Operation to remove part of swollen thyroid (goiter). Risks associated with operation?

My friend is having an operation to remove part of her thyroid as she has Hashimotos disease and the gland has become quite large. Does anyone have any experience with this and does anyone know of the risks associated with the operation? I have been told it is quite a delicate operation and she will have to be off work for 4 weeks. Many thanks.

Surgery is always risky. I think the other post did well describing what to expect.

But what about the autoimmune disorder? Cutting out the thyroid isn't going to solve the problem.

Also, you kind of need your thyroid. You can supplement with exogenous sources, but there are side effects that can cause you to be placed into not so nice categories (like more susceptible to stroke, Alzheimer鈥檚, etc).

Here is some food for thought.

Autoimmune means that your body's immune system is attacking itself, in your case the thyroid gland.

It does this by recognizing certain protein strands and tagging it with antibodies. Then your body sends out it seek and destroy immune mediators to kill off the tagged protein structures.

Usually this is how your body defends itself from viruses, bacteria, fungi, ect. There is a problem with your tagging system that has caused your body to attack itself.

This is usually diagnosed by testing for antibodies in blood work, as well as clinical symptoms.

How does this happen?

There is no one pin pointed cause. The most popular reason is because of some break down in your filtering system. You normally keep bad things out through things like your skin, gut lining etc.

If there is a problem with your gut, things get through that shouldn't, your body recognizes it as foreign, tags it and destroys it.

Sometimes the protein structures of the things that get through look like the protein structures that make up certain cells in your body. That is why you see some of the other post saying that this autoimmune disorder is related to other autoimmune disorders (diabetes, lupus, RA, etc).

It is really a problem with your filter, not your thyroid (or at least primarily the problem). Treating the thyroid might help somewhat, but it will not address the problem (in my example, the gut lining (filter) being disrupted).

I got more information on this and other thyroid problems on my blog.

I had the right lobe of my thyroid removed. I am also a nurse. If a nerve is nicked you could love your ability to speak and to swallow. I still (after 12 years) can't swallow with my head tilted up. Make sure that they do not remove the parathyroids. They control the calcium levels in your body. Part of my muscles spasmed and made it feel like I couldn't breathe. Scared the peewadens out of me. It went away after 24 hours. She will not be able to turn her head for a few days maybe weeks due to the chance of tearing the staples out of the interior surgical site and ripping the stitches on the outside. It is fairly delicate, but more people, especially in the midwest are having it done due to the lack of iodine in the soil that grows the food we eat. There is actually a strip from Michigan, through Ohio, WV area that is nicknamed the "Goiter Belt" for that reason.

My mum has had this operation, I was quite young when she had it so I don't remember much about it but apparently there is a very tiny chance that you can lose the ability of speech. This is very rare though, but it is the worst complication that can occur. My mum was off work for 5 weeks after it. I hope your friend is okay!

I had my thyroid removed while being 7-months pregnant. I had Grave's disease and was experiencing a "thryoid storm". My heart rate was racing and I was tolerating it ok, but the baby was not.

It was a 4-hour surgery. They kept me in the hospital overnight, simply because I was pregnant.

I had a sore throat for a few days, from the breathing tube. It was hard to move around because of the bulky dressing. I had painkillers and it was totally manageable. No outside stitches, only steri strips which were removed a week later.

Things to this day are great, you can barely see the scar! I am now underactive and on Synthroid, as they removed too much, but oh well. My son was born healthy and he is now a happy little 5-year old kindegartner.

Please feel free to email me with any questions. I'm happy to help.