~~~Armour Patients - shortages of meds~~~

[stella5349]

In recent months I have been following the rumors of Armour thyroid medication being in short supply.

Since I am an Armour thyroid patient I became concerned with the rumors and started conversing with other Armour patients and advocants of this medication.

I know my medication dosages have not changed much from the original 60mg (1 grain) to 30 mg (1/2 grain)

So far I am not having trouble getting my refills - but from what I am reading that could be an issue soon until 10/08.

I am following the quote below that Forest Pharmacuticals states in the full article linked below:

"Forest is performing a process change to further enhance the quality of our product Armour Thyroid. The strengths currently involved in this change are the 2 gr (120 mg) , 3 gr (180 mg), 4 gr (240 mg) and 5 gr (300 gr). If we maintain our current schedule, these strengths should be available in October. During this time, we will continue to manufacture the .25 gr, .50 gr, 1 gr, and 1.5 gr tablets. However, we may encounter short-term backorders on these strengths as a result of increase in demand."

I am not sure what "enhance" means - but I am trying to learn more.



I belong to a bi-weekly newsletter and reviewed this information on June 18th, 2008

If you are on the prescription Armour thyroid - you need to check this article out below.

I cannot speak of it's validness - this is only the information I have been given and wanted to pass it on to other Armour patients.

http://thyroid.about.com/b/2008/06/16/thyroid-drug-shortage-affecting-patients-patients-face-crisis-in-getting-armour-thyroid.htm

If there are any questions - let me know.

[MKlacza]

Well... I just left a message for my Dr. I just called in another refill. How can we make sure this doesnt happen? Would we possibly have to take more pills than the two a day to meet our dosage requirements? I havent had any issues thus far... I take 30mg in the am and 30 in the afternoon. So if they were out of the 30mgs, would I then have to take 2 - 15mg for each dose? Did you see that address on that link where you can have your Dr fax or mail you prescriptions? Also, they mentioned other forms of natural desicated hormones... do you know anything about those?

[ChitChatNine]

Thanks for this info Stella.  

[laura1967]

The good news is if anything was to happen to supply of armour in the future, the other brand of natural thyroid is Westhroid. There have been shortages of Armour before....when they had a lot of synthetic recalls a lot of patients went to Armour. They couldn't keep up with the demand for a while, but they worked it out. I think we will be okay....worst case scenario you take more of lower dosages, or last resort switch to Westhroid. Hope everyone is well!!!  Have a great day!!!

[percysmom]

Or buy your meds online and stock up. That is what I do.

[stella5349]

This post was for informational purposes - thanks for your comments. I do know about the other natural meds available both types and online - but some here do not.

I did however stress that understanding the proper grain value compared to mg's is necessary  and most definately very important to understand about these type of meds.

[utahmomma]

Funny, I just went through this fight with my pharmacy today.  Yeah, Walgreen's can't get 2gr *anywhere* so I'm now having to take 2 tablets of 1gr each day instead of 1 tablet of 2gr.  All of this and it took a call to my doctor's office to get the okay.  Duh!

Like us thyroid patients aren't ready to scream anyway.  

[stella5349]

It will be a hassle for some Armour patients Utah to get there meds.

My Walgreens just fills me the monthly Rx regardless of the grain dosages. Some may not be so lucky and have to call there doctor's office and get new Rx's faxed regarding the additional tablets in lower dosages.

It is very important for Armour thyroid patients to understand the mgs and grain values - so if they run into a problem - they can get their doctor to improvise a bit on the proper grains to get their meds they need for the month.

[ChitChatNine]

And in brain fog .... having to deal with a different script to equal the amt of med taken .. nice move on the makers of the med !

C~