If you’ve been following along with this series on how Armour Thyroid Medication was reformulated, you’ll know that it came as a surprise to patients, including myself, that a medication could simply be reformulated without informing patients, physicians or pharmacists. So, to pick up after the last update, I had a resurgence of all the hypo-thyroid symptoms that I had previously been managing so well while on the naturally desiccated thyroid hormone, Armour Thyroid, and found out that Forest Laboratories, the drug company producing Armour Thyroid had changed the fillers. Since I was obviously not doing well on the new reformulation, the new task at hand became on what to do about replacing Armour Thyroid.
First of all, it’s not that easy to change medications. Especially, if you’re taking a naturally desiccated or non-synthetic thyroid hormone. Most doctors, especially if they don’t have a good understanding of thyroid issues, or simply believe everything that their drug rep tells them, will prescribe a synthetic medication which contains only T4 hormone. Other synthetic hormone preparations may have only T3, but the bottom line is that your body produces both T3 and T4, so many thyroid patients will do better taking a medication that more closely resembles the hormones that your body would produce naturally if it could do so. The other argument that some medical practitioners use is that they will tell patients that it is perfectly acceptable to take a synthetic T4 hormone supplement only because the thyroid gland will convert some of the synthetic T4 to T3. This is a problem for many of us with thyroid disorders because if you are relying on an already malfunctioning thyroid gland to do conversions of hormones for you, it can be problematic to expect that you will get the proper conversions with a thyroid gland that is not working optimally. Not to mention the fact if you talk to a group of thyroid patients, most likely the ones most satisfied with their treatment are those who are taking non-synthetic type/s of hormone replacement. Not all, because the thyroid is a complex organ, and of course, everyone’s body is different, thus the need to adjust dosages and pay attention to patient’s symptoms. But most patients I have interviewed and the thousands of news group postings online seem to reflect a common denominator in that most will feel much better by taking a naturally desiccated thyroid hormone.
Alright, we’ll talk more about the different types of naturally desiccated thyroid hormones in another segment, but for this time, we’re going to focus on Nature-Throid™. After finding out that the thyroid medication that I relied on every day to keep me functioning no longer worked, I got busy and found that there were many thyroid patients who were switching over to Nature-Throid. So I called my pharmacists and explained the situation and found out that because Nature-Throid and Armour are essentially the same active ingredients, that they could most likely just refill my prescription with Nature Throid without my having to schedule another doctor’s visit. My pharmacy actually ended up making a call to my doctors office for me and my doctor just went ahead and wrote out a new prescription and faxed it to the pharmacy and I was able to pick up my new Nature-Throid medication the very next day. It took some adjustment in order to get my dosage correct. Even though theoretically, the Nature Throid is the same “active” ingredients because it has different fillers my body does process it differently and I am now taking 1/4 of a grain less than what I was taking using the Armour Thyroid. But so far, it’s been a few weeks and things are finally getting back to normal in terms of my energy, memory and other symptoms. And no more headaches which is great.
As always if you’re on any type of medication, make sure to listen to the signals your body is telling you and don’t ignore any new side effects even if you think that it “couldn’t be an issue with your medication” because you’ve taken it for years.
And no, there’s not a mis-spelling with the words “Nature-Throid” . The “y” has been left off the word Thyroid, so please make note of this if you’re trying to have your pharmacy order it in for you if it is not in stock and you want to try it as an alternative to Armour Thyroid.
jeaton79
Synthroid Haters 
Fortunately I go to a clinic where the doctor I used to see was a naturopath. The nurse who took over for him when he left is very amenable to change. LOL I got my Rx for NatureThroid simply by calling the office to tell them that my pharmacy said Armour was out of stock (which they did tell me) nationwide. Voila. I think the first thing people should do is call the doc and say my Synthroid is not working please call in something for NatureThroid. I’ve been on it for two days and I already feel better.
One more thing. Thyroid should be considered a disease not a disorder.