• +Audience
• Armour
• naturethroid

In case you are mis­sing com­ments on my pre­vious posts, there is a poten­tial solu­tion to the pro­blems encoun­te­red with both the refor­mu­la­ted Armour by Forest Labs, and the refor­mu­la­ted Natu­reth­roid by RLC.

Namely, by either crushing your tablet with a mor­tar and pestle, or che­wing it up in little pie­ces, patients are star­ting to report far bet­ter symp­tom relief!! i.e., this pro­cess is pro­bably brea­king down the ridi­cu­lous coa­tings and cellu­lose and allo­wing your body bet­ter access to the desic­ca­ted thy­roid within.

And if you just can’t sto­mach the pul­ve­ri­zed pill method, add a touch of honey to the pow­der, and lick it all up.

Let us know how it works for you!

Want to see the newest Ques­tion & Ans­wer page on STTM? Go here.

PREVIOUS BLOG POSTS:

To read my Edi­to­rial Res­ponse, go here (or if you are rea­ding this on the blog, right below)
To read my infor­mal sur­vey on the new Armour, go here.
To read UK Sheila Turner’s Guest post on those who cri­ti­cize self-treatment, go here.
10 rea­sons thy­roid patients are frus­tra­ted, angry and sick, here.

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.

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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

The news this mor­ning about Oprah made me pause.

Yes, it’s being announ­ced today that there will be no more Oprah Win­frey Show on CBS after Fall of next year.  She’s saying goodbye. And the rumor is that she will move her talk show to The Oprah Win­frey Net­work, which repla­ces the Dis­co­very Health Chan­nel. We’ll see when she for­mally announ­ces it today on her show.

But the change sure does shine a bright spot­light on a colos­sal and com­plete fai­lure by Oprah and The Oprah Win­frey Show for hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients. Though she had her own bout with thy­roid disease (and may still be dea­ling with it when you con­si­der her weight issues), we all win­ced a year ago when she sta­ted that a month long Hawaiian vaca­tion and eating fresh foods with soy milk (a goi­tro­gen) were a great way to treat her thy­roid con­di­tion. Yikes.   We equally squir­med in our seats when Dr. Chris­tiane North­rup made the com­ment that our thy­roid pro­blems were due to an “energy bloc­kage in the throat region, the result of a life­time of ’swa­llo­wing’ words one is aching to say.” Dou­ble yikes.

And since then, we have watched nothing, zilch, zero from Oprah and The Opray Win­frey Show about a horren­dous 55-year medi­cal scan­dal of thy­roid treat­ment that has nega­ti­vely affec­ted the lives of hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients world­wide. T4-only meds like Synth­roid, the dar­ling medi­ca­tion of the medi­cal com­mu­nity for hypothy­roi­dism treat­ment, has left hun­dreds of millions sick.  The TSH lab test has equally sent us to hell.  Because we have been for­ced to live with con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism, we’ve endu­red much more tes­ting and have been put on many other medi­ca­tions to ban­daid our con­ti­nuing symp­toms. And a majo­rity of us have had to deal with the addi­tio­nal bur­den of adre­nal fati­gue thanks to all the above.

It’s been hell, Oprah. But you never lis­te­ned.  So for me per­so­nally, I could care less what you do now. You’ve let millions of us down.

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On a far bet­ter note:  Last night’s Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe was exce­llent. From thyroid/adrenal patient Vale­rie Tay­lor, who is abso­lu­tely one of the most know­led­gea­ble patients in the world about adre­nals and RT3, we gai­ned good infor­ma­tion how it rai­ses its ugly head when you have high or low cor­ti­sol, low B12, low ferri­tin and other untrea­ted issues, and how to treat it. You can go back to Talkshoe and lis­ten to the broad­cast, which was Epi­sode 7.  See my blog post right below this. As far as future Talkshoe Com­mu­nity Calls: they will always be announ­ced here first.

Below that, you’ll read how cellu­lose as a filler just may be a huge pro­blem in natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds. But we are also dis­co­ve­ring that a good desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, even with its cellu­lose, can seem even worse if we have undis­co­ve­red and untrea­ted issues like low B12, low Vit. A, low ferri­tin, low Vit. D and other con­di­tions com­mon with hypothy­roi­dism.  Make sure you have tes­ted for these.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. All the work is done for you!

Word has tric­kled down to me from a few patients and emails that even Natu­reth­roid is get­ting har­der to come by at phar­ma­cies because of the extreme demand on RLC Labs.

No, they are not cea­sing to make desic­ca­ted thy­roid. They just weren’t pre­pa­red for the high demand due to the refor­mu­la­tion of Armour and pro­blems it cau­sed.  And they aren’t kee­ping up and won’t for seve­ral months.

So, if you can’t last with your current presc­rip­tion for seve­ral months, you will pro­bably need to talk to your doc about get­ting a gene­ric ver­sion by Major Phar­macy, or get some over-the-counter like Nutri­Meds, or even the “Hypo Sup­port For­mula” made by RLC Labs, but expect to take much more of either.  Many patients are also men­tio­ning Thyroid-S by Grea­ter Pharma as a bac­kup until RLC catches up.  But it’s by mail order and will take a few weeks to arrive.  Goo­gle any of the above. Finally, you can move a slight step back­wards and talk to your doc about doing synthe­tic T4 and synthe­tic T3.  It’s not going to be quite a good as being on desic­ca­ted thy­roid, but it’s cer­tainly bet­ter than being on T4 alone, don’t you agree?? Keep con­nec­ted to your doc.  And hang in there. This will pass.

Janie

P.S. I’ll be adding more infor­ma­tion to this post tomo­rrow. Check back.

*Want to be infor­med of these posts? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left and below the links.

Below is the actual release by RLC Labs:

For any patients expe­rien­cing dif­fi­cul­ties in attai­ning either Nature-ThroidTM or Westh­roidTM through their phar­macy, RLC Labs, Inc, asks these indi­vi­duals to have their phar­macy con­tact us directly at 877 – 797-7997 to place an order, or have their phar­macy request a drop-shipment through their who­le­sale supplier.

RLC Labs’ pro­ducts are only avai­la­ble through who­le­sa­lers, phar­ma­cies and or their doc­tors; thus all con­fir­ma­tions and/or trac­king infor­ma­tion will only be avai­la­ble through the who­le­sa­ler, phar­macy, or doctor’s office that pla­ced the order.

RLC Labs is expe­rien­cing a subs­tan­tial inc­rease in orders for Nature-ThroidTM and Westh­roidTM. The recent unex­pec­ted influx has inun­da­ted our cus­to­mer ser­vice and ship­ping depart­ments, thus cau­sing delays and deple­ting our current stock. We are wor­king around the clock to ful­fill all current orders; howe­ver, we can­not gua­ran­tee that
any future orders will be ful­fi­lled until our stock is replenished.

RLC Labs will con­ti­nue to accept orders from our cus­to­mers, howe­ver as of Fri­day August 14^th, we are bac­kor­de­red on all strengths of Nature-ThroidTM and Westh­roidTM. Ship­ment is expec­ted to resume within 90 days.

We regret to inform you of this situa­tion; howe­ver, we can assure you that we are wor­king dili­gently to reple­nish our stock and will resume ship­ping as soon as pos­si­ble. Please accept our sin­ce­rest apo­logy for any inconvenience.

We do unders­tand how much of an impact this has as most of us emplo­yed @ RLC Labs, are hypothy­roid and take our own pro­duct. Thus, we know and unders­tand how impor­tant it is to get pro­duct back into the mar­ket place. We are gra­te­ful for your con­ti­nued patience, patro­nage and support!

Feel free to con­tact our cus­to­mer ser­vice depart­ment with any ques­tions con­cer­ning this mat­ter @ 877 – 797-7997.

Thank you from all of us @ RLC Labs, Inc.

In 2002, when I first got on desic­ca­ted thy­roid and it abso­lu­tely chan­ged my life, it hap­pe­ned to be the brand name called Armour by Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.  And I swoo­ned.  You could do it sublin­gually (even if it wasn’t made that way), and I prai­sed Armour for that. So did other patients after we spread the word on patient groups, on the STTM web­site and in the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book.

My fond­ness for Armour did not take away my prai­ses for other presc­rip­tion brands, though, inc­lu­ding Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid by RLC Labs.  I simply made a doe-eyed com­mit­ment to Armour for my per­so­nal treat­ment because you could do it sublin­gually. I have also used the name “Armour” interchan­geably to repre­sent all good desic­ca­ted thy­roid products.

But because of a suc­ces­sion of three events, I think it’s time to give back my going-steady ring.

The first blow to my romance with Armour cen­te­red around the extreme tight-lipped sec­recy from Forest when the refor­mu­la­tion of Armour began. We can sur­mise the trou­ble begin in 2007 when patients were fin­ding Armour in the lar­ger sizes to be sud­denly inef­fec­tive.  For the entire year of 2008, sup­plies were extre­mely limi­ted and only the one grain size or lower could be found, if at all.  Patients were worried and unhappy.  I even sup­por­ted Forest in my blog posts, assu­ring patients that everything would be fine.  But Forest said prac­ti­cally nothing. Why was and is Forest mum about why this was happening ?

The second blow to our courtship was the change to the “refor­mu­la­ted” Armour. Sud­denly, patients find that doing Armour sublin­gually was a thing of the past. Now all we get is a never-ending chalky pasty resi­due.  Addi­tio­nally, many patients have been repor­ting that the amount of Armour that once remo­ved all symp­toms, was now brin­ging them back.  Huh?? In spite of an appa­rent draw­back in some batches in 2007, why would Forest take an effec­tive pro­duct and change it?

And the third and final straw to my affair of the heart? I made a phone call to Forest using the same 800 num­ber you all can use. That was Tues­day, May 5^th. My intent was to ask about the word anhy­drous which is now after the ingre­dient dex­trose in the Armour ingre­dients lis­ting. (It means that all mois­ture has been with­drawn, but I wan­ted to con­firm the details for the brands page.)  When I reached the repre­sen­ta­tive for Forest, and after she asked my name and I gave it (oops),  the tune of the con­ver­sa­tion chan­ged.  She said she could not ans­wer my ques­tion since I own a public web­site, and would have to inform the “Media group” from Forest, and they would call me back. When I asked when, the ans­wer was a vague as Synth­roid is in trea­ting hypothy­roi­dism i.e. she didn’t know. I even called back the next day to get the same drib­ble.   Why have repre­sen­ta­ti­ves on the Forest hot­line been ins­truc­ted not to ans­wer a sim­ple ques­tion from someone like myself,  and I still have not recei­ved a phone call from Forest?

Sob.  Yup, brea­king up is hard to do, but a gal can only take so much strange betra­yal, tight-lipped silence…and igno­ring a sim­ple ques­tion from someone who has done a LOT to put money in their poc­kets out of extreme gra­ti­tude. Besi­des, there’s another phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal cour­ting me at my door:  RLC Labs. Thank good­ness there are other fish in the sea.