After seeing Dr Heller in July 2010 (in which he took his own ultrasound) regarding the calcification that was found during my ultrasound on July 2nd, he wanted me to come back in October for a follow up to see if anything changed.
He took another ultrasound in his office of the calcification and saw that it had gotten slightly smaller - going from 0.88 cm in July to only .64 cm in October. He was not concerned with nodules or calcifications as small as the one that I had. He doesn't think that I will have further problems with it, but he will continue to check it out. He doesn't recommend taking any surgical action with small calcifications. About 30-40 years ago, these things caused doctors to take out all of the lymph notes. Now, many doctors just leave them in and nothing usually happens in anywhere from 40-60% of patients. Due to the small size of the calcification, Dr Heller did not seem too concerned.
When I asked him if I would need a scan every year even if the antibodies don't go away, he said no. He felt that checkups, ultrasounds and blood tests would be fine. As we already know, the best thing to do would be to have a Thyrogen stimulated blood test, but that is not reliable for me due to the presence of the antibodies. He does not feel that the scans add much.
When I asked him about what would happen if the calcification lit up on the scan (indicating that it was thyroid tissue), he said that if anything would be done at all, it would be surgery and not RAI since I already got a pretty big dose a couple years earlier.
No comments:
Post a Comment