Advice re thyroid pls? plus bit wobbly re thickening

Hi ladies
I will do the wobbly bit first. I have a lumpy thickening to be checked out tomorrow, chest wall of mx breast just over the implant. Hopeful it is due to recent implant exchange, but just needed to admit I am feeling bit sick about it.
Re thyroid: I know there was another thread on here about thyroid problems and bc, but I didn’t save it can’t find it now, so am hoping someone may have some experience or be able to direct me to it.I’m 2 years post dx, had blood tests since chemo/surgery/rads finished just over a year ago because my white cells stayed low since then, and I was having some dizziness etc. Thyroid function was tested as routine. I wasn’t expecting problems, but came back showing auto-immune thyroid disease. I was told this over the phone (I know GP was trying to save me coming in, knowing how many otehr appts there are),left a results print out to show onc and prescription (haven’t started it yet) at the counter. I can’t seem to book a gp appt for ages, and now realise that because I was pre-occupied I didn’t ask the right questions and know very little about it-not which type, are long term osteoperosis risks of levothyroxine increased becasue of tamox etc.
I know that some research suggests a link between bc and thyroid probs-just wondered if anyone on here had any words of wisdom until I can get a face-to-face appt.Thanks
C

hi CofT

i have just been speaking to some of my BC friends about dodgy thyroid and cholesterol results following BC.

im currently waiting on my thyroid antibody test coming back which should tell me if i have an autoimmune thyroid disease, but think its maybe gone missing as it was sent away 4 weeks ago so not sure whats happened to it.

i have borderline high TSH so very mildy hypothyroid, which was what prompted the antibody test, which was prompted after astonishingly high cholesterol test and they wanted to rule out hypothyroid… so now on simvastatin and off to the cardiology clinic next week to get it all checked out.

but i havnt heard of any links specifically relating thyroid to BC although there is a lot of speculation that it could be.

sorry i havent been of much help really…

hope your lumpy bit turns out ok too.

lxx

Hi Lulu34

That is a help, thank-you so much.

It sounds as if you are having a round of appointments too, it gets wearing wondering where results are.

I feel that I know a fair bit about my bc now, but realsied I know very little about autoimmune thyroid disease and have found it much harder to get specific info. The research I looked at briefly was quite inconclusive-as always-but suggested that there is a higher incidence of thyroid disfunction among bc patients than in the general population, but how significant that is I am in the dark about!
My TSH was high , although free T4 normal. My levels of Thyroid antibody looked terrifyingly high to me (890+,when normal is under 40). I know antibody titres can be high and are not necassarily cause for great alarm, but have to admit I was alarmed!

Hope your results come through soon, and wish you all the best with the cardiology appt.

C xx

Hi there,

fascinating discussion, I hadn’t picked up on any connection between thyroid function and bc but will look into it now. I was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism about 11 years ago and it had clearly been undiagnosed for a good while (despite my telling GPs twice that I thought something was seriously wrong with me neither of them did a thyroid test! had to wait until it had tipped me into the menopause and luckily I have a friend who is a very conscientious consultant gynaecologist who tested for this along with hormone levels and found me to be seriously wanting!) as I had very serious problems and needed quite a large dose of levothyroxine which, obviously, I’m still on.

It will be interesting to see how many others are affected by this.

Lee x

Hi

Just been reading this thread and found it very interesting.

I had my thyroid removed 15 months ago as I had a very large goitre and now in February was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. This seems quite a coincidence, it was the same surgeon that operated on me for my thyroid and bc but nothing was ever mentioned that there could be a link.

When I have my next appointment I shall be asking about this.

Take Care Emily x

Hi
I wish I could find the original thread I saw, it had a bit more information. I’m going to ask more about it when I see my GP and onc, will post if get any further information.
C x

Hi C,

if you click on Forums this will take you to a page which allows you to search all the forums. Inputting “thyroid” comes up with over 400 posts! I’m sure you will recognise the title of the one you were following.

Hope you find it!

Lee x

Thanks Lee
I did try that, but probably pressed something wrong, which I keep doing lately! I’ll have another look.
C x

Interesting thread ladies. Think I have
posted before about this. Basically I was diagnosed with auto immunity and an underactive thyroid 13 years ago. Diagnosed with bc last august. Wonder if there is a link? Agree that little research has been carried out into auto immunity. Interested to hear from
others.

Al
xx

interested when i read this thread, i was diagnosed with thyroid probs ten years ago and have been on a theraputic dose of 125mcgs daily since then, what worries me is the fact that these are hormones and i am strongly 8/8estrogen and have her2 status pos. i am 57yrs and post menopausal for ten years. just wondered if there was a connection?

Anne x

Hi
Thanks for the replies. My concerns are the same- I have been given a prescription for levothyroxine, yet to start taking it, but am also 100% er +, and I do wonder about the link.
I have read that during periods of hormone disruption such as pregnancy and menopause, thyroid antibodies can go up, which is what made me want to know more about a possible link. I also developed other antibodies during pregnancy and I do feel that my immune system has somehow become disrupted, but have no scientific basis for that.
C x

Hi Cupoftea
I was er+ and have been hypothyroid on Levothyroxine for years before. I read that thyroxine can disrupte your thyroid so asked my Gp for an early blood test but it came back ok. Hope you’re doing ok.
xxx

from what i understand oestrogen can have an effect on thryroid hormones but thyroid hormones doesnt have an effect on oestrogen… so for hormone positive cancers is should be fine to continue with your thyroxine… your GP and pharmacist wouldnt issue it if there was a chance they could interact or if it was contraindicated.

you can ask your gp or pharmacist to check this for you… apparently tamoxifen can suppress thyroid function… so perhaps thats why some who were found to have thyroid dysfunction or deterioration of thyroid function after BC.

Lx

Hi

Thanks veggiebab and Lulu.
I think I wasn’t very clear in my last post-I’m not concerned that taking the thyroxine in relation to the tamox is contra-indicated.
I just wonder generally about disruption to hormone levels in the body long term and how they might be connected. I’m holding on starting on thyroxine until I get a chance to speak about the results, just because at the moment although my TSH levels are high, and antibodies too, I am not exhibiting many symptoms and there is some uncertainty about medicating at this stage which I want to be clear about first.

My wondering about the links is really to do with your second point Lulu-that I have had so much hormone disruption I wonder if this is linked to the high TSH levels and high antibody levels. I also have a question mark over my general immunity.
It is probably all academic, in that it makes little difference to the outcome, and as a pragmatist I’ll just take the drugs! I won’t know if I had those antibodies present before dx- but I am interested in whether the links are causal and also whether fluctating antibody levels can stabilise-I have read some research that suggests thyroid antibody levels do sometimes level out.

Think I am talking in circles now-apologies, the heat and a school fun run to blame !
Take care everyone
C x

Emily - My bc surgeon also specialises in thyroid glands as well. I know this because I, too, have a goitre which he commented on and although I had had it checked out some years before, he arranged for another scan. As before, it showed that it is multi-nodular and the only solution would be surgery like you. At the time, last August, he said we needed to concentrate on the bc, obviously.

I have been on thyroxine for over 10 years and started at the same time as HRT. No-one ever mentioned osteoporosis as being a side effect and when I had a bone density scan before I started Letrozole, my bones were average for my age. I was hoping that they would be better due to the HRT but if thyroxine makes them worse, maybe it evened out. There seems to be disagreement about whether it does actually cause osteoporosis, though - as there seems to be about most things.

I asked my surgeon if there was a link and he said that it had been speculated but nothing proven.

Ann x

Hi Ann

When I had my thyroid removed they tested it and said it was all ok and not cancerous, I have been on thyoxine since but they never mentioned any side effects like osteoporosis.

My mum has a friend who also had a lump removed from her neck many years ago and later developed bc so there is definitely a conection somewhere, they need to do more research into this.

Emily x

Emily - My Mum also had bc but nothing wrong with her thyroid gland. Mind you, she did have an operation on her para-thyroid gland, come to think of it, but that was a whole different story.

I think the main cause of my bc was being on HRT for so long, together with many years of intense stress. I suppose that could have been the cause of thyroid problems, so linked in a way.

Ann x

I am also just over 2 years dx and a couple of months ago went to GP for some routine blood tests. I have come back border line underactive thyroid. I had asked for the blood test as I have a strong family history of thyroid problems. My sister has had problems for nearly 30 years and my maternal grandmother also had it. she died of cervical cancer at 51. I was dx with lobular HER2 cancer. My sister so far clear. I have previously read of a possible link with bc and thyroid problems. I will go back to my GP later this year again to be rechecked.

I am beginning to wonder if it is just that both things can be stress related and it is not that there is a direct link. Maybe, if the body is stressed, this can cause thyroid problems and bc - as well as a lot of other things, probably.

Ann x

Hi all, I just felt I needed to add to this discussion as I too was unaware of a possible link between BC and thyroid problems. I was diagnosd with an under-active thyroid a few months after having my daughter, who is now 9, and have been taking levothyroxine ever since; I was diagnosed with exensive DCIS in Feb after having needle biopsy in Oct and WLE in Jan and have since had bilateral mx. I would be very interested in any other information//research anyone knows about. Take care, Samm.