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“She has thyroid problems.... bulging eyes are the giveaway. She must be taking thyroid medications but has a hard time adjusting them. It’s scrubbed now from internet but a thyroid doctor used to have something about Hillary”

Yeah, I’d thought her problem was thyroid too.

Bulging eyes is a symptom of autoimmune hyperthyroidism, Graves Disease, or in a small percentage of cases autoimmune hypothyroidism. Treatment options in Graves or other autoimmune hyperthyroidism are grim. There’s a couple of oral meds that can block the excess thyroid, but they are toxic and make most people nauseous. Radioactive iodine to destroy excess thyroid tissue can work, but if it fails to destroy enough thyroid tissue or the tissue regrows, then you’re screwed because you can’t take radioactive iodine a second time.

If it does work, then you’re going to be hypothyroid and have to take thyroid compound, and it’s a real bitch-kitty to adjust these meds because the common med is T4, which is inactive until converted by the liver or kidneys into T3. T4 has a half life of 7-10 days, so it is extremely difficult to adjust. You get too much and it’s a nightmare of over-stimulation until the stuff gets used up over a period of days. If you wait too long to restart a new lower dose after that, then you go into low energy mode again. So it’s a terrible roller-coaster ride with the result of the dose not known until about 7-10 days later. So the clinical picture always lags way behind the dose change.

Additionally, if you’ve also got liver problems, then the T4 won’t convert and you have to take the T3 directly. Though T3 has a very short half-life, there’s no offical time-release version and when you take it, it all absorbs right away and it hits you like a dose of bad speed.

Also, thyroiditis is very frequently associated with a bevy of other autoimmune disorders such as pernicious anemia, gluten autoimmune allergy, Sjogren’s Syndrome, Lupus, and others. I read in one place that 50% of people with thyroiditis also have Sjogren’s Syndrome (I happen to have thryoiditis, Sjogren’s, pernicious anemia, and gluten autoimmune allery.)

Sjogren’s is particularly tough as there is no “official” remedy, though knowledgeable doctors know that a treatment called low dose Naloxone (LDN) can work miracles. Furthermore, Sjogren’s is far more than just dry eyes and dry mouth. There’s a whole bevy of other symptoms that can be debilitating.