De Quervain's Thyroiditis. The thyroid gland generally swells rapidly and is very painful and tender. Patients frequently become ill with fever and prefer to be in bed. Thyroid antibodies are not present in the blood, but the sedimentation rate, which measures inflammation, is very high. Although this type of thyroiditis resembles an infection within the thyroid gland, no infectious agent has ever been identified and antibiotics are of no use.
Treatment is usually bed rest and aspirin to reduce inflammation.
Nearly all patients recover and the thyroid gland returns to normal after several weeks or months. A few patients will become hypothyroid once the inflammation settles down and therefore will need to stay on thyroid hormone replacement indefinitely. Recurrences are uncommon. Silent Thyroiditis is the third and least common type of thyroiditis. It was not recognized until the 1970's although it probably existed and was treated as Graves' Disease before that.