Actavis gluten in Levo?

[ladydawny]

I am working hard to avoid gluten in my diet and before going on Levo I had less aches n pains and other 'phantom' symptoms. I had to go on it as i also couldn't tolerate enough t3 or ndt due to 2 types of anemia.

I am not happy that it is not listed whether gluten free or not for Levo on PIL when I'm spending extra time and money on my diet. RTH forum lists UK Actavis as having gluten and I only just found out. I already have bad guts and multiple deficiencies, surely it should be labelled?

Could you please confirm Actavis having gluten and what brand doesn't please?

thanks in advance

Dawnx

[boo16]

Hi, where exactly did you get your information from that Actavis contains gluten as non of the ingredients listed on the PIL are gluten containing ingredients, unless of course, they have been subjected to contamination? xx

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

All UK prescription medicines are gluten free. I posted a blog about this some time ago.

Of course, contamination is possible - but I suggest it is unlikely.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to helvella]

And what is RTH forum?

[ladydawny]

''I've taken Activis brand and believe it could have caused a gluten reaction. They apparently don't test their drugs for gluten anyway.'' is what I read, but them not testing for gluten caught my eye.

Sorry it doesn't actually say that it isn't gluten free, my mistake. Anyway I have my journal on there here is the link to the forum where I picked up the info which as I see was an opinion from a coeliac disease suffer as well as lists of other info on gluten and lactose stuff.

forums.realthyroidhelp.com/...

This is interesting even if not English how no gluten in the ingredients of the Abbot stuff but not guaranteed as gluten free?

celiac.com/gluten-free/topi...

I have to say that I don't feel that good on the Actavis stuff.

All UK prescriptions having to be gluten free is useful info, thanks.

Hugz to all who answered

Dawnx

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to ladydawny]

coeliac.org.uk/gluten-free-...

This link identifies the state of play. Note that gluten-free does NOT mean wheat-free.

[ladydawny]

Sorry forgot to put the link from the initial statement that caught my eye but the page is now missing from ThyroidUK

''I've taken Activis brand and believe it could have caused a gluten reaction. They apparently don't test their drugs for gluten anyway.'' is what I read, but them not testing for gluten caught my eye.

//thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/pages/treatment/hormone.html//

Out of date link edited by admin to avoid confusion

[RedApple Administrator in reply to ladydawny]

The link you have supplied is to a page on the main Thyroid UK website that has not existed for around a year now. So I'm puzzled as to how you found it at all (unless perhaps you saved it a year or more ago?).

I'm also puzzled because I've become very familiar with the content of the Thyroid UK website over the last few years, and don't recall ever seeing that text on the site at all.

[ladydawny in reply to RedApple]

''(unless perhaps you saved it a year or more ago?)''

LOL nooo. The link to Thyroid UK is on the link I gave you from realthyroidhelp site, I got it from there.

[RedApple Administrator in reply to ladydawny]

Ok, I've had a look at the post you've linked to and see now that it is a little confusing.

The Thyroid UK links on that RTH post are out of date (as I said by approx one year). It was the page that listed the ingredients of all UK makes of levothyroxine at the time.

The equivalent link on the current site is:

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/treatm...

Also, I think the text about Activis and gluten is a comment made by the person writing the post, rather than anything quoted from the website page. I can understand how you might have been confused!

[ladydawny in reply to RedApple]

Thanks ever so much for straightening that out for me

hugz

Dawny

[Hidden in reply to RedApple]

RA - Not even sure who RTH are - I probably need to contact them tomorrow then..!?

Louise

x

[RedApple Administrator in reply to Hidden]

It seems to be simply a forum and I couldn't see any obvious way of contacting anyone in particular. Probably not worth worrying about. There are always going to be 'out of date links' dotted around the 'net. Fact of cyber-life really I think

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

My blog about gluten-free status may be found here:

thyroiduk.healthunlocked.co...

[ladydawny]

cheers

[ladydawny]

Hi there again

before posting here other week I wrote to Actavis. Seems if it were a food they would have to at least test and trace to get GF on the pack.

In light of this email I don't feel sure it is always GF

''I understand you requested

information on the gluten content of the product. I hope the following information

is helpful.

We can confirm that the active and inactive ingredients of this product contain no

obvious sources of gluten.

However, we cannot guarantee that the product has not been in contact with

gluten during the manufacturing process as we have to rely on information from raw

material suppliers.

In addition to this, the excipients may also come from different manufacturing

sites.

The suppliers of the excipients could be different for different batches and,

therefore, we cannot guarantee that the information we currently have on our

information database applies to all batches. We are continuously improving our

systems in order to provide you with the best and most up to date information, but

it is difficult to keep all the information on one system.

The only way of getting as much information as possible on a particular batch is to

contact the raw material suppliers, which is a lengthy process and even then we

cannot guarantee that we will be able to get all the information from all the

suppliers.

[RedApple Administrator in reply to ladydawny]

Thanks for posting this (and for contacting Actavis about it). Their response is pretty much as I would expect.

I don't have a coeliac diagnosis, but have felt better for being gluten free (and low carb too) for the last few years. I personally would not be at all concerned about the remote possibility of gluten contamination in our (i.e. UK) thyroid meds. But we all have to make our own decisions I guess

Out of interest, have you also contacted the other major UK levo supplier, MercuryPharma about the GF status of their thyroxine?

[ladydawny]

No Redapple

Not as yet, I shall be contacting them, I only contacted Actavis because I was on their tabs and I didn't have the info at that time (which I did get off this site eventually). I wasn't expecting this answer to be honest after seeing how tight they are on food labelling after ThyroidUK said all UK scripts were guaranteed gluten free. The money big pharma has, you would think they could afford to check it out at least as well as a food company does, 20ppm is it?

I might be okay taking it I don't know, I would always wondered if I got glutened if it was those Now I need to write to Mercury yes and as I will be taking 25mcg also, that other one who I will write to when I get back to my pill bag.

take care

[RedApple Administrator in reply to ladydawny]

Just had a thought... you could join the coeliac forum here and ask what the members there think about gluten in UK levothyroxine. There are bound to be people there who are also on thyroid meds and would at least be able to share their thoughts and experiences.

Here's the link

glutenfreeguerrillas.health...

[ladydawny]

Thanks Red, I am actually a member but never thought to ask that there good idea