Re: OT Thyroid discussion

Good morning Mirjam!

Mirjam

Eltroxin is the same as Synthroid, made of levothyroxine. We couldn't get doctors to help us with my hubby's hypo, and we ended up ordering it from a foreign pharmacy. They are more limited in doses available (usually only 50 or 100 mcg offered), but we get the 100 mcg Eltroxin and make up his dose from that using a pill splitter.

In the US, you can import some medications, even if you get them without a prescription (like we ended up doing), as long as they are for personal use only, you get only 3 months worth at a time, and as long as it's not a controlled substance (things with codeine and other heavy duty pain killers or sleep aids like Ambien or anxiety meds like Xanax). You can get controlled substances if you've got a valid prescription.

No, we didn't self-diagnose hubby's hypo, he's been that way for 15 years. But the US health system has gone to the dogs, where you're just a big fee coming in to most of them, and when we moved, we couldn't find a good doc to work with us, and we ended up taking things into our own hands while we look for a new doc.

FWIW, if synthetic thyroid doesn't help, they still make medicine from actual thyroid called Armor Thyroid. My sister couldn't take the synthetics, so they put her on Armor.

Also, with online pharmacies, you have to watch for bait and switch, first order was $30 from a "Mexican" pharmacy (it shipped from India), and when we went to reorder, they jacked the price up to $100 for the same med in the same dose and quantity! Most online pharmacies charge a flat $15 shipping fee, which isn't bad for international mail. Be aware, though, that when you order from a foreign pharmacy it can take a month to arrive, so reorder earlier than you would from other online places. We've had good service from Pharmacy Geoff and RX2world.

Leah

Try some of the Canadian on-line pharmacies.

Shelagh

On Fri, 8 Sep 2006 09:43:58 -0500, "Shillelagh" spewed forth :

If (gods forbid) we lose our insurance coverage and have to start paying OOP my thyroid replacement will be the cheapest thing on our "family" drug list, I think. My copay for the 100mcg tabs was $3 - that's at 30% patient pay, so my OOP would about $10.50 for 30 and less if I could use the mail order service for the stuff. But until I get my dose dialled in I'm a moving target...

Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...