Try gaining 50 pounds in one-two months, loosing all energy to the point of your kids practically existing without you, falling into an ugly deep depression that really hangs in there thru thick and thin, as if THIN is even a word you'd ever mumble again! your skin flaky in ugly places, forgetting everything and knowing your not insane but fearing you are starting to become very stupid, rememebering the person you used to be and actually missing yourself! OH and the best part is the fact that your labs come back "within normal range". I'm not doggin on HYPER people, I was one of them once until the doctor told me to swallow poison and I did it... I would go back to hyper/graves in A FLASH! Hypo robs you of the personal resourses you need to help yourself. It's degrading and humiliating and ugly. And the doctors have never ever, ever been any help to me with this. When I was hyper I could freak myself out with the racing heart badly... but I would rather have that today, believe me. Well wait... I'd rather have NEITHER! THEY BOTH SUCK!!!
teacups, I understand your thoughts here, but i've been in both places myself, and I was much, much, much sicker with hyper than I ever was with hypo. I couldn't move 30 feet without being so exhausted I had to lie down. I was also having a resting heart rate of 100 while I was on propranol that rose to 150 within a minute of moving around. I laid on the sofa many nights with my heartrate spiking to 150 for no reason at all and my blood pressure going from 120/80 to 220/180 for no reason.
And I also had extremely dry, flaky skin, my eyebrows fell out as well as chunks of my hair, my legs swelled, my eyes swelled to the point where one now sticks out more than the other, I couldn't concentrate in meetings, forgot conversations 5 minutes after they happened, had horrible diarrhea, coudn't walk up stairs because my muscles were so weak.
Also, I couldn't sleep more than 4 hours a night, usually 30 minutes at a time, my heart pounding so loud the entire time that it kept we awake.
On top of all that, I was irritable and moody.
Talk about degrading, and losing everything you have for personal resources, I couldn't: go to the grocery store, drive myself to the lab for bloodwork, go to work, clean the house, cook, go to my mailbox 200 yards down the street - just to name a few things.
I'm not trying to start a debate here on which is worse, but we can't ever compare the two or think that everyone's hyper and hypo are the same. We all have different bodies and different reactions to them.