Thyroid removal: have you or anyone you know had it and do you recommend it?

My wife found a lump on her thyroid and had a partial thyroidectomy. Fortunately it was benign. She has not had any problems resulting from this surgery. “After the removal of a thyroid, patients usually take a prescribed oral synthetic thyroid hormone – levothyroxine (Synthroid) – to prevent hypothyroidism.” See Wikipedia

My husband had his thyroid removed many years ago. Thyroxin daily has replaced it. It’s a very inexpensive medication. If the thyroid has to be removed, don’t fret, Easy fix.

I had a doctor tell me a few years ago that I might have to have it done, because of a lump that they thought might be cancerous. It wasn’t. I went for a second opinion and got the good news. At the time, my mom told me “your goal is to keep your body parts.” In other words, don’t remove things unless you absolutely have to.

I have a good friend that had thyroid cancer and had his removed. He takes Synthroid but seems to lead a normal life. I think in the beginning, he had some side effects while his body was adjusting to the change. Side effects were fatigue and I think he was a little puffy.

I had a neighbor that had her thyroid removed. She had so many side effects afterwards. She gained a lot of weight, was tired all the time, and ended up quitting her job as she was too tired to work. But the strangest side effect was that just below her knees, her legs turned purple. It looked exactly like someone had dipped her in purple ink. It was an exact ring around both legs from the knee down. This was several years ago and I ran into her at a store a couple years ago and she still had the purple rings. The doctors said it was from the surgery, but couldn’t explain why or if it would ever go away.

My aunt and my mother both. My mom did alright. She went on syntheroid and lived happily ever after until she died of unrelated causes. The only side effect was it became VERY hard for her to lose weight. She trained to run a marathon, succesfully ran the marathon, and didn’t lose weight during that process!!!

My aunt is another story. She CONTINUES to go back to doctors to “try out” different doses/types of syntetic thryoid medicine, and nothing’s working. She sleeps all day, and is so tired when she is awake that she’s a completely different person. She sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, and may very well be on her way to obesity within the next 5 – 10 years.

@mrrich724 Were either of these surgeries due to suspected thyroid cancer? I think it cannot be determined for certain if you have thyroid cancer until the thyroid is removed which to me is a strike against the medical profession.

@chyna I suspect the doctors know why her legs turned purple. In fact, I think you could find it on google if you searched long enough.
@mrrich If she sleeps all day it sounds like she is losing her quality of life. Or has lost it. I ‘ve heard of people not being able to find the right dosage and that Armour thyroid is state of the art instead of old fashioned Synthroid. I think seniors have a lot worse reactions to this surgery than the young.

@Aster Just sharing what my neighbor told me. I am not interested enough in it to google the issue.

@Aster: No, the thyroid does not have to be removed. They can biopsy it – which is what they did with me. They biopsied the lump and found it to be non-carcinogenic.

Thyroid disease runs in my family. I have it and take a thyroid hormone replacement.

My sister developed a goiter from it, and hers had to be removed. She’s been on thyroid hormone replacement since her teen years with no side effects.

@chyna I didn’t mean for you to google it ! I meant by saying you that everyone could if that makes sense.
@jca I’ve been told that trying to determine if a lump is cancerous without removing it is quite iffy and the results are usually Inconclusive so you’re very fortunate.

@Aster: I had an excellent physician (world renowned) and he did not tell me that. I also never heard that other than from you. If the lump is biopsied from several areas, how is that different than biopsying any other lump (breast, etc.)?

My sister in law had her thyroid removed a few years ago. It runs in her family but she was dreading the operation. It all went very smoothly with zero long term effects once they got the drug dosage right. She had an ugly scar low down on her neck and she posted a photograph on Facebook for some reason but she can easily hide it when she wants.

I had thyroid cancer 30 years ago, and had a partial thyroidectomy. The non-cancerous side was left in due to the parathyroid glands. The final pathology report showed a papillary carcinoma with a minimal spread into the gland. The surgery was easy even then. The treatment wasn’t really all that hard.

@Aster my mother had hypothyroidism, and I THINK that my aunt’s may have been due to cancer, but I’m not certain as I was living across the country when the majority of it was happening.

My diabetic friend had it removed and he got very fat considering he had always been thin. This is the one and only thing I know about the thyroid gland, that and that it is located in the neck. So I don’t know if there is a link between removal and weight gain, I just thought I would put it out there.