Yep and when I suggested to my endo I get 20mcg and split them instead of 5mcg she had a hissy fit and said you can’t pick and choose what you want on the nhs. So I got 5mcg and spoke to gp who then prescribed me 20mcg. Wasn’t having that it was far cheaper for nhs. 🤷♀️
I have created, and try to maintain, a document containing details of all thyroid hormone medicines in the UK and, in less detail, many others around the world.
Tesco fulfilled my prescription for 20mcg Morningside Liothyronine yesterday but the pharmacist said that Roma didn’t come up on their system when I asked.
This is an ongoing problem. I have tried to find the requirements of the NHS contracts - I'd be amazed if they are not forced to supply what is prescribed. Especially as there is no available other hard capsule - thus no "generic" substitution is possible.
£2.30 for a pack of 30 25mcg OTC in Greece, & that’s from a profit making company. It might be a tad dearer since I last went there three years ago. Four years ago it was only £1.15 a pack.
We are rather tired of hearing that the MHRA is insisting on higher standards than other countries. And that being the justification for higher prices. Now we have Roma, Colonis (same as Roma but not yet marketed, it appears), SigmaPharm - and now it appears likely Alturix/Helm will be added. All of them made outside the UK (added as I realised I had not made this clear).
If it really did cost well over £200 for Mercury Pharma liothyronine due to costs, how come they are still marketing their product at its current much lower price? Wouldn't any rational company leave the market and stop making a loss?
I must admit, it seems rather odd Roma is still not quoted. Also, to add, the Teva Liothyronine I had quite clearly stated “manufactured in Hungary” !!
When I enquired two days ago with the pharmacist about giving Roma T3 - a day later he told me that - as it was a 'capsule' - it couldn't be prescribed. It would have to be a 'tablet'.
Do you mean that your pharmacist would not dispense a capsule against a prescription written for a tablet?
I think that would be correct. (Though increasing flexibility is sometimes available for pharmacists, I don't know if it has reached that point.)
But wouldn't the prescribing doctor be happy enough to write a prescription for capsules, if that is what is needed? Especially if they are lower cost.
Actually, Uni Pharma Liothyronine is 2.30 Euros for 30 tablets which equals approximately £1.95 per packet at today’s exchange rate. And to think that the DHSC has the nerve to tell us that we have some of the cheapest medications in Europe!!
Next time you see that, put in a complaint, maybe a Freedom of Information request to find out how they make the assessment behind that claim. Write to your MP. Whatever else you can think to do.
I, and many other members of ITT Group on FB wrote to our MP’s some time ago and we all got back a “generic” letter signed by Lord Kamal. My MP, being on the “Front Bench” had his letter signed by the then Minister of Health, Sajid Javid 😱 To give my MP his due, he said he would take up the complaint on my behalf. When I’m feeling up to it, I will go and see him in one of his surgeries.Lord Hunt has brought up the subject of Liothyronine in the House of Lords on many occasions but Lord Kamal is constantly misquoting the NICE guidelines stating “Liothyronine is not routinely prescribed” very cleverly leaving off “in Primary Care”. I’ll see if I can fish out my letter and post it on the forum.
Not a perfect excuse by denying hypo patients a 'trial of T3 or T4/T3'. I have read of a person who had hypo and she took her own life as she could no longer cope with the trials/tribulations of hypo. That's awful.
You're right. One of my GPs (near retirement age) stated to me:
"Your TSH is too low: your T3 too high and your T4 too low".
Me: Yes doctor, my TSH is low is because I take T3 only so T3 will be high. T4 is low because I take none!
GP: but T3 converts to T4! Me: "No doctor it is the other way around, T4 is expected to convert to T3".
Before blood tests were introduced, we were diagnosed upon clinical symptoms alone and then given a trial of NDTs (the very first thyroid hormone replacement made from animals' thyroid glands from 1892) and lives were saved from then on.
Unfortunately they were removed by the BTA 'experts' despite its proven use for many patients who recovered their health.
You must have been torn between crying from despair & laughing at him.My previous GP at least acknowledged I know more than he does, but I think his ears might have been bleeding by then & he wanted me to go away.
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