Has anyone NDT during pregnancy?

[ML44]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has used NDT during pregnancy or switched from NDT to thyroxine whilst pregnant?

Thanks x

[shaws Administrator]

I believe that, when NDT was the only replacement hormones for those with hypothyroid symptoms would be also taken by pregnant women as it was the only thyroid hormone replacement - before levothyroxine was introduced. NDTs contain all of the hormones and a healthy thyroid gland would produce.

theinvisiblehypothyroidism....

[shaws Administrator]

This link may be helpful:-

theinvisiblehypothyroidism....

[humanbean]

These are old but still relevant...

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

NDT was all there was for several decades after it was first developed in the 1890s and yet hypothyroid women still got pregnant and had babies.

Doctors often use dirty tricks to get women to stop taking NDT during pregnancy, so look out for these.

Please note that you are likely to get told that NDT is dangerous because doctors have been brainwashed by Big Pharma into believing that it isn't reliable. But this is simply a myth. Levothyroxine has been recalled for problems with dosage far more often than NDT.

This is well worth reading even though it is 20 years old :

nytimes.com/2001/07/24/scie...

Another thing that doctors will comment on is "Eww, it's made from pigs". This is true, but then so are bacon and sausages and people eat those without worrying about the source.

Note also that when people need new heart valves one of the options they are offered is a valve from a pig, and they are still used.

And before synthetic human insulin was developed, diabetics used animal insulin sourced from pigs and cows.

[TSH110 in reply to humanbean]

And the advantage of pig valves for the heart is that no blood thinners need to be taken as is the case with synthetic ones - I was told this by a pal who chose pig parts because of this superiority.

I thought diabetics still took some pig derived products.

[humanbean in reply to TSH110]

I thought diabetics still took some pig derived products.

It looks like it, according to the BNF :

bnf.nice.org.uk/medicinal-f...

But I was under the impression that doctors pressured diabetics to take the synthetic human insulin rather than the animal-derived insulin, and many of them weren't happy. In quite a few cases using synthetic human insulin prevented people from realising they were becoming hypoglycaemic and needed to eat some carbs/sugar, but with animal-sourced insulin they had more awareness of when things were going wrong and could act on it before they passed out.

There are some similarities between thyroid patients in the 70s being forced off NDT and on to Levo, and diabetic patients being forced to switch from animal-derived to synthetic insulin. There were stories being told to diabetic patients by doctors that synthetic insulin was much more reliable in dose than the animal-derived, and the patients' problems with the synthetic were dismissed with a wave of the hand, and the attitude from doctors was usually "Tough!"

[TSH110 in reply to humanbean]

Interesting thanks for the info. Why this obsession with synthetic being better than natures own product as if nature is somehow dirty or substandard to men in white coats’ inventions, which to my mind are likely to be poor imitations cooked up in a test tube and tested for five minutes on healthy young men, of what nature has perfected over millions of years of trial and error!

[humanbean in reply to TSH110]

Why this obsession with synthetic being better than natures own product

I think the simple answer is it's cheaper.

[TSH110 in reply to humanbean]

Not if it doesn't work as well as the natural alternative and has serious consequences for your health and well being, the cost to society far outweighs any penny pinching saving on the actual medication. Typical compartmentalised thinking with not one bit of consideration for the whole picture. Small wonder we’re in this mess.

[ML44 in reply to humanbean]

Thank you for the links, really useful, I don’t think I’d manage without it! Just trying to work out how to actually stay on it 🤔🤞

[Miffie]

I have had hypothyroidism long enough to be among those who were diagnosed when ndt was the only treatment (1960 ish) . I continued with this for many years, during which time I had two two perfect pregnancies and now have 2 beautiful daughters and a few grandchildren. There was no additional testing of thyroid levels during either pregnancy. Doctors were more concerned with how well I felt re dose.

One pregnancy was in Scotland, under the care of the same GO who I had seen since childhood. The second under the care of UK military doctors while living overseas. So they had very different backgrounds but my care was the same.

Life was simpler then for those with hypothyroidism.

Good luck

[ML44 in reply to Miffie]

Hi Miffie, thank you for this, I really feel NDT is the only way I could have a healthy pregnancy and it’s really useful to know that others have been successful on it! X

[Luna1390]

Hi there! I took a combo of NDT and Synthroid for my pregnancy. It's the combo I take normally, so I just stayed on it. I raised it frequently. My dr checked my labs every 4 weeks for the first 24 weeks. I felt great & my baby is super healthy. The main thing is, if you feel tired or have any other hypo symptoms, that means you need a dosage raise. Get your labs checked right away & have a good dr who will look at how you FEEL.

[ML44 in reply to Luna1390]

Hi Luna, thank you so much for your reply. Are you in the UK? I was told I’d have to go back on thyroxine if preg but I don’t absorb and am very unwell without NDT. Really hoping I can build a case to stay on 🤔

[Luna1390 in reply to ML44]

I'm in the States. Do you have any past levo-only labs that you could show them in order to PROVE that you don't absorb it well? T3 is really important for the baby, so you want to be a good converter if you're on T4 only meds. Perhaps you could offer to add some Levothyroxin to your NDT? It's the same as taking a T3 and T4 blend, but NDT is the T3 instead of Cytomel.

[chinita]

Thank you for this thread! Can anyone recommend a doctor able to monitor a pregnancy on NDT in the UK? I've been told to switch to a combo of synthetic T4 and T3, as I'm planning a pregnancy and my doctors say that nobody will know how to manage a pregnancy on NDT. However I feel miserable since the swap and I miss being on NDT so ideally I'd like to get back on NDT and find a doctor able to deal with it.