I finally got my family practitioner to agree to a
blood work up. Even through my therapist did blood
work less than a month ago and thinks the thyroid is
the problem. He says Armour Thyroid varies from dose
to dose so I cold actually get too much and this would
harm me and on the other hand the pill may not have
any medicine in it.

He said once upon a time they got insulin from cows
and it ended up killing patients so he is really into
synthetic drugs because they are made in a lab and the
dosage can be controlled. So my test is tomorrow
morning. If the results show that my thyroid is low he
will add cytomel to my synthroid. He says that Armour
Thyroid is not practicing good mainstream medicine so
he cannot and will not give this to me.

I have been taking my temperature every morning first
thing, Most days it run in the low 97.1 or 96.5 area,
but I told my doctor I have been on syntyroid and
levotyroxin since 1990 and I have only gotten worse
(now I am in my 30's) would it be so bad to try
something else. So he agreed to add cytomel to my
synthyroid depending on my results.

My hair has really thing out and brittle and broken
off, along with my nails, acne, dry skin and always
cold. I am tired all the time and can't lose weight
lose I work out and watch my calories and eat healthy
I have a personal trainer and a neutralist. The
doctor says it may not even be the thyroid then find
out please! So with that in mind group I need your
advice is there anything I should do tonight or add so
this young resident will get the picture.

Are there any foods I should stay away or add
tonight? I am taking the test first thing in the
morning 8:30am someone told me this is best time to
get an accurate result. Ohh by the way I get to the
endocrinologist the end of January. I think he won't
prescribe Armour Thyroid because the pharmacy is
totally against it and says it should be taken off the
market soon. Any suggestions will be greatly
appreciated.

Thank You Very Much,

Stacy Rockette

Stacy,
I don't really know of any questions you should ask, but there are a lot of people on this board who are very knowledgeable on this subject. I was just diagnosed this summer and the lack of energy, weight gain and other symptoms are so frustrating! Just wanted to let you know that it will get worked out and we are behind you!

He is incorrect, Stacy. He's not alone though, it's a common problem with doctors - they have all bought into the line of bull put out by the big pharamaceutical companies.

Ask him if he knows where Premarin comes from and if he ever prescribes it for his patients

This is from the Armour website:

What can you tell me about batch-to-batch consistency of
Armour™ Thyroid?

ANSWER
Armour™ Thyroid is made from desiccated (dried) pork thyroid glands. The amount of thyroid hormone present in the thyroid gland may vary from animal to animal. To ensure that Armour™ Thyroid tablets are consistently potent from tablet to tablet and lot to lot, analytical tests are performed on the thyroid powder (raw material) and on the actual tablets (finished product) to measure actual T4 and T3 activity.

Different lots of thyroid powder are mixed together and analyzed to achieve the desired ratio of T4 to T3 in each lot of tablets. This method ensures that each strength of Armour™ Thyroid will be consistent with the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) official standards and specifications for desiccated thyroid lot-to-lot consistency. The ratio of T4 to T3 equals 4.22:1 (4.22 parts of T4 to one part of T3).

What is interesting is that in the past few years the drug that has been pulled from the shelves because of inconsistencies in batches is the synthetic (t4). In fact they were only able to sell the synthetics because of a grandfathered clause; they only passed FDA regulations in the last few years (2002 July was when the last one was approved)

This is better than nothing, but again, he is WRONG in his facts (although telling him that probably won't help your case any)


Hopefully he is doing the right tests; has he ordered FT3 and FT4 blood draws? IF not then he's not going to have the information you need. Taking a T3 med w/o having the numbers (FT3) isn't a bright idea.

Here is a little more info on the differences between the various hypoT drugs:
http://www.bites-medical.org/hypo/med/comp.html
http://www.thyroid-info.com/drugs/

Tonight? No. But in general, there is a pretty exhaustive list.

Stacy, if you really want Armour then you're going to have to find a doctor who's enlightened and understands thyroid disease; this will most likely NOT be an endo or an internist. You want a naturopath or an osteopath; they are holistic in their approach and understand that often Armour (natural desiccated thyroid) is better. Most of us get nowhere with traditional doctors. You should have a look through the TopDoc list for one in your area.

Nat

Thank You so much guys

Great post Nat!

Wanda