What Will the Doctor Do?
When Janie went for her checkup, the doctor examined her thyroid and found that she had a goiter. The doctor also did blood tests to check how much thyroid hormone her thyroid gland was making — it was making too much.
In most cases of thyroid problems in kids, the doctor doesn't need to do anything other than a physical examination and blood tests to find out what's wrong. But sometimes, especially if the kid has a nodule in the thyroid gland, the doctor may order other tests such as an ultrasound study or a special scan, called a thyroid scan, that's like an X-ray.
If the tests show that someone has hyperthyroidism, the doctor will usually start him or her on medicine that keeps the thyroid from making too much thyroid hormone. But if the thyroid problem doesn't go away after the person has taken the pills for about 2 years, the doctor may decide (along with the patient and the patient's family) that other treatment should be done to permanently keep the thyroid from making too much thyroid hormone. This might involve taking a medicine by mouth that destroys the thyroid gland or removing most of the gland with surgery.
Whichever treatment is used, hyperthyroidism can be controlled and its symptoms will go away. A kid who has this condition will need to have blood tests done — usually a couple of times a year — to be sure the treatment is keeping the levels of thyroid hormone in the blood normal.
Blood tests are also done to diagnose hypothyroidism. All babies are tested for hypothyroidism right after they're born, even if they don't have symptoms. It's important to treat a baby with hypothyroidism in the first few weeks of life. Otherwise, the baby won't grow and develop normally.
The good news is that hypothyroidism is easy to treat. Kids with this disease will have to take a pill every day, but their symptoms will go away. They'll usually need to take this medicine for the rest of their lives, but it's a simple way to make sure the body has enough thyroid hormone to grow and develop normally.
Kids who have been growing slowly because of hypothyroidism will usually catch up to their correct height after they're treated. They'll go through puberty the way they should, too. Kids who have hypothyroidism also will need to have blood tests to measure their thyroid hormones once or twice a year to guide their treatment.
With a little care, the thyroid and the conditions it may cause can be easily managed. The end result? You'll feel like yourself again!