post your med questions here

Hi Emilee - in your intro post - you talked about doing well on Synthroid and your insurance co switching you to a generic. THAT IS NOT OK. There is a big difference in how our bodies respond to the different brands - and even though the "dose" may read the same, apparently how our bodies process it is not. Your doctor needs to write your prescription with "BRAND MEDICALLY NECESSARY". Insurance companies are not allowed to force you to change brands when your doc writes that on your prescription. It's not that one is necessarily better than the other - some people do better on Levoxyl than Synthroid. Armour is a combo med - contains T4 and T3. T4 is the prohormone - it needs to be converted to T3 (done at the cellular level) for your body to use it. Your thyroid also releases T3 (as well as a couple of other hormones). More on Armour and T3 later today Do you still have partial function of your thyroid? What dose are you on now? What kind of doctor is managing your thyroid meds? Family Practice? Ob/Gyn? Endocrinologist? Did your not feeling 100% start when you switched meds ? pregnant? same time? I've been working on the T3 info stuff - so your question came at a good time I should have more info up in a day or two

armourthyroid here is the link to the Armour site. Although Armour is made from pork thyroid - there is another combo drug that is beef thyroid. Caution - the armour site refers to Synthroid as "synthetic". Although it is man-made - it is bioidentical - chemically the same as the hormone produced in your body.

Don't settle. I know what you mean - but "relatively" better may not be the best that you can be (no ad intended ) I'm guessing that it could be a little tricky with the pregnancy, changing needs and all - and you are on a pretty good sized dose of thyroxine right now (not that it matters). With your mom having it too, I wonder if you have an autoimmune component? If you haven't already, it would be a very good idea to keep a folder with copies of your labs.

Hi Jen, Welcome! Glad to have you in the group. It sounds like you've been through a lot this year. I think the brand choice is a personal one. I know I didn't mind being on the generic when my levels were good, because I felt OK and couldn't see paying three times that much. Other people say that for thyroid the brand name is best. Neither doctor I've been to has agreed with that, but again if you get your levels balanced and still feel bad it might be worth switching. You can just ask you doctor to write "do not substitute" on the prescription. Yay, another grad student. RunningAhead is full of us! What are you studying? Cheryl and Joni are both away for awhile, they are really active in this group so it's been quiet lately. Hopefully they'll be back soon. Welcome again.

I'm working on my PhD in meteorology, studying turbulence within clouds. I am sooo ready to be done with school though! I just finished my masters in the spring, so I've got a few years to go. Our computer system where we store and process all of our data is called Artemis, kinda ironic

I am collaborating with an endocrinologist who treats a lot of thyroid patients. I talked to her about it this week. She said there can be up to a 25% difference in the bioavailability (how much gets into the blood stream) between Synthroid and the generics. She said she usually has her patients take the Synthroid. In my case, she recommended not switching, since I am probably on a higher dose than I would need on Synthroid and it would be hard to switch between the two at this point.

Running Mama - dosing can be tricky. It's possible that your dose is too high for you. Some of your symptoms don't sound typical of levoxyl side effects, but everyone is different. Call your doctor and tell him about your symptoms. Are you checking your HR? Have you noticed any changes? Heart rate is a pretty sensitive indicator when it comes to thyroid hormones and again - you have to compare to what is normal for you - as an athlete, you probably run a low HR anyways - that's why it's so important to monitor HR and note changes from your normal values when you are going through dose adjustments.

 

Hang in there - it is a slow process. Have faith, you will get better!