• Coalition for Natural Desiccated Thyroid
• desiccated thyroid
• shortages of desiccated thyroid

With all the panic among thy­roid patients of the last seve­ral weeks, we are now seeing light at the end of the current tun­nel of desic­ca­ted thy­roid shor­ta­ges. More reports are coming in by patients that it’s appea­ring on shel­ves at their local phar­ma­cies, inc­lu­ding both Armour and Natu­reth­roid. Sure, it’s a tric­kle com­pa­red to the amount of US patients that need it. But it’s a sign of hope of more to come.

On the CDT (Coa­li­tion for Desic­ca­ted Thy­roid) yahoo group, where patients have been dis­cus­sing the shor­ta­ges and fin­ding pla­ces to get their desic­ca­ted thy­roid, patient Ele­nor gave just one more example:

“After losing “my” Wal-Mart’s last left-over bottle of Natu­reth­roid to some other thy­roid per­son (lucky him or her){wink}, I called around to pharms — and Sam’s Club Pharm two towns over had just got­ten ONE bottle of 60mg Armour in yes­ter­day. (I did also find a CVS that had a bottle and a half of the 90mg Armour — so there are some dribs-and-drabs left around… My doc wouldn’t write for me to get that too…) (YAY!) Emai­led my doc’s nurse beg­ging her to do it right away — which thank­fully she did, so they dis­pen­sed it “to me” and I can pick it up today! Down to three days left in my pos­ses­sion, so … WHEW!”

Ele­nor conc­lu­ded: Still gonna see my doc 5^th Oct and try to order 500 tablets from Canada. I do not EVER want to be scram­bling like this again — for ANY reason…

And we all agree with you, Ele­nor!

Clearly, our current shor­ta­ges were cau­sed by two fac­tors: demand being grea­ter than supply thanks to web­si­tes like Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness (STTM), forums, groups and others, as well as the remar­kably poor timing by the FDA in cau­sing the only remai­ning gene­ric makers of desic­ca­ted thy­roid to cease production.

And in case you haven’t caught up with what’s going on, you can read a sum­mary of the his­tory about the FDA and regu­la­tions which will explain what we will have to face for desic­ca­ted thy­roid in the future, which is our real challenge.

**JOIN US TONIGHT for our weekly THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL hos­ted by Janie Bowthorpe. We’ll have an open topic night and perhaps a sur­prise guest (still wai­ting on con­fir­ma­tion on that). Let’s talk about the shor­ta­ges, ways to con­ti­nue trea­ting during this time, and more. NOTE that I have moved up the times by one hour. Just click on the link and you’ll see a count­down of when it starts: 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral and 9 pm Eastern.

As thy­roid patients are not only in angst about a com­plete shor­tage of desic­ca­ted thy­roid in the US, we all have ques­tions and con­cerns about out future with no defi­ni­tive answer.

For exam­ple, we won­der if the FDA may be  requi­ring cli­ni­cal stu­dies from phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals who make desic­ca­ted thy­roid to prove that it’s safe and effec­tive (in spite of the fact that patients have been using it safely and effec­ti­vely for 110 years.  Nope, we don’t count. Ama­zing, isn’t it?) And we won­der: if stu­dies are requi­red, will they be able to afford the stu­dies, which are quite expen­sive? Will desic­ca­ted thy­roid con­ti­nue to be avai­la­ble while the stu­dies go on? And more uncom­for­ta­ble questions.

The FDA recently replied to a ques­tion by thy­roid patient Cathe­rine when she asked about the shor­ta­ges and here’s their reply:

Dear Cathe­rine:

Thank you for wri­ting the Divi­sion of Drug Infor­ma­tion, in the FDA’s Cen­ter for Drug Eva­lua­tion and Research.

We unders­tand your con­cerns regar­ding the avai­la­bi­lity of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts.  FDA has NOT taken class action against unap­pro­ved thy­roid pro­ducts resul­ting in a shor­tage.  If a com­pany dis­con­ti­nues manu­fac­tu­ring of an unap­pro­ved pro­duct, that is a busi­ness deci­sion made by the company.

Please refer to the ASHP Shor­ta­ges web­site for a lis­ting of desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts that remain avai­la­ble:
http://www.ashp.org/Import/PRACTICEANDPOLICY/PracticeResourceCenters/DrugShortages/GettingStarted/CurrentShortages/Bulletin.aspx?id=459

We have con­tac­ted the com­pa­nies and RLC (manu­fac­tu­rer of West-Throid and Nature-Throid) is in bac­kor­der for all strengths and pro­ducts for the next 90 days.

Major has the 60mg and 120mg avai­la­ble of their “gene­ric” desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­duct.  They report inc­rea­sed demand as the rea­son for their bac­kor­der for the other strengths.

Forest reports they have the 120mg, 240mg, and 300mg strengths avai­la­ble for their Armour Thy­roid pro­ducts and they report inc­rea­sed demand as the rea­son for the bac­kor­der on their other strengths.

If you and your health­care pro­vi­der deter­mine that one of these thy­roid pro­ducts is appro­priate for you, you can pro­vide the NDC num­bers lis­ted on the ASHP web­site for these pro­ducts to your phar­ma­cist so they can order for you.

Best regards,
Drug Infor­ma­tion SH
Divi­sion of Drug Infor­ma­tion
Cen­ter for Drug Eva­lua­tion and Research
Food and Drug Administration

The inte­res­ting thing about the above is that it implies that Major Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals is just on bac­kor­der, which goes com­ple­tely against what patients have repor­ted elsewhere.  What’s going on there? Are they using old know­ledge? And the lar­ger sizes of Armour? Is anyone fin­ding that at the phar­ma­cies right now? Very curious. Inte­res­ting the com­ment about RLC, the makers of Natu­reth­roid.  And the link to shor­ta­ges is inte­res­ting, though from the end of July.

Wha­te­ver the ans­wers are, if you need a treat­ment to get you through this dif­fi­cult time, here are options for thy­roid treat­ment. And it still may be a very good idea to inform your con­gress­per­sons of our situation…just in case. See my blog post below.

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

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