I confess that I hated my Chemistry class in high school, even if Mr. Bowen tried to make it interesting and favored the girls over the boys in class. But lo and behold, one of those elements on the Periodic Table ended up having a significant role in all or our lives as thyroid patients: iodine.
Iodine can be found in every inch your body, but is especially prevalent in your thyroid, which makes it an interesting element for those of us with thyroid disease. The active thyroid hormone T3 (triiodothyronine) is made up of three iodine molecules, and the storage hormone T4 (thyroxine) has four iodine molecules. In fact, without proper amounts of iodine, your thyroid wouldn’t even function well.
An optimal amount of iodine has also been shown to improve breast health, provide cancer protection, remove toxins like Bromide, fluoride, mercury etc…and in some cases, has helped thyroid patients either lower their dose, or even get off thyroid treatment. Thyroid patient Diana tells of getting off thyroid treatment due to iodine on the Stories of Others page.
***This Thursday evening on the Thyroid Patient Community Call on TalkShoe, we’ll have guest Stephanie Buist, owner of the Yahoo group Iodine and a 9-year thyroid cancer survivor who strongly feels iodine has been a huge factor. We’ll explore how much iodine a person needs, the loading loading test, the best sources of iodine supplementation, whether you need iodine, as well as controversies with iodine use, including Hashimotos disease or bad reactions. Times for the call are 6 pm Pacific, 7 pm Mountain, 8 pm Central and 9 pm Eastern. You can listen right on your computer, or call to talk directly to Stephanie and Janie. Join us!
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Sheila Turner of TPA-UK (Thyroid Patient Advocacy-UK www.tpa-uk.org.uk) is starting the ball rolling on something very interesting: they have contacted a lab in the UK who will do a qualitative analysis of the old Armour vs. the new reformulated Armour to get a breakdown of the ingredients, and potentially give us an idea WHAT is causing thyroid patients to have a return of their hypothyroid symptoms since Forest reformulated Armour in 2009.
However, says Sheila, this will cost in the region of £600 to £700 (approximately $1100). Says Sheila, “If there are enough patients who are willing and able to help raise the funding required by giving whatever we can afford, we could finally get the answer as to which changes have been made in the new formula and whether this includes changes in the active (as some have suggested) and the inactive ingredients and put this baby to rest once and for all.”
You can contact Sheila at the above website and make a pledge. As I write this, they have already have £100 pledged.
UPDATE: Stephanie above has agree to be the ‘Pledge and Money Collector’ for the lab work needed to analyze the old vs new Armour . She can be contacted at ladybugsandbees@sbcglobal.net
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5 Responses to “Two topics: Let’s talk iodine, plus a UK lab will analyze Armour, says Sheila of TPA-UK!”
ellen weir
Forest Labs called me and said they changed Nothing but those two fillers…I took the original for 20 years and did fine, until it became impossible to get. Tried synthroid with T3, Naturethroid(for one month), and back to Armour. It still feels better for me than the others, but I am nervous because many people feel it works for awhile, and then doesn’t. Something sounds fishy. ellen
LinStev
Who can we all contact to really address our outrage and concern about this very serious life issue, I did very poorly with synthroid. I was diagnosed in 1982 with Hashimoto thyroid and have been around and around trying to get well. I got Lyme disease and Babesia in 2000, at the same time I was going through menopause…..the best I ever felt was with “original” armour thyroid. I am currently taking Naturthroid…..don’t feel as well….and am not sure about future availability?????…….To what crisis with the past Armour is the government responding????? We may be doomed if proper action is not taken to protect our source of t3/t4……T3/T4 friendly doctors Please tell us what to do?
(From Janie: desiccated thyroid is right now reappearing on shelves. Hang tight.)
liz
Armour will not go back on the market anyway, so you can save the money….
According to someone at the facebook group who spoke to Forest, they changed the ration of microcrystalline cellulose vs dextrose around.
The microcrystaline cellulose is known for allergic reactions in patients.
Now it is 47,5 mg cellulose and 2,5 mg dextrose, whereas it was the other way around before.
Thyroid from Canada by erfa is like the old Armour.
The history is the same, formulation the same, as they were the same medicine long time ago, and then Parke-Davis sold it in the U.S but demanded that Armour did not have any rights for marketing abroad whatsoever, and Thyroid in Canada by Parke-Davis had rights outside the U.S.
That is why Forest never applied for registration in Europe, they simply had no rights to market outside the U.S.
Maybe Erfa will file a NDA in the U.S. in two years.
(From Janie: Actually, Armour is already making it back to the shelves. Unfortunately, it’s the reformulated version which is not working for most.)
kendra
About the research project, it would be interesting but dont we already know the new ingredients? more Cellulose and absence of sugar? Will the test evaluate WHY it doesnt work? If this is the case it’s a very important research project for the future of all Natural Thyroid drugs. Shouldnt Forrest fork over some cash for this research that they themselves should be doing? I never want to have this sort of reformulation problem again, it has caused my body much grief!
Dave Matthews
So it is great that they are going to analyze the differences between new and old Armour Thyroid – but medco cancelled its availability, and the local pharamcies blame the swine flu in Egypt (execution of over 3k pigs) for the non-availability for at LEAST 8 months of any all natural product…. so where does that leave us?
(From Janie: don’t believe everything you read or hear. Desiccated thyroid is right now making its way back to pharmacy shelves. And here are options you can also use during the shortages: https://stopthethyroidmadness.com/options-for-thyroid-treatment )