eternityroad" wrote:btw I do not have a thyroid and been taking levothyroxine for 30 years. I get regular blood tests for to determine if adjustment in med. is needed. I am wondering if this medical condition has any bearing on RLS. Doc also raised my dosage on the levothyroxine this time around.
I have heard that hypothyroidism and WED/RLS are linked - if you have one, you're more likely to have both. I can find a reference and a quote :
RLS prevalence is increased in individuals with hypothyroidism; hypothyroidism prevalence is increased in individuals with RLS. Persons with hypothyroidism and RLS are significantly more likely than those with hypothyroidism alone to have had hyperthyroidism prior to hypothyroidism. Associations between RLS and thyroid disease may shed light on complex biological mechanisms underlying RLS. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... /jsr.13091
I've also come across posts by people on other discussion boards who are convinced that levothyroxine makes their WED/RLS worse, or causes it in the first place. This link doesn't seem to be commonly known by physicians, and I haven't come across any research relating to it.
There is also a theory (published in 2010) that WED/RLS might be caused by excessive thyroid hormones caused in turn by insufficient dopamine.. or more generally, some imbalance affecting the dopaminergic and thryoid systems. All I've read so far is the abstract, which is poorly written.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882550/
You really need to see about your iron status. Taking iron (oral or infusion) might solve your WED/RLS problems, or change them from severe to mild. You would have to be careful not to take oral iron at the same time as the levo.