thyroid meds ?

[phil in mexico]

HI Folks

I am womdering if Armour a type of thyroid med is it available Mex.

If so where

TIA

Phil

[sundown]

Go to Guagalajara Pharmacy & they can cross reference

[saintmartin]

Sorry... what you get in Ajijic or Mexico for Thyroid is 100 or 75 mg. ...no other dosages. The docs down here claim that is all one needs.. You also can be tested at any of the labs for less than 15 US..dollars.

[bmh]

You can find Levotiroxina sodica in 25mcg 50mcg on up . One of the brand name available here is Eutirox

[Karlotta]

I agree with bmh, Eutirox works just fine. I have used it for 15 years. Just have a doctor run the ususal lab tests, T3, T4, etc.

[lindady]

You can get a thyroid medication called Novotiral (Merck brand) which is Levotiroxina sódica/Liotironina in these amounts: 100 mcg of levotiroxina and 20 mcg of Liotironina (Triyodotironina). One box of 50 tablets costs around 200 pesos, depending on where you buy it (local pharmacies, Sam's Club, Costco, Walmart pharmacy.

[lindady]

Here is more information on the Novotiral:

http://www.libreriamedica8a.com/prods/35802.htm

[Jistme]

Phil...did you ever track down the Armour Thyroid supplements? I understand that this is a natural Dessicated version of Thyroid medication.

Seemingly one can get it from Canada, providing you send them a doctors prescription. I've also been looking for for this form of Thyroid, but so far can

only find the synthetic brands.

[Ruidoso]

HI Folks

I am womdering if Armour a type of thyroid med is it available Mex.

If so where

TIA

Phil

Have used many brands of thyroid grain for about 35 years including Armour. Can't discern any difference between brands. Currently buy 200mcg Sintrocid from 2 different pharmacies just across the border from southern USA at a cost of about $15. Eutirox 200 mcg can be purchased from Goldpharma online for $26.50. Just do a search for Sintrocid. Seems to me Sintrocid and /or Eutirox should be available lakeside or at least they can order it to be delivered from Guad.

[More Liana]

My wife buys Levotiroxina sódica at Farmacia Similares. It costs next to nothing. 100 tablets of 100mcg/each cost 100 pesos. She's supposed to take 125mcg/per day, if I recall correctly. She uses a whole tablet plus a quarter tab.

[Alpha1]

My wife buys Levotiroxina sódica at Farmacia Similares. It costs next to nothing. 100 tablets of 100mcg/each cost 100 pesos. She's supposed to take 125mcg/per day, if I recall correctly. She uses a whole tablet plus a quarter tab.

I use to use Levotiroxina sódica (by Merck) which did not have the desired results, it costs about 75 pesos. My endocrinologist suggested Eutirox (which is also manufactured by Merck and is Levotiroxina sódica), and it was a dramatic difference. It worked. I was told by the endocrinologist that although it was made by the same manufacturer and was the same chemical, the pill to pill consistency would be better with the Eutirox. Live and learn...

[phil in mexico]

Hi

Thanks for giving good info. I have found cytomel which is t3 in .25mcg at the Farm near Salvador's it is made by Grossman and I have found cynoplus which is T4 (120) and T3 (30)at Guad Farm. also made by Grossman , but was trying to find Armour which is a natural product but to no avail I did my search locally , I don;t want to try an import just to much of a hassle

Best Regards Phil

[CSOKI]

Phil, did you try the Farmacia Alternativa in La Plaza Montana on the caratera in Ajijic? Phone # 766 0523.

[phxfunguy]

Here's my take on thyroid replacement therapy as a family doc who has worked both in a regular allopathic clinic and an alternative medicine group (where Armour thyroid was often requested by the patients over the synthetic) and from 15 years of tutelage by an excellent teaching endrocrinologist whom I used to refer my most difficult patients to:

I believe Armour thyroid has been off the market in the US for nearly a decade or more as its bioavailability and actual amount in each tablet was too variable from batch to batch and even from pill to pill within the same batch. As the name suggests, it came from ground up pig thryoids at a meat processing plant, one of the items they saved out and didn't put into Spam.

Taking synthetic T4 (levothyroxine) plus T3 (Cytomel) for maintenance therapy is not typically prescribed any more. All T4 has to be converted to T3 in the cells of the body to function and ingesting pure T3 actually gives a lot of patients an instant jolt of pep which is not needed for smooth maintenance of thyroid hormone replacement. Patients will say they feel much better on the pure T3 mixture of course. The down side to this jolt is that in some folks as they age it can trigger off bothersome rapid heat rate or cardiac arrythmias, occasionally fatal ones. The smoother and longer conversion time of T4 to T3 by taking synthetic levothyroxine mostly avoids this problem unless the dose is way too high. Many of my alternative medicine colleagues still used both Cytomel and pig thyroid in the 90's, but I found most of them had stopped by the end of the millenium after the third generation TSH test was perfected which made thyroid dosing finally extremely easy and accurate. The previous second generation test was only accurate for hypothyroidsim or too low a replacement dose indicated by a high TSH. The lower end of normal was not defined nor did it accurately reflect that the dose of thyroid was too high. Many people may have been on only one or two ministeps too much thyroid which may not have affected them adversely, but then there is always that small group of people where it makes a big difference, getting jittery or heart complications from it.

This currently used TSH test is exquisitely sensitive to your thyroid needs. It is the measurement of thyroid stimulating hormone which is released by your pituitary gland (the "master gland" at the base of your brain) when your thryoid ceases to make enough hormone. In most labs it ranges from 0.5 to 4.0 in the normal range. If you get thyroiditis you might think you had a strange sore throat and not even realize it was the gland on the outside of your Adam's apple area that gave you the soreness but eventually your thyroid level drops and you may put on weight or get sluggish. The usual cause is a virus but there are also other conditions that will result in your thyroid going low. Most annual physicals now include the TSH in the lab panel and any number from 4.1 and above is hypothyroidism, it typically is 5 to 40. I once had a patient wheeled into my office so low on thyoid for so long she looked like the Pillsbury dough boy...her TSH was 268, the highest I or any of my colleagues had ever seen. She had to be admitted to the ICU for slow intravenous infusion of pure T3 before she totally shut down.

Measuring T4 and T3 unless it's the free form is useless for adjusting doses as the protein bound hormone does not reflect the current activity of the hormone. Those tests are more important if you have an overactive thyroid and the super high level of T4 needs to be lowered by other medicines. The TSH tells your doctor exactly how to adjust your thyroid med: if it's below 0.5 you're getting too much and the dose can be cut by 0.25 or 0.5 mg, then retested 3 months later as the TSH takes that long to equilibrate on the new dose. Testing too soon after a dose change leads to many misdosing problems. Conversely if your TSH was high, you were started on levothyroxine, and it's still over 4.0 after 3 months, then you need a bump up to the next level. Once you're cruising in the normal window, you've found your dose. As your thyroid recovers from the insult that made it go low and is done scarring itself, your needs may increase still for a while, but eventually you'll find the dose that you'll likely continue on for life.

If you have been in a stable state for a long time on one brand and then you try a generic and your TSH goes high, that generic isn't absorbing well for you. There have been many bad generics for levothyroxine, but also some good ones (in the US at least) that meet all lthe bioavailability tests and work as well as the brand name ones like Synthroid. The HMO I worked for used only one brand of generic thyroid and we had no problems. Unless you research the bioavailability reports of your generic, I would tend to go only with brand name with this drug which is still not an expensive med. I can't vouch for the Mexican brand names, but it's where you'd need to start and then just check the TSH for a few 3 month periods. The key is to stay on the same brand med when you find it works well....however not confusing dosage change needs with what your thyroid may still be doing if you're a newbie on the med. The current sensitive TSH test is one of the most accurate tools docs have to adjust a dosage in current medicine short of doing actual drug levels which is used for other types of medicines and does not work for thyroid due to its complicated protein binding and conversion to free T3 inside the body's cells meaning the blood level doesn't accurately reflect your requirements for replacement thereapy.

[Ruidoso]

I believe Armour thyroid has been off the market in the US for nearly a decade or more as its bioavailability and actual amount in each tablet was too variable from batch to batch and even from pil to pill. As the name suggests, it came from ground up pig thryoids at a meat processing plant, one of the items they saved out and didn't put into Spam.

Taking synthetic T4 (levothyroxine) plus T3 (Cytomel) for maintenance therapy is not typically prescribed any more. All T4 has to be converted to T3 in the cells of the body to function and ingesting pure T3 actually gives a lot of patients an instant jolt of pep which is not needed for smooth maintenance of thyroid hormone replacement. Patients will say they feel much better on the pure T3 mixture of course. The down side to this jolt is that in some folks as they age it can trigger off bothersome rapid heat rate or cardiac arrythmias, occasionally fatal ones. The smoother and longer conversion time of T4 to T3 by taking synthetic levothyroxine mostly avoids this problem unless the dose is way too high. Many of my alternative medicine colleagues still used both Cytomel and pig thyroid in the 90's, but I found most of them had stopped by the end of the millenium after the third generation TSH test was perfected which made thyroid dosing finally extremely easy and accurate.

Thanks for your informative post. My heart beat became rapid after thyroid removal 35 years ago. At the time my surgeon who was also my family doctor was quite concerned about it but after I quit smoking for 6 months and the rate dropped by 13 beats a minute, he felt although it is was still high it was acceptable. My heartbeat was not fast prior to surgery. At the time Armour was prescribed. He suggested going to the synthetic later but I thought the natural mixture would be better. Later starting using Cynoplus which is also a mixture. Things are definitely improved after using just T4 but it seems permanent damage may have been done by long use of the mixture.

[ra27]

Try studying dr broda barnes, m.d., phd who spent his entire career studying thyroid function--------he recommended only dessicated thyroid, such as Armour (a company which unfortunately changed their formula), along with using basal temperature to evaluate doseage-------------from my own experience years ago, he was correct. Anyone with chronic depression should evaluate their thyroid function as soon as possible by seeing a holistic m.d.