Erfa or Armour?

[christine502]

I had been on thyroxine for ten years when I was prescribed desiccated thyroid hormone in October 2011. At the pharmacy, I asked for both Erfa and Armour to be able to compare the two. I had read so much about the reformulated Armour and all the patients having problems with it, so I was almost afraid to try it...but my doctor wants me to take it, she is on Armour herself and claims it's the best thyroid drug on the market. But after all the stories I've read, I expected Erfa to work wonders for me and Armour to be useless.

But it was the other way around.

In fact, Erfa seems to be acting much faster/absorbed much faster than Armour. Could that be the case? I can take Armour once daily (even such a high dose as the 5 grains I am currently taking) and feel fine, but with Erfa, I need to multi-dose and I find that very inconvenient. If I take 5 grains of Erfa in the morning, I start feeling hyper some time around noon and I stay hyper until the evening. Following my doctor's instructions, I swallow the Armour pills and wait about half an hour before eating.

Has anyone else experienced this, or does anyone know the reasons for this? I have to admit that I am surprised that Armour is working so well for me, after all the negative things I have read about it. And I am equally surprised that Erfa is not so great for me as it seems to be for many others.

[70longhorn]

Yes, Armour is probably more  widely available here in USA but its cost has soared!    At GoodRX.com, 30 Tablets costs $30, and I need three .25 tabs per day.  I find the cost unconscionable, as Armour is the oldest thryroid (porcine) med around.  I feel TERRIBLE on Synthetic thyroid meds (flu like symptoms, muscle aches) and I resent that the Armour has soared, soared, soared in price!

[LazyMoose]

Id like to see ERFA pricing now that its 2018 to compare. Ive used NP thyrtoid for about 4 years now, it was cheap then started to go up too, not nearly as much as the new owners price Armour though. To much greed in America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[christine502]

OK, the only lab results are those I had done BEFORE I started on NTH; at the time (Sept '11), I was on 200 mcg of thyroxine (lab's ranges):

BLOOD:

TSH 0.3 (0.4-4.0)
free T4 1.2 (0.8-1.8)
free T3 2.2 (2.1-4.2)
S-cortisol 8 am 5.5 (10-30)
estradiol 27 (100-210) day 21 of cycle
progesterone 1.4 (5-20) day 21 of cycle
anti-TPO >60 (2000 according to doc
T4  1100 (550-3160) should be > 2500 according to doc
cortisol 30 (10-100) should be >50 according to doc


The reason my doctor decided to start my on all those meds was that I had been on thyroxine for 10 years with considerable weight gain and water retention and many other hormone deficiencies as a result. She decided I should not waste any more time.

[flyingfool]

Ok back to basics.

Could you please post your lab results including their reference ranges.  And if you had them the previous results prior to starting Dissected Thyroid.

Your Dr has you on a lot of hormones in addition to Thyroid.  These all interact in very complex ways.  So there must be some specific reason for this.  Otherwise it seems wise to start off and stabilize Thyroid hormones and THEN start on other hormones.  Thyroid is so dramatic in the results on metabolism and how fast things are absorbed and operate that is the reason to start with Thyroid.  I'm not saying the others don't need adjusting, just trying to fix one problem at a time.  Otherwise they are so interconnected changing one of them affecting all the others it is hard to know what move to make next.

[christine502]

The reason the doctor switched me from thyroxine to NTH was that my free T3 levels were suboptimal and I had symptoms of hypo such as weight gain, brittle nails, fatigue and muscle and joint pain. My doctor is a so called Barnes doc who prefers natural hormones to synthetic ones. She also put me on hydrocortison, estrogen and progesterone.

[way2silly]

I was diagnosed with Graves disease and Hashimoto's in the past year (had radioactive Iodine this past August.) I am taking Synthroid and still trying to get regulated which I understand could take me a year or so :/

My Mom was given Armour by her doctor (who at one time had to actually sell to her in the office because she couldn't get it here in the US.) the doctor is very passionate about it and takes it herself.

The weird thing was that my Mom took it for a few years and then started having these strange dizzy, throwing up, rash episodes. We couldn't figure out what they were and of course she went to doctor after doctor.

In the meantime, I was diagnosed and asked my Endo about taking Armour. She is not a big fan because she says (in her opinion) because it is made from pig thyroid gland, and the thyroid gland is not always at an exact number, it can not always be consistent in it's dose.

So there you have both opinions and there is so much written about the use of Armour on the web it's mind boggling!

The bottom line with my Mom was, she wasn't able to get back to the 'Armour prescribing doctor' right away so switched back to her left over back up meds. She's never had another problem with the dizzy sick episodes and has learned that she can no longer eat Pork!! She is now allergic to Pork! She can't eat bacon, ham - nothing!

Now that's weird!

[flyingfool]

If it is an absorption issue.  Maybe a smaller dose of Erfa would work fine.

But also my recommendation would be to not fixed what is not broken. If Armour is working stick with it!

Just one question purely out of curiosity.  What changed to cause the Dr to switch from a T4 med to dissected thyroid?