The September 2023 NHS Drug Tariff has been published and my blog has been updated. The tariff price for Liothyronine 5microgram tablets has increased to 12350 (from 12250).
Link to a blog post of Monthly NHS Drug Tariff prices for Liothyronine products from January 2023 onwards.
This is still scandalous, isn't it Rod? I recall Dr Toft opining that Lio costs around 5p a tab to produce. What is being done to prevent/reduce this price gouging, appreciating that the price has already reduced about a ton?
Looking at the current costs calculated per microgram of liothyronine helps illustrate how the price bears no relationship to the cost of the liothyronine itself.
A more than 10:1 ratio between least and most expensive oral product. And just leave the injections out of it entirely!
On the same sort of basis, Thybon Henning (within Germany) is less than 1.5 pence per microgram.
Prices of liothyronine per microgram - based on NHS Drug Tariff prices
This is nuts. It's almost as if pharma is in cahoots with medics, (or perhaps the other way around?) together with the constant reformulation/price hikes/discontinuation of various NDTs, compel hypos to take Levo. That sh*t is poison to me; 18 months worth following my diagnosis left me exhausted, 4st heavier and with joint pain almost everywhere. We're at least 20%, this cohort of people who don't do well on Levo and the constant stream of posts starting, e.g. 'I've been on blah mcg of Levo for 20 years and never felt well...' leads me to believe it's larger than 20%. I kid you not, Switzerland/.Dignitas beckon, if that's all that's going to be available for this wretched condition. 💔🤬
I’m with you on the 20%. It simply cannot be that small.
The stats I really want to see is what percent of people are on levo only, being treated by TSH + statins/antidepressants/metformin/BP meds/propanol/fertility treatments/PPIs/laxatives/etc. Because those numbers would actually tell us how many people are possibly being affected by under medication. That number wouldn’t even include those unlikely enough to not even be diagnosed! What a mess this all is.
I spent years on lithium + levothyroxine with a rock bottom T3, was told repeatedly by a Harley street endo no less that my thyroid was not relevant to my severe, relentless mental health conditions. I believed him, and untold numbers must also be believing their ignorant GP/endo like I did. I wish there were someone to sue, but the system is so incredibly mangled that there isn’t even anyone to blame.
...and I'm with you. My GP, Dr Buffoon told me to go away and rejoice, I was well, when I was at the very top of the TSH range, not the around or under 1 that Toft suggests. If my tw*t of a GP dares to question my alternative solution, I just don't know how I'll stop myself from giving him a vituperative barrage and getting barred and having to find another GP. Move? Done that twice, no change. Endocrinology is a relative newbie so far as treatment is concerned; just about 100 years old I think. In that time NDTs were used until the 60s/70s and to me, this is the story of the Netflix docudrama 'Painkiller' and the equally incisive Hulu 'Dopestick' ...the only difference is, that they're killing us more slowly. I've had a number of disappointments I've risen above in my 64 years, but this one lingers like a bad freaking smell and I'm beyond disgusted with it and the patronising misogyny of the medical profession.
the only difference is, they're killing us more slowly. 👏👏 and we don’t even get the recompense of a high from levo 🙃 A documentary about this scandal is surely incoming some day…
I barely bother with my GP, can’t even tell you their name as we are just given whoever is available. I self-treat now and have fallen on good luck with a local endo for hydrocortisone but am fully prepared to take over my own treatment should he withdraw it. Will never put my thyroid or adrenals in the hands of anyone else again if I can help it.
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