Taking Thyroid Medicine. Have Swelling And Pain In Hands And Legs. What Should Be Done?

Posted on Wed, 6 Mar 2013

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Wed, 6 Mar 2013 Answered on

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 Last reviewed on

Question : Sir / Madam, my wife has prroblem of swelling in hands and legs since 2 years , mainly in the morning , when she gets up. Also pain in legs. Kindly suggest. She had Thyroid and taking medicines 50 mg since 4 yrs Regards

Answered by Dr. Shehzad Topiwala (5 hours later)

There can be dozens of reasons for swelling in the body. I will address the thyroid here. Your wife is on thyroid medication. 50 mcg is her current dose. We need to determine if this dose is sufficient. So blood tests for TSH and free T4 are needed. The goal TSH range is 0.4 to 2 with free t4 in the high normal range. However there is a rare condition called secondary hypothyroidism and that requires special evaluation by an endocrinologist in person. It is unlikely to exist if your wife has a goiter or positive thyroid antibodies such as TPO (thyroid peroxidase antibodies) or TG (thyroglobulin) antibodies. So I would recommend doing these antibodies with the blood test if they have not been done before. If these have been checked before and are positive then your wife Hashimoto's disease and will require life long thyroid replacement as she has a permanently underactive thyroid gland. If they are negative then it may be worth reconsidering the diagnosis. For more information you may wish to peruse these weblinks: WWW.WWWW.WW WWW.WWWW.WW

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar