Pain in legs due to levothyroxine

[Anoopsingh]

My mother is 56 year old, she has hypothyroidism since 4 years.. she is on levothyroxine 50 since 4 year but now from the last 6-8 she felt pain in her legs , because of that she had to stopped it, when she stop taking medicine she relieved from pain but whenever she start to take drugs , after 6-7 days of starting she again feel intolerable pain...what should we do for this... present tsh level is 13

[Lalatoot]

Your mother needs thyroid medication. She also needs more tests done.

Often when we stop taking levothyroxine we feel better for a number of weeks or months but then we are worse again.

50mcg of levothyroxine is a starter dose. When being treated with levothyroxine our TSH should be 1 or lower if we are on the correct dose.

The thyroid tests your mother needs are TSH, FT4 and FT3. The FT4 and FT3 tests will tell us the amount of thyroid hormones in her blood.

She also needs to get vitamin levels tested as bad vitamin levels can also cause pain and problems. The vitamin tests are B12, ferritin, folate and vitamin D.

If you post the results of the tests on here then we can advise. We need to know the result as well as the range. The range is the numbers in brackets after the result.

[Anoopsingh in reply to Lalatoot]

But she can't take the dose because of the weakness and pain in legs, whenever she takes her pills, she started the problem again, de challenge and re challenge is positive for levothyroxine ...can we give her creatine supplements for this ?

[Lalatoot in reply to Anoopsingh]

Her Tsh result suggest that she is low on thyroid hormones and she needs ft4 and ft3 and vitamins tested to confirm how low.

Only thyroid hormones can replace thyroid hormones so she needs medication.

[shaws Administrator]

Well, your mother's TSH level says it all, i.e. she's on an insufficient dose of levo as a starting dose is 50mcg with increases of 25mcg every or lower. The aim is a TSH is 1 or lower.

Many doctors make a mistake in believing (training is obviously very poor) 'somwhere' in the TSH is fine. We should get prescribed inreases of 25mcg every six weeks until TSH is 1 or lower and hopefully clinical symptoms will resolve. Many doctors think that if the TSH is 'within' a range that patient is on a sufficient dose. We have to educate ourselves in order to feel well again.

Blood tests should always be at the very earliest, fasting (we can drink water) and allow a gap of 24 hours between last dose of levo and test and take afterwards.

A Full Thyroid Blood test consists of TSH, T4, T3, Free T4, Free T3 and thyroid antibodies.

If GP wont do all of these, there are private labs that do home finger pin-prick tests and quite a number of our members have done this. If it is decided to get a Full Thyroid Blood test (blood draw at the very earliest), make sure Mum is well-hydrated a couple of days before and don't take levo until after the blood test.

The aim is a TSH of 1, with Free T4 and Free T3 in the upper part of the ranges.

GP should test B12, Vit D, iron, ferritin and folate - everything has to be optimal.

When first starting levo, usually 50mcg, the aim is to reduce/improve all clinical symptoms. I am afraid few doctors are actually aware of why we take replacement hormones. I believe they are so very poorly trained.