Armour

[mmcb]

I have been on Synthyroid for about 20 yrs. I have taken as high as .125/ day and as low as .100.  I feel fine, have a good appetite and a reasonable amount of energy. Recently a blood test showed my TSH was too high (5?) so my Dr's asst said he'd probably want me to lower it. I cut back to .75 by cutting up my pills. Now he has decided he wants me to try armour thyroid starting at 90 mg/ day.
I'm not sure I want to go this route. I haven't had any issues in all these years and it seems like people have a lot of problems with armour.
What do you think?

[mmcb]

I asked my Dr for the actual lab numbers and have not heard back yet. The clinic has a new system where you can send emails, make appts, etc on line through a secure site so I called his asst and also emailed them through the system.
Since I don't have that additional information, I am not sure how to proceed. I feel perfectly fine on 75mcg/ day. Don't know if he tested for the Frees either.
Thanks so much for your answers. It will all make a lot more sense when I get the lab results.

[Super_sally888]

Your doctor's assistant is back to front.

IF your TSH is high it means you need more meds (and that you are hypothyroid), not less meds.

How do you feel?  You will probably feel worse on your reduced dose.

I also think if it aint broke, don't fix it.  If you are doing fine on Synthryoid there is no need to change to anything else.

Please take this up directly with your doctor.

[gimel]

First, you would lower your TSH by increasing, not decreasing your thyroid meds.  Also, meds should typically be revised to relieve symptoms.  If you were still having lingering hypo symptoms, then perhaps the doctor wanted to help relieve those symptoms by increasing your meds and thereby reducing your TSH level.  

Since TSH is a pituitary hormone that is affected by so many variables, it is far better to base medication on symptoms and also levels of the biologically active thyroid hormones, Free T3 and Free T4.  Note that these are not the same as Total T3 and Total T4, which are somewhat outdated tests and not nearly as revealing as the Frees.  

Without knowing your FT3 and FT4 levels, I don't now why the doctor would want to change you to Armour.  Before even considering that I think I would want to have a look at this listing of typical hypo symptoms and see if you are still having some of those, and also I would want to be tested for Free T3 and Free T4 so that those levels could also be taken into account.

http://endocrine-system.emedtv.com/hypothyroidism/hypothyroidism-symptoms-and-signs.html

I don't know that people have any inordinate problems with Armour.  It is working well for me.  Although patients do have occasional problems with the fillers found in different brands of meds, problems for hypothyroid patients are more frequently due to inadequate or wrong meds , resulting in levels of Free T3 and Free T4 that are too low to relieve symptoms.