Is it common for t4 hormone brands to be incapability after prolonged use?

Hi I was wanting to know about levothyroxine brands of thyroid hormone i.e. synthroid, levothyroxinex and tirosint? I wanted to know with the exclusion of dosage changes, however, does t4 stop being adequate thyroid hormone treatment. I had changed over to cytomel only and I know it is something better as far as absorption. My tsh is (0.40) 0.40-4.00 ul/dl t4 is (1.0) 0.8-2.0 free t3 (3.6) 2.0-4.0 are my results on both t4/t3 combo. T4 tirosint has become completely useless.

[Lora7again]

Have you tried NDT? I took Thyroid S from Thailand last year and I found it suited me. I got to 1 1/2 grains but had to stop taking it because my thyroid kicked in again and I went over active. I have Graves' disease and seem to suffer with both overactive and underactive periods. Sometimes the artificial thyroxine which have a lot of fillers in them that can give people side effects. I am not saying Thyroid S doesn't have fillers but it is natural and made from pig thyroid which was used years ago before drug companies started manufacturing Levothyroxine which does suit a lot of people but some get on better with NDT.

here is a link about the drug

rxlist.com/synthroid-side-e...

[Hidden in reply to Lora7again]

I do better with no fillers, I have two insurance who won’t cover it. The said you have to fail three thyroid hormone and they can still deny ndt. I hope tirosint would hold up but I believe the quality control is in question with new manufacturer. I might have to soldier through it with cytomel only until I can get approval with ndt.

[Lora7again in reply to Hidden]

I see ... good luck with that because big pharma have a lot of control imho.

[Hidden in reply to Lora7again]

Yes it is going to be a million prior authorizations and appeals.

[Lora7again in reply to Hidden]

Thyroid S cost me £59 for a 1000 tablets last year but I think some on here are having trouble obtaining it now but you could try Thyroid Gold ... if you google Thyroid Gold and Dr Lowe you will find where you can purchase it on line.

[Hidden in reply to Lora7again]

I heard of it before I heard really good things. I might check it out and I heard it has almost like restorative properties. It is made of thyroid gland or complex?

[Lora7again in reply to Hidden]

It is made from cow thyroid and Dr Lowe who is now dead gave it to his patients.

Here is some information about him

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/relate...

[Hidden in reply to Lora7again]

I will research into the product. I heard incredible things about Dr Lowe and his passing is terrible.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Hidden]

I have converted most of Dr Lowe's website into a PDF to make it accessible. (I hope it is everything but it is all too easy to miss things and some bits might no longer be accessible.)

Have a look here:

dropbox.com/s/w7cjut689r1w1...

It is BIG - about 57 megabytes. And it has some information about Thyro-Gold.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Hidden]

Can you tell us more about a new manufacturer of Tirosint?

[Hidden in reply to helvella]

The ibsa is the manufacturer I called them and I know it was only a few the manufacturer changed. I am not saying the people did anything intentionally wrong, I know didn’t manufacturer use different methods or ingredients. I will let you know what they say tomorrow.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Hidden]

Thank you. Look forward to finding out.

[Hidden]

My doctor here is really supportive of cytomel only and the pharmacists are supportive too. They tell me a lot of patients use cytomel only.

[Lora7again in reply to Hidden]

I am not trying to be cynical but I actually worked for a Hospital Pharmacy years ago and Doctors and Pharmacists were pestered by drug reps to use their products and some doctors were taken on cruises. I and the Principal Pharmacist were taken out for meals etc. This is not allowed now but I still wonder if it might still be going on somewhere.

[Hidden in reply to Lora7again]

You know I didn’t have a thyroid issues until I had so called family friend dr who put me on this stuff for energy. Yeah I sure got energy issues I have to worry about this stuff for the rest of my life. I guess if I can see the point in a God then I could continue to do believe in good. I do believe they drug companies are giving them incentives might not be on the books.

[Lora7again in reply to Hidden]

It is happening all over I'm afraid .... the NHS has been held to ransom by big drug companies.

metro.co.uk/2019/06/12/nhs-...

[Hidden in reply to Lora7again]

Yes The indomitable drug market is ridiculous and I can’t dream to estimate the life’s lost or changed. for better or worst, it is mostly bad out of these “drug” companies.

[Margjeans in reply to Hidden]

I doubt you would be put on it unless you needed it. It is dangerous if you take it when not needed , can cause heart problems.

[Gcart in reply to Hidden]

When I worked at GP surgery we used to have ‘drug lunches’

Doctors and nurses would be ‘treated ‘to food and wine and a drug company rep telling all how good their product was .

Course the docs used their brands .

[greygoose]

The answer is no. T4 cannot become useless. It's a hormone, not a drug. You cannot become accustomed to it to the point that it doesn't 'work' anymore. But, there are things that can happen in your body that can mean your body doesn't use it as efficiently as it used to.

* The first thing to ask yourself is: are you on the right dose?

You've given results there for T4+T3. Taking T3 will affect the T4 results, so they don't tell us very much about the T4. FT4 will be lower once you add in T3, that's the way it works.

So, do you have any results on T4 only? That will tell us if you're taking enough, and how well you're converting it to T3.

* The second thing to ask yourself is: am I converting T4 to T3 well enough?

Some people have conversion problems as soon as they start taking T4. Others develop a problem over time. But, as mentioned above, you can only tell how well you convert by comparing results of FT4 and FT3 when on T4 only.

* The third thing to ask yourself is: are my nutrients optimal?

If they aren't, your body cannot use thyroid hormone efficiently. It cannot convert T4 to T3 correctly, for one thing. So, essential to get them tested and supplement where necessary.

None of these problems are the fault of the T4 itself, though. They are the fault of your body. T4 - levo - gets a lot of flack and none of it is justified. It suits a lot of people very well. But, if your body can't use it, or your doctor doesn't know how to dose it, it's not going to make you well.

T3 only may suit you better. But, once again, you've got to have optimal nutrients, and you've got to know how to dose it. It's not superior to T4, it's just different.

And, then we have NDT - the optimistically so-called Natural Dessicated Thyroid. But, it's not as natural as all that. The pills still contain fillers, because you can't make a pill without fillers. And the hormones themselves are still highly processed because you can't just cut off a chunk of a pig thyroid and make it into a pill, the thyroids have to be cleaned and Dessicated and ground into powder, and the hormones balanced - and the manufacturers have been known to add in synthetic hormone to bring up the ratio of T4 to T3. It doesn't have any magical properties, as sometimes seems to be suggested in certain quarters. It's just a form of thyroid hormone replacement that might suit you and might not - it doesn't suit every one.

Reading through your replies to others, you seem to be suggesting that you were put on thyroid hormone replacement erroneously. The odds of that happening are very slim, due to the innate fear of hormones that most doctors have. They would do anything rather than prescribe them!

But, let's say, for the sake of argument, that you were put on thyroid hormone when you didn't actually need it. We're always hearing it said that once you start taking it, you have to take it for life. But, what does this actually mean?

Well, for the majority of people, what it means is that they can't live without it. Their thyroids have stopped functioning correctly, and when tested their TSH was very high and their FT4/3 were very low, so they need to take some type of thyroid hormone for the rest of their lives to stay alive.

But, if you started taking it when your TSH, FT4 and FT3 were perfectly fine, what would happen? Probably, you'd start feeling very, very ill, and common sense would tell you to stop taking it. And when you stopped taking it, you'd start to feel better again.

However, in some cases, taking thyroid hormone can cause the thyroid to stop making thyroid hormone. So, what would happen if you stopped taking your pill? Well, pretty rapidly, your thyroid would start making hormone again, and would go back to doing exactly what it was doing before you started taking the pills. Your thyroid does not shut down definitively.

So, it is just a myth that once you start taking it you have to keep taking it for life - well, in the case that you don't really need it, it's a myth, anyway. But, if you need it and stop taking it, you'd soon feel so ill that you'd willingly start taking it again.

[Hidden]

It is not always an ideal or medically sound reason why doctors prescribe thyroid hormone. If it this was the case then the purpose of the site not logically sound. I do have to say respectfully people have their own theories but I like to stick with scientific and medical evidence based facts. If we’re to say things are one size or category then definitely most people fit categories for being on hormone in the first place. I think it is erroneous to call something synthetic purely a hormone and when it is molecularly developed and sold as a drug too.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Hidden]

If levothyroxine, when it has been absorbed and is in the bloodstream, is indistinguishable from the hormone that is produced by our own glands, on what basis do we describe it as a medicine rather than a replacement hormone?

[Hidden in reply to helvella]

This is what I ask myself it is exogenous or foreign to our body. The synthroid molecular composition is not identical to the way our bodies naturally produce it. If it is was no one would needs this forum. I do have to say tirosint is amazing, it has been closest to normal thyroid hormone.

[Hidden]

Hi everyone good news and bad news I spoke with the tirosint manufacturer that I had to further investigate the lot number of my tirosint blister packs. I have to say the manufacturer said tirosint liquid gel caps are available in most EU countries except UK. It will be available at some point in Australia and UK soon.