No need to be scared. The radioactive iodine treatment is not painful. What I am stressing is that you do not wait to return to your endocrinologist on his schedule alone ... continue to monitor how you are feeling as the weeks pass and the radioactive iodine diminishes your thyroid hormone. Too often, a doctor tells you to return in a given amount of time and sometimes that is too long a time and you are feeling terrible. Get back in before you feel completely wiped out so that you can be put on thyroid meds.
Best of luck.
Thanks for your help nance. I have not scheduled yet, but spoke with the nuclear med dept at hospital and now I am scared. Maybe too scared to deal with this yet. I did not realize this was so serious. Maybe I didn't want to know. Debby
deb,
I had radioactive for Graves in 1997. My endocrinologist did not tell me when to report the symptoms that I experienced from the gradual decline in functioning of my thyroid hormone. As a result, I became very ill before it was discovered that I had very little thyroid function at all. Be sure that you monitor your symptoms and return for a blood test as soon as you begin to feel horrible. Don't wait.