There's an interesting new story from Houston the other week on Jose Cruz's battle with Graves disease. You can watch the video here (http://www.khou.com/sports/astros/stories/khou051227_jt_gravesdisease.1cf08e82.html), although you have to register. Here's a brief synopsis of the story:
"Jose Cruz was in top physical condition for 27 years as an outfielder for the Houston Astros.
But five years ago, Cruz looked in the mirror at age 50 and was shocked at what he saw.
"I saw my body that was losing muscle," Cruz said. "I lost a lot of weight."
In three months he lost 30 pounds.
"I don't sleep good at night," Cruz said. "I was sweating a lot. " Cruz got a physical, but his doctor said he could not find anything wrong. Then Cruz began losing his hair.
His joints ached.
His heart raced, and he had unexplained outbursts of anger.
"They do anything to me, I got angry," Cruz said.
Eventually Cruz made his way to endocrinologist Dr. Ridha Arem, who discovered his thyroid was producing an excessive amount of thyroid hormone.
It's called Graves disease.
"When the thyroid levels are out of whack that will basically cause a wide range of mental effects — including the anger, becoming quite irritable -- sometimes mood swings," Dr. Arem said.
Dr. Arem prescribed a pill containing radioactive iodine.
It slowly destroys the thyroid cells to keep them from producing too much hormone. He also prescribed anti-thyroid medication.
"These medications block thyroid production and allow the physician to basically maintain normal thyroid levels," Dr. Arem said.
It took a year for the medications to work and for the thyroid hormone levels to normalize.
"I don't get angry anymore like I used to," Cruz said. "I'm more mellow now."
Cruz eventually gained his weight back and regained his muscle.
His other symptoms disappeared.
For every one woman who gets Graves disease there are seven men, like Cruz, who do. "
Nice find usc, good video to boot. Graves disease doesn't sound fun, nor does the prospect of taking radioactive iodine. Added that blurb to his database page:
http://dee-nee.com/wiki/index.php/Jose_Cruz
Like Jack Clark, this page needs major updating. Anyone feel free to add the basics...
Done (as well as the Bag O' Assby page).
Updated the Cruz page (http://dee-nee.com/wiki/index.php/Jose_Cruz) with a few more wikilinks, an external links page and (soon to be) image.