I’ve been struggling with full body muscle fatigue and spasms for the last week or so. It feels as if the muscles around my outer ribs and down my flank are soooo sore, but I lead a dedicate lifestyle working from home. I haven’t done anything to cause the muscle fatigue and pressure.
Tonight, my abdominal muscles clenched/spasmed as I was lying down causing serious pain that took a good 10+ minutes before my muscles released.
Has anyone else had this happen? I’m assuming it’s related to my hypothyroidism diagnosis. It’s quite scary to feel like my muscles are just deteriorating, or not working as they should.
Last I checked, my vitamin d was still severely low, and my TSH was 9. I’m also anemic, in case any of that matters lol!
thank you for listening (reading lol) any and all advice/story of similar experience by in TV you might share.
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Brightfuture22
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If your last blood test your TSh was 9 then it is well above the range and you should have had a 25mcg dose increase of levo. It really not surprising you are suffering symptoms when you are so undermedicated. See your doctor and insist on the next dose up, get bloods done in 6-8 weeks and post them here.
Also ask them to test ferritin, folate, B12 and D3 levels. We get low vitamin levels due to poor absorption from low stomach acid. It all adds up to symptoms.
Looking back at previous 3 posts it looks like you have been severely under medicated. As SlowDragon and others have said 25ug that is a starter dose - for a child or a person over 60 with a heart condition.
To even begin to help we need up to date info.
Last blood tests in the format of :
Result (range) for TSH, FT3, FT4
Vitamins and minerals.
Your earlier posts were 9 months ago how have things been progressing?
Also what are you now taking? For how long?
There is a good deal of medical ignorance out there re treatment for an under active thyroid. First is they are not ‘topping you up.’ Once you start thyroid hormones you need to progress steadily to a full replacement dose.
I cannot stress how important it is to read up on this - there are some really good books out there. The Thyroid UK website has useful information too.
I was left under medicated on 25ug and became very ill- all in my bio (and posts), but by taking the advice of this amazing forum I was able to turn things around. Yes a lot of reading too 😬
Everything, absolutely everything is affected when thyroid is not working properly, whether that be over active or under active.
c) you doctor did order the thyroid antibodies test at some point .. what was the result of that test ? i can't see it anywhere in your posts / replies .
I suffer this too. Most often it’s a whole body thing but the type of episodes you are describing, I get when I know for sure I am under medicated - only know this from experience. I can get it just lying in bed, never mind whilst sitting up. I have heart muscle stuff which has improved enormously from originally starting levo. I get frozen shoulders etc which my very kind sports physio (from back in the day I made a real effort in the gym) sorts out for me in a few sessions. However I have one pain - one small muscle that has the most profound effect on my ability to get around and even my guy has not been able to fix. My piraformis (spell checker can’t deal with this one). It is a smallish muscle in my hip. It stops me walking any distance at all. It’s agony. tattybogle or humanbean wrote something very interesting this week about T3 being needed to relax muscles as well as tension them. Maybe this notification will highlight it again for them. Sounds as if those muscles you are referring to have at least temporarily lost their ability to relax and creating pain. In fact I wish they would comment again as I would like to know more about it myself. It often takes a few days in my brain before I can take things in!
i wrote it , but can't elaborate much i'm afraid .. it was in relation to the 'slowed reflex relaxation/ return phase' .. a test that can be used to demonstrate hypothyroidism. (Ankle reflex tests usually used for this , can't remember proper name for test)
The bit of info about "muscles using energy to relax as well as to contract" was something i read years ago in relation to conducting these tests .. can't remember where i read it soz .
I just filed it in my head in order to understand why it was that the return phase was slowed when not enough cellular energy is available. ( the calf muscle has contracted when the reflex is triggered, but it needs to lengthen again in order for the ankle to return to starting position and if not enough energy to allow the muscle to relax the return is slowed down )
To be honest my recollection of the precise detail is a bit vague .. whenever i write his i'm always in two mind about whether to write "muscle" or "tendons" or both .
Thanks Tattybogle. I have found this description perfect really for my ‘muscle’ experience. I have tried as many ways as possible to describe it - all to deaf ears. Heart symptoms same. Piriformis same. I have high hopes T3 will help but it’s been a very long time for these muscles to have been deprived of T3. Still the heart is hugely better so I am still hoping my extremities improve too.
Tattybogle, apparently there is a name for this condition beyond the test. Pseudomytonia (as opposed to mytonia). It’s virtually exclusive to hypothyroidism. Old stuff again that medics do not seem to be aware of; depending on blood tests only these days. However it’s well known in Veterinary circles. Maybe something to do with the patients being unable to speak. Apparently it improves with proper thyroid medication. I can hope yet!
This made me laugh, because my (good) endocrinologist once said that "Any veterinarian is better educated than [put my gp's name here]." She did not know that my daughter is a veterinarian and I had already said to her (jokingly) that I might be better off seeing a veterinarian. Can not quite figure out whether the endo's comment is a compliment or an insult to veterinarians.
I'm sure i heard somewhere that vets are 'allowed' to treat humans in an emergency if no doctor is available . but that Doctors are not allowed to treat animals even in an emergency .... what does that tell you ?
Vets presumably have to be competent in treating anything from Aardvark to Zebra. which must require a more solid base of learning than just 'homo sapien'.
and vets have to diagnose without the benefit of asking the patient how they feel ,, so the must be trained to have highly tuned observation skills.
and i know for fact that vets are trained to take the "time of day AND time of last dose levo" into account when interpreting thyroid function blood for horses~ unlike GP's who will say it doesn't matter till they're blue in the face ( horses apparently have their levo sprinkled on their morning oats)
i was once following a van down the motorway with sign writing saying something like "Equine Osteopath and Endocrine Services " ... i was SOOOO tempted to follow it off the slip road and book a consultation.
Hahaha! As a student my daughter had a t-shirt saying "Real doctors know how to treat more than one species". The vet students had a little mock rivalry going with the med students. And they had their convocation together, which already told me a lot about the differences between the two, just by the speeches they got. For the vets it was emphasized over and over that they needed to continue learning and staying informed; that they just had "the basics" at this point. Except for 1 speaker (a pediatric researcher) there was no such emphasis for doctors. They were praised to high heaven for their achievements (no doubt, med school is not a walk in the park, but neither is vet school).
Brightfuture22, reading through the replies, I think most everything has been said. I hope your muscle pain can be resolved with proper replacement of the thyroid hormones your body is (obviously) not producing and bringing your vitamin levels to an optimal level. I have muscle pain myself (now less so) and it can be awful, disheartening and discouraging. My heart goes out to you. When I'm in pain my massage therapist says that my muscles are hart as rocks (which has been well explained in the replies). She also says that this explains my falls because tight muscles do not have the flexibility to adapt to the requirements of movement. They are too rigid. Massage helps me (temporarily), as does sauna, but they do, of course, not solve the problem as long as the underlying cause is not addressed. I am now on Liothyronine (T3) and still trying to figure out best dose and combination with Levo (T4). For you, with a TSH of 9 (!), there is still a whole lot of room for improvement. Don't give up and don't give in (as far as doctors are concerned). Collect as much information as you possibly can (which, it seems, you are already doing). This can be complex and a one fits all approach does not seem to work very well. This group is a wonderful support for your journey. You will get loads of support....but the journey is your own. I wish you all the very best. Keep on fighting for your health. ❤️
I used to get massages when I had spare money and found it helped temporarily - made me feel more human than like a rusty stiff defunked robot. Sports massage and something called Dynamic stretching. Great but no general cure. However very very excellent for relief of ‘frozen shoulders’. Recently I gave in and bought an electric blanket (due to the fuel/heating crisis) and it has changed my life considerably. Nowadays they can be left on overnight. I sleep better and feel a bit more relaxed. Roll on balanced medication.
I had bad spasms all over and night starts/restless leg syndrome when my TSH was 90.
I also have got mild night starts/restless legs syndrome on bad batches of meds with fairly normal blood tests...........switched to a different expiration date of the same brand and they immediately went away and felt good.
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