Has anyone experienced severe joint pain from taking levothyroxine?

Im going to monitor my blood and symptoms and check in 6 weeks. I have always had very stable blood results but I recently notice I was anemic and also RDW count was off. Also my kidney function was lower than normal.

I walk several times a week but was in mild pain after walking and the next day. Im sorry to hear about the breaks Katherine. My mother was on high doses for a long time and had heart failure and then breast cancer. No family history at all of bc and it was not pleasant. Im not sure if there was a correlation but I have read about a connection.

Im going to continue on the iodine based supplement. I am already noticing an improvement in the bloat and the way I feel. If I can manage the symptoms this way I will do it.

I am having the severe cramping in legs and also some cramping in arms and hands. Joint pain in knees and hip. This is on a tiny dose 0.5 micrograms of compounded T4 after 2 months. I wonder what my RT3 looks like. Did you find a solution? My doctor says it's a mineral deficiency and low cortisol, but it is so awful I lowered my dose and am taking minerals, too. My knee hurts pretty badly tonight. This has me walking like I'm partially crippled. I wonder if T3 /cytomel does this to people, too.

It's been an awful year for my thyroid and wish doctors would listen to me as I know my body!! I was on Levothyroxine for years but was not feeling well with extreme exhaustion and so I was put on Synthroid. Omg I had a severe reaction to Synthroid which multiple doctors misdiagnosed for months! IT caused me to develop sudden extreme allergy to all gluten and many foods due to it being processed in a tree nut factory. Prior to this I was a normal female with no allergies. Eventually after I did research and begged to be on a different medication, I went on Tirosint which did not react well to me either. More research and I told them to put me on NP Thyroid which is a form of Levothyroxine but made from animal proteins.

I have had severe joint and muscle pain for months and wonder if it's from my thyroid medication. My internist and endocrinologist disagree with me and so I continue to suffer, wondering if it's beginning arthritis. Yet I am convinced since I know my body (!) that it's related to my thyroid due to the timing of my pain. Plus my TSH was too high and the doctor raised the dosage. 6 weeks later, the blood test shows my TSH dropped from 5.0 to 1.05 which to me is way too low for my body to handle, but the doctor won't agree. So I am going to a new endocrinologist soon and pray he will listen to me as this debilitating joint/muscle pain is not normal for me! Why can't I find a good endocrinologist who listens and knows what I read?!

Nine years ago, I was diagnosed with Hashimotos with nodules. The endocrinologist I was seeing at the time prescribed Synthroid even though I had normal thyroid hormone numbers. After taking it for a month, I started experiencing joint and muscle pain, nausea, dizziness, and all over malaise. I went to many different kinds of doctors searching for an answer to my "mystery" illness. All of them told me "there is nothing wrong with you". I lost weight, had brain fog, it was truly bizarre yet they were all telling me nothing was wrong. I went to a new endocrinologist who told me that none of these symptoms were thyroid related but she was taking me off of synthroid because I did not need to be on it. After several weeks, I started feeling better. At the time, I did not associate the mystery illness with synthroid.

Several years later a doctor told me that even though my thyroid hormone levels were normal, I needed a "thyroid boost". She gives me NatureThroid and iodine capsules. After a week or so, all the weird sickly feelings return. I stopped taking the NatureThroid and go back to feeling ok, I am beginning to think I could have a problem with this stuff. Another doctor tells me that I should take NatureThroid and I told her I think I have a problem with this medication, her response was "impossible, this is the same as the hormone your thyroid produces. Start taking it, and of course, I start to feel sick.

Last August, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had my thyroid removed. Obviously I had to take thyroid medication. I have been taking Unithroid since my surgery last September and my the joint pain is unbelievable. I feel like I am 100 years old, it is debilitating. Last week my jaw started hurting so now it hurts to open my mouth. I am so discouraged!

I emailed my endocrinologist this morning and said I need to try Armour Thyroid even though it is not covered by insurance.

Does this sound like anybody else? I am so exhausted from doctors acting like I am making all of this up.

Yes, I am on 50 mcg of Levothyroxine Sodium and if I miss a dose then I get severe Fibromyalgia symptoms. This usually means unreal sharp muscle pain where even coughing is very painful, irritability and mood swings, brain fog, muscle tightness, poor sleep, abdominal edema, sensitivity to pain, joint pain, and diarrhea. Luckily I discovered that I can quickly reverse many of these symptoms by just taking the Levothyroxine. If I take the pill sublingually then within minutes I can actually feel it coursing through my body relaxing my muscles and reducing the pain significantly, as well as improving my mood and psychological state. I suspect that all the tissues of my body lacked adequate active thyroid hormones which caused all these symptoms.

In your case I suspect that you also lack adequate active thyroid hormones relative to ihibitory hormones (reverse T3). Levothyroxine (T4) can become either T3 or reverse T3. Most doctors will only do blood tests for TSH and maybe T4, I would make sure my doctor tested TSH, T4, T3 free/total, and reverse T3 to see whats really going on. You may benefit from a different thyroid medication with active T3 included depending on your blood test results. Personally my advice is to get your doctor to address this or find one that will, you don't want to wait around suffering playing with levothyroxine doses and TSH/T4 tests for months on end. I wish you well and I hope I was able to help.

Note: I take my levothyroxine sublingually, doctors do not usually reccomend this. I found this very beneficial to me, but it may vary with medications and between people so I would not start this haphazardly without at least running it by your doctor.

What you are experiencing is not due to your thyroid problem! Its is caused by the generic version of the brand name Synthroid. I have no clue how a generic drug can do this, BUT IT DOES! I have tried the generic twice because my insurance will not pay for the brand name. Each time, within about 5 days of taking the generic, my knees are killing me and sometimes actually give out. My elbows also flair up. Switch to the brand name Synthroid and it will stop. I know what I’m talking about. I have fought hypothyroidism for several years and I have to keep away from generic Synthroid. I can’t imagine what’s in it that could be so different, but it is definitely something that is destructive to my joints.

HI,

OMG, I'm so glad I saw this post. I started taking this drug late May (my immune system is attacking my thyroid, I have a small goiter)and after a month I started feeling pain in my hands first-just mild, then June 20th (Yeah I remember the exact date) I woke up with awful shoulder joint pain. I said to my husband wow I must have slept wrong last night. Nope. Fast forward to today. Every morning I experience the most awful joint pain-first it started in my hands then it spread to my left shoulder then to both of my feet and now today my right elbow. I feel like a 90 year old cripple in the morning. I have to take my right hand to just move my left shoulder the pain is so immense. It feels like I have an acute case of Arthritis and its spreading each and everyday. I cannot even even make a fist on either of my hands in the morning. I have taken more Ibuprophen and Tylenol in the past 2 weeks then I have in my entire life! Thank you for posting this. I'm going to be a "bad" patient and I'm stopping this drug today! The pain I have in my joints is not worth it.

I've been having bone pain in one of my legs (thigh) with elevated B12. I'm in the midst of having my B12 retested but I was on too high of NP Thyroid and Levothyroxine I'm wondering if there's a correlation. Was your pain deep in your bones or was it a joint pain?