Can thyroid problems be linked to birth control?

Never heard of it in my day. But, Yaz is a newer and different type of pill than the older ones. Could be possible?

Are you sure it is hyper thyroidism they were diagnosed with? Not hypo? Do they all live near each other?

Yep Hyper. All of them but one cousin who has hypo. If I can find the tread I will attach it. I don’t think my sister took yaz but I know my neice did until recently.

Hyper is more rare I think. Or, more rare in general, maybe not among young people, I don’t know the stats for sure. Thyroid problems do run in families of course. The birth control is an interesting theory. I just know so many people on birth control who didn’t have a thyroid problem, and many not on it who did. Although, many of the women develop hypothyroid later in life.

I’ve always wondered if there are significant clusters of thyroid problems in certain communities. Like female cancer on Long Island.

As I side not. I personally would not take Yaz. I would stick to the tried and true until Yaz is on the market longer.

I do happen to know one person who was diagnosed hypothyroid while taking Yaz, but I believe she ad symtpms before ever taking the drug, and she was probably perimenopausal at the time also.

Oh, also, I am a big believer in possibly a virus or environmental factor causing a thyroid whackout.

One other thing to consider thyroid troubles can cause irregular periods, so if they are taking the pill to regulate, they may have had an undiagnosed thyroid problem to begin with. Doctors are notorious for not testing thyroid. Even Oprah went through a few doctors until they diagnosed her with some sort of thyroid trouble, which is ridiculous and incompetent in my opinion.

I found a study from 1978 that says yes: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/4/335

That should link you to the abstract. If you want a pdf of the full text of the article message me and I can email it to you.

@nikipedia Back in the 70’s the hormpne doses were much higher in the pills. I wonder if there are any new studies? Not asking you to look for any. The pill is so often touted as completely benign. It’s annoying. I do think overall it is a safe drug, but I also think every medication has side affects of some sort, whether we are aware or not.

@nikipedia Interesting how even back then they associated it to causing possible Hyperthyroidism.

I think @JLeslie is on the right track. If there’s been an overall increase in thyroid dysfunction, it’s much more likely to be environmental than hormonal.

We’ve seen an explosion of asthma related illness in the US too – it seems to be related to increased exposure to chemicals in our air and in our homes. We have an epidemic of obesity as well – and if you look at how most Americans eat on a daily basis, it’s safe to say that diet and exercise or lack thereof are the keys.

I prescribe a lot of COCs Combination Oral Contraceptives, and I keep up with continuing education in this area. I am not aware of any well designed research study that has show a link, causal or otherwise, between using hormonal contraception and thyroid disorders.

@MagsRags Haven’t seen you in a while! :) The one thing we don’t know by lack of study is if there is some sort of connection or not. I think there is an overall desire on many fronts to keep people thinking the pill is ok. Pharm companies, obviously to avoid unwanted pregnancy, women want to believe it is ok.

@JLeslie, hi! Got way bogged down in other areas of RL. Just wandered back…

Anyway, the frequency of thyroid dysfunction has increased in the US, and it is more common among women, but I don’t think it has increased more rapidly among women than among men, and if COCs were a trigger, it would.

Known triggers:
Exposure to radiation – think how many more dental xrays, CT scans, folks get, plus background radiation from sunlight with the decreasing ozone layer.
Some chroinic health problems – diabetics are at higher risk of developing antithyroid antibodies, and with more obesity, we’re seeing more diabetes. Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic hepatitis also can trigger those antibodies.
Some meds and supplements can expose folks to excess iodine and increase the risk for thyroid problems – kelp, some cold remedies, contrast dye use in some types of xrays.

@MagsRags True there are a lot of things that can cause it but isn’t it maybe a bit risky to play with the endocrine system when it is a finely tuned system that can mess up so many things by being slightly off. I know, it may even be steroids given to people so much easier than ever before, or the steroids that have been introduced into our food to make animals bigger. But even if those things start it a bit and then make your system slightly non functioning, perhaps taking bc will just push it over the edge. Not to mention, people can go a long time without knowing they have a thyroid problem because they may have a false negative on the first test they take and then the doctor moves onto other reasons, they may be overweight, tired, or in pain or the opposite, lossing weight, or rapid heart beat. Plus when your endocrine system is failing, you can develop things like diabetes and being overweight. So your doctor does one test during a time you levels may be ok, and then says, hey, you are tired and have diabetes because you are overweight. Just change your diet and all should be fine. Years of struggling with exhaustion and diets, the person finally finds out it is thyroid. Years that the person may still be taking bc. I knew this one girl years ago. She was skinny when she got married and then started bc. Doc’s at the time told her it was ok because bc’s can make you put on weight. In less than a year she looked like she swallowed another person. Anything that changes your body that drastically can’t be good for you. Now that was in the 80’s and a lot has changed, but funny how anyone can get cancer but all the smokers got it from cigarettes and not their enviroment. People develop thyroid problems more than ever before, but it can’t be steroids or birth control, even though both create changes in the endocrine system. Not everything can be cleansed with a glass of water.
Sorry its not that I’m picking on you. I appreciate any view, I’m just a bit testy about medications about treatments that are sometimes dismissed. I agree with @JLeslie about how some things are overlooked because it lines someones pockets. For years the additives in ciggarettes was overlooked, for years, hormones in animals where overlooked. I can’t help but feel that the same is being done with birth control. Why, because its cheaper to give out pills than it is to have a over population of children and to deal with thyroids. Wouldn’t surprise me if the same pharmaceutical companies that developed birth control where the first ones to come up with thyroid medications. Win, Win! Whats that? We gave you something that will may your thyroid sick! Don’t worry, we will fix it so you can buy the thyroid medicine for the rest of your life.

I am not saying for sure there is a connection. Only that maybe we should not dismiss just because it has not been proven yet. I agree there are many many reasons thyroids are whacko. I got diagnosed when I asked for a thyroid test, and my numbers were so so bad. TSH was 96.5. My TSH was a perfect 2.2 three months before on my regular medical visit. I always had my thyroid checked regularly from my late 20’s. I had been with a close friend a couple months before visiting for a week. She was diagnosed within a few weeks of my diagnosis. I figure we walked through a radioactive field or caught a virus together. Who knows of it is just coincidence or not, but it is odd.

I did not have regular dental xrays from the age 20 on. Usually only once every two or three years. But, of course everything counts.

@Pandora it’s OK, I’m not feeling picked on. The world is an incredibly complicated place, and so is the human body. But based on what we know about human endocrinology, pituitary and ovarian function are a lot more closely linked than thyroid and ovarian.

And FWIW, thyroid replacement medication is dirt cheap, as meds go. 3 month supply $10 at Walmart.

@MagsRags Hmm. I wonder if my sister is on it. Thanks for that info.
Glad you don’t feel picked on. :)

That’s true, thyroid meds are very inexpensive. I don’t think there is some grand scheme to destroy people’s thyroids, even though I think we might be inadvertently affecting our thyroids negatively through a variety of different possibilities.

@JLeslie If you are even making $10 off of a million customers per month and the product only cost you $1 dollar to make than you are making a killing every month. But I’m sure the numbers are way higher than 1 million. That would be a profit of at least 8 million a month for 12 months for some 30 to 50 years, depending on how old the person was. My niece is only 24 so she has at least another 60 years. So it is pretty steady income for the company.

@Pandora True. But, I am loath to think there is a conspiracy to make people hypothyroid. I do think the medical community at large including pharmaceutical companies are generally fine to ignore conditions like thyroid problems because they feel it is treated adequately, and because there is a profit made off of it. The medical establishment rarely looks for cause once something is able to be treated, which I take great issue with believe me.

@JLeslie I think the other reason there isn’t much thought about possible causes of thyroid dysfunction for an individual person is because knowing the cause isn’t usually going to change the treatment for that person. Causal relationships are more of a public health or environmental issue than a clinical practice one.

@MagsRags Well, once we know the cause that might change. It was commonly held that cancer was not contagious, but luckily some researches figured out a connection between HPV and cervical cancer (and of course rectal, and tongue) and developed something, a vaccine, to prevent the underlying cause. Wound up being a bonanza for the pharm company that invented it. If there is money in it there is more chance for research. Let’s say a bacteria causes the thyroid troubles, we might be able to cure it. We already believe certain thyroid problems are likely caused by a virus. Unfortunately we are not very good at curing viral infections, although a vaccine would be a possibility.

Doctors usually, don’t take offense, think in terms of what has been studied and what they are told to do as standard of care. Researches tend to think in terms of underlying cause. Most patients I think want to know a cause also, they prefer not to just treat a symptom. Especially with young patients when they are supposed to be healthy we want to know a cause, because we cannot blame aging. This is how Lymes finally was researched. Some moms in Lyme, CT were fed up with being told it was just one of those things when many of the children were developing arthritis. It was not rheumatic is was infectious. We see this with rheumatic diagnosis all the time. Rheumatic heart is strep. Ulcers once thought to be the body doing the wrong thing, bacterial. Fertility problems in women finally connected to untreated Chlamydia, Chlamydia previously considered normal flora.

I think we don’t think about causal connections enough, and just accept things go wrong. Well, I rail against that way of thinking, acceptance gets us nowhere in science. But, the way I think also can elevate ones anxiety. Lol.

@JLeslie Agreed. Too often the medical community will settle for treatment of symptoms instead of trying to figure out the cause. Its like putting on calamine lotion on someone with posion ivy who got in in their back yard. If you never look to find out what posion ivy is your more likely to keep getting it back because you won’t know what to avoid.

But, the way I think also can elevate ones anxiety. Lol.

Yeah, its too late for me. I’m there already. But thankfully its not too bad. :)

@JLeslie I’m not a doctor, but a nurse practitioner/nurse midwife. And no reason for me to take offense, even if I was a doc. We’re actually in closer agreement than you think.

You gave some great examples of how medical practice can change based on research that creates a shift in thinking. Sometimes the initial research is triggered by a clinical observation or a hunch. But the original question can also be raised by large population studies and then research that is developed to try and answer the question. And in some of the cases you cite, science had to “grow up” to a point where they had the tools to look at the question from a different angle.

To expand on the example you gave that is most familiar to my clinical practice, researchers have known for a long time, based on population studies, that the younger a woman was when she started having sex and the more partners she had over her lifetime, the higher risk she had for cervical cancer. Nuns hardly ever got cervical cancer, and prostitutes got it frequently. If a man’s first wife died of cervical cancer, his second wife was likely to get it too. Logic suggested that it was sexually transmitted somehow. In the 1950s, a prevailing theory was that it was caused by smegma from uncircumsized men. When I was in training in the 1970s, most experts thought that having herpes could cause it.

The first isolation of a contagious wart virus was in the late 1930s, with the research done on rabbits. In about 1970, a German cancer research doctor started working on proving a link between HPV and cervical cancer – to prove it, he had to find HPV DNA in cervical cancer cells – that didn’t happen until the early 1980s. It took several more years to build the evidence to convince some of the skeptics he got the Nobel prize in 2008. HPV testing wasn’t available outside of research settings until about 15 years ago. And the vaccine came out in 2006.

Anyway, all these different types of research add necessary pieces to the puzzle. Sometimes an inital hunch or observation can lead you in the wrong direction.

TMI?

@MagsRags I never thought we were very fat apart in thinking, I was not lumping you in with the generalizations I make about the medical establishment, that was part of the reason I wanted to make sure you did not take offense. :). The history you gave on the HPV cancer connection was extremely important to me, for reasons I’m not going to state here on the Q. Thank you for taking the time to write it out.