Forest Pharmaceuticals tags

As the “newly” for­mu­la­ted Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid pills, made by Forest Pharmaceuticals/Laboratories, have been hit­ting the mar­ket, so are com­ments coming out from some thy­roid patients…and they are not in the least complimentary.

The rea­son that Armour had been favo­red by so many thy­roid patients among all the desic­ca­ted thy­roid brands is the abi­lity to take it sublin­gually.  Sure, Armour was never offi­cially made to be taken sublin­gually, but it worked.

Sublin­gual refers to the admi­nis­tra­tion of a medi­ca­tion via the millions of tiny capi­lla­ries that line your mouth and mucous mem­brane. The pill was pla­ced under the ton­gue and allo­wed to dis­solve – most of it ente­ring the body directly via your sublin­gual glands, and only a small amount swallowed.

Some patients who switched from swa­llo­wing to sublin­gual noti­ced the dif­fe­rence, too.

But the beauty of sublin­gual has gone even farther than noti­cing anything dif­fe­rent. First, it was always a known “baddy” to swa­llow any pills that might con­tain iron, estro­gen or cal­cium at the same time we swa­llo­wed Armour or any other desic­ca­ted thy­roid brand. Why? All three inter­fere with and bind a cer­tain per­cen­tage of the thy­roid hor­mo­nes in our sto­machs.  We were for­ced to take any of those hours apart from swa­llo­wing our pill. So doing the Armour sublin­gually allo­wed us to swa­llow the above pills, or drink milk, or eat high iron foods, at our own timing and not hours away.

Second, the old for­mula was usually gone in our mouths within 30 minu­tes give or take. Now, patients who take their newly for­mu­la­ted pills sublin­gually (which now has less dex­trose and more cellu­lose) des­pise the “chalky, pasty, gritty resi­due” left in one’s mouth.  It also results in Armour taking far too long to be pro­perly absorbed.

Third, those with adre­nal fati­gue can find them­sel­ves waking up with nau­sea due to the mor­ning low cor­ti­sol. And being able to take Armour sublin­gually bypas­sed the need to swa­llow a liquid to take a pill and pro­mote more nausea.

Fourth, those with Celiac disease, and even those with stan­dard low thy­roid diges­tive issues, found sublin­gual admi­nis­tra­tion to help their absorp­tion of what desic­ca­ted thy­roid offers, which they didn’t get well if they swa­llo­wed the pill.

All in all, the buzz around patient groups or on com­ments here  about the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour is not com­pli­men­tary.  It doesn’t work well sublin­gually. It’s too chalky. It lea­ves a gritty paste in your mouth.  And patients are highly disap­poin­ted.  Let’s hope that one of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals takes the ball and runs to create a sublin­gual desic­ca­ted thy­roid.

What is your expe­rience with the new for­mu­la­tion? Are you still trying to do it sublin­gually?  Have you found doing Natu­reth­roid sublin­gually works? Are you switching to Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid out of prin­ci­pal, as many are sta­ting they are doing? Use the com­ment sec­tion and let’s talk.

*Express your opi­nion to Forest here: 1 – 800-678‑1605, ext. 66297.

*Want to know what’s on Janie’s mind? Want to read the latest about desic­ca­ted thy­roid and bet­ter treat­ment? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left at the bot­tom of the links.

I can remem­ber a few peo­ple the past year who proc­lai­med fer­vently that Armour was being dis­con­ti­nued because of the shor­tage.  And I chuc­kle about it.  Hope­fully, my pre­vious posts hel­ped calm that fear.

But in case you haven’t heard, those lar­ger sizes are back!  And you can keep track of what’s going via the Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals cus­to­mer pro­duct avai­la­bi­lity hot­line: 1 – 866-927‑3260  As of today, April 19, they state that the one grain tabs (60 mg) and 1 1/2 grains tabs (90 mg) are on bac­kor­der, and will catch up with pro­duc­tion on April 20^th, tomo­rrow as I am wri­ting this.  We’ll see.

Unfor­tu­na­tely, the new for­mu­la­tion has made Armour lac­king in sweet­ness, and it’s almost impos­si­ble to do it sublin­gually.  Sad. Maybe another phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal will get the hint. In the mean­time, if you swa­llow your desic­ca­ted thy­roid, make sure to avoid cal­cium, iron and estro­gen at the same time. And if you’ve been doing it sublin­gually, and have to switch to swa­llo­wing, you may need a tad more.

Remem­ber: if you have any issues with natu­ral Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid in the treat­ment of your hypothy­roi­dism, you can always ask your doc­tor for a presc­rip­tion switch to Natu­reth­roid or Westth­roid, both fine FDA-approved, US Phar­ma­co­peia stan­dard presc­rip­tion desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Janie

Want to be infor­med of my posts? Curious what I am raving about as a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist? You can sign up for a Noti­fi­ca­tion at the bot­tom of the links to your left.

P.S. If you haven’t bought the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book yet, wan­ted to tell you that nume­rous patients are emai­ling me, sta­ting they find the book even easier to refer to than this vast web­site (plus it has more details and infor­ma­tion).  So if you want the ease of refe­rral, the book may be the way to go.

Now being announ­ced on the Forest Pharm hot­line at 866 – 927-3260, the follo­wing strengths of Armour are now com­ple­tely avai­la­ble again:

1) 15 mg. (1/4 grain)
2) 30 mg. (1/2 grain)
3) 60 mg. (one grain)
4) 120 mg. (2 grains)
5) 180 mg. (3 grains)
6) 240 mg. (4 grains)
7) 300 mg. (5 grains)

Yes­si­ree, the above repre­sent the dif­fe­rent size and strength tablets of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid via the Armour brand, most of which had been una­vai­la­ble for quite awhile. The 90 mgs is still on backorder.

Rejoice!

P.S. And we thank RLC Labs for their con­ti­nued avai­la­bi­lity of Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid, plus Sri­pra­sit Pharma Co., Ltd. in Thai­land for their Thyroid-S.   Because no mat­ter how hard any phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pany, Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist, cer­tain hos­pi­tals,  or group of phy­si­cians (see below) tries to sing the prai­ses of T4 treat­ment with Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, Nor­ton for thy­roid disor­ders or hypothyroid.…WE KNOW BETTER.

(Want to be noti­fied of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tion method to be infor­med. Look on the bot­tom left of the links where you can sign up. )