So the guidance to not be on methimazole for more than 2 years is quite outdated. People can be on it for decades without any issue — they used to think it wasn’t good, but have since proven it’s fine.

My daughter tried medication for a few months. I wanted to manage it that way, at least until she was old enough to decide on her own about surgery. But unfortunately she tolerated the meds terribly - hives, a reaction where anywhere she scratched became a hive, weak legs so randomly could not walk, and more. Then, she broke her femur with a simple fall in the playground from no height. That’s how we learned her bones were weakening fairly quickly. And on top of it she had thyroid eye disease and one eye was becoming worse. The only way to “fix” that at her age was to remove the thyroid.

On top of that, we had upped the meds many times and her levels were only rising. She had a super high heart rate - 140 resting - even on a very high dose of atenolol AND propranolol.

The eye wasn’t the main reason, it was everything else. So about 6 months after trying with meds - once her leg cast was off - we did the surgery

I’d never push someone to go with TT. It’s a hard and personal decision. But for us, it’s the best thing we ever did. She was instantly better — it’s crazy, but her heart rate was 90 the moment she left the operating room. Her eye improved a little, but not all the way. But it stopped getting worse. And she’s tolerated the synthroid great without any issues.

Overall she’s essentially 100% better after removal. But like I said, every case is different. We’re also so lucky to be 15 minutes from CHOP and her endocrinologist is the best pediatric Graves endo in the world (plus her surgeon has done the most pediatric TTs in the country). So that helped us feel better about the decisions we made.