling like there is something caught in my throat some things are not swallowed easily, cant loose weight I have been on weight watchers for 4 months now and cant loose more than 5 lbs and that was in the first week. and yes I have been following that to a T. I constantly have to clear my throat too. I talk to people and cant think of words even though I know what something is it just doesn't come to me, very foggy head. I get up easily but about 11 am I am exhausted and cannot stay awake. I walk into walls and am dizzy. the list of things go on and on. I have been to so many specialists over the years and had blood tests that come up normal but you know things aren't right but cant prove it, till now. I went to see my family dr but she wasn't in and saw another in the same practice it was on an unrelated issue and he is the one who suspected an enlarged thyroid and ordered an ultrasound which showed an abnormal thyroid. so now I am having some test which they inject a radioactive iodine and then they do a scan the next day then I am having a biopsy of the thyroid later that day. So I will find out what else Is going on and where to go from there.
I welcome any and all suggestions.
I welcome any and all suggestions.
I would go with Vicki's advice. It makes the most sense to me in that it's the option that gives you the best chance. Get hold of your doctor today and tell him, as hard as it is. Hopefully, since you've been a long-time patient, he'll just go along with it when the pharmacy calls. From there, hopefully he can find a way to manage your pain and helping you in treating your addiction. It may be a long shot, but I think it's your best option. If it does go further, nothing will likely happen legally. The most you'd get, since you have no record, is probation.
I don't believe Neurontin is addictive. It does need to be tapered off, though. All medications have a long list of possible side effects. Your pharmacist could give you a detailed answer. You could also look it up online. One of the more common side effects is drowsiness, slurring of speech and things like that. They usually go away after a short time as your body adjusts to it. Weight gain is another common side effect. Your prescription should come with all of that information.
Are you experiencing any side effect?
Are you experiencing any side effect?
I don't believe Neurontin is addictive. It does need to be tapered off, though. All medications have a long list of possible side effects. Your pharmacist could give you a detailed answer. You could also look it up online. One of the more common side effects is drowsiness, slurring of speech and things like that. They usually go away after a short time as your body adjusts to it. Weight gain is another common side effect. Your prescription should come with all of that information.
Are you experiencing any side effect?
Are you experiencing any side effect?
Hi-
I have very little sense of smell thus little taste. M
ine is from a surgery that was performed by my ENT to repair a CSF leak that was coming from a tiny little crack in my skull base into my sinuses. The area from where we smell is in that area.
LSS, the olfactory bulbs in the skull base behind the nose and they are easily damaged.from a hard knock to the nose in say a car a accident, fall or punch in the nose.
Horselip
I have very little sense of smell thus little taste. M
ine is from a surgery that was performed by my ENT to repair a CSF leak that was coming from a tiny little crack in my skull base into my sinuses. The area from where we smell is in that area.
LSS, the olfactory bulbs in the skull base behind the nose and they are easily damaged.from a hard knock to the nose in say a car a accident, fall or punch in the nose.
Horselip
taking zinc often returns a sense of smell, and (oddly) taking zinc can **remove** a body odor problem ...
taking zinc often returns a sense of smell, and (oddly) taking zinc can **remove** a body odor problem ...
I have Hashimoto's and have been on thyroid replacement since 1978. I currently take levothyroxin .150. I lost my sense of smell several years ago and can smell absolutely nothing. I have gone to numerous specialists with not results. Doctors just think I am nuts. Glad to get some validation.
I have hypothyroidism since 1994 and need adjusting now and then of either Synthroid or Eltroxin but it only flucuates somewhat. My sense of smell began diminishing about 2 years ago. For some scents I have lost it completely. This has affected my taste but my taste loss isn't as bad as my smell loss. Saw an ENT-had CTScan.Only found deviated septum so wants to do surgery. Was referred to allergist. Found to have acute nasal allergies to mould, dust and dust mites (isn't everyone?). I'm on meds for allergies with no change. The allergist saw on the CTScan that I had some inflammation so I was put on prednisone. None of these things have helped! I am starting to have menopausal hormone issues so am on hormone replacements. I hate not being able to smell and wish I could figure out what is causing it. Oh yes, I first noticed losing some smell after having a bad cold. I'm no doctor but I just feel it is neurological not allergies or a deviated septum....
Help...6 months ago had total hyusterectory with removal of ovaries..last 6weeks developed no taste..no matter how spicey, or what it is ...I can't taste it...I have a good sense of smell ans can smeel anything...Thyroid level normal on Synthroid
Anyone else have similar problem????
Anyone else have similar problem????
i cant smell very much and have never been able to - even when i was a kid (and dont think i had thyroid problems then)
but i did regain my sense of smell for a couple days sometime after starting on synthroid (it was really wierd and everything really STUNK!!! hahaha)
so im not totally sure if my spastic sense of smell is due to thyroid but i have a feeling it is... it's not back yet but im not sure what my body is doing and whether it needs synthroid or not...
seems to me that there are a lot of symptoms that the doctors dont know about. anyways, this probly didnt help much but i know im glad its not just me
but i did regain my sense of smell for a couple days sometime after starting on synthroid (it was really wierd and everything really STUNK!!! hahaha)
so im not totally sure if my spastic sense of smell is due to thyroid but i have a feeling it is... it's not back yet but im not sure what my body is doing and whether it needs synthroid or not...
seems to me that there are a lot of symptoms that the doctors dont know about. anyways, this probly didnt help much but i know im glad its not just me
Hope you still check this. I have been looking for someone with thyroid problems that have experienced similar symptoms as me. I have been hypo for about a year now, still have not normalized, actually I was on too high of dose of synthroid for a long time. But I have experienced gradual smell loss and taste I beleive is due to the smell loss. I also have had a pressure around the bridge of my nose, I saw an ent and had a ct of my sinuses, no infection, he gave me a 5 day dose of the steroid, did nothing. He also gave me allergy meds, did nothing. I am wondering if you are on synthroid and how long and when did you start noticing your smell problems. I hope you get a chance to see this because you are the only other person with thyroid disorder I have found that has expeirenced smell loss. Hope to hear back from you soon.
P.S. In my first post today, when I wrote "Please pick and choose among my comments, using what is useful and regarding the rest," I meant to write DISregarding. My problems with cognitive fuzz, although much less than they used to be, are by no means behind me!
I am somewhat newly diagnosed myself, and I also went undiagnosed for several years. When I began having symptoms that obviously were related to falling levels of estrogen as I approached menopause, it was easy for me and my physicians, in partnership, to attribute the whole bunch of symptoms to shifts in reproductive hormone levels. A lot of weird symptoms CAN be caused by estrogen, but then a lot of weird symptoms can be caused by the thyroid gland, too.
In hindsight, it is not surprising that some of my symptoms may have been put into the wrong category--thryoid hormones and reproductive hormones both influence the body from head to foot, and those two categories of hormones are closely related to each other. By the way: Just to help us not become totally disillusioned by the medical profession, let me stop here to say that my hypothyroidism was very sneaky and unconventional in the way it revealed its presence. The fact that my thyroid gland increasingly was having trouble keeping up with its workload flew right under the radar screen of several really smart, hard-working, and very caring physicians.
Now, those physicians and I are looking backward in time at some of my symptoms and saying, "So, has this been caused by menopausal changes, or has this been a thyroid problem all along?" One of those symptoms is loss of smell. It is a quirky loss for me. Are you familiar with the simple sense-of-smell test that you can administer to yourself? It involves putting some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball, holding the cotton ball near your breastbone, and seeing if you smell the alcohol. I pass the test with flying colors, and yet when I bury my nose in my pillow, I absolutely cannot smell ANYthing. The pleasure of a freshly laundered pillowcase is lost to me.
I am not necessarily saying that my loss of smell is related to my hypothyroidism. My sense of smell has not come back, even though I am taking levothyroxine, but then I am relatively early in the treatment process. What I am experiencing now could change over time.
In regard to sense of taste: The first problem I have had with this in my entire life has been since I began hypothyroidism treatment, believe it or not! Taking levothyroxine has done nothing but good things for me, and my general well-being is vastly improved compared to mid-September, when I began taking the drug. I think that my little-appetite and lack of a sense of taste problems are straightening themselves out, too, as I make progress toward getting established on the right dose of medication. It has been a big problem, though, to try to get nutritious food into myself. Food tends to taste flat, and although I was a zealous consumer of fruits and vegetables before September, I now would be happy to eat nothing but baked goods.
In other words, hormones can have all sorts of screwy effects on us. That includes neurological effects. I know from trading notes with another forum member that at least two of us have had extremely poor balance and also the feeling that our body was not properly aligned with the space around us and that we had to make a conscious effort to stay aligned. She said that her body seemed to want to force itself downward and to the right. I went through a spell of walking diagonally to the left unless I consciously kept myself on the straight and narrow.
The other forum member had been seen by a neurologist and told that her symptoms undoubtedly were caused by her thyroid problem. A few years ago, I took a long, long list of "neurological" symptoms to a specialist, who thought that nothing was seriously wrong with me, but he did a careful assessment of my wiring just to be sure. Indeed, my wiring checked out just fine. Now, I am curious to see, as my hypothyroidism is brought under control, whether my "neurological" symptoms fade away. The list of what I have experienced is too long to bore you with. Just know that almost any form of fireworks may be coming from your thyroid problem and be essentially harmless. That includes a feeling of vibrating all over, which I developed a year ago as my thyroid problem began to make itself more apparent.
Before I close: Are you taking prednisone because of your loss of taste and smell, I wonder? If so, I would be a little concerned (actually, more than a little) that a powerful drug (which an oral steroid is) was being used to take aim at a symptom that it was might not be capable of hitting. It may be that your taste and smell problems, assuming that they can be reversed, will be taken care of as your thyroid problem is brought under control. Your saying that prednisone seems to be making matters worse is what makes me wonder. I have had the experience of unintentionally adding to the burden of an already overburdened thyroid gland, and I wonder if prednisone is doing that in your situation.
Maybe you are being seen by a specialist in taste and smell disorders, though, and I should not be concerned. Such disorders are still quite poorly understood, which makes me worry on your behalf that someone who is not an expert in that area is trying to treat you, and with a powerful drug, no less.
Please pick and choose among my comments, using what is useful and regarding the rest. I wish you all the best!
In hindsight, it is not surprising that some of my symptoms may have been put into the wrong category--thryoid hormones and reproductive hormones both influence the body from head to foot, and those two categories of hormones are closely related to each other. By the way: Just to help us not become totally disillusioned by the medical profession, let me stop here to say that my hypothyroidism was very sneaky and unconventional in the way it revealed its presence. The fact that my thyroid gland increasingly was having trouble keeping up with its workload flew right under the radar screen of several really smart, hard-working, and very caring physicians.
Now, those physicians and I are looking backward in time at some of my symptoms and saying, "So, has this been caused by menopausal changes, or has this been a thyroid problem all along?" One of those symptoms is loss of smell. It is a quirky loss for me. Are you familiar with the simple sense-of-smell test that you can administer to yourself? It involves putting some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball, holding the cotton ball near your breastbone, and seeing if you smell the alcohol. I pass the test with flying colors, and yet when I bury my nose in my pillow, I absolutely cannot smell ANYthing. The pleasure of a freshly laundered pillowcase is lost to me.
I am not necessarily saying that my loss of smell is related to my hypothyroidism. My sense of smell has not come back, even though I am taking levothyroxine, but then I am relatively early in the treatment process. What I am experiencing now could change over time.
In regard to sense of taste: The first problem I have had with this in my entire life has been since I began hypothyroidism treatment, believe it or not! Taking levothyroxine has done nothing but good things for me, and my general well-being is vastly improved compared to mid-September, when I began taking the drug. I think that my little-appetite and lack of a sense of taste problems are straightening themselves out, too, as I make progress toward getting established on the right dose of medication. It has been a big problem, though, to try to get nutritious food into myself. Food tends to taste flat, and although I was a zealous consumer of fruits and vegetables before September, I now would be happy to eat nothing but baked goods.
In other words, hormones can have all sorts of screwy effects on us. That includes neurological effects. I know from trading notes with another forum member that at least two of us have had extremely poor balance and also the feeling that our body was not properly aligned with the space around us and that we had to make a conscious effort to stay aligned. She said that her body seemed to want to force itself downward and to the right. I went through a spell of walking diagonally to the left unless I consciously kept myself on the straight and narrow.
The other forum member had been seen by a neurologist and told that her symptoms undoubtedly were caused by her thyroid problem. A few years ago, I took a long, long list of "neurological" symptoms to a specialist, who thought that nothing was seriously wrong with me, but he did a careful assessment of my wiring just to be sure. Indeed, my wiring checked out just fine. Now, I am curious to see, as my hypothyroidism is brought under control, whether my "neurological" symptoms fade away. The list of what I have experienced is too long to bore you with. Just know that almost any form of fireworks may be coming from your thyroid problem and be essentially harmless. That includes a feeling of vibrating all over, which I developed a year ago as my thyroid problem began to make itself more apparent.
Before I close: Are you taking prednisone because of your loss of taste and smell, I wonder? If so, I would be a little concerned (actually, more than a little) that a powerful drug (which an oral steroid is) was being used to take aim at a symptom that it was might not be capable of hitting. It may be that your taste and smell problems, assuming that they can be reversed, will be taken care of as your thyroid problem is brought under control. Your saying that prednisone seems to be making matters worse is what makes me wonder. I have had the experience of unintentionally adding to the burden of an already overburdened thyroid gland, and I wonder if prednisone is doing that in your situation.
Maybe you are being seen by a specialist in taste and smell disorders, though, and I should not be concerned. Such disorders are still quite poorly understood, which makes me worry on your behalf that someone who is not an expert in that area is trying to treat you, and with a powerful drug, no less.
Please pick and choose among my comments, using what is useful and regarding the rest. I wish you all the best!
Scarlet, you put it SO well when you said "that lil gland controls so much"! I identify with your ear infection troubles. Having read that the thyroid gland is vitally important to the immune system, I thought "No kidding," as I came down with my third common cold in two and a half months' time. Formerly, a cold every two years was my norm.
When I replied to logical's inquiry a minute ago, I did not get into the area of cognitive effects that a thyroid problem can have, but of course, the cognitive stuff is neurological, so I should have included it. For me, cognitive problems were one of the last hypothyroidism symptoms to appear. I had many years of "sneaky" symptoms, and then this past summer, shortly after being diagnosed with hypothyroidism, more traditional hypothyroidism symptoms began to creep in. I am a social scientist, which means that my ability to think is critical in my job. If I had not had a diagnosis already as the cognitive fuzz and the inability to focus settled in, I would have been in a state of panic.
When you say that seeing your own experiences in words makes you wonder how you survived the last year, I hear you clearly! One of the very helpful aspects of this forum is that we know we are not merely being whiners when we see other people saying, "How did I make it this far?" Another very helpful aspect is being reassured that we newly diagnosed people WILL make it through to a better tomorrow. A good doctor helps us get there, so I join you in being happy for logical that she found someone good. I hope that you have been similarly blessed.
When I replied to logical's inquiry a minute ago, I did not get into the area of cognitive effects that a thyroid problem can have, but of course, the cognitive stuff is neurological, so I should have included it. For me, cognitive problems were one of the last hypothyroidism symptoms to appear. I had many years of "sneaky" symptoms, and then this past summer, shortly after being diagnosed with hypothyroidism, more traditional hypothyroidism symptoms began to creep in. I am a social scientist, which means that my ability to think is critical in my job. If I had not had a diagnosis already as the cognitive fuzz and the inability to focus settled in, I would have been in a state of panic.
When you say that seeing your own experiences in words makes you wonder how you survived the last year, I hear you clearly! One of the very helpful aspects of this forum is that we know we are not merely being whiners when we see other people saying, "How did I make it this far?" Another very helpful aspect is being reassured that we newly diagnosed people WILL make it through to a better tomorrow. A good doctor helps us get there, so I join you in being happy for logical that she found someone good. I hope that you have been similarly blessed.
I'm not sure about smell and taste but hey that lil gland controls so much and we're all different.I had trouble with my ears being fluid filled and constant infections in them.Nothing helped - antibiotics only worked temporarily.
In my own personal experience the neuro side included short term memory loss, inability to complete any math or number sequence,,seizure type blackouts ( only lasting 5-30 sec.- thought by neurologist to be temporal lobe seizures), tremors in my neck and hands, strange buzzing noises in back of head and migraine headaches.
Wow reading that in words makes me wonder how I survived the last year! I'm happy to say since my TT I know longer have those symptoms in the severity I once had. I do have a little brain fog and am achey and tired but that'll work out with med. adjustments.
Hopefully this helped a little bit.
Happy to hear you found a good dr! Best wishes to say healthy.
In my own personal experience the neuro side included short term memory loss, inability to complete any math or number sequence,,seizure type blackouts ( only lasting 5-30 sec.- thought by neurologist to be temporal lobe seizures), tremors in my neck and hands, strange buzzing noises in back of head and migraine headaches.
Wow reading that in words makes me wonder how I survived the last year! I'm happy to say since my TT I know longer have those symptoms in the severity I once had. I do have a little brain fog and am achey and tired but that'll work out with med. adjustments.
Hopefully this helped a little bit.
Happy to hear you found a good dr! Best wishes to say healthy.
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