A Champion Battles Thyroid Dise... Video Transcri...

Participants

Gail Devers

Summary

While training for the Olympic games, track star Gail Devers began to suffer from a number of mysterious symptoms: weight loss, dry skin and fatigue. She lived with them for years before being diagnosed with Graves' Disease. Her treatment was effective but led to another condition, hypothyroidism, and a different set of medications. Join Gail Devers as she shares the twists and turns of her story and her ultimate triumph.

Webcast Transcript

[ANNOUNCER CALLING RACE; CROWD NOISE]

VOICEOVER:  Before her Olympic Gold Medal performance at the 1992 Olympic Games earned her the title "World's Fastest Woman," sprinter Gail Devers had to jump hurdles far greater than those on the track.  In 1988 while training for the Olympic Games in Seoul, she began to suffer from symptoms that resulted in deterioration of both her body and her performance.

GAIL DEVERS:  It took 2-1/2, almost 3 years for me to be diagnosed with a thyroid condition.  And the reason is because the symptoms are so vague.  In 1988 when I first started feeling that something was wrong with me and didn't know what it was.  Didn't have an answer to it, but I was tired.  Couldn't make through my workout.  Just fatigued.  My normal running weight was between 119 and 120 and I had gone down -- at my worst under 85 pounds.

I was going from doctor to doctor and no one was giving me any answers.  I mean I've always had long fingernails and they got really brittle and they'd break and wouldn't grow back.  For me that was the first sign that something's wrong.

The exact symptoms that I had would be dry hair, brittle nails, fatigue, insomnia.  I had menstrual problems where I was having three and four cycles a month.  As an athlete they say you're supposed to have the opposite.  Night sweats and I had problems with my eyes.  And those were probably the main symptoms I was having.

Psychologically and physically it was very debilitating.  I got to the point where I was pulling my hamstring by jogging because you lose the extensor muscles.  And then psychologically like as an athlete, you know that you depend on your body and now my body is letting me down.  And there's no answer for this.  So it was very hard for me.  Like the word I use is "debilitating."

You know people thought I was crazy.  Even I began to think that I'm crazy.  There is something wrong and can't somebody give me an answer and there is no answer to be found.

VOICEOVER:  After almost three years of searching for the cause of her ailing health, Devers was diagnosed in 1991 with Graves disease, a form of hyperthyroidism.

GAIL DEVERS:  The hardest part about having my Graves disease was not knowing.  I mean I tell people all the time.  I mean it's unanswered question and feeling of not knowing what you're going to do, what you can do.  In my heart, I had the desire to do everything that I had written on paper for my goals and aspirations.  But my body was saying no.

VOICEOVER:  After undergoing radioactive iodine therapy to disable her overactive thyroid, Devers was put on levothyroxine, a thyroid replacement therapy, marketed under such brand names a Synthroid, Unithroid and Levoxyl.

GAIL DEVERS:  I have been on Synthroid since January of 1991, about 10-1/2 years.  It's a very small pill.  I take it once a day every day for the rest of my life.  I say it all the time.  It's a very small price to pay to have the quality of life that I have.

VOICEOVER:  Although oral levothyroxine drug products have been used to effectively treat hypothyroidism for decades, recent FDA regulatory issues surrounding Synthroid, a popular form of levothyroxine, have created a controversy that threatens to pull Synthroid off the market.