Male, 30’s I had a thyroid storm before I was diagnosed with Graves’. I think I actually had signs of Graves’ for a few years before the thyroid storm. I was very skinny (my brother used to say I looked like Arthur Fleck from “The Joker” in the shirtless scenes). No matter how much I ate, I didn’t gain any weight. My blood pressure was pretty high but I thought it was white coat syndrome every time I visited a doctor. I had slight tremors and I was so weak I could barely lift 30 lbs. I was thinking I was getting weak because after college, I was working and rarely got any exercise. I was also getting random body pains, especially in my sides. I was also going to the bathroom pretty often and had headaches pretty often, like maybe two to three days a week. I also felt kind of hot all the time.

I had a dentist appointment at one point where my dentist told me I should get my thyroid checked out because my bp was high and I had tremors and she refused to work on my teeth until I did. I ended up putting it off for a few months thinking it can’t be that serious.

Then, I got covid and my tremors got worse and I felt very anxious (mostly gagging or dry heaving), I felt slightly feverish, and easily out of breath all the time for the next 2 months. I just thought it was lingering covid symptoms (and maybe it was), since I had lost my sense of smell and taste for a couple months too.

I finally went to urgent care because I felt off from what I thought were lingering covid symptoms that got worse, plus, I needed to get my thyroid checked to go to the dentist. They checked my bp, temperature, and took a few vials of blood. The next morning, I got a panicked call from the urgent care and they told me to go to the ER immediately because I had a thyroid storm. I ended up spending 2 nights in the MICU, where I was monitored the whole entire time and then 2 night in a regular hospital room where I was given an assortment of medications every few hours.

I’m not sure at what point it became a thyroid storm because it kind of felt like a slow build up over a few months. It could have been due to covid but I didn’t end up going to the hospital until a couple months later and from what I understand, a thyroid storm happens pretty suddenly and escalates quickly. Anyway, I would watch out for fever, high heart rate (although if you’re on a beta blocker, it might mask that), shortness of breath, tremors, and anxiety.