Chronic illnesses, such as lung cancer and heart disease, are frequently caused by a poor lifestyle; however, Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disorder that defies easy explanation.
It is generally accepted that there is no known aetiology of Graves’ disease, an autoimmune illness. There is much more to learn about this complicated illness, according to Andrew Gianoukakis, chief of the endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism section at Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre and professor of medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.
So, What Is The Disease Graves’?
An autoimmune condition known as Graves’ disease bears the name of the Irish physician Robert Graves. Gianoukakis claims that the illness is a collection of symptoms. He mentioned that the illness can result in hyperthyroidism and other ailments like skin and eye disorders.
Adults with hyperthyroidism have an excess of thyroid hormone produced by their bodies. Located in the neck, the thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland that normally secretes hormones that regulate your body temperature, respiration, digestion, and fertility. The body’s metabolism speeds up if it becomes hyperactive, leading to hand tremors, fast weight loss, and irregular heartbeats.
Hair loss, diarrhoea, itchy or bulging eyes, erectile dysfunction, low heat tolerance, irritability, muscle weakness, and breast enlargement in men are other signs and symptoms of Graves’ illness. Changes in the menstrual cycle may occur in women, who are five times more likely than males to suffer the illness.
While some experts blame heredity, others think that environmental pollutants are a contributing cause to Graves’ disease. According to Yale Medicine, other plausible extrinsic triggers that may have a connection to the start of Graves’ illness include changes in women’s hormone levels and exposure to bacterial or viral infections.
How to Handle Graves’ Illness
While many individuals are curious about the prognosis of Graves’ disease, the good news is that it is extremely curable and not lethal. In actuality, the symptoms won’t have any effect on life expectancy as long as the illness is properly managed.
Medication is usually the first line of treatment for the illness; methimazole and propylthiouracil, two anti-thyroid medications licenced over 70 years ago, are the two most common ones. After starting recommended medicine, patients usually start feeling better, but it takes a year or so to determine if the thyroid is no longer hyperactive.
Treating Graves’ illness with radioactive iodine, which completely destroys the thyroid, is an alternative.According to Gianoukakis, “radioactive iodine is a radioactive compound.” “If you give patients radars of iodine, the thyroid absorbs it and the thyroid is damaged because the thyroid cells particularly take up iodine to generate thyroid hormone. Therefore, it’s an ineffective way to treat Graves’ disease’s hyperthyroidism component.
After undergoing the more “crude” course of treatment that involves removing the thyroid entirely, patients are left unable to make thyroid hormone naturally and are forced to take synthetic or bioequivalent thyroid hormone preparations produced from animals or plants orally.