Are muscle aches symptoms of hypo or subclinical hyper?

[tigger54]

Do your muscles ache when hypo?  What are the new clinical ranges for blood work-TSH and T4?

[Liz94]

All of my levels always fall within the normal ranges. I'm always very observant of my levels because I'm a long distance runner and I need my musles funtioning properly.  But, just because something is the "normal" range doesn't mean you always feel normal right?  My muscle aches and pains come and go. And my doctor has never even brought up the addition of any other meds with me so I don't know if he's opposed to adding others or not.  He doesn't  only look at the TSH but from what I'm getting from him he'd be hardpressed to give me anything other than T4. I always ask him a million times if I'm converting everything efficiently and he always says YES.  And for him, that's good enough.  I'm doing alternating doses now of synthroid and I think it may be working better for me.  It's been 3 weeks now and I feel somewhat more energized. I'm running more and less sore.  I don't know, it's all a big guessing game I think. One that I'm kinda getting sick of playing....

[bebehoward]

You seem to be in the same boat I have been in.  When I had my normal thyroid doing its thing I could have a lower T4 and TSH was normal.  Now that it is gone I seem to need more T4 to feel better.  Due to your cancer they will always surpress your TSH so no cancer cells or tissue remaining in you gland area will wake up.  My brother and I have had the same thing.  I was doing a lot better than he was because my doctor worked on my T3 & T4, not my TSH.  Now he is only looking at TSH and I am not doing well.  My brothers Endo. has always used TSH as the rule and he has never felt good.
He has gained a lot of weight and sleeps a lot and now that is happening to me.  Have you checked your T4 levels?  I understand that is where your energy comes from...

[Liz94]

I was hypo for many years and taking Levoxyl. I had no idea what my TSH was, didn't even know what it even stood for. Didn't much care either as I was busy living my life, raising my kids and I felt great.  After I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and started having all my issues I requested copies of all my labs from over the years and my TSH was always 4.5.  And I felt fantastic and had no problems whatsoever.  Now my TSH is being supressed and is under 1.0. Last reading was .44 and I feel like crapola.  I wonder if there will ever be a point where my doc would allow it to go back to 4.5 so I can see if it makes me feel better.  I don't care what they say are "normal" ranges. I know that at these low numbers I feel horrible.  

[Thypatient]

I can pick up on something AR-10 said, “A few people fall above…that range and are healthy.”

I’m one of them.  My TSH has averaged around 2.85 and that is where my drs recommend it should be – but there’s a reason.  When I came to be diagnosed with thyroid problems my bones were already in a state of osteopenia (early stage deterioration) from another disease - hyperparathyroidism.  That disease also put my heart in a precarious place.   It’s for this reason my drs wants to avoid overmedication of thyroid replacement hormones, as doing so could make me vulnerable to those two issues again.  Ergo, in my situation a higher TSH is healthier.

Just wanted to throw in that perspective…

[AR-10]

Muscle aches can be a symptom of either condition.

The new ranges for TSH vary. 0.3-3.0 is "the new standard", but labs are still using old ranges. There are probably twenty or thirty ranges used by various labs.

The question you should ask is "what is a normal TSH?"
A normal TSH is 0.8-1.8. A few people fall above or below that range and are healthy. Anything above 2.5 should be a red flag to run more tests.

Treatment really should be based on Free T3 test results, but that seldom happens.

A normal Free T4 should be mid-range or above. About two thirds up the scale of the lab range is ideal, although there is room for it to be lower and still adequate. It can be in the lower third of the lab range and still provide enough T4 to convert to T3.

Free T4 test ranges and Free T3 test ranges vary from lab to lab. The reason for this is because different machines are calibrated in different manners and the tests can be be processed in slightly different ways (I think). Bottom line...you have to look at your Free T4 result in relation to the lab range provided.

A TSH test, on the other hand, is run the same way all over the world. The only reason the test ranges vary is because individual labs set their own ranges based on opinion. So a TSH test result will be the same no matter which lab runs it. The only variation is the lab range. A result of 1.5 is 1.5 in any lab.

With a Free T4 test, 1.5 from one lab may be 7.6 from another lab, even though the same ammount of Free T4 is found in the blood in both labs.

[Jennifer1987]

My ache and Im hypoT. So painful at times. Newish ranges for TSH are .3-3.0...Not sure bout the T4 ranges.