Skin Symptoms of Thyroid Disease

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dr. David Cathcart. I am a family practice physician at Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, Missouri, and I've been asked to talk to you today about thyroid disease. When we think of skin symptoms with thyroid disease we are really talking about, generally we are talking about under active thyroid. In other words your thyroid is not producing enough thyroid hormone, and so the skin tends to get very dry and flaky. And consequently as it gets dry it's much more prone to getting various kinds of rashes. Now when someone is in hyperthyroidism or an acutely inflamed thyroid, because of an auto immune disorder such as with one of the common ones is called Graves disease then the skin tends, and again in that case the thyroid is over acting. So you tend to lose weight, your heart tends to race that sort of thing. And the skin in that case tends to get more moist, and maybe even oily. As opposed to a under active thyroid where it gets dry and flaky. The best thing to do in that situation, particularly for someone who has chronic low functioning thyroid, or hypothyroidism, again where the thyroid is too low the best thing to do is use a good skin moisturizing lotion to keep your skin moist. Don't over use soap, over use of soap. In other words you should use soap in what is called the intertriginous areas. Intertriginous areas would be like the underarms, or your feet, or in your groin area those things should be washing with soap daily. But for someone, particularly someone whose thyroid is under functioning if you over use soap you tend to get dry, flaky, scratchy, itchy skin. This is Dr. Cathcart, and thanks for letting me talk to you about thyroid disorders."