Confused. Mercury Pharma are out of T3 stock an... - Thyroid UK
Confused. Mercury Pharma are out of T3 stock and are only licensed provider in UK, but my bottles say Goldshield (20mcg) & Paddock (5mcg)
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Goldshield is the old name of MercuryPharma. MercuryPharma have still been using the old packaging for some of their products.
Paddock is not a UK product and is imported from the US. Your prescription for Paddock would not be directly affected by the current unavailability of UK T3 tablets.
However your pharmacy will need to source another supplier from outside the UK in order to fulfil your usual MercuryPharma / Goldshield prescription, as reported in this blog earlier:
thyroiduk.healthunlocked.co...
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Hi there,
the 5mcg Paddock ones are the 'only other licensed T3' in the UK I have been told, however VERY VERY expensive to source, a bottle of 100 apparently is £700 the manager of Sainsbury's pharmacy told me! that means if my pharmacist gets hold of these to help me out they will 'dish out' £700 every 3 days!!! (as I am on 160mcg daily) adn I will have to take 32 tablets every day!
I'm going to take along a Uni Pharma packet to my Boots with my prescription (that I'll pick up tomorrow) and the information on your blog about pharmacies having the responsibility to get liothyronine from abroad if necessary.
Uni Pharma is manufactured in Greece so it must already pass EU regulations and I've taken it before. It costs 2 euro a packet from Greek pharmacies. It comes in 25mcg tablets so I'm going to ask my doctor to make the prescription not specify 20mcg tablets and 5mcg tablets on this occasion. Boots will make a good profit with my prescription if they get these ones!!
Maybe they could get these for you too? With some lovely expensive Paddock to top you up to your full amount?
I've taken the liberty of using the emails that T4_malcontent used in her/his blog asking for the Turkish Tiromel liothyronine to be licensed by the MHRA to ask for the Uni Pharma one to be licensed too.
Maybe if we're very lucky some good will come out of this situation and the NHS will get cheaper liothyronine which will benefit all patients trying to get prescribed it! 
to be honest I'd like the MEXICAN cynomel to be licensed, it's cheap and cheerful too but it works WONDERS for me
If Sainsburys are charging the NHS £700 per 100 tab bottle for Paddock, then this has to be a complete rip-off on the part of Sainsburys. There is no justification whatsoever for this amount of money! As I said yesterday, based on previous personal experience, I'm afraid I have no trust in anything told to me by a Sainsburys pharmacist.
this was the manager at the hospital where I work, I was wearing my ID when talking to him, he knows I am a colleague who is 'clued up' and can 'check him out' if I want to, so I'd doubt he would relay wrong info, however I do agree it is a rip off.
Bear in mind that is the price which costs to IMPORT (so extra on top of medication price as well), he did not say it was paddock but he did say there is ONLY 2 liothyronine which are 'licensed' and it's the mercury pharma and antoher one which comes in 5mcg so I assume it's the paddock but it may be Pfizer maybe?
Out of interest, when a person gets free prescriptions with a medical card, who looses out in the profit game - NHS, pharmacist or manufacturer? How does it work?
I would think NHS loses out for sure.....after all it is them giving you the exemption......
but also if you did pay for NHS prescriptions, my prescription is worth £800 and I would only pay just under £8 for the prescription so NHS STILL loses out in that case
No wonder they don't want to test and treat with T3 if that is what it costs!!!
I read on TPA site that 28 days of T3 costs £25.56 or close to. Not too sure how old that was.
No wonder my GP has refused to let me have any. Madness. Hope you all get Some very soon. Thinking of you all lots.
Current price quoted in BNF.org is:
Liothyronine sodium (Goldshield)
Tablets, scored, liothyronine sodium 20 micrograms, net price 28-tab pack = £26.15
Thanks Red Apple. Want to use this info as my GP says cost is difficult for practice. Her computer said £56 for 20 mcgs 28days supply!
£26.15 is far less than my Migraine treatment was!
It's not impossible that your GP may be quoting the correct price. I don't know whether BNF.org is reliable any more when to comes to pricing. The whole medicine costs issue is complicated with pharma companies trying to rip off the NHS every which way.
That said, I suspect that the majority of medics are using cost as an excuse when the real reason they don't want to prescribe T3 is because they have no idea how to work with it. Thyroid is far too complicated and it makes their life simpler to just dish out standard doses of levo and umpteen other meds to supposedly deal with all the symptoms that are categorically 'not your thyroid' 
Wishing you the best though in your battle to get what you need.
Thanks RedApple.
Yes my GP did site cost in the conversation and admitted she knew nothing about using T3 Only.
My friends son is at medical school right now. They covered the Endo thyroid section in one afternoons lecture. When I asked him if they will be covering it in more depth later. He cheerfully said, "no that's it".
Need I say more?
I think I'll send her Paul Robinson's book anyway!
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