You're flushed, sweaty, shaky, and jump at the sound of a falling chad. Eyes red and bulging, you yell at Glen Beck on the flat screen. And those nihilistic Republican governors raise your blood pressure and cause your heart to palpitate. The very mention of Michelle Bachman in Iowa causes you to eat a hunk of pie, then another, while cursing everyone from John Birch to Ronald Reagan and the asses they rode in on.
Except you keep losing weight in spite of all that pie, and that lump in your throat won't go away. Pretty soon your legs are so weak, you have to pull yourself up the stairs, and your friends start asking you, "Are you sick?"
Is it Tea Party Derangement Syndrome, or is it Graves' Disease? Graves' disease, a form of autoimmune hyperthyroidism, might explain a lot. It made Marty Feldman look funny, George H. W. Bush incoherent, and Bar a bitch. What follows is a primer on Graves' Disease, and a caveat for Americans who seek treatment for it here in the United States.