Armour on NHS- is there a way?

[izzywizzy7]

Hello,

It's my 1st time posting here. I live in the UK, London.

I have been on Armour through a private doctor for over a year now and before that I was on Levothyroxine for 3 years with massive brain fog and fatigue. Armour seems to have lifted the most part of the symptoms.

However, I am a simple millennial working in a job that doesn't pay that well (Further Education) living in an expensive city. Most of my salary goes on rent, bills, commute and thyroid meds. And now it seems that the price of Armour from my online pharmacy has gone up together with some of my doctor's items. I am really worried about it. I spend over 100 pounds a month on maintaining my health (NDT, blood tests, reports, prescriptions, supplements). I even started looking for jobs in tech because these seem to be better paid.

And here's my question: Is there a way to get NDT on NHS? I know it's not licences in the UK but according to openprescribing.net GPs do prescribe it. Or maybe has anyone had any luck convincing their GP to try? Mine seems to be oblivious to NDT.

I just feel so helpless.

Thanks in advance.

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

The only way is to find a doctor who is willing to prescribe on a named patient basis and take personal responsibility for prescribing it.thyroiduk.org/if-you-are-hy...

[izzywizzy7 in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thanks. I guess I hope to persuade my GP. I am really surprised to find there isn't a bigger push against this.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

only 2088 prescriptions in England in last year

(Typically 6 prescriptions per person per year)

searchable by Sub ICB locations (use to be called CCG areas)

openprescribing.net/analyse...

6 prescriptions in NHS N central London (so likely that’s one person)

NHS N E central London - 3 prescriptions

NW London 2 prescriptions

By comparison 59,926 prescriptions for T3 in last year

openprescribing.net/analyse...

[izzywizzy7 in reply to SlowDragon]

I thought these were monthly? So probably GPs prescribing for themselves. Sigh.

[Aurealis]

Have you shopped around and got prices from different pharmacies? The really large online pharmacy with the NHS contract, charges really inflated prices for Armour. I know this doesn’t answer your question but it might help a bit.

There are some people getting Armour on NHS prescription as Open Prescribing shows this. I have no idea how. Maybe those patients work as GPs?

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Aurealis]

Your idea is good. But some pharmacies won't quote without seeing a prescription.

Still worth a go, of course!

[izzywizzy7 in reply to Aurealis]

I did that before and one pharmacy was cheaper than the other. But they aren't easy to reach. I cannot believe they can just charge different prices for the same product, I mean, they can but the difference is sometimes 20% or more.

And yes, probably GPs prescribing themselves. Oh well.

[arTistapple in reply to Aurealis]

Something I have never quite understood - NHS contracted pharmacies being able to charge the NHS (and others) such inflated prices. Big Pharma must be rubbing their hands dealing with the NHS as NHS negotiators are worse than useless. Surely at such enormous numbers involved, huge discounts should be available - not inflated prices.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to arTistapple]

The problem, as I see it, is the NHS agreeing tariff prices which are too high.

Mind, there are times that some medicine prices do seem low for the NHS.

But if there is a swings and roundabouts argument (some are cheap while others are expensive), it is pretty awful if the medicine you need is one that is expensive.

[Wired123 in reply to arTistapple]

I’ve worked in big pharma. There’s often confidential NHS discounts in place for a drug, but the prescription price with pharmacies is kept at the standard rate and then the NHS centrally provide supporting data to the pharma company to then get a lump sum rebate.

For example one drug the company gave the NHS 35% discount but all transactions with pharmacies showed only the list price.

We actually have one of the most difficult and respected pricing regime at NICE and a lot of other countries follow their lead.

No I don’t work for NICE, but just want to say they are not simple pushovers and place a very high bar on pharma companies sometimes to the point they are overly rigid and ask for absurd discounts - at one point they wanted 60% discounts on a brand new drug!

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Wired123]

Interesting and thanks for posting.

But how did we end up in the situation of paying many times the price for liothyronine as, say, Germany?

How could Advanz have managed to get such a stupidly high price?

How come the NHS couldn't, it appears, acquire liothyronine from elsewhere - France, Germany, Greece, etc.?

[pennyannie]

Hello Izzywizzy and welcome to the forum :

I was diagnosed Graves back in 2003/4 and given RAI thyroid ablation the following year.

I was well on T4 - Levothyroxine for several years and then went downhill very fast and rferred to as a conundrum and started my learning curve on this forum around 6/7 years ago.

I was refused both T3 - Liothyronine and Natural Desiccated Thyroid ( Armour is the leading brand ) and now self medicate and buy my own full spectrum thyroid hormone replacement and arrange just a yearly private blood test myself more to check where my vitamins and minerals sit as I know that my brain is now turned on and an doing ok.

Desiccated Thyroid was the original successful treatment for hypothyroidism and contains all the same known hormones as that of the human gland and derived from pig thyroid dried and ground down into tablets referred to as grains, with each grain containing a measure of T3 and T4 thyroid hormones.

I too can't afford to go private as living on a single woman's pension though I paid into the system for 40 years I can't get any help for the end goal of a NHS treatment.

[izzywizzy7 in reply to pennyannie]

Hi PennyAnnie. I feel your pain. Paying NIN all these years and when you need support for the most basic issue, you get none and are told it's all ok on the tests. I hate this and I am not surprised so many people find their own ways to get NDT. If all fails, I may end up doing the same.

Take care.

[pennyannie in reply to izzywizzy7]

No worries I think when I joined Thyroid UK there were around 15 thousand members and now just scrolling up to the top of this screen I see we are now with 128 thousand !!

Now questioning myself - is my memory playing tricks on me - as this is about a 850% increase in around 8 years ????

Just out of interest what have you been diagnosed with Hashimoto's auto immune disease ?

How long did you try T4 levothyroxine for and did your NHS doctor / endocrinologist refuse any other treatment options for you and decided to jump ship - maybe we should add your private doctor to our list of recommended private specialist - though we can't openly discuss anyone by name on this open forum.

There is a PM section on the forum - the chat icon above lights up if people wish to contact you by Private Message.