Having recently switched from Teva brand to trying out Mercury brand due to acquiring a very "dodgy" stomach/bowel response with Teva, I was wondering how long other folks have found it takes to restore the health of your gut microbiome?
I regularly consume live, commercially produced kombucha and natural yoghurt - at least one of either of these every day. I also eat a diverse and fibre-rich vegetarian diet, which I've always done, and have upped my vigilance with regard to being gluten-free. I could probably do better on the "ultra-processed foods" front (I LOVE my packets of crisps!) but my "bowel symphonies" show no sign of abating after 11 days on Mercury brand.
Does anyone have any experience of coming off the Teva brand? Could Mercury also have an excipient that causes problems? I was fine on Wockhardt, which was what I started on at 25 micrograms per day.
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Could Mercury also have an excipient that causes problems?
That sounds very plausible - (apart from the crisps*) you seem to treat your gut very well. (*my motto is 'moderation' in all things, so treat yourself only every now and then)
You're absolutely right with your motto. To be fair... it's one (multi-pack) packet per day - I have no idea if that's a lot in the grand scheme of things, but is much more than the one packet per week as a treat that my brother and I were allowed as children 😆
I was diagnosed with colits/lactose intolerant after 12 awful days in hospital in 2015, it took me around a year to find my trigger foods, I went totally dairy free due to the lactose and found my sweet spot... Keep away from cheese, bread, wheat ect.
This sorted my bowels /stomach out, and apart from 2 blips (wedding buffet and a birthday party buffet🤮 I maintained good stomach /bowle health, that was until I went hyperthyroid and we're put on anti thyroid drugs.. After around 4 days I started to notice all my bad bowle /stomach problems had returned, I immediately thought.. "what the heck have I eaten" but my diet had not changed it was in fact the anti thyroid drugs I couldn't stomach them, had full thyroidectomy in 2019 thought that's that, but we're put on thyroid drugs T4 same thing happened to my gut/stomach and this has been going on since 2019 🤦♀️ I'm now on T3 with much the same symptoms... Bad stomach pain, burning sensation when taking the drug, diarrhea, cramping, inflammation in the bowles.
It's hell but my surgery just keep giving me the run around chopping and changing the thyroid drug.
I know it's the fillers causing the problem because when I come off the drug all the symptoms go, when I go back on they all come back... So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to workout it's the flipping drug😠.
Ive been on so many I've lost count, I'm now on Roma, teva was by far the worst I'd ever been on... Both T4 teva and T3 teva but Roma are still giving me the gut issues to🤦♀️🤮
When I’ve changed brand it usually takes a couple of weeks for things to settle. Could there have been another cause for your discomfort?
I’d recommend cutting out dairy if your intestinal flora is out of kilter as you can develop temporary dairy intolerance (I always have issues after antibiotics). Trying homemade water kefir for a couple of months then switching to homemade milk kefir and half a teaspoon of blue cheese a day can help reseed the good bacteria. Even blue cheese alone can help but start with small quantities.
Thank you - sounds like I need to be a bit more patient as it hasn't been two weeks yet.
I have wondered if there is (also?) something else going on, and radd also suggests below that the Teva could be a red herring. I haven't had any antibiotics... and I'm dreading the possibility of a dairy intolerance - my love of cheese is almost on a par with my love if crisps! On that point, it's music to my ears to hear you suggest small amounts of blue cheese, which I will definitely try 😊
In my estimation, based almost entirely on what posters here have found and said, there are three excipients which are most likely to cause issues. Lactose, mannitol and acacia.
Which is why I include a little chart in my UK medicines document.
Personally, Teva upset my stomach - even when it was just a tiny part of my daily dose. And, while I am not lactose intolerant, I prefer Aristo (Vencamil) which has none of these three excipients.
helvella's medicines documents (UK and Rest of the World) can be found here:
helvella - Thyroid Hormone Medicines
helvella has created, and tries to maintain, documents containing details of all thyroid hormone medicines in the UK and, in less detail, many others around the world.
This link takes you to a page which has direct links to the documents from Dropbox and Google Drive, and QR codes to make it easy to access from phones.
The UK document contains up-to-date versions of the Summary Matrix for tablets, oral solutions and liothyronine available in the UK.
Thank you very much helvella ! I used your document to find some different brands to suggest to my local dispensing pharmacist who is very open to be collaborative. I had intended to ask for Accord - but the name went out of my head (damned brain fog!) and all I could recall was Mercury. I'll enquire about Aristo as well.
In fact, I also intended to thank you, heartily, for all your "heavy lifting" in your medicines document - the scope and detail are awesome and I REALLY appreciate all that you've done there! Thank you 🙏
Good news! I know this wasn’t your question but I recently listened to a podcast with Tim Spector where he said if crisps are good quality and made with olive oil and minimal salt and have the skin on - they are not UPFs and therefore fine to eat occasionally! 😊 it was a Zoe Science and Nutrition podcast but I can’t remember the exact one…
Your diet sounds good and if foundations are already there, the gut generally responds rapidly once the intolerance is removed.
Have you considered the Teva issue was in fact a red herring and you had developed some other gut issue which are notoriously common in hypothyroidism.
Have you tried adding any probiotics? My go to S-Boulardi and/or Culterelles lactobacillus rhamnosus but be aware some issues can be made worse by adding certain probiotics.
Thank you, radd. You've hit on one of my concerns... that there is something else going on that just happened to coincide with switching to Teva.
I've never tried specifically taking probiotics - other than the types of products I mentioned - but it might be something I have to consider. It's too embarrassing to go on with this level of gassiness and bloating! Many thanks for your culture recommendations.
If a patient reports persistent symptoms when switching between different levothyroxine tablet formulations, consider consistently prescribing a specific product known to be well tolerated by the patient.
Physicians should: 1) alert patients that preparations may be switched at the pharmacy; 2) encourage patients to ask to remain on the same preparation at every pharmacy refill; and 3) make sure patients understand the need to have their TSH retested and the potential for dosing readjusted every time their LT4 preparation is switched (18).
Thank you very much indeed, SlowDragon. I hadn't considered that it might be related to the dose increase and had mainly focussed on the excipients/fillers, etc. That's very interesting. I think I will be due one more increase in the near future as it's coming up to eight weeks and nothing has really improved. I'll be booking bloods tests (NHS and private in a week or so's time). So it will be interesting to see what happens if the dose goes up again.
I did mention that I was fine on Wockhardt when I phoned the GP surgery and they have written "Wockhardt brand please" in the body of the text on the prescription - which I've seen from other posts on here actually needs to be in the header of the prescription. They've also only written 50 micrograms - so the pharmacists wanted to specifically supply tablets of that size rather than 2 x 25.
I'm of a mind to make sure I can go back to Wockhardt specifically. 😊
If you were fine on Wockhardt, then ask your GP to stipulate that brand on your prescription. Don’t forget that Wockhardt only make 25 mcg tablets so it will have to stipulate the number of tablets you require for any given dose. I take 100 mcg per day on a two month prescription written as 224 x 25 mcg Wockhardt Brand etc.
Thank you very much, Gingernut44 - that's really very helpful. It's great to have the information about EXACTLY what needs to be written on the prescription so the pharmacists can dispense without "fear of reprisal" or whatever.
I have IBS so when I first started on Levo in 2020 I got given Lloyds Chemist own brand, Northstar, this caused me bloating and cramps so I switched to Accord. However on joining this forum I found Accord made Northstar for Lloyds, which is very weird. Mercury made me itch, it contains Acacia powder which might be an issue for some.
Just a heads up commercially made probiotics like Kefir and Kombucha have to be pasteurised to remove potentially dangerous bacteria by law, however this process can also destroy gut friendly strains as well so how much is actually remaining is anyone's guess. I make my own kefir at home so its 100% potent.
Oh good Lord! Thank you Sparklingsinshine. Your reply has actually added another piece to the jigsaw... I, too, have started some weird itching that I've never had before. Around my knee joints - front and back - I'm really itchy, and last night the tops of my feet flared up itching. So maybe that answers my question about Mercury also having a suspect ingredient (maybe!).
Many thanks, also, for the heads up re: commercial kombucha. I'm hoping that there's enough "helpful" bacteria still surviving that they do *some* good, at least. I'm a bit too risk-averse to try growing any of my own bacteria cultures... but maybe I should "woman up" and give it a go 😆
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