Muscle cramps

[saltyking]

Hey guys, i am new here.

My mum has been having muscle cramps lately. She has been taking magnesium but the pain keeps on coming back. The pain has been traveling to her thigh to knee then foot. Any ideas?

[jimh111]

Could be sciatic pain. Would need a doctor's assessment. Physiotherapy can be very successful, a few appointments and then one or two exercises to continue with. Could also try taking vitamin B12 as this helps with nerve pains. Physio is safe and effective option.

[shaws Administrator]

If your mother has hypothyroidism and hasn't had a recent blood test, you should advise her to get a new one. For the best possible results in your mother's case the blood test should be the very earliest possible, and fasting - she can drink water but there has to be a gap of 24 hours between her last dose of levothyroxine and the test.

Many times a doctor thinks the dose is fine if the results are 'somewhere' within the range. This isn't so. We have to have an optimum of levothyroxine, one that brings our TSH to 1 or lower. They rarely test the 'Frees' which is FT4 and FT3. T3 is the only active thyroid hormone required in our millions of T3 receptor cells. If we don't have sufficient in our body we suffer with clinical symptoms.

Tick off the following and if someone is on an optimum dose they should have none at all.

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/about_...

Ask doctor for a Full Thyroid Function Test as your mother's not well.

TSH, T4, T3, Free T4, Free T3 and thyroid antibodies.

B12, vit D, iron, ferritin and folate.

Doctor or lab may not do all of the thyroid ones, especially the Frees, but you can get those privately through one of our labs (there's two) and they are pin-prick home tests. If deciding to do these our body must be well-hydrated a couple of days before so that blood is easier to draw.

Get a print-out of the results which must have ranges too. Ranges are in brackets after the results.

Put them on a new post, with the ranges, for comments. Doctor should definitely do all of the vitamins/minerals.

[saltyking in reply to shaws]

Thanks for the advice. My mother has auto immune disease and under that she has Raynauds and Rheumatoid arthritis. She is taking thyroxine, Panafcort 25 mg, Myfortic. Are the leg cramps because of the side affects of these medications? She is taking magnesium. Thank you for ur help.

[shaws Administrator in reply to saltyking]

I don't know whether Panafcort 25 mg would cause symptoms as it is taken for pain relief. I know nothing about Myfortic.

You don't say what dose of levo your Mother is taking but I'd get the blood tests recommended above because when our thyroid hormones are at an optimum it can relieve clinical symptoms. Doctors don't know any symptoms and believe if the TSH is somewhere in the range we're on sufficient levo. We need TSH of 1 or below. I shall give you a link re symptoms:

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/about_...

[Valarian]

I had this when first diagnosed with Graves’, and really hyper.

[saltyking]

Thanks guys for ur help