Do you suffer from excessive sweating? Do you suffer from unexplained weight loss? Do you suffer from irregular menstrual cycles? You might be suffering from thyroid. Thyroid can be diagnosed in many ways. One way is thyroid scan. Through thyroid scan various details of the thyroid gland can be known. What are the details? Read on…
Thyroid is an important gland inside the body. Changes in the functionality of these glands can cause problems.
What is thyroid?
Thyroid is a butterfly shaped gland that is situated in the front of the neck. It is responsible for making hormones. The thyroid gland produces 2 hormones. They are T3 and T4. The pituitary gland sends messages to the thyroid gland telling it how much thyroid should it produce. These messages are in the form of TSH.
The hormones secreted by thyroid gland are important to the body since they control the metabolism rate. They control the speed of the brain, heart and muscles. Factors like exposure to excessive amounts of iodide, lithium etc can bring changes in the thyroid shape, structure etc.
Thyroid scan is one of the methods to diagnose the changes in the thyroid gland.
What is thyroid scan?
Thyroid scan is a procedure in which a patient is given radioactive tracer, and then a special camera is used to measure the amount of tracer absorbed by the thyroid gland from the blood.
The tracer is given as a pill or it is injected in the veins.
What information is found out through thyroid scan?
The thyroid scan can give information about the following:
- Size of thyroid gland
- Shape of thyroid gland
- Location of thyroid gland
- Areas of thyroid gland that are underactive
- Areas of thyroid gland that are overactive
- Function of thyroid in case of hyperthyroidism
- Evaluation of thyroid nodules or glands
- Thyroid cancer
A special type of thyroid scan is performed to know if the cancer from thyroid has spread to the other regions of the body.
When thyroid gland doesn’t function well, the person will experience the following symptoms:
- Unexplained weight gain
- Constipation
- Excessive tiredness
- Slow heart rate
- Irregular menstrual cycles
- Excessive sweating
- Feeling nervous and irritable
- Difficulty in sleeping
If you experience above symptoms consult an endocrinologist online at eVaidya now.
When the thyroid gland doesn’t function correctly, it can lead to many diseases like heart problems, goitre, damaged nerves, infertility, birth defects, depression, brittle bones, blurred or double vision etc. If your doctor has suggested you a thyroid scan, consult a nuclear medicine doctors online now at eVaidya now.
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