If you were told that water wasn’t important to your well-being, and thus, if you want it, you will now need to pay a LOT more for it, would that make sense?
Nope. And neither does what Medicare has decided about Armour Thyroid.
Medicare is the government’s health insurance for those of you age 65 or older. It’s also available for those with certain disabilities, and for any age with permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant. And recently, the almighty Medicare has notified those using Medicare that it will no longer cover Armour. Why? Because it fits under medications considered “less than effective.” And poop on top of garbage…Medicare also recommends T4.
You have got to be kidding.
Armour thyroid is conclusively, adamently and overwhelmingly changing the lives of those who switch to it. Conversely, T4-only medications like Synthroid, Levoxyl and others have conclusively, adamently and overwhelmingly left most if not all hypothyroid patients with continuing hypothyroid symptoms of one degree or another. Yet, Medicare has dictated that an inferior treatment is the medication of choice and will be covered, and a medication that changes lives is not worth being on their formulary.
There is a pervasive madness going on out there.
Marie22 said:
Mar 05, 08 at 9:04 pmHi Janie — woman who saved my LIFE!
OK here is what I was discussing today with my mother and my doctor when he told me I would have to have a LAB TEST EVERY 3 MONTHS to get a prescription for a drug they know I am going to have to take the REST OF MY LIFE.
The most important aspect of this is that there is a statistic that says that 1 in 7 women of menopausal age plus has this problem, and in iodine-deficient areas the numbers rise to something like 1 in 3.
That makes hypothyroidism no longer an ABnormality but a STANDARD STATE for women of our age. (Although many of us were hypothyroid all our lives that doesn’t refute this argument, but only enhances it.)
It is robbery and abuse to force us to get a prescription to buy our meds every three months — meds that we need to live and work in a society that now REQUIRES us to work.
Our numbers are so huge that I believe we can get these laws changed if we organize and get started. We can also change these ridiculous prejudices against Armour if WE say en masse that WE, who have to be on this stuff just to stay ALIVE, want it.
I think we can do it. Of course you are elected to get it started. I don’t know what the h*** I’m doing although I have helped with campaigns in the past.
I wonder if we have to do this state to state — or are there federal laws that govern this?
I have no health insurance at the moment! Can you imagine what an expense getting a lab test is every month in addition to the doctor’s visit and the meds???
It’s just completely criminal.
Anyhow let me know what you want me to do to help. We HAVE to do this. These laws are SEXIST.
Tony said:
Mar 06, 08 at 3:44 pmFortunately, dessicated thyroid is inexpensive.
The real problem here is that Medicare Part D was legislated by Congress, who by definition are the worst ones to be deciding our health care. Plenty of aspects of the Part D formulary do not make sense.
Case in point: the anti-emetic promethazine (Phenergan) is not covered under Part D. This is because it is a Part B benefit when used for nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy. But, since it is not covered under Part D, the popular cough syrup Phenergan with Codeine (promethazine with codeine) is also NOT covered under Medicare at all (part B or D). Congressional intelligence at its finest.
Lori said:
Mar 07, 08 at 9:15 pmI like many others started to feel like I was going crazy!! My mother has suffered with thyroid issues for years and had settled into being mental unstable for years. We had no idea it was related to her thryoid. 1 year ago, I had my thryoid removed with radioactive Iodine because I was hyper. I have been in living hell for the last year. The doctor prescribed Synthroid and told me I was fine. That my thryoid was perfect. I kept telling her NO it is not! I felt 95% of the HYPO symptoms and 50% of the HYPER symptoms. So she would increase my Synthroid until I was reporting hyper on lab reports. I was so light headed that I would fall over all the time. My doctor told me I was having panic attacks and was depressed. I told her that my life at this time was better than ever and there was NO reason for me to be depressed. She prescribed multiple anti-depressants and anti anxiety drugs. My symptoms stayed. I would go to her office and cry and cry that I was sure it was my thryoid. She ordered me a Cat scan of my head to see if I had a brain tumor that caused me to be light headed and cause my new mental problems. I cried and screamed that these symptoms ONLY appeared after I had my thryoid removed. FINALLY I found your website one day searching for help. It describes me PERFECTLY! I started taking Armour thryoid and within 3 days my symptoms started to disappear!! Now 2 months into it, I say everyday, “OH I FEEL GREAT!” I had a doctor tell me that other day, that the symptoms were all in my head because there is NO way that Armour does that! She argued the exact same things that this website says.. that it is unreliable and inconsistent. Well, I feel that I will not survive without it! I feel like I owe YOUR site my life. I was quickly becoming less and less functioning. I have a family and a full time job. Thank you soooo much!!
bonnie said:
Mar 08, 08 at 1:31 pmThere are a number of websites for online petition hosting and I believe most allow you to mass mail to your contacts. I haven’t started one before so I don’t know if there are any costs involved or not. I would love to see you start an online petition Janie. I’d send it to everyone I know for sure. (There already exists one which I highly recommend you sign: http://www.intlhormonesociety.org/ Janie)
ibeji said:
Mar 11, 08 at 2:31 amWell, it’s not madness at work here, it’s just plain ol’ economical interest.
And if you wonder: Well yes, there actually IS something that all of us can do about it:
The rapidly-growing, third-major endocrine society in the world, the IHS (International Hormone Society), co-founded by Dr. Thierry Hertoghe from Belgium, who treats patients from all over the world in his practice located in Brussels, and who is, among other things, president of the World Society of Anti-Ageing Medicine, actually fights FOR us all; for labwork not based only on the TSH and on misleading reference ranges, but at least as much on symptoms and clinical signs, and therapies that do not treat us with synthetic T4 only, which keeps most of us ill and fat, but with natural hormones (like Armour), and by also taking into account other hormonal and nutritional deficiencies, and toxins.
The more people join (it’s free), the more weight our demands for this kind of much more adequate treatment will have. The more people join, the better the chances are also to fend off legal attacks against doctors who try to help us, like the one recently against Dr. Skinner in the UK (see http://www.tpa-uk.org.uk/skinner_hearing_transcripts.php), and like the one (unfortunately successful) against Dr. Peatfield, also from the UK, who BTW authored the book “Your Thyroid and How to Keep It Healthy: The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Survive It”. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Because if we let the medical establishment (including the pharmaceutical companies) have their way, other doctors who might be inclined to help us will be scared off to do so, because they risk their license to practice and therefor their only means for earning their lives.
Thanks to Dr. Hertoghe (main witness of defense), the testimony of Dr. Skinner’s patients and the weight of the IHS behind them, Dr. Skinner was allowed to continue practicing, despite him not following the generally accepted guidelines for treating hypothyroidism in the UK (only with a TSH > 10!).
So please make your voice heard and vote for your treatment of choice by joining the IHS! http://intlhormonesociety.org/) The IHS is not funded by any pharmaceutical group, and I’m also not financially involved in it in any way. I am just a patient of Dr. Hertoghe like many of us. And I have to testify that after 10 years of being left untreated, being treated according to a wrong diagnosis, being undertreated and refused treatment, Dr. Hertoghe ended my misery and gave me back my life.
So please help yourself and all your fellow patients, so that more doctors like Dr. Hertoghe become the majority, not the exception, available to all, be they insured privately, publicly or not at all (Dr. Hertoghe has been training some 700 physicians in his own practice during the last years, and gives seminars etc. to about 1000 physicians a year).
Let’s make a difference!
teresa said:
May 20, 08 at 7:08 amperhaps if forest labs would advertise on t.v. to promote armour thyroid, more people would become aware of it’s existence. we are bombarded with ads for recently patented meds for arthritis, diabetes, vaccines for young women and osteoporosis, many of which list possible side effects of stroke, heart attack and death. it seems people respond to these in spite of this incredible danger, yet, safe and effective meds seem absent from this powerful medium. anyone else have info or thoughts on this idea?