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Generic T4 is worthless

Ema

Senior Member
Messages
4,729
Location
Midwest USA
Natural dessicated thyroid (like Armour or Naturethroid) also contains T2 and T1 and calcitonin to fully round out the thyroid hormones along with T4 and T3. This may be more important in people who have problems with conversion from storage to active forms of thyroid hormone. But most people end up needing *some* amount of T3 to ultimately feel optimal on thyroid replacement whether it comes from NTH or Cytomel.

Synthroid is not quite identical to the T4 the thyroid produces - it contains an additional sodium atom.

I know lots of people that do just fine on generic T4 though. The best way to monitor is with labs to measure FT4 and FT3. Most people feel best with a F4 of about 1.3 - men sometimes slightly higher and women sometimes slightly lower. TSH is worthless as a measure of thyroid function once on thyroid replacement for most people.

I would be wary of iodine if one has Hashimoto's (the most common cause of hypothyroidism in the US). It can provoke flares of the autoimmune disease.

Ema