You want Machiavellian Big Pharma machination$$$? I do much better on Armour Thyroid which is, according to Big Pharma and the health care insurers, nothing short of HERESY! Gospel says *Everyone* does better on synthetic thyroid hormone (which is straight T4) -- despite numerous medical studies that show that that about a fourth of the people who need thyroid hormone do best on a mixture of T3 and T4, such as Armour thyroid provides. What makes it Heresy is that there's more money for Big Pharma in synthetic hormone which they can make much more cheaply than it costs to purify it from "organic" (porcine) sources. I've been swimming upstream against that current for 20 years. Every time I change providers or insurance, I have to fight that fight all over again.
Big Pharma only has a certain number of years to recoup their new drug development, drug trials and FDA approval costs before other drug companies are allowed to release a generic. That's why new, brand name drugs cost so durn much. Once other companies are allowed to release generics, that tends to cut the amount they can charge for brand name down in order to keep competitive, although the price of brand names versus generics is still significantly higher, as Big Pharma gives doctors kickbacks for writing "brand name only " prescriptions -- again to charge as much as they can for as long as they can get away with. Synthroid has been on the market long enough that there's not that much difference between generic and brand name price any more.
As long as you are getting with your health care provider, if your T3 is low, you may benefit from Armour Thyroid -- even though what they look at for judging "normal" is your T4. T3 is a precursor of T4, and it stands to reason the more T3 you have available, the more T4 you can make.
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mmmag
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 10:45 am (UTC)Big Pharma only has a certain number of years to recoup their new drug development, drug trials and FDA approval costs before other drug companies are allowed to release a generic. That's why new, brand name drugs cost so durn much. Once other companies are allowed to release generics, that tends to cut the amount they can charge for brand name down in order to keep competitive, although the price of brand names versus generics is still significantly higher, as Big Pharma gives doctors kickbacks for writing "brand name only " prescriptions -- again to charge as much as they can for as long as they can get away with. Synthroid has been on the market long enough that there's not that much difference between generic and brand name price any more.
As long as you are getting with your health care provider, if your T3 is low, you may benefit from Armour Thyroid -- even though what they look at for judging "normal" is your T4. T3 is a precursor of T4, and it stands to reason the more T3 you have available, the more T4 you can make.