February 20, 2010

As the one grain tabs of Natu­reth­roid desic­ca­ted thy­roid by RLC Labs are hit­ting phar­macy shel­ves again all across the nation here and there after the recent shor­ta­ges and the sad refor­mu­la­tion of Armour,  and patients are star­ting to use the new Natu­reth­roid, we are gathe­ring some good infor­ma­tion, both anec­do­tal and factual:

  • The typi­cal smell of desic­ca­ted por­cine is less intense with the new tablets. We have no idea why.
  • The tablets are now stam­ped with RLC on one side, and N over 1 on the other, whe­reas before you’d see just NT1 or a refe­rence to the fact that Time Caps Labs (TCL) used to make Natu­reth­roid for RLC Labs
  • The pac­kage insert is no lon­ger inside the bottle but stuck on top of the cap
  • Lot num­ber info used to be on the edge of the label run­ning ver­ti­cally, whe­reas now, it runs along the bot­tom of the label  under the ingredients.

One grain is still 65 mg, with the T3 con­tent being at 9 mcg and the T4 con­tent being at 38 mcg.  The T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin still unmeasured.

There are filler/inactive ingre­dients which have changed:

  • Cal­cium filler has moved up from 16 mg to 17 mg (cal­cium binds thy­roid, but you just take more. Don’t swa­llow it with milk, please.)
  • The old con­tai­ned Mag­ne­sium, Potas­sium, and Sodium (each at less than 1 mg), whe­reas in the new, potas­sium is now removed
  • And here’s the best part: the old NT had Hydro­propyl Methylcellu­lose – that’s the lar­ger size cellu­lose struc­ture which we know binds some of the thy­roid hor­mo­nes. Now, the new NT has Microcrys­ta­line Cellu­lose, the sma­ller size. (Too bad we can’t see all cellu­lose removed!)

Below are the new NT fillers, which are iden­ti­cal to the old except for the cellu­lose change:

Car­naba Wax, Colloi­dal Sili­con Dio­xide, Dical­cium Phosphate, Hypro­me­llose, Lac­tose Monohy­drate, Mag­ne­sium Stea­rate, Mic­rocrys­ta­line Cellu­lose, Pol­yethy­lene Gly­col (PEG)-400, Sodium Starch Gly­co­late, Stea­ric Acid.

Most all the above comes cour­tesy of Stepha­nie Buist, owner of the Iodine group on Yahoo and thy­roid and adre­nal patient and advo­cate.  Thank you, Steph!  You can read about the fillers here by scro­lling down.

Oh and by the way, the new tablets are now sco­red. A help­ful addition!

In patient groups, we are seeing a variety of expe­rien­ces with the new Natu­reth­roid.  Most folks seem happy with it so far, and even some report it seems a tad stron­ger than the old (the cellu­lose change may have cau­sed that). Occa­sio­nally, someone will report pro­blems, but they appear to be from under­do­sing or a poten­tial RT3 pro­blem which has ari­sen and needs treat­ment with T3-only.  Chan­ging brands can also bring dif­fe­rent reac­tions, so you have to wig­gle the dosage around some­ti­mes to find your sweet spot once again.

All in all, it looks good.

P.S. If you are rea­ding this via the News­let­ter Noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the above link to put your­self right on the actual blog post if you want to com­ment. Let’s gather all our expe­rien­ces with the new Naturethroid.

********************************************

If you mis­sed the last inter­net radio Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call with Dr. Kent Hol­torf, you mis­sed a VERY good one. Thank you Dr. Hol­torf for exce­llent infor­ma­tion. But good news! All the shows are recor­ded.  Just go to the follo­wing link, scroll down, and you can click on any past inter­views, inc­lu­ding two with Dr.  John C. Lowe and a great one with Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist Dr Pep­per – one of a rare breed of open-minded Endos.  (I’ve also stop­ped doing my long intro’s about me in the last two, figu­ring if someone wants to know, they can go to the About Me page, or read the Intro­duc­tion in the book which has even more detail. lol.)

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

  • Want to keep track of these “fringe web­site” blog posts? ;-) Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the noti­fi­ca­tion on the lower left of the links, called a News­let­ter, or an RSS Feed.
  • The extre­mely hip and sophis­ti­ca­ted STTM t-shirts are half price! Great BUMPER STICKERS, too. Spread the word – YOU may make a dif­fe­rence in someone’s life.
  • Check out the patient-to-patient book with even more detail (and which doc­tors seem to res­pect more than websites).
  • Need to unders­tand all your best options for thy­roid treat­ment? Go here.
  • Keep infor­med of each live Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe by sig­ning up as a follo­wer.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 and is filed under hypothyroidism, naturethroid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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27 Responses to “Here’s the skinny about the “new” Naturethroid: the good, the bad, and the curious”

  1. Jan said:

    Feb 20, 10 at 3:49 pm

    So basicly what you are sying is that Nature-Throid has also been reformulated?

    (From Janie: perhaps, but not with the nega­tive con­no­ta­tion that we got with Armour)

  2. Michele said:

    Feb 20, 10 at 5:09 pm

    After fin­ding Armore was chan­ged (and due to shor­ta­ges) I had a month or two on Natu­reth­roid which was great…had to go to new Armore for a month…and felt myself go slowly down hill…and just got Natu­reth­roid again. I have to say I’ve been sur­pri­sed at it not wor­king as well as before…thought… something is dif­fe­rent I think…I seem to need more…will see how that goes…pleeeeassse!

  3. Carol G. said:

    Feb 20, 10 at 6:30 pm

    I see in the ingre­dients that there is lac­tose monohy­drate in Natu­reth­roid. From what I could find it appears that is a milk deri­va­tive. Being aller­gic to milk pro­ducts I always have to won­der why they would put milk deri­va­tive in medi­cine?? I did bet­ter on Natu­reth­roid than the new Armour but still not near as good as I did on the old Armour. Now I’m on com­poun­ded and aching all over…after rea­ding this I’m thin­king I need to find out what they are put­ting as filler in my com­poun­ded. Thanks for the infor­ma­tion it’s been very helpful.

  4. annie phenix said:

    Feb 20, 10 at 8:27 pm

    I haven’t done well on Natu­reth­roid since I switched from the new Armour last sum­mer. I had seve­ral hypo symp­toms come back

    I am now trying com­poun­ded Armour and so far so good. The only filler the phar­macy put in was aci­dopho­lis. I am sick to read that the makers of Natu­re­troid put a milk deri­va­tive in it as I can’t have milk/caseins either. Maybe that is why I haven’t done well on Natu­reth­roid? I very much appre­ciate your poin­ting that out, Carol G.

  5. Lethal Lee said:

    Feb 21, 10 at 5:40 am

    (From Janie: Hi Lethal. I think you mis­read the infor­ma­tion. They state they only switched from methyl to micro, not inc­rea­sed it. But it’s too bad that any has to be in there at all. Agreed.)

    Mic­rocrys­ta­line Cellu­lose is also the SAME type of cellu­lose that is in in Armour.

    The recent Armour refor­mu­la­tion redu­ced Dex­trose & INCREASED the Mic­rocrys­ta­line Cellu­lose con­tent and THAT cau­sed all the pro­blems we are all well aware of.

    Why then is the Mic­rocrys­ta­line Cellu­lose in the NT any dif­fe­rent? Why would they inc­rease Cellu­lose at all when they are aware of the Armour fiasco?
    http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2009/11/11/is-cellulose-the-real-problem/
    See blog

    One per­son has com­men­ted that new NT is chal­kier & you say it smells less piggy too. Doesnt this sound just like the com­ments made for new Armour?

    Avi­cel is a brand of Mic­rocrys­ta­line Cellu­lose & is often used in the com­poun­ded NTH (cer­tainly the case in Aus­tra­lia). That is cer­tainly problematic.

    In fact on RTH we are advi­sing folks to avoid cellu­lose of any kind. Much bet­ter to have Aci­dophi­lus for example.

    As far as Lac­tose goes ALL NTH meds inc­lu­ding com­poun­ded, con­tain trace amounts of it. It is in the Thy­roid USP pow­der itself.

    See..

    ■Lac­tose Monohy­drate — tra­cea­ble amount as part of desic­ca­ted thy­roid pow­der USP
    http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/armour-vs-other-brands/

  6. Sally said:

    Feb 21, 10 at 11:42 am

    Am just star­ting on com­poun­ded and they switched filler for me to bio­fla­vi­noid. Hoping it works well and i will feel well.
    Did not know about the trace Lac­tose in Thy­roid USP pow­der.
    All very inte­res­ting. THank you!

  7. Jenny said:

    Feb 21, 10 at 7:02 pm

    So is lac­tose added as a filler a pro­blem or not? I just called my com­poun­ding phar­macy, and they said they don’t add cellu­lose but use lac­tose as the filler. They argued that there was abso­lu­tely no pro­blem with lac­tose as a filler. Does it bind with the thyroid?

  8. Meg said:

    Feb 22, 10 at 4:30 am

    @Sally
    As com­poun­ded has recently become an option in Nor­way (alliance apo­tek), I’m inte­res­ted in fillers.
    Do you know what it is, the bio­fla­vi­noid your far­macy is using?
    Thanks!
    :) meg

  9. Nickie said:

    Feb 22, 10 at 9:09 am

    I was only on Nature-throid for a short time but I didn’t see too much of a dif­fe­rence but have tal­ked to someone who had really bad side effects and actually felt worse than she did before she star­ted on Armour — said all her symp­toms came back. She is now on the com­poun­ded des­si­ca­ted thy­roid and had a pro­blem adjus­ting to that for the first week and now doing great. Maybe it’s just that the body has to get adjus­ted to the new thy­roid sup­ple­ment. I am doing much bet­ter on the natu­ral des­si­ca­ted thy­roid from the com­poun­ding phar­macy than I did on the Nature-throid and I’m also aller­gic to cow milk so I’m glad I have the option to use the com­poun­ded product.

  10. valerie said:

    Mar 04, 10 at 9:34 am

    the new NT is wor­king bet­ter for me…first time ive seen my basal temp inc­rease in over 9 months…l think the new stuff is an improvement!…Val

  11. linda from scotland said:

    Mar 05, 10 at 9:31 am

    i was sent my nature thy­roid from the sta­tes over 2 weeks ago,and for some strange rea­son it has not yet arrived,in desperation,ilooked up a site selling gene­ric armour-can anyone advise me on either of thes points or both?

  12. Marion said:

    Mar 11, 10 at 12:40 am

    I am on the new NT since two weeks and not fee­ling so great.Could it be that the FDA for­ces these com­pa­nies to ad fillers that make Armour and NT not work well any­more so they will have a good rea­son to dis­con­ti­nue all of the natu­ral Thy­roid meds and force us to take the che­mi­cal ones which will cause so many other pro­blems that we will end up having to take other meds to deal with all the new pro­blems? Since Juli 09 I have been so sick and switched to 5 dif­fe­rent meds, all natu­ral thy­roid from pigs or com­poun­det and nothing wor­ked as well as the old Armour.
    I have wan­ted to not live any­more if this is going to be how I feel for the rest of my life.Why can’t we get the old Armour back so we can feel great again?

  13. Marie said:

    Mar 11, 10 at 6:09 pm

    What is your thoughts of using Natu­res Source Natu­ral Thy­roid when I was on Armour Natu­ral Thy­roid for many years 2 gr. Now the Natu­ral has the addi­tion of Kelp and Adre­nal Gland and Pitui­tary Gland…I am lac­tose into­lle­rant and aller­gic to Milk and Penicy­lin and Eryth­romy­cin (if that means anything — not sure). I found that I could not get any thy­roid medi­ca­tion at all from any phar­macy and was told to go to a com­poun­ding shop, but without insu­rance, it would cost me 4 X as much, so had no choice but to switch to Natu­ral Thy­roid. I mean, we are told never go without our thy­roid and the pharmacy’s left us out in the cold. What kinds of pro­blems are ever­yone experiencing…I have been achy and just plain awful…and dis­tant and no sex drive. I had an acci­dent that cau­sed me to have near adrea­nal fai­lure, so thought the adre­nal sup­port would be a good thing. Thoughts?

  14. p lindsay said:

    Mar 12, 10 at 11:57 am

    i have been on nature throid for over a year. switching for the bet­ter from armour. i recently got a new presc­rip­tion sent to me for the new nature throid. it defi­ni­tely is not wor­king as good as the old nature throid and i am now expe­rien­cing symp­toms of fati­gue and cold. i tried taking a higher dose and it didnt make a bit of dif­fe­rence. not sure what to do now and it is very frus­tra­ting. i did email rlc labs and told them what i am expe­rien­cing. i think ever­yone should let them know if they are fin­ding it isnt wor­king as well for them.

  15. valerie said:

    Mar 20, 10 at 9:10 am

    gosh l hate to say this…ITS NOT WORKING…how do l know..cold…low temps…blah blah blah blah blah…we all know the drill…so here is another pro­duct that doesnt work…AND l do not believe the FDA is not behind it…thats 2 com­pa­nies now and the only 2 we have..that have chan­ged their pro­duct for the worse…what sane busi­ness per­son would ever do that on purpose…dont care what the FDA says…l live in Cali­for­nia where the fede­ral govt has tur­ned the water off on thou­sands of far­mers for over a year now…and are now extor­ting votes for the health­care bill with a pro­mise of tur­ning it back on.…we are being black­mai­led by our fede­ral govt…so l do not believe the FDA…what is the first let­ter in their name…FEDERAL as in FEDERAL GOVT

    (From Janie: it’s a toss up, as many other folks are repor­ting the new Natu­reth­roid to work well once they get past the ini­tial intro­duc­tion in the use of Natu­reth­roid and adjust their adre­nal treat­ment, if nee­ded, so hope­fully it will take just a raise for you or cor­ti­sol if needed.)

  16. p lindsay said:

    Mar 23, 10 at 12:00 pm

    i am almost out of my old natu­reth­roid pills which do work and will have to start taking my new batch again so we will see.
    i emai­led RLC labs with my con­cerns and i havent got­ten a reply. it has been almost 2 weeks.

  17. Libby said:

    Apr 04, 10 at 9:02 pm

    After about 16 years of T4-only, switched to T3-only at the end of Decem­ber 2009 due to an RT3 pro­blem (take it sublin­gually). Just star­ted to switch to des­si­ca­ted thy­roid and took my first Natu­reth­roid (new for­mula) sublin­gually and it was “very” chalky, took a long time to dis­solve (little over an hour), and didn’t com­ple­tely dis­solve. Not thri­lled with it, but anything is bet­ter than the thought of going back to T4-only! Is the new Natu­reth­roid sup­po­sed to be bet­ter than the old formula?

  18. Priscilla said:

    Apr 06, 10 at 1:09 am

    The new NT is not wor­king as well as the old. I guess I will have to use non-US meds from now on. I’m not loo­king for­ward to it.

  19. Mila said:

    Apr 20, 10 at 8:13 am

    I love this site and all of you. I am an NTH yahoo group vete­ran and have been goo­gling my eyes out all mor­ning trying to decide whether or not to leave ERFA for skin erup­tions and go to Nature-throid — and ended up right here back at Janie’s LOL.
    After not being able to reach Nature-throid (at all) yet was able to speak to someone at Erfa (AND a staff doc­tor is calling me back) — and rea­ding all your posts, I have made the deci­sion to stay put on the erfa and find some other skin reme­dies.
    Have a won­der­ful week!

  20. Hilary said:

    Apr 25, 10 at 9:53 am

    Wake Up and Smell the Refor­mu­la­tion! Holy Hypo. Temps plun­ging, hair falling out, brain fog, mood in the tank. What’s up? Oh, here’s a week old refill of my awe­some Natu­reth­roid. Hmmm…let’s Goo­gle refor­mu­la­tion. Bam, here I am. What, there’s no obli­ga­tion for them to tell you the for­mula is chan­ging? Just the old switche­roo, again! Boy, did I get into this natu­ral thy­roid game at the wrong time. After my DX, tried levo for one year until I switched to Armour. I had one month of fee­ling great on the Old Armour until my first refill of New Armour. Now this! I KNOW it’s the refor­mu­la­ted Natu­reth­roid that’s not wor­king for me. I had a small stash of Westh­roid, and after taking them for one day, my recent sto­mach and IBS trou­bles went away along with all my other hypo symp­toms. Too bad I only have a few more. Now it’s on to Erfa. I’m pis­sed, but hope­ful. Thanks Janie and ever­yone for the scoop, which you can only find here.

  21. Hilary said:

    Apr 26, 10 at 1:33 pm

    Update: I orde­red the Erfa from universaldrugstore.com ($20 for 100 60mg…I’m psyched!) AND com­poun­ded desic­ca­ted thy­roid with aci­dophi­lus from Hook’s in Indiana. One of those HAS to work, right? Thank good­ness I have a good doc­tor who let call in both RXs today! She’s also on natu­ral thy­roid (Armour) so she unders­tands. New Armour was just OK for me but after the shor­tage when I star­ted Natu­reth­roid, it was a huge improvement…until last week when I got the refor­mu­la­tion. I take it orally in the a.m. then sublin­gual in the after­noon and although it dis­sol­ved just fine with a bit of sugar or sublin­gual B12, it wasn’t wor­king at all for me. In the 4 months I was on Natu­reth­roid (plus low carb, exer­cise, blah blah) I finally was able to lose 12 of the 25 pounds I gai­ned when going hypo and I don’t want it back. So until I get my new RXs, I’m mor­tar and pest­ling my brains out to pul­ve­rize that evil cellu­lose and rot­ten little fillers. No offen­sive to those of you that are doing good on the new NT! Cheers to you! I wish I was too!

  22. ellen said:

    Apr 28, 10 at 10:30 am

    hi. i’m on the new armour, pul­ve­ri­zing etc, but what a pain! i like the zip in the am, and didn’t get that on Natu­reth­roid, but my temps still low and tired in pm. Can we tell the com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies what we want in the com­pound. If so, what would be the clo­sest thing to the ori­gi­nal armour? ellen

    (From Janie: Erfa is the clo­sest to the old Armour. Yes, you can tell com­poun­ders, via a doc­tors presc­rip­tion, what you want. Just unders­tand whether you are get­ting des. thy­roid or synthe­tic T4 and T3. Ellen, are you sure you are on enough thy­roid meds?)

  23. Denice said:

    Jun 18, 10 at 3:05 pm

    I went from synth­roid to Naturth­roid in Aug 2009, it took 3 months to get though it but see­med worth it — until I ran out of natu­reth­roid and went on a com­pound — that cau­sed all kinds of reac­tions, finally got the new natu­rethoid and my heart has been having all kinds of pro­blems from racing to palp­ta­tions. Wor­king with doc to change dose, but the only thing that seems to help is to con­ti­nue to add levo. I am about to give up on the natu­reth­roid.
    Anyone else having heart issues on the new natu­reth­roid? Will crushing it stop the heart issues?

    (From Janie: Yes, crushing it and adding a bit of honey or sugar defi­ni­tely helps. See my other blog posts below this ear­lier this year. If you con­ti­nue to have palps after a week of doing that, you either have low cor­ti­sol and/or low ferri­tin that needs dis­co­very and treat­ment. Patient groups can help you: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/talk-to-others Adding Levo is simply mas­king the pro­blem and will make you worse down the line )

  24. Barbara said:

    Jul 11, 10 at 11:40 am

    Went on Armour thy­roid meds after another doc put my on Synth­roid and I had horri­ble symp­toms appear. My new DO took me off the Synth­roid and put me on Armour. (6 months or so) Star­ted to feel fine but after a cou­ple of months I went down hill again. One of the new things I noti­ced was a bout with swo­llen ankles, fati­gue and a change in my urine color. Now I drink plenty of water so that isn’t it. She then took me off Armour and com­poun­ded my meds. Star­ted to feel bet­ter but for the second time I had a bout of swo­llen ankles and fati­gue. I just star­ted the com­poun­ded meds a week ago so I do need to give them a chance. Has anyone had this, should I be get­ting my kid­neys chec­ked, heart?? I am so dishear­te­ned at this time.…..

    (from Janie: you nee­ded to be che­wing up the Armour to release the desic­ca­ted thy­roid from the excess cellu­lose – the lat­ter which binds the thy­roid. Doesn’t work well unless you do. Now that you are on com­poun­ded, you need to tell them NOT to use cellu­lose as a filler, but pow­de­red aci­dolpho­lus. Also see if you are here: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/mistakes-patients-make )

  25. Suzanne said:

    Jul 17, 10 at 2:01 pm

    Have been on Natu­reth­roid for about 4 mos. after having com­poun­ded meds. Went off com­poun­ded meds because I see­med to be all over the place from one mo. to the next. The Natu­reth­roid see­med to be wor­king and then for the past 2 weeks I have been really fati­gued, bad foot & ankle cramps, light-headed when stan­ding up and hea­daches on a pretty regu­lar basis. I go back to my dr. on Wed. but wan­ted to know it anyone else is having pro­blems on Naturethorid.

    (from Janie: you need to be che­wing it up to release the desic­ca­ted thy­roid from the cellu­lose filler. But you may need to be doing a 24 hour adre­nal saliva test, as well.)

  26. Suzanne said:

    Jul 19, 10 at 10:15 am

    For about a week I tried crushing it up and mixed w/honey under my ton­gue but felt kind of sick to my sto­mach after about 1/2 hr. Didn’t notice any real dif­fe­rence in energy and still had all the other symp­toms.
    I wrote in because I was curious if any one else felt good after switching and then a down­turn after a few weeks. I am going to the dr on Wed but she is not into saliva tes­ting or Natu­reth­roid for that mat­ter. She gives it to me because I request it. I have been to seve­ral drs in the area but have not found a dr that is know­led­gea­ble about desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds. I read this web­site and try to help myself from the other suggestions.

    (From Janie: you order the saliva test your­self. I would. Also use this page: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/mistakes-patients-make and get further feed­back from other patients: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/talk-to-others )

  27. Pollie said:

    Jul 29, 10 at 8:02 am

    RE: Suzanne, I have been on Nature-throid for a little over a month now. It wor­ked great for the first cou­ple of weeks. But , too, star­ted having major foot, ankle, and joint cramps on it (so bad my doc had to presc­ribe me pred­ni­sone to reduce swe­lling). This has NEVER hap­pe­ned before. He thinks it’s the Nature-throid cau­sing it: makes sense. I am really dishear­te­ned because I have tried almost EVERY thy­roid med and this one is good, except for this debi­li­ta­ting side effect. Anyone know how to com­bat this? I want to stay on it because it makes my hair, skin, and ove­rall mood great! Thanks.

    (From Janie: you need to be che­wing the Natu­reth­roid up before swa­llo­wing to release the thy­roid from the cellu­lose filler. And you may not be on enough. http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/mistakes-patients-make )

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