Re: The t4s -- Levothyroxine

[Guest guest]

Hi Red,

Thanks for the info. It's a good beginning in my search for the most easily

tolerated /user friendly Thyroid replacement. About 8 or 10 months ago I tried

..05 Mgs of Levoxyl (Monarch- generic). For me it was awful with

heart-esophagus burn, jitters, and more. I'm generally relatively symptom-free

so when something like that happens, I look for the culprit. I stopped the

Levoxyl after about 4 days and symptoms went away.

Searching the net, I just discovered that Levoxyl was recently reformulated.

The new product dissolves way more quickly than the older one which probably

caused the gastric problems. If you haven't already done so, you and others

might want to read this article

http://www.thyroid-info.com/articles/levoxyl.htm .

Do you like the brand of thyroid you are using and do you know which one it is?

I hope I hear from others too. Since so many people seem to do well on

Synthroid and its generics, I'm willing to give it another try. I'd like to

avoid confusing the effects of synthroid with the side effects.

Thanks so much, Zoey Read the article. It's outrageous!!!

The t4s -- Levothyroxine

In a message dated 11/17/2002 5:50:03 PM Eastern Standard Time,

graves_support writes:

> I am interested in your experience, and others' too, with synthroid and it

> various generics. Is synthroid preferable to the genetics or vice-versa?

> Are their some generics that people like better than others? Has any heard

> of or noticed differences between Levoxyl and Levothyroid or any of the

> other generics?

>

>

You are asking about the various brands of T4. The general name for T4

replacement if levothyroxine. If you get the generic that's what it's

called. Levoxyl, Synthroid and Levothroid are brand names. In a large study

which was initially funded by the manufacturer of Synthroid (the most popular

brand of replacement at that time) it was shown that all were bioequivalent.

That means none were superior to the others. (Boy! Did that make the

manufacturer of Synthroid mad! ...but that's another story?)

HOWEVER, all also had problems with consistency of dosage. In other words,

you might be taking .125, but different lots would have different strengths.

This was presumably due to lack of testing of all batches.

There are often recalls of thyroid replacement because of this problem.

In my opinion, this is still a major problem. A lot of time, people don't

know what is going wrong and think they are having side effects of Graves'

when it may actually be because their T4 replacement is either weaker or

stronger than the last batch, even though marked the same (e.g., .125).

THEN, they found out that a certain manufacturer was charging more than they

should have been, and bad mouthing the competition and the natural T3/T4

combo replacements... ah, but that's much more information than you asked for.

Red

***************************************************************************

Courage doesn't always shout. Sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of

the day that says, " I will try again tomorrow. "

[Guest guest]

Hi Zoey-

Been meaning to answer this one. No matter what brand of T4 that you take

(or generic), it's doubtful that whether a drug is FDA approved or not that

they'd be able to measure clinically significant changes. FDA testing

procedures are probably not sensitive enough. So, it doesn't really matter

whether a drug is FDA approved or not in this instance. It still won't be

as good as making your own with your own thyroid. This also applies to

Armour.

I use Synthroid because I used it before and didn't have problems (batch to

batch-the recall happened while I was on generics) with it. I did have

problems with generics. I haven't tried the other brand names because I

don't want to have to get used to another brand during pregnancy and whether

they're FDA approved or not really doesn't make a difference in this

sensitive of a hormone (they all have batch problems).

Brand names will have less variation than generics because all of the brand

names are manufactured within company standards, whereas, generics will be

manufactured by the cheapest lab of the moment (that're also supposed to

have standards too but don't seem as stringent). So for 6 months you might

have thyroid hormone manufactured at one lab but then your insurance or

pharmacy finds a cheaper lab and your drugs are then manufactured there.

Choosing brand names are the lesser of 2 evils.

Take care,

dx & RAI 1987 (at age 24)

> HOWEVER, all also had problems with consistency of dosage. In other

words,

> you might be taking .125, but different lots would have different

strengths.

> This was presumably due to lack of testing of all batches.

>

> There are often recalls of thyroid replacement because of this problem.

[Guest guest]

Hi Zoey-

Been meaning to answer this one. No matter what brand of T4 that you take

(or generic), it's doubtful that whether a drug is FDA approved or not that

they'd be able to measure clinically significant changes. FDA testing

procedures are probably not sensitive enough. So, it doesn't really matter

whether a drug is FDA approved or not in this instance. It still won't be

as good as making your own with your own thyroid. This also applies to

Armour.

I use Synthroid because I used it before and didn't have problems (batch to

batch-the recall happened while I was on generics) with it. I did have

problems with generics. I haven't tried the other brand names because I

don't want to have to get used to another brand during pregnancy and whether

they're FDA approved or not really doesn't make a difference in this

sensitive of a hormone (they all have batch problems).

Brand names will have less variation than generics because all of the brand

names are manufactured within company standards, whereas, generics will be

manufactured by the cheapest lab of the moment (that're also supposed to

have standards too but don't seem as stringent). So for 6 months you might

have thyroid hormone manufactured at one lab but then your insurance or

pharmacy finds a cheaper lab and your drugs are then manufactured there.

Choosing brand names are the lesser of 2 evils.

Take care,

dx & RAI 1987 (at age 24)

> HOWEVER, all also had problems with consistency of dosage. In other

words,

> you might be taking .125, but different lots would have different

strengths.

> This was presumably due to lack of testing of all batches.

>

> There are often recalls of thyroid replacement because of this problem.