Progesterone-only contraceptive pill now available OTC yet Liothyronin/T3 is still like gold dust

[Wired123]

The government have announced that the progesterone-only pill will be made OTC.

(Now this isn’t a post about the morality of the contraceptive pill, everyone has their own stance on that - each to their own.)

Yet doctors and the NHS carp on about how too much Thyroxine and certainly Liothyronin can cause heart issues, reduce bone density, etc, etc.

Surely progesterone is an equally powerful hormone yet young girls will now be able buy it freely with no monitoring of their health. What are the long term implications of this?

I feel this must have been a win from the lobbying of the manufacturers to get the rules changed, one wonders why the same does not happen for thyroid hormones.

[FancyPants54]

If you can tolerate the progesterone in the mini pill there won't be any issues. If you can buy it or if you are prescribed it won't make any difference. The mini pill is the mini pill. You can be on it for decades either way and it's side effects aren't major. It's nothing like T3. It's possible to buy oestrogen, progesterone, growth hormone, T3, Levo etc. over the counter for pennies in several EU countries.

[Wired123 in reply to FancyPants54]

My point exactly, why are thyroid hormones treated like gold dust or precious diamonds in the UK and doctors are constantly discouraging us yet the progesterone pill is now OTC in the UK and like you say all those other hormones are readily available abroad!

What is this conspiracy to stop us getting thyroid hormones in the UK?

[Lalatoot in reply to Wired123]

If there was enough research to demonstrate the efficacy of combo therapy then we would be able to argue from a position of strength.

[Wired123 in reply to Lalatoot]

Which begs the question why isn’t anyone finding the research

[fuchsia-pink in reply to Wired123]

Partly because if you were doing a proper medical trial, you would need to have some of the people who need it NOT given it as a "control" - but just given a placebo instead - and I certainly wouldn't want to be in that group!

[Wired123 in reply to fuchsia-pink]

Yes and no. They could compare Mono to Combo and also just the prevalence of brittle bones on Thyroid hormone to see whether more hormone = more chance of unrelated heath problems.

[fuchsia-pink in reply to Wired123]

You can't just "compare" ... You would need a proper double-blind trial. That means that people on the trial, some of whom are already on combo, having discovered the hard way that levo-only doesn't work for them (because no-one starts off on combo therapy) would inevitably be taken off and put back onto mono - and you just won't get volunteers for that!

But I think there is now plenty of research showing that it's a myth that people on thyroid meds have increased risk of brittle bones - check out some of Diogenes posts [he's a "proper" research scientist]

[tattybogle in reply to Wired123]

A proper trial ... here's one, hot off the presses. healthunlocked.com/thyroidu... its-here-at-last-a-comparison-of-t4-t4-t3-combination-therapy-and-dte-ndt-fuel-for-using-against-sceptical-doctors-endos?

[shaws in reply to Wired123]

I think it might be due to 'some people' feeling superior in that they (who don't have a dysfunctional thyroid gland) can make decisions that rebound upon hypothyroid patients i.e. withdrawing T3, and NDT despite patients having recovered on either.

[humanbean]

Surely progesterone is an equally powerful hormone yet young girls will now be able buy it freely with no monitoring of their health.

I absolutely agree there is no justice when it comes to hormones. Diabetics, for example, can be prescribed insulin which they use as needed. Too little or too much can kill them.

One factor in making insulin more freely available might be because diabetes affects more men than women :

Statistics suggest that a slightly higher proportion of adult men have diabetes. Men account for 56 per cent of UK adults with diabetes and women account for 44 per cent.

Source : diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-pre...

[Wired123 in reply to humanbean]

But then surely the pill is one for women?

[humanbean in reply to Wired123]

Yes, of course it is.

But hormones only needed by women (e.g. progesterone) or more likely to be needed by women (thyroid hormones) are treated differently to the hormones more likely to be used by men (insulin).

[Angel_of_the_North]

I don't think it is even "real" progesterone, but actually progestin which can be dangerous, so why treated differently from thyroid hormone which also "can" be dangerous - but mostly neither of them are