Can anyone please explain this?

[decembersignup]

I have underactive thyroid and am taking medication. I will feel totally well on it for a while, and then suddenly I get a terrible migraine for, aches and pains, feel sick and all sorts, making me feel awful and hardly able to function. Has anyone else had this and can anyone say what they think causes it?

[Hidden]

Hi decembersignup. I've never had your symptoms in regards to thyroid meds, butI'll tell you how I've had them related to other things. Perhaps it will be a clue in helping you figure it out.

I know medicine stays in one's system for only a certain amount of time, & docs say that once it's out it no longer affects you. I disagree: When I went off duloxetine the doctor said that I couldn't blame it for "side effects" many months later because it was out of my system. That may have been true, but the damage done (and continuing to be done over four months later) doesn't go away overnight. My point is that I don't know how long thyroid meds stay in your system, if they build up over time, etc. Considering it takes time for us to feel better after starting these meds (at least a month until our levels could be retested, etc.), could be that it builds up over time & you would do better on a lighter dose?

Your migraines, aches, pains, sickness, etc., sounds similar to a "healing crisis" (google it). I'd had a pounding headache & pulsatile tinnitus for over a month before I decided to stop a treatment I was getting: Three weeks later & the headaches/pounding are much less. The "cure" for a healing crisis is to back off until you feel better (the backlog of toxins are gone) and then start again at a lower level. You're not detoxing to experience these problems from a toxin overload that needs time to get out of your body, but your body is definitely reacting badly to something & you've pinpointed thyroid meds. Again, I wonder if you might try a smaller dose?

Good luck!!!

No real answers, but

[decembersignup in reply to Hidden]

Hello Lisa. I also disagree about this "nonsense" that once you stop taking something etc. Years ago I had a lot of sleeping problems and was put on sleeping pills - zopiclone - I took them and had to increase the dose regularly until I was taking ridiculously high doses every night and totally addicted to them. I became depressed,anxious, shaking all of the time, nauseaus, barely able to get up and washed and dressed, just sitting around in my dressing gown all of the time feeling awful. The stupid doctors never cottoned onto how it was the sleepng pills causing this. They acted as though I had somehow got another illness that they could not diagnose. I figured out that I was taking so many that I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms during the day with my body craving more. A stupid person would say stop taking them gradually but why when you feel so awful, you have nothing to lose by stopping all in one go. I was suicidal with how awful I felt and how I was just sitting there all day. I couldnt run my business or earn money or go out of the house. I stopped taking the sleeping pills, totally, instantly - and within a week felt totally well and ok. But if I ever try to take one of those tablets now - many years later - they either have no effect at all or make me feel awful. Despite that having been about twenty years ago. Every doctor I have ever spoken to since the says oh no you will be fine on these now as it was twenty years ago, and they are all wrong.

I think that I was taking too high a dose of the medication this time and it built up. I will try a lower dose.

YOu said that it takesk time for us to feel better, this is not the case with me. When I first took my very first tablet for the thyroid problem I FELT much better within twenty minutes.

By the way,

[Hidden in reply to decembersignup]

It probably depends on the meds if you can stop cold turkey or not. With duloxetine I should have tapered over several months; I tapered over a month & a month later I was peeing blood, sleeping one hour/night, other nightmares & my body is still messed up. It might be psych meds, or it may depend how long you've been on, the dose, etc. I'd been on antidepressants 30 years, my serotonin receters are largely atrophied & trying to wake up & remember their job. The dulotine also affects norepinephrine which is why I became allergic to ssoo many things when I quit, my body can't process. It can take years for people to recover from psych drug withdrawal. Check out beyondmeds.com for psych drug info (or not, it 's not your problem, but to show that some drugs need to be tapered). Having reactions to the same twenty years after the sleepig pill incident could mean that your body remembers them from before or you're now sensitive to related poisons.

I can tell within twenty minutes if I eat something wrong. Sounds like yo reacted well in the beginning because you were getting enough, & then like you say it built up in your system & may now be too much. You could try cutting back or getting another test to check your levels, just be careful of docs who only go by numbers. I hope it's simply a matter of cutting back, it would be easiest.