I was diagnosed with underactive thyroid in April, i was initially put on 100mg of levothyroxide and dose has been increased steadily and am now on 175mg of levothyroxine, my main question is I have been getting severe joint pains a couple of weeks after taking the medication, the pains are now getting worse and effecting knees hands elbows shoulders and feet, been booked in for rheumatology appointment but was wondering if these symptom's are common or if anyone else has had any experience of this.
Please help
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alansing
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could it be anything to do with the fillers in the pills, try requesting a different brand for 3 months. Personally I can’t tolerate TEVA so I have accord with no problems.
You are not converting the T4 to T3, and your body is treating the excess thyroxine as a toxin, and storing it in your joints. You need to be put on either liothyronine (T3) or NDT (Natural Dessicated Thyroid).
If the joint pain had only occurred since you starting the thyroxine, it is very unlikely to be rheumatism.
Be warned, this is beyond the understanding of most GPs, and quite a few endos, but you will need to see an endo and discuss this with them. If you cannot get satisfaction from them, you will need to source some liothyronine or NDT yourself.
You are not converting the T4 to T3, and your body is treating the excess thyroxine as a toxin, and storing it in your joints.
How can you possibly say that? alansing hasn't posted any test results so you have no idea how well or not he is converting. And "storing it in your joints" - please link to evidence of this. The joint pain could be a reaction to one of the fillers in the brand of Levo that he has or it could be low Vit D. Your post is unnecessarily alarmist.
I have suggested that alansing get an endo appointment. I don't see my reply as being any more alarmist than suggesting that he may be getting a reaction to filler.
I based my reply on my own experience. I can't find the link to storing toxins in the joints, but when I stopped taking the thyroxine my joint pain went away.
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What you posted explicity stated
You are not converting the T4 to T3, and your body is treating the excess thyroxine as a toxin, and storing it in your joints.
and as I pointed out you cannot possibly know whether or not the OP is converting T4 to T3 as he has posted no results, and you have no evidence to support the statement that his body is treating excess thyroxine as a toxin and that it is being stored in joints.
I stated that the joint pain could be (not that it definitely is) reaction to a filler or low Vit D, both of which are frequently discussed on the forum.
There are many possible causes of arthralgia. Including elderberry!
This case report has a certain relevance because the liver and joint issues were not caused by the levothyroxine the patient was taking!
It would have been very easy, based on your reply, to assume levothyroxine as the cause and miss elderberry. Likely causing wholly inappropriate treatment decisions.
A Plausible Association Between the Use of Elderberry and Autoimmune Hepatitis.
It's hard to say without seeing your thyroid lab panel. You could be another 12mcg away from finding the right dose or you could already be top of the range FT4 yet have bottom range FT3, which could be causing your symptoms. I tend to have pain all over when I'm not on enough thyroid hormone or not converting enough T4 to T3. I was also sent to rheumatology and their reply was "it's your thyroid." These small increases or decreases in thyroid hormone can have dramatic results. Knowing your levels can help you decide which direction to take.
I am pleased that you said that. I wonder if bread is a common food intolerance too? I can't take in sugar or alcohol and am thinking of giving up coffee, which I love.
My issues with bread related to it being a carbohydrate in the end. Members also report issues with porridge and again thats a carbohydrate issue.
I think its when we are hypo we have little systemic energy and it takes energy and blood supply to digest foods. Pre hypo of course you wouldn;t even think about that. Carbs are just a bit too heavy to digest well.
My preference for breakfast is eggs which don't seem to slow my system down. There are many ways to eat eggs and my favourite treat breakfast is banana pancakes. You can batch cook and freeze them too.
So great to read this reply, thank you. From a once upon a time I could eat anything, since thyroid problems carbs are very difficult for me, especially highly processed bread and porridge (which I have always loved) makes me feel sick, I have found though, gluten free oats with oat milk are better. Having said that I don’t understand as I didn’t think pats had gluten in them?
they don’t but they are usually made in factories where gluten is processed so can be cross contaminated. I wouldn’t recommend anyone eating a gluten free diet without being screened for coeliacs first, if you go GF before being screened it can give false results on your bloods as you need to be eating gluten for the antibodies to show in your blood tests. It’s very common for people with one autoimmune condition to develop another and unfortunately mine was coeliacs, so anyone noticing food intolerances to wheat I would highly recommend being screened by the dr first. They don’t test for it it routinely
after years of second guessing blood tests, adrenal issues and a whole host of issues that were exhausting me, she nailed the problem first with a leaky gut which meant I wasn't absorbing nutrients but then, got me on the right track to years of pharmaceutical disinformation. Yes, the medical profession takes advice from the manufacturers of pills - money making / cash cow at our expense. Dr Myhill's book is well worth it, gives hope and a 'kit' for getting better.
I've had experience of this - yes. I've been diagnosed as pre-diabetic and put on a wait loss programme. Have to say that going from zero to 100 mgms of Levothyroxine is a big jump. They usuallly start you on 25 and then go up from there.
I can only share in my experience a full starting dose of 100mcg gave me all sorts of problem, including more joint pain (I had joint pain before medication too). For me, coming off the Levothyroxine and resuming again in 3 days which was incidentally when the first hypothyroidism symptom hit (extreme fatigue) on a lower dose solved the problem.
I think there’s so many overlaps of the issues we experience from being under medicated or over medicated and between hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism that it’s incredibly difficult to judge what the cause could be.
Trial and error is the only way I have learned about myself and needs.
I don’t see a mention of your age. I’m 67 and was diagnosed just a few months ago. My doctor advised a starting dose of just 50mcg and I wondered at the time if it was enough. He knew best, though, because I had very severe joint and muscle pain from the very first day. My point is that, whilst I am no expert, I see the sense in taking things slowly. Levothyroxine is hard on the body. In my case, I am starting to feel much better after three months. My dose is still just 75mcg
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