Just started adding T3 - Supply issues scare me - Thyroid UK

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Just started adding T3 - Supply issues scare me

FancyPants54 profile image
8 Replies

I've literally just started to add a small amount of T3 to my Levo. I have a supply that I bought a while back. I probably have enough for about 1 year of treatment depending on dose.

The supply of T3 seems very difficult now. Is it a mistake to start trying to take it? Am I just setting myself up for a fall in a year's time?

What are we going to do if they stop making this hormone?

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing.

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FancyPants54
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8 Replies
greygoose profile image
greygoose

I don't think anyone is suggesting they might stop making it. It's just that it's getting harder and harder to buy it without a prescription. :)

FancyPants54 profile image
FancyPants54 in reply to greygoose

That doesn't help us though. How are we going to be able to get it? Doctor's won't give us a prescription and outside sources seem to be drying up. I know you use it greygoose , are you not worried?

greygoose profile image
greygoose in reply to FancyPants54

Of course I'm worried. But worrying doesn't help either.

shaws profile image
shawsAdministrator in reply to FancyPants54

Considering that T3 is the only Active Thyroid Hormone and many cannot recover on T4 alone, I doubt it will be withdrawn completely. The sting in the tale at present is the exorbitant cost to the NHS by all three or four suppliers. They must have thought Christmas had come by increasing T3 by (I believe) about 6,000%.

theguardian.com/business/20...

TUK and other support groups have met in the House of Lords to protest:-

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/campai...

FancyPants54 profile image
FancyPants54 in reply to shaws

I know about the HoL, I watched the debate. I'm hoping they can do something. It's ridiculous that a medicine available on the continent for a few euros a packet is so highly priced here and rather than sort it out the NHS just stops it being used.

I think I'm just having a bad day (well, few of them actually) and my anxiety is higher again so I start to worry about everything. Having been unwell for 6 years now, on Levo for about 15 months and no improvement really and HRT for 3.5 years and very rocky on that too, I am starting my T3 journey with a finite amount of medication and fears that I can't get more. It's not helping my general state of mind this week. I hope it's not the T3 that has given me this down week. But I think it's more like PMS, so hopefully not.

shaws profile image
shawsAdministrator in reply to FancyPants54

I take T3 only and I know it is a worry for many and I think the NHS were looking for an excuse to stop T3 as more and more people were requesting it when not recovering on levothyroxine.

Big Pharma likes levothyroxine as they did their utmost to get it to become the biggest prescribed hormone in the world. It overtook NDT which was prescribed before the introduction of levo and I have read that doctors were paid to prescribe levo instead of NDT. Plus, of course, taking account of the 'extra prescriptions' for the remaining clinical symptoms. We've read often that doctors have said that the symptoms (they know few anyway) were not due to hypo as blood tests were 'normal'.

Those people who do fine on levothyroxine will not be searching the internet for help/advice.

I doubt most doctors or endocrinologists know exactly what the purpose is of thyroid hormones and it is to restore our good health and we need optimum thyroid hormones that suit our bodies as those who are fine on levo wont be searching the internet.

Did you know that there is something called Thyroid Hormone Resistance? If so the person needs larger doses than normal in order to relieve their clinical symptoms.

web.archive.org/web/2010103...

penny profile image
penny in reply to FancyPants54

I think that anyone who takes T3 is worried about supply issues but there’s no point in worrying about something you cannot change.

SlowDragon profile image
SlowDragonAdministrator

Suggest you email Thyroid Uk for list of recommended thyroid specialists, some are T3 friendly and some are NHS

A private prescription enables access to cheap T3 from Germany

Ask GP for 25mcg dose increase in Levothyroxine and/or referral to endocrinologist

Dr Toft, past president of the British Thyroid Association and leading endocrinologist, states in Pulse Magazine,

"The appropriate dose of levothyroxine is that which restores euthyroidism and serum TSH to the lower part of the reference range - 0.2-0.5mU/l.

In this case, free thyroxine is likely to be in the upper part of its reference range or even slightly elevated – 18-22pmol/l.

Most patients will feel well in that circumstance. But some need a higher dose of levothyroxine to suppress serum TSH and then the serum-free T4 concentration will be elevated at around 24-28pmol/l.

This 'exogenous subclinical hyperthyroidism' is not dangerous as long as serum T3 is unequivocally normal – that is, serum total around T3 1.7nmol/l (reference range 1.0-2.2nmol/l)."

You can obtain a copy of the articles from Thyroid UK email print it and highlight question 6 to show your doctor

 please email Dionne at

tukadmin@thyroiduk.org

New NHS England Liothyronine guidelines November 2018

See page 8 and 12 - both clearly show TSH should be under 1.5 to be adequate treated

sps.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploa...

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