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Q: Thyroid Meds & Schizoaffective Disorder : Thyroid Meds & Losing
Weight
Dear Dr. Phelps,
My daughter was diagnosed with bi-polar II in high school. By the age of 21 she
had multiple hospitalizations and was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.
During that time she also had a large lymph node that eventually was biopsied. An
infectious disease specialist diagnosed it as chromatocytosis (spelling ?) [corrected
in a subsequent letter to sarcoidosis -- JP], an
autoimmune disorder! I read the article on thyroid medications in the
treatment of bi-polar disease...(in one of your archived answers). Do you think
adding thyroid meds to her current meds would help with schizoafftive disorder?
In addition, one of her meds was Zyprexa, for nearly a year, and subsequently
she is morbidly obese. Can taking thyroid meds help her to take off some of that
weight?
thankyou,
Dear Ms. K' --
Maybe and maybe. Multiple general medical doctors whom I've asked on this
have confirmed my impression that a trial of thyroid, short of doses that lead
to hyperthyroidism, carries very little risk. You'll see one risk, that of
making symptoms worse as occurred in at least one of my patients, in the essay
on
Thyroid and
Bipolar Disorder, which you may already
have visited. As you may have learned, thyroid treatment has already been
established as a "mood stabilizer" add-on, by the Whybrow research group. So a trial of
thyroid even at much higher doses than I've generally used is "okay"
from the point of view of following established research.
Not so established, but pretty tempting when you look
at the logic of it, is a trial of metformin (glucophage). You can find the
rationale on that in the essay on
Metabolic
Syndrome, and the
metformin
page in case you miss the link in that essay. Here are some general
thoughts about
weight
gain and bipolar disorder. You can see these paths lead to a strong
consideration of Glucophage, but note that although we have tons of experience
with this medication from its use in diabetes treatment, there is just slightly
more than zero data on it (like a mere whiff...) in bipolar
disorder.
So, thyroid and just maybe glucophage could be
considered for your daughter, but may I once more stress that the Glucophage
idea is brand new, and the only reason I mention it here is because of
the specific history you relate, which I think raises the odds that it might be
of value.
Dr. Phelps
Published March, 2003
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