Here is what I’ve observed so far using the Isocort along with my normal daily medications (Armour and Lanton): not much of anything, but I am definitely gassier in a way that tends to happen when I drink milk or eat ice cream (ie, flatulence caused by mild lactose intolerance). I checked the composition of Isocort and lactose/lactase is an ingredient, so that’s no surprise; I think I’ll start taking Lactaid and/or Beano daily to deal with it. Also, I have been pretty fatigued for the past couple days, but that’s likely because a house guest is staying with me indefinitely and making it difficult for me to get my normal sleep.

I also thought it might be useful to put down clearly by which criteria I’ll judge Isocort’s success or lack of it. If the Isocort significantly improves at least two of these issues, without damaging me in some other way, I will be overjoyed: sweating, fatigue, acne, weight gain. If it significantly improves one and moderately improved another one or two, I’ll be pretty happy and keep taking it.

I feel the same.

Maybe I didn’t explain adequately why I’m so excited about the Isocort. I get excited about every new medication I try or even when I adjust doses. I always want it to work and I always go into it thinking that it’s going to work. When I tried Clonidine, I was excited. When I switched from from Lanton to Omepradex and back to Lanton, I was excited. When I switched from Armour to synthetic T3 and back to Armour, I was excited.

But now is the first time that I’m really trying anything related to the adrenals at all. I begged my endocrinologists for years to look at the adrenals, but they always swore that there’s no connection between thyroid and adrenals and that, since I don’t have Addison’s or Cushing’s, my adrenals are fine.

Armour Thyroid recently went thru a reformulation that is causing many people to be undertreated. Not only that, but there is a shortage of the base ingredients, meaning that even if you had a doctor who would write for Armour, you may not get it. People are even having trouble finding *any* natural dessicated Thyroid.

I would strongly suspect your increased TSH to the reformulated Armour. Hope you can find the right meds.

Mary Shomon has been covering this issue:
http://thyroid.about.com/od/thyroiddrugstreatments/tp/desiccated-thyroid-2009.htm

I had my Armour refill and after about 2 weeks, I thought I was starting to lose my mind. I had already noticed that it smelled and tasted different. I then found out about the reformulation and had my doctor re-write my Rx for NatureThroid. I got that filled and feel miles better — but even that Rx will be difficult to get refilled due to the shortage. My mail order Pharmacy has already informed me of the shortage and suggested that Levothyroxine was a good substitute – NOT!!

I want to say right away that I’m not one of these people who think that big corporations can do nothing right. Pharmaceutical companies have alleviated more suffering in the past century than practically anyone else, and everyone who depends on medications developed by these companies – for profit – should stop to think about just what would happen if the profit motive were removed from their operations.

That being said, the culture of regulation under which pharmaceuticals operate results in their doing some pretty atrocious things. I’m more intimately familiar with a slightly different example, but one that’s perhaps even more extreme than the psychiatric medications listed in the article, all of which are somewhat new.

The history of thyroid treatment is that natural thyroid hormone replacement therapy existed for a long time – since the 19th century – before technicians in a laboratory developed a synthetic pill meant to replace the natural version. The efficacy of natural thyroid was gauged by how well or poorly a patient recovered to the treatment under clinical observation; the success or failure of synthetic thyroid is measured by secondary blood tests.

I’ve observed and participated in discussions on the margin of the thyroid world for about six years (and suffered from Hashimoto’s for seven and a half years) and in that entire time, I’ve never heard of anyone who’s taken both natural thyroid and synthetic thyroid and prefers synthetic to natural. On the contrary, I’d estimate that roughly 80-90% of people in my circles prefer natural to synthetic moderately or strongly, with the remainder not having a preference.

Granted, people who are adequately treated by their physicians have no need to seek out an internet community, so I must account for some selection bias. But it’s nowhere near enough to explain that kind of tilt, especially when synthetic thyroid is prescribed way more commonly than natural thyroid.

How did it happen that Synthroid and its equivalents are vastly more popular than Armour and its equivalents, given most people’s preference for Armour and Armour’s lower cost? And how did it happen that there are no studies, or almost no studies, comparing the effectiveness (as determined by alleviation of symptoms) of one treatment versus the other?

The answer to both questions is: marketing. And by marketing, I mean money. When a company spends it, someone has to receive it; the people on the receiving end of Synthroid’s marketing budget are doctors. They may seem special in their white coats, but they are also human just like the rest of us – perhaps more so – and if they are presented with a slick and glossy argument on one side, and no argument at all on the other side (to the best of my knowledge, Armour Thyroid doesn’t have a marketing budget), they’re going to go with the slick and glossy argument nine times out of ten.

Trying to see a “specialist” doctor in this country is a true nightmare. I’ve had to wait four months just for an initial appointment with an endocrinologist. To coin a phrase, it is cruel and utterly usual to tell someone suffering from lack of thyroid hormone that he must wait a third of a year before he can see an endocrinologist to discuss his problem, after which he might have to wait interminably long for the medication and for it to start working (just imagine the wait for a followup appointment…). Even seeing a “family doctor” (ie, a general practitioner) to get the most basic prescription (for Lanton, which is supposed to treat acid reflux) can be downright Kafkaesque if it needs to be done on that same day.

I’ve struggled and struggled and struggled and struggled with this system for the five years I’ve lived in this country. The doctors here can be personally nice, but as physicians the service they provide is atrocious. They’re really more like accountants, gazing into their computer screens and looking for ways to minimize everything (nothing against accountants – my father is one and so was my grandfather).

I could go on and on about the insane delays, the abusive nurses, the uncaring doctors and everything, but I want to highlight one aspect of the system here that sucks beyond belief. Our country has a Health Ministry that publishes a list of approved medications. Obviously, they’re not going to approve a medication that is more expensive and less effective than alternatives. But what about a medication that is more expensive and more effective? Or a medication that is less expensive but less effective? Or a medication that’s priced similarly but is differently effective?

Or what about an inexpensive natural medication that’s approved by the American FDA but is no longer commonly used anywhere in the world because a synthetic alternative has been developed? Such is the case with Armour Thyroid, which I take for my Hashimoto’s. Armour Thyroid is not approved by my country’s Health Ministry because they have already approved one medication for hypothyroidism – Eltroxin, a generic version of Synthroid – and why in the world would Armour be necessary if there’s already a perfectly good option available?

Well, Eltroxin is a perfectly good option, as is the branded version Synthroid – for those helped by it. For people whose symptoms didn’t improve on Eltroxin/Synthroid, the medical system here offers no solution. I can convince a doctor to prescribe it. But once he’s written the prescription, I can’t take it to a pharmacy to get it filled. I am shit out of luck.

By comparison: in America, as in my country, it is highly uncommon to prescribe Armour Thyroid for hypothyroidism. But if a doctor does prescribe it, the patient can acquire it with hardly any difficulty. The point is, it exists in America (legally, too). If the corner pharmacy doesn’t have it, they can order it. If they can’t order it, another one can. If another one can’t, the patient can order it by himself online – and probably save money, too.

Maybe the patient will spend more so he can see a doctor known to prescribe Armour. Maybe he’ll spend more ordering the Armour and ultimately getting reimbursed by his insurance for less than if he’d taken Synthroid. He has options – some better and more costly, some not as good and less so. Here, we have no options. And we slap each other on the back out of excitement for our wonderful health system.

Though I carry American citizenship, I’m not insured in America and don’t live there, don’t vote there and try not to tell Americans how to run their country. But I will say that it will be a sad day for me and for many other people all around the world who rely on America’s options when Americans accept their president’s proposal to socialize their medical system.

I get the Armour Thyroid I need from my uncle, a dentist in Philadelphia, via my mother. It costs a hell of a lot more than it would if I were insured, but at least I can get it. If an American bureaucrat some day decides that no one needs Armour because Synthroid is already available, I will again be shit out of luck.

I did gluten free this time for two weeks. I will say that it cleared up my diarrhea, which I really appreciate. Unfortunately, it didn’t do anything else for me and had no effect on my sweating.

Then I heard from someone taking Isocort, which I’d somehow managed never to consider. I’m going to get a bottle of it in about 10 days, and I’ll try working it into my daily routine and decreasing my Armour.

I’ve never met an endocrinologist in my country who understands the interaction of the adrenals and the thyroid, and every time I’ve asked one to test my adrenals, he’s either refused or ordered the wrong test and read it the wrong way.

So maybe the Isocort will help a bit?

Is anyone familiar with excessive sweating as a symptom of Hashimoto’s? I developed Hashimoto’s a little more than seven years ago, and ever since then, even a slight uptick in temperature makes me break out in sweat. Now that it’s summer, I can’t walk down the street without getting totally drenched.

I’ve treated my hypothyroidism over time with Synthroid (137 MCG), T3 (100 MCG) and now Armour (4.5 grains). My T3 and T4 are both average to high (but normal for an otherwise healthy young man in his 20s). I stress that the sweating accompanied the onset of other symptoms of hypothyroidism and did NOT start when I began treating the hypothyroidism (I can be sure because a period of two years elapsed between those times).

If you aren’t aware of a Hashimoto’s- or hypothyroidism-sweating connection, what about a connection between something that can cause excessive sweating and that can also trigger Hashimoto’s? Or a connection between Hashimoto’s and other linked medical conditions for which sweating is a symptom?

Thank you all so much in advance for your help. I’m pretty much at my wit’s end, and it’s progressed way beyond the point of a mere inconvenience and into dangerous territory. I’m reluctant to walk my dog outside during the daylight because I might lose so much fluid from sweat that I’ll dehydrate.

I intentionally didn’t get my thyroid blood tests done this time, because I don’t give a damn what the results would say. No matter what, I’ll continue taking whatever medications, in whatever amounts, I find to treat my symptoms.

I desperately want, and have wanted for the past two years, this endocrinologist to address the fact that many of my hypothyroid symptoms have not gone away with treatment for hypothyroidism, whether using synthetic T4, synthetic T3, or natural T4+T3. The main three are weight gain, sleep disturbance and sweating. Right now I’m managing the sleep problem with melatonin, though I prefer not to; the weight gain isn’t such a big deal because I don’t really care about my weight; but the sweating, however, is really awful.

He seemed surprised that I hadn’t tried anything for the sweating yet. He gave me a prescription for Clonidine, which is a medication for high blood pressure that is also used to treat some other things. I am kind of worried to take it because I have already fainted a half dozen times and strongly prefer not to do so again. But I’m going to take it at night when I take my melatonin, so I’ll be in my bed or close to it anyway.

The doctor asked me to call him in two weeks and tell him how it’s going with the Clonidine. His receptionists do a terrible job and he never gets messages, so I guess I’ll have to go back over there to deliver the message in person.