STTM’s Armour-vs-other-brands page now has information on desiccated thyroid in Denmark, Germany and Italy: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/armour-vs-other-brands Thanks go to Julia Hendryx for alerting me about the brand in Denmark!
If I need to add more info or corrections, please use the Contact Me form at the bottom of any page on Stop the Thyroid Madness.
THIS PATIENT REVOLUTION for a better hypothyroid treatment is working! Desiccated thyroid brands which were almost extinct from low use are now seeing a comeback. Another comeback?? PATIENT HEALTH!!T4-only meds do NOT work, unless an elevator which only goes to the 5th floor of a 50 story building….works. My quote; my words.
p.s. See the post below about the importance of your potassium levels, and below that, how being hypothyroid can affect your liver, and my opinion of that fact with T4 meds vs. desiccated thyroid, which one comment disagrees with. For the May 7th post, comments are still coming in about the “New” Armour. Express yours, and let’s hope that just raising it will do the trick, in spite of the loss of being able to do it sublingually as easy as before–a sad loss.
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As Susan Boyle of the UK had a dream which came true, I too wish from the deepest place in my heart that someday soon, SOMEONE from the mass media will FINALLY get smart and do a wide-reaching story for the hundreds of millions who are still on T4 meds like Sythroid, Levoxyl, Levothyroxine, Eltroxin, Oroxine…and who have depression or a myriad of other lingering symptoms of a sucky, laughable and shameful treatment. This video inspires me today just as it did a few weeks ago. Enjoy and dream with me.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzS0wgwyW4&annotation_id=annotation_179773&feature=iv 🙂
Janie
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*See below on how being on T4 meds can affect your liver. And below that–why I’m handing my promise ring back to Forest Pharmaceuticals.
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 T4-only meds, or even being underdosed on NDT or T3.Â
I’ve been noticing several articles coming out about a strong association between hypothyroidism and a twice the risk of liver disease and liver cancer, 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 at the same time.
In other words, continued hypothyroidism (which being on T4-only meds has promoted) 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, 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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Janie wrote the following in 2009 about Armour, and wouldn’t you know, 2015 sees another problem with Armour!
In 2002, when I first got on natural 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 under our tongues. 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 5th. 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.)Â
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. Thank goodness there are other fish in the sea.
STTM’s Armour-vs-other-brands page now has information on desiccated thyroid in Denmark, Germany and Italy: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/armour-vs-other-brands Thanks go to Julia Hendryx for alerting me about the brand in Denmark! 
