Forest Pharmaceuticals tags

Surely most anyone who has been outside has felt a little drop here…then a little drop there…and you won­de­red:  am I get­ting ready to be rai­ned on?

Now I’m making no gua­ran­tees nor saying this is abso­lute fact…but because of emails I’m get­ting and other infor­ma­tion, I’m seeing little drops of poten­tial evi­dence that we may be seeing the begin­ning of a return of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in our phar­ma­cies. Are we?

For one, a patient called the Forest Hot­line today (866) 927‑3260, and it said that the 4 and 5 grain is avai­la­ble. Is that an old recor­ding, or could that be a pos­si­bi­lity at some phar­macy here or there? Gran­ted, Forest sta­tes that the pro­blem of bac­kor­ders has been found in the “com­pli­ca­ted steps in the supply line”, and “one fac­tor is the sup­plier”.  But if the 4 or 5 grain tablet is avai­la­ble, is something get­ting through here or there?

Then comes an email from a gal sta­ting she was told by her large natio­nal phar­macy that Armour would be in stock by the middle of Octo­ber.  That is simi­lar to a com­ment on another blog post below.

Also, Ame­ri­can Labo­ra­to­ries, the pro­du­cer and sup­plier of desic­ca­ted pow­der, has always sta­ted that they con­ti­nue to make it – just not enough to meet the demands of lar­ger phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals all at once. i.e. perhaps some is get­ting through.

Little posi­tive rain drops of clues? Maybe. I’m not sure what the near future holds. And there are unans­we­red ques­tions, such as will Armour still be inef­fec­tive for so many in its refor­mu­la­ted state?  In what way, and when, will the FDA follow through on the 1960’s Drug Effi­cacy Study Imple­men­ta­tion (DESI) to prove that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is safe and effec­tive (which still makes most of us want to ask  “Aren’t 110 years enough evidence?”)

In the mean­time, there are options you can use for good thy­roid treat­ment here. Just work with a good doc­tor if you use any of these options. But a caveat – a few Cana­dian phar­ma­cies have dou­bled their pri­ces!! Ouch. I find that very nasty and unethi­cal. So check their pri­ces on the web­site as com­pa­red to what was lis­ted on this page. And GOOD NEWS: a Ger­man phar­macy will ship out its own brand of desic­ca­ted thy­roid.  See it on the Options page. 

There con­ti­nues to be good feed­back from patients that most com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies have plenty of desic­ca­ted thy­roid pow­der in stock.  The above link gives infor­ma­tion on how to find a com­poun­ding phar­macy. I have used one before that mai­led my order to me after my doc faxed the prescription.

Join the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talk Shoe this Friday. 

*Want to be infor­med of these fringe web­site blog posts? Curious what’s on peon Janie’s mind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left below the links.

* The extre­mely hip and sophis­ti­ca­ted STTM t-shirts are half price! I love sales!

The follo­wing com­ment by RLC Labs, a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal which has made desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid since the 1930’s, was sent in a let­ter to a phar­macy. You may find it inte­res­ting as com­pa­red to pro­blems so many have repor­ted with Forest Labs and the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour:

We have never had any man­da­tory or volun­tary recall of any of our thy­roid medi­ca­tions due to incon­sis­tency in dosa­ges. Our for­mu­la­tion and pre­pa­ra­tion is able to sta­bi­lize the T3 and T4 hor­mo­nes through its entire expiry period (3 years from manu­fac­tu­ring) pro­vi­ding addi­tio­nal assu­rance to both phy­si­cian and patient alike in qua­lity and con­sis­tency of our strengths.

Kudos for RLC Labs and Natu­reth­roid! Patients whose lives have chan­ged ten-fold thanks to desic­ca­ted thy­roid need a good pro­duct. (And we’re going to hope down the line that “someone” will create desic­ca­ted thy­roid in a sublin­gual form.)

P.S. If you don’t know what has hap­pe­ned to Armour and patient expe­rien­ces with it, scroll down.

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

*SALE! Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness T-shirts are now 50% off just because I like sales. A great way to spread the word about our patient revo­lu­tion for the supe­rio­rity of desic­ca­ted thy­roid over T4-only meds. You’ll also see funny bum­per stic­kers. Also…when you order the STTM book and request it,  you get a Cal­vin peeing on.…(you’ll see) bum­per stic­ker for FREE, and it’s a hoot.

Once again, I just appro­ved one more com­ment of someone who has had it with Armour, and is switching.   On the new Armour, she sta­tes she has a return of her for­mer hypo symp­toms: hair loss, joint pain, fati­gue, heart pal­pi­ta­tions, low body temps are back, etc.

And you see it hap­pe­ning all over thy­roid patient groups on the net.  Many folks are done with Armour.

It’s too chalky. It tas­tes terri­ble.  It doesn’t break into sma­ller pie­ces well any­more.  It’s lost the abi­lity to be done sublin­gually. And even worse, it has cau­sed a return of symptoms. 

In case you are won­de­ring what this is all about, read the 40 current com­ments attached to the June 2^nd post Trying the Newly For­mu­la­ted Armour? Before that, you can read my May 7^th post Why the party is over with Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and the current 37 com­ments.  And espe­cially power­ful is the April 28^th post Patients say PHOOEY to new Armour for­mu­la­tion and Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals with a current 57 posts.

So what’s their next step?

Right now, doc­tors of patients on Armour on being asked for a presc­rip­tion for Natu­reth­roid. Many report it wor­king won­der­fully; some state they need a little more to be as opti­mal as Armour. A small mino­rity aren’t sure about it yet. But ove­rall, the majo­rity are happy.

So let’s get an update of those who have switched: what pro­duct did you move to? Is the same amount giving you the same results? Did you have to more to a slightlyl higher amount, or lower amount? Was your phar­macy coo­pe­ra­tive for a dif­fe­rent brand?  Did you have to explain to your phar­macy that Natu­reth­roid can be drop-shipped directly to them?

P.S. Thy­roid patient Cheryl emai­led me and said she is sen­ding the above posts about Armour’s pro­blems to prac­ti­cally ever­yone on her email list, hoping they in turn will send it to their friends, and the word will get out.  If you want to do the same, this post is the most upda­ted, and inc­lu­des the links to the for­mer posts.

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

*Have depres­sion and you are on a T4 med like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc?? Read the blog post below.

Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid by Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals used to be easy to do sublin­gually, even if the offi­cial line was they didn’t make it that way.

And patients liked that sublin­gual abi­lity with Armour.  It allo­wed them to work around the pro­blem of swa­llo­wing desic­ca­ted thy­roid seve­ral hours from having swa­llo­wed iron, estro­gen or cal­cium – all which can bind some of the thy­roid hor­mo­nes in your stomach.

It also hel­ped those with diges­tive issues, glu­ten into­le­rance or Celiac (a com­mon pro­blem for some hypothy­roid patients) by bypas­sing the stomach.

But with the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour in 2009, it became dif­fi­cult. The pill is har­der with less dex­trose and more cellu­lose.  It now fell into the ranks of all other desic­ca­ted thy­roid pills, inc­lu­ding Natu­reth­roid and other good brands, as a more dense tablet.

But no mat­ter what brand you use (espe­cially the gro­wing group of patients who are having their doc­tors switch them to Natu­reth­roid), below are tips from patients on how to con­ti­nue doing your desic­ca­ted thy­roid sublin­gually. Let your doc know, too.

1) Try adding a touch of the con­tents of a Pixie Stix under your ton­gue. It’s fla­vo­red sugar in a straw, and the sugar seems to help the tablet dis­solve sublin­gually through tis­sues under the tongue.

2) If you are using sublin­gual B12 lon­zen­ges to treat low B12, try adding it under the ton­gue with your desic­ca­ted thy­roid. The action of the sublin­gual lozenge seems to move over to the thy­roid tablet.

3) Swish warm water in your mouth before you place the tablet under your tongue.

4) Crunch up the desic­ca­ted thy­roid tablet before any of the above and before pla­cing it all under your tongue.

Also note that you can swa­llow your desic­ca­ted thy­roid. You’ll just have to make sure you don’t also have a sto­mach full of iron rich foods or cal­cium, or estro­gen. Gene­rally, it’s best to take your tablet 4 hours from any of the for­mer. P.S. See com­ments below on the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour, and farther down, a post on Naturethroid.

*Have more sublin­gual ideas or expe­rien­ces? Share it in the Com­ments section.

*Want to be infor­med of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tions to the bot­tom left of the links. 

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.