switch to Armour again?

I was originally put on Armour Thyroid in late 2011, and worked my way up to 5 grains daily. In May 2012, I felt the best ever.

TSH <0.01

FT4 1.1 (ref 0.7-1.5)

FT3 4.1 (ref 2.9-4.2)

I was then prescribed 5 grain pills (until then, I had been combining 15, 30, 60, 90, and 120 mg pills), and quickly started going downhill. In November 2012, my labs looked like this on 5 grains:

TSH <0.01

FT4 1.0

FT3 2.9

It has been suggested to me that I got the "old" Armour the first time around, but I remember those pills expired in late 2012. The reformulation took place in early 2009, as far as I know. That would mean that the pills I got at first had been manufactured in 2008 already? But does NDT not have a shelf-life of +/- two years?

I have been on Erfa for the last year, doing OK, but not as great as I did on Armour the first time around. So I have been thinking lately about going back on Armour, and stick to the smaller pills. I cannot explain why I did great on it the first time around, and then went downhill, but I know this: I have been chewing the pills up all along, following the advice given in many thyroid forums, and I cannot remember any Armour pills tasting sweeting and being crunchy...

It's all pretty confusing. On some thyroid sites, Armour gets 9 or 10 stars out of 10. On other sites, it gets 1 or 2 stars...do all thyroid drugs affect users so differently, or is it just Armour since the reformulation...?

[Hypopotamus]

I did great on Armour until the 'reformulation'. I then had to move to ERFA, which again, worked well for me until it was changed at the end of 2013. Since then I may as well have been back on Liothyronine!

For some of us, there appears to be a very fine line between an NDT working and not working, while others appear to do well on almost any brand. That could be down to the fillers used to create the actual tablets, or at least our reaction to them.

[Tracer]

I was on Armour after they changed but I'd heard you had to chew them as the new fillers make them difficult to absorb, worth trying?