Teva and dry mouth

[HowNowWhatNow]

I’ve written here before about the dry mouth I’ve had since just before Christmas. And about all the many tests and scans I’ve had in that time, all of which drew a blank.

Then in March / April I picked up some more Levothyroxine packets from the pharmacist. On that occasion I was served by a particular pharmacist who is not only kind and thoughtful but her memory is a whirring database of all her patients’ meds and histories. Immediately she said, no need to look at her records, “but you don’t react well to Teva, do?” So she made sure I had Mercury. I hadn’t realised that the last time I picked up my prescription I’d been given Teva, a brand that has disagreed with me in the past, but for different reasons.

Since then, my dry mouth has improved dramatically, to the point where I can probably say it’s back to normal. I have one or two packets of Teva left and occasionally take that levo by mistake. I take it at night and if I can’t sleep I already feel the dry mouth mounting even before I nod off. Either way, I wake up with a raging thirst.

So I can now say that Teva caused me to have a dry mouth, which then caused me to get a range of health and oral hygiene problems.

So this message is both a Public Service Announcement, and a call for an experiment:

IF you suffer from clinically dry mouth and you take Teva for your hypothyroidism, please can you try another brand and then let us all know if you see an improvement.

[birkie]

Hi

I was put on T4 teva after the T4 I was initially given after my thyroidectomy contained lactose ( lactose intolerant and have colitis) they bothered my bowles/stomach so bad I was not absorbing them, I was changed to T4 teva I still had bowle/stomach problems but developed a server bad headache and a horrid metallic taste in my mouth it actually made me vomit 🤮.. Again my thyroid bloods were awful, I actually got put on T3.... Amazing eh😄 and had no problem with my bowles/stomach no bad headache but did have the metallic taste still.. I've just been put bk on the teva t4( long story) just a 7wk trial and all the side affects have returned 😩 I've found out teva contains mannolin a filler so I'm pretty sure that's the cause of the side affects when I went back on it.. I'm off it now 3 days and starting to feel much better, I've found a tub of my T3 meds in my cupboard so I'm bk on them until I see the endo.. 👍

[HowNowWhatNow in reply to birkie]

Am glad this story ends well, so far

Do any of the admins know how far thyroid U.K. is aware of the problems Teva causes?

[birkie in reply to HowNowWhatNow]

I don't know about that 🤷‍♀️ but I put up mannitol on line and an article popped up from France stating people who were on T4 and changed to teva T4 which contain mannitol had loads of bad side affects after they changed and were petitioning about it.. 😲

[HowNowWhatNow in reply to birkie]

That’s interesting.

Has anyone here got a Mirena coil? I notice that people are suing its manufacturers in the U.S..

[HowNowWhatNow in reply to birkie]

What is mannitol?!

[helvella Administrator in reply to HowNowWhatNow]

It is a sugar alcohol which is sometimes used more or less as a direct replacement for lactose.

[birkie in reply to HowNowWhatNow]

It's a filler in the tablets.. My first T4 had lactose as a filler and I had server side affects to it ( colitis and lactose intolerant) so changed to teva T4 still had side affects to it,..it doesn't contain lactose but does have the mannitol in it which is a alcohol sugar.. The T3 teva foex not contain lactose or mannitol, that's why I had no side affects to the T3... Endo and gp are playing around with my thyroid meds because my calcium is over range and my parathyroid hormones have gone over range, they have no idea what they are doing.. 🙄

[helvella Administrator]

You could well have done this already, but if not, please put in a Yellow Card report!

(I'm just getting over the dry mouth caused by Amitriptyline - a known side effect. Dropped dose and will soon stop completely. But it is unpleasant.)

[HowNowWhatNow in reply to helvella]

The only time I’ve made a yellow card report i think our GP practice withdrew it.

Is that possible?

But I will try and do one again.

[HowNowWhatNow in reply to HowNowWhatNow]

Dry mouth is not at all nice. Am glad you have found the trigger.

[helvella Administrator in reply to HowNowWhatNow]

I don’t think they can! It is straight from you to the MHRA.

[birkie in reply to helvella]

Omg... I was on that drug because my gp couldn't diagnose me with graves 🤦‍♀️ he kept saying my symptoms were menupausal and put me on amitripyline I never want to go on that drug ever again 😠 I honestly felt like a zombie the side affects were awful 🤮🤮😩

[helvella Administrator in reply to birkie]

I am taking it for neuropathic pain. Without - I could barely sleep.

The highest dose I have been on was 35 milligrams, now down to 10 - and just taking it slowly to avoid any issues from withdrawing more quickly. The last thing I want is to feel I have to increase dose again.

[HowNowWhatNow in reply to helvella]

Thanks Helvella. My mouth was so dry I started getting salivary glands infections. No fun.Neuropathic pain - do you know what causes this?

[helvella Administrator in reply to HowNowWhatNow]

For me, I do. Shingles. About five and a half months and it is slowly getting better.

I found that I would suddenly have a dry mouth. Sometimes a glass of water helped, but sometimes it seemed to make no difference.

[FooPoo in reply to helvella]

I have a very dry mouth, which gave me horrid mouth sores - I didn't realize the two were connected. I was told about Biotene, mouth wash that's supposed to relieve the symptoms. Expensive and it doesn't solve the problem. And then I found a device that does solve the problem. It's called a Salipen. See

saliwell.com/

It really does work.

"It is a leading-edge medical device that treats dry mouth naturally. SaliPen uses electrostimulation to increase saliva production and is not felt by the patient."

Warmly recommended.

[helvella Administrator in reply to FooPoo]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I don't have the problem now - stopped amitriptyline months ago due to side effects (dry mouth and tiredness being the main ones).

And thank goodness given the price of that device! Might be worth it but still a lot of money.

[HowNowWhatNow in reply to FooPoo]

Has it been approved for use in the U.K., do you know?