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Good news! You can get good desiccated thyroid from Canada.

erfathyroid

NOTE: when this blog post was written in 2009, it was good news to mention the Canadian brand of NDT, made by the company called Erfa. But sadly beginning in 2014, it seemed to change in a negative way, as reported by numerous patients, even if some still used it. Complaints about symptoms returning fell on deaf ears. There have also been shortages.

Unfortunately, patients who want to switch to desiccated thyroid from T4-only meds like Synthroid et al, or those already on desiccated thyroid who want to fill their next prescription, are going to find it difficult. There are widespread shortages in desiccated thyroid like Armour, Naturethroid and Westhroid. (see my posts below).

But there’s good news, and it comes in the form of “Thyroid” by Erfa.

Erfa’s “Thyroid” is an excellent natural desiccated thyroid product according to the experience of patients who use it. It contains:

  • Dried Thyroid
  • Mag­ne­sium Stearate
  • Corns­tarch
  • Talc
  • Sugar

**Note the “sugar”. Patients also report they are able to do this brand of medication sublingually! That is good news.

The Erfa website states you can obtain their desiccated thyroid medication outside of Canada via a special access program and follow their steps:

For patients outside Canada and the US:

1. Get a prescription from your local doctor (mention hypothyroidism on it).
2. Your doctor should fill in this simple document (not required for the UK)
3. Fax or e-mail us the documents at 1-514-931-7330 or info@ERFA.net

For patients in the US:

1. get a valid prescription of Thyroid from your local doctor
2. your doctor has to fill FDA form 1572 (e-mail us a request at info@ERFA.net
3. Fax or e-mail us the documents at 1-514-931-7330 or info@ERFA.net

Thank you Erfa from Stop the Thyroid Madness and thyroid patients all over the world who KNOW what a superior treatment desiccated thyroid really is!

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7 replies

Psoriasis, rosacea and hypothyroidism–did you know there’s a connection?

STTM red noses(This page was updated in 2015. Enjoy!)

A thyroid patient and mother of two just informed me that her daughter’s psoriasis on her body completely went away thanks to being on desiccated thyroid, and all that’s left is some on her head. And, her son’s psoriasis completely went away thanks to desiccated thyroid.

Connection? Pretty obvious, isn’t it. Here are three skin conditions that can be related to your thyroid issue:

Psoriasis

Psoriasis is an autoimmune skin disease that appears on the skin chronically due to an immune system going awry. It results in red scaly patches with a white dead-cell buildup. You can often see it hand-in-hand with Hashimotos.

Rosacea

Rosacea is another skin problem, though not autoimmune, that causes a redness of the skin, including the cheeks and nose, or the forehead and chin.

I personally had rosacea on my nose for years—my oh-so-romantic “clown nose”. But just like the mother’s son and daughter with psoriasis, my rosacea eventually went away, as well, after I had started on desiccated thyroid and raised it high enough to remove my hypo symptoms—the latter which did not totally happen on Synthroid and got worse the longer I stay on.

Pretibial Myxoedema

Another condition called Pretibial Myxoedema, also called thyroid dermopath, can present itself with either hyperthyroidism like Graves or hypo. It often affects the feet with swelling, lumpiness or lesions, or you can have it on other places on your skin. It’s caused by excess hyaluronic acid. It can also be associated with autoimmune thyroid disease.

Chronic skin disease is just another reason to be adequately treated with desiccated thyroid, or at the very least, add T3 to your T4—a much better option than being only on the latter.

Namaste Janie

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Tips on how to do desiccated thyroid sublingually

Though this was originally posted in 2009, it’s been updated to the present day and time!

The brand of Natural Desiccated Thyroid called Armour used to be easy to do sublingually, even if the official line was they didn’t make it that way. That means letting it dissolve under the tongue which can potentially make its way to the sublingual gland under the bottom of the mouth and more directly to the cells.

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, since some of it may be bypassing the stomach.

But with the first newly formulated Armour in 2009, it became difficult. The pill became 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.

Tips from patients on how to do sublingual

Even for those NDT brands which are made quite hard, below are tips from patients on how to continue doing desiccated thyroid sublingually. Let your doc know, too.

1) Some are adding a tiny touch of the contents of a Pixie Stix under their 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 lozenges 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, say some.

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.

Can’t I just swallow my NDT?

Definitely. You’ll just have to make sure you don’t also have a stomach full of iron rich foods, calcium or estrogen. Generally, it’s best to take your tablet away from any of the former, such as a two hour difference at the minimum.

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

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64 replies

Are you switching to Nature-throid? Here’s 10 good things to know!

Screen Shot 2015-09-27 at 1.33.08 PM(This page has been updated to the current day and time. Enjoy!)

In 2009, there were many folks reporting problems with the newly-formulated Armour (and that has been true for 2015, sadly), just as there was a growing body of individuals stating they are switching to Naturethroid by RLC Labs (formerly Western Research), another prescription brand of desiccated thyroid which also makes WP Thyroid.

Today, there are even more quality brands to consider. And when a brand like Armour disappoints, many are also switching to NP Thyroid by Acella.

But if you are considering Naturethroid, here is info to carry with you if you switch:

  1. Naturethroid has a coating on the outside, and some patients state they bite on the pill to remove the coating, and still try to do it sublingually. No sugar, but some are determined.
  2. One grain of Naturethroid is 65 mg rather than the 60 mg that Armour users have been used to. Two grains are 130 mgs, etc. (One grain is actually 64.8 but it’s easier to round it up). Strengths are 1/4, 1/2, one grain, two grains, three grains.
  3. The makers of Naturethroid started making 1 1/2 grain tablets by 2010.
  4. Ingredients are
    • Porcine Thyroid Powder, U.S. Pharmacopeia
    • Microcrystalline Cellulose
    • Dicalcium Phosphate
    • Sodium Starch Glycolate
    • Magnesium Stearate
    • Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose
    • Stearic Acid
    • Carnauba Wax
    • Polyethylene Glycol
  5. Naturethroid uses the same USP thyroid powder as any good desiccated thyroid product—it “adheres to full pharmaceutical purity and standardization on the consistency of the hormones along with full pre-and-post testing procedures associated with quality prescription products.”
  6. RLC Labs is a small and friendly pharmaceutical company.
  7. Twitter has a Nature Throid website.
  8. RLC labs also used to distribute Westhroid more than it does today (simlar), but that has largely been replaced by WP Thyroid–an NDT with very few fillers.
  9. When switching, you will have to figure out if you need to be on a similar amount as before, or a different amount, according to symptoms.
  10. And finally, it’s been around since the 1930’s–another tried and true desiccated thyroid product!

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654 replies

Another reason to question taking T4 meds without T3—your liver

Though this page was originally written in 2009, it’s been updated to the current day and time. Time does not change that your liver “may” be negatively effected by being on nothing but T4-only meds, or even being underdosed on NDT or T3. This is not a diagnosis–just information.  ~Janie, thyroid patient and site creator

I’ve been noticing several articles coming out about a strong association between hypothyroidism and a twice the risk of liver disease and problems, especially in females.

And then it dawned on me: another strong reason patients end up up playing basketball with their trash cans using bottles of Synthroid, Levoxyl, Levothroxine or Eltroxin, and being replaced with a working desiccated thyroid or T4/T3, or T3.

In other words, continued hypothyroidism (which being on T4-only meds has promoted, say patients for years) and undiagnosed hypothyroidism (because of the inadequacy of the TSH lab test) can ‘potentially’ promote the development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a more severe Fatty Liver disease, if these articles are right. The next progression is liver cancer, aka hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Even worse, the study revealed that women who had been hypothyroid for more than 10 years had a threefold higher risk of liver cancer compared to women without a history of thyroid disorders. This will make you pause when you consider how many reports there are of patients having hypothyroid symptoms for YEARS with a normal TSH…and a clueless, TSH-worshipping doctor.

And if reading this bores you, understand that your liver is a HIGHLY important gland that you can’t live without. It plays a key role in detoxifying the toxins you ingest and breath in daily (including smoking), besides being a major fat burner. Make the liver diseased, and you become a breeding ground for toxins, the rise of other diseases…then death.

The solution? Patients are running from TSH and T4-only doctors, finding a doctor to put them on a working desiccated thyroid, or T4/T3, or T3, and avoiding the most common mistakes of dosing.

P.S. The original report came out in the May journal issue of Hepatology (the latter is now non-working–here’s the correct place it was to go.) (published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases). Similar results were also reported in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2005.

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54 replies