After putting something up on facebook that mentioned I have type 1 diabetes... a girl who graduated from vet school last year mentioned that she developed hypothyroidism and type 1 diabetes during her last year as well.
That just makes me think more and more that there could be some relationship to an animal virus triggering the immune response in some individuals..
I know we will probably never know unless this becomes more of an 'epidemic' type situation, but just thought it was interesting.
T1 diabetics have an autoimmune condition. This condition expresses itself as T1 diabetes. But it can also express / manifest itself in other conditions like hypothyroidism. By looking at your family tree you will find that there are different autoimmune problems already present. This is how it will pass the generations. It is just very very unlikely that it will express itself as T1 diabetes and we are the lucky ones. So very likely we will pass the autoimmune condition to our children but they will not develop T1. Very likely the increased rate of T1 we see today is related to the reaction of the immune system to environmental polution / exposure to unsafe materials. Quite possibly there is also a factor involved that is impairing our capability to produce vitamin D. This reduction in vitamin D in combination with our condition might increase a rogue behaviour of some T-cells. This is why we see a statistical rise in T1 numbers the more we go away from the equator.
Here is the correct link to the video about vitamin D and its relation to T1 diabetes:
http://www.tudiabetes.org/video/vitamin-d-and-t1-diabetes-can
Thanks, but hypothyroidism isn't really the issue in my family. :/ It's hypERthyroidism. Granted, all that really says is there's something F'd up with the thyroid gland in my family. I still feel like there is some relation to animals and development of T1; especially the more people I find in the vet profession who have T1.