Manufacturers recommend that you wait at least 4 hours before eating or drinking any of these items These include soybean flour, walnuts, dietary fiber, grapefruit juice, antacids, iron, and calcium supplements. Some foods and medicines can affect absorption. Try to be consistent in how you take your thyroid hormone. It will usually tell you to wait 30 to 60 minutes after taking your pill before you eat or drink other than water. Follow the instruction insert included with your medication. Some name brand medications and generics look very similar.
Please refer to the table for more information about desiccated porcine thyroid extract manufacturers and doses and refer to the pill images.Īlways double check your pills.
Note that these formulations contain naturally occurring Thyroglobulin (Tg) making the use of Tg as a cancer marker more challenging. It is a combination therapy (contains both natural T3 and T4) under the brand names Armour®, NP Thyroid®, Nature-Throid ®, and WP Thyroid®. Levothyroxine with liothyronine made from desiccated porcine thyroid extract is not prescribed as often for thyroid cancer patients. Cytomel is available in 5, 25 and 50 mcg (microgram) doses. Thyroid cancer patients take T3 for 2 different reasons: (1) to supplement T4 due to poor T4 to T3 conversion, or (2) to temporarily use T3 as part of their withdrawal process from thyroid replacement hormone for Radioactive Iodine (RAI) treatment and scanning. Liothyronine is the pharmaceutical name for synthetic thyroid hormone T3. Please refer to the table for more information about synthetic levothyroxine manufacturers and doses and refer to the pill images. If you need to change manufacturer, your doctor should have you check your thyroid levels 6-8 weeks later. For this reason, thyroid cancer specialist physicians usually recommend that thyroid cancer patients consistently take levothyroxine from the same manufacturer. These differences may affect how well your body absorbs the drug. Manufacturing processes differ, as do fillers and dyes. While this document does not cover every global formulation of levothyroxine, some international products include Eltroxin® (UK) and Euthyrox® (Canada). Brand names include Levo-T®, Levoxyl®, Synthroid®, Tirosint® and Unithroid® in the USA. Levothyroxine is the pharmaceutical name for synthetic thyroid hormone T4, the medication most often prescribed to thyroid cancer patients and survivors as thyroid replacement hormone. Do this for all of your prescriptions, not just levothyroxine. Wherever you obtain your prescriptions, always double check your pills when you receive them to be sure that you are getting what your doctor prescribed. Any person viewing this information is strongly advised to consult their own medical doctor(s) for all matters involving their health and medical care. It is not intended, nor should it be interpreted, as medical advice or directions of any kind. The information presented here is intended for educational purposes only.