Is anyone on Armour?

[tiredpuppy]

Is anyone in our group on Armour and if so are you good with it? What are pro's and con's of say Armour and or Synthoid etc.
I go to Endo on monday so I want to be intelligent about this...thanks
Lisa

PS got my stiches out today and my scar line is absolutely flawless... it will heal up great inspite of blowing the first stich set. Doc says my site looks good inspite of added trauma...

[somewhere2007]

Hi. My wife takes Armour. She had all the symtoms of hypothyroidism for years. The doctors kept telling her she was fine. She eventually had half of her thyroid out due to a huge tumor (benign). She finally had a P.A. prescribe levothyroxine which helped all her syptoms: sleepy, constipation, dry skin, hair falling out. The medicine helped. About two years later she insisted with a bit of a fight with doctor to let her try Armour. All of her symtoms have disappeared. For HER Armour is better. Levothyroxine supplies T4 and your body must be able to convert it to T3. Armour has both. Go to the Armour web site. They have good info under facts etc. There is an awesome article at http://www.thyroid-info.com/articles/mercola.htm   The doctor in the article is very informative.

[tiredpuppy]

I want to thanks for replying with such helpful info re your wife. I have also read that people who start on on say sythroid may still have some symptoms but after switching to Armour they lose all symptoms. I would like to try Armour 1st. I hope my Endo is cooperative about it...

Anyone else on Armour????? Or been on it ? Or switched from it to sythroid Levrox. etc...
Lisa

[Mavs3982]

I took Armour and it was terrible for me. It has a very unnatural amount of T3 in it and I got horrible headaches from it.
The ratio is 4:1 of T4 to T3.
You can read about it here: http://www.altsupportthyroid.org/dt.php

so 30 mg Armour is 24 t4, 6 mg t3
60 mg Armour is 48 t4, 12 t3
90 mg Armour is 72 t4, 18 t3

As you can see....18 mgs is a lot of t3. Most people who take Cytomel dont take anymore that 10 mg with their T4 medication.

I was fine on the introductory dose of 30 mg of Armour, but once my TSH got higher and I needed to increase the meds, the worse I felt because of all the t3.

Just wanted to throw out another opinion. Armour CAN AND DOES work well for some people. But there are also other people just like me who cant tolerate it. Ill never take it again. It made me feel terrible.

[EmpatheticJenny]

Mavs3982's is far from the only person who has tried Armour and felt much worse, not better. Although there are people who do feel better after making the switch from levothyroxine to Armour, you might consider a "starter strategy" of taking levothyroxine initially while keeping Armour on your list of alternative strategies for the future. Anywhere from a few weeks to a year from now, when it seems that levothyroxine has done everything for you that it can do, you may feel well enough that you do not need an alternative strategy. The one entirely noncontroversial statement I can make is that there is no way to know in advance.

Although my endocrinologist is perhaps unusual in being open to prescribing Armour, I have shied away from it for the following reasons:

1) As pointed out, there is a serious imbalance of T4 and T3 in Armour.

2) If I want to take supplemental T3 as well as T4, which is an option my endocrinologist and I are discussing, I can take Cytomel.  It is looking as if 75 mg. of T4 in pill form will be about right for me. If I decide to try taking Cytomel, my endocrinologist wants me to split a 5 mg. tablet in half. Compare that to the ratios that Mavs3982 shows you for different doses of Armour and you will see what we both mean about the imbalance. The inner consequences for you of an imbalance are potentially not minor.

3) Both levothyroxine and Cytomel are "synthetic" in the sense of being manufactured in a laboratory. In regard to the chemical structure of a medication, my bodily systems neither know nor care whether the pills I swallow came from desiccated pig parts or from a laboratory process.

4) "Natural" is not inherently good. Remember that the hemlock given to Socrates was entirely natural. So is the toxin that causes botulism.

5) In addition, "natural" in the case of Armour means that it is difficult for the manufacturer to ensure equal potency from one batch of pills to the next. The manufacturer assures us consumers that they go to great pains to ensure equal potency, but a person might reasonably wonder about whether they completely succeed.

Equal potency is not a problem with a brand name of levothyroxine that is reasonably fresh (which it should be in any reputable pharmacy) and that you store within a fairly narrow temperature range (59 to 77 degrees Farenheit, which was challenging for me in my always-too-warm apartment, until I discovered the wonderful gadget called a wine cooler). During the first four months of adjusting to levothyroxine, I had a roller-coaster pattern of ups and downs in my symptoms. My endocrinologist says that he sees about two patients a year who follow that sort of adjustment pattern. It was crazy-making enough without wondering whether I was getting the same amount of T4 in every pill I took.

When my endocrinologist first mentioned Armour and I said that the idea of taking something "natural" had no appeal for me, he replied that if you look at the way Armour is manufactured, it actually is not natural at all. Food for thought....

[EmpatheticJenny]

One more thought about pros and cons: If you opt for levothyroxine and your endocrinologist strongly favors Synthroid, be suspicious about whether he or she has been overly influenced by the drug marketing racket. Levothyroxine is an exception to the general rule that generic drugs are every bit as good as brand-name versions. It is important to take one of the recognized brands of levothyroxine (and to get the same brand every time a prescription is refilled).

Synthroid is no better than the others, however, unless it happens to be the brand that a particular person gets along with the best. Some of us seem to have hypersensitive systems where thyroid drugs are concerned, and I have heard of people who switched from one brand to another and felt better. The most usual switch seems to be AWAY from Synthroid, however. In addition, Synthroid seems slightly more likely than the other brands to cause a noticeable amount of hair loss in the early months of taking it.

I was delighted for you when I read your report of an absolutely flawless scar line. Having read your account of your unusually hair-raising time of it in surgery, I think that if anyone deserves to have some part of the overall process go unusually well, it is you! Will your broken tooth be easy to repair...I hope?

[tiredpuppy]

Thats what I love about this site...you throw out a line and with in a few hours the fish (answers) you want are jumpin in the boat!!!! Thanks everybody for your info, I did check out the web sites mentioned and have a greater knowledge and a bit more confedence in my drug choices, It beats reading the PDR too. Thanks all/ anyone else want to add more comments/experiences???
Lisa

[EmpatheticJenny]

I have just one more comment, Lisa: Good luck!!! Of course, you are opening the way for good luck by educating yourself and doing your own thinking, which is an excellent way to get the best care possible. As happened with your scar line, though, may all the parts of the process over which you have no control go very, very smoothly for you.

Crossing my fingers on your behalf,
Jenny

[Mavs3982]

Good post, Jenny.


That was the thing. I thought Armour would be better just because it was natural. I didn't research it as well as I should have before I took the medicine.

The other thing that is interesting is prior to starting Armour, I had my Thyroid Peroixidase Antibodies tested nad Thyroglobulin Antibodies tested. I didn't have any at the time I started Armour.

Now....I was on Armour for about a year and I began to have more problems in Nov of last year because my TSH got high. We ran antibodies and they came back totally abnormal. More than likely, this has something to due w/ my immune system and thyroid disease, however, some people think that thoses who take Armour DEVELOP ANTIBODIES because it is made from a pig gland and the body can view Armour as an invader and "attack" your thyroid. It is just something my doc mentioned and it makes sense. There is no way to find out but your body could react to Armour as if it is something foreign.

[EmpatheticJenny]

Wow, that is a sobering thought that Armour might actually cause antibodies. It is another reason to think twice about taking it.

I can understand why someone would favor Armour because it seems natural; the idea that natural is better is such an appealing idea. It is interesting how many flaws the idea turns out to have, though, when it is examined closely. In my younger days, I did not realize this at all. It is something I have learned over time.

Your posts have been good ones, too, Mavs, and I am sure it has helped Lisa to have every variety of fish come jumping out of the water after she threw out a line! This forum really is a priceless resource.

Best wishes to you both,
Jenny

[tiredpuppy]

Whoa now that info on the antibodies was pricless as I had Hasi's pre-TT so that means the antibodies are there already and I never gave thought to the idea that they might react to the Armour as an invader thyroid, Things that make you go Ummmm! You two have been so helpful, I am really blessed by so much experience here...Ok so Jen your on Levo, and Mavs you take Synthroid, do either of you use Cytomel and have either of you tried the Thymoral (this has the T3T4 combo in one pill)?
Lisa

And ps DANG GOOD Posting from both of you!

[GravesLady]

I have never taken Armour.  I have MVP and I am a vegetarian, but here is my four cents worth of gathered information.

Some people develop TED -  Thyroid Eye Disease,  when they take animal-based extracts such as Armour, because the immune system  react to foreign proteins found in glandular extracts. Synthetic meds. doesn't cause this probelm.

"Armour Thyroid tablets should be used with caution in patients with cardiovascular disease and it may increase the symptoms of diabetes, mellitus, diabetes