Muscle Pain with Armour Increase?

[Maclisa]

Hi All,
I am slowly increasing my Armour thyroid and have been working to get to an optimal level for about 4 months now. I've noticed that with each increase of Armour, I experience severe muscle pain for about 3-4 days within a week. I'm wondering if anyone else experiences this pain and if so, have you found anything that works to prevent this?

[kayday]

I'm going through the same thing as your original post. The muscle pain / cramps is rough, and I'm only on day 2 of a 15 mg. increase of Armour. I've been taking the lower dose for one year & my TSH is 4.3

[Maclisa]

Yes, the pain goes away after 3-4 days. I am increasing 30 mg. at a time. I am trying to reach the level where I have no more symptoms and I know that I am close. The heart palps, sweating, sever lack of motivation and fatigue are all but gone. The only symptoms I have left that are bothersome is hair loss (this has become much less, but is still apparent) and late afternoon fatigue. My blood pressure has also gotten much better.

My doctor looks at labs but is more concerned with symptoms. He does not check FT3/FT4, only TSH and Total T3/T4. He said that the frees are only if your antibodies are messed up? I know it is recommended that the frees are what to go by, but it was hard to find a doctor that believes in natural thyroid and is willing to treat symptoms, so I'm doing what I can with what I got! He wants my TSH to be very low and my Total T3 to be in the upper range. My last TSH was .03 and like I said, I feel much better but not quiet there yet. I was on Levoxyl for many years and began switching in November, 2011.

He also has me on BHRT: E2-1 mg; Prog.: 100 mg.; and T: 10 mg.

Is it difficult to switch from on Armour to NP thyroid? Even though he weaned me off of Levoxyl while slowly increasing the Armour, I did crash for a bit and am just now getting where I think I need to be now.

[brookiebaby78]

Yes I have muscle pains it's only been two weeks switching from nature throid and I'm tired and fatigued. Help should I switch to np thyroid?

[gimel]

What was the dosage of NatureThroid?  What did you switch to?  What is the new dosage?  What are your Free T4 and Free T3 levels?  Have you been tested for Vitamin D, B12 and ferritin?  

[kevieb]

Does the pain go away after the initial 3-4 days of pain?  How much are you increasing at a time?  What is the optimal level you are trying to reach and how is your Dr basing what your opti,al level should be?

There is a new natural thyroid medication called NP thyroid that is almost the same ingredients as the original armour thyroid used to be before it went through two different formula changes.  It is not supposed to cause some of the side effects that armour can cause.