What issues should they be focusing on in 2005? Read my article "Thyroid Awareness Month in 2005: The REAL Issues Thyroid Patients Face" to find out.
Realistic Patient Recommendations
In the meantime, what can you take away from the AACE/ATA 2005 awareness effort. Here is my advice...
1. Avoid, whenever possible, generic levothyroxine drugs.
2. Do what you can to prevent your practitioner, insurer, HMO or drugstore from indiscriminately switching your levothyroxine from one brand to another.
3. If you are doing well on a particular brand of levothyroxine, it's in your best interest to stick with the brand that is working, whatever the brand and its cost. If you have to argue with your insurance company or HMO to cover it, do so. Get your doctor to write a letter saying that the drug you are taking is medically necessary, and to "dispense as written," etc. Send letters to your insurance company/HMO, their consumer affairs representatives, and keep badgering them.
4. If you've just been prescribed levothyroxine, there's no reason your doctor cannot start you out on a less expensive brand of levothyroxine, like Levoxyl or Levothroid.
5. If you've been taking Synthroid and are not feeling well, can't afford it, or have some other reason to switch, the idea that, as the campaign recommends, "the doctor may change the dose of thyroid hormone, but the brand of thyroid hormone medication should always stay the same" is ridiculous. Your doctor can change you to another brand of levothyroxine, or another prescription thyroid hormone replacement drug like Thyrolar or Armour, gauge your response symptom-wise and retest you in six weeks, and go from there.
Again, for a look at the critical issues thyroid patients are facing, the types of issues that should be the focus of national awareness campaigns, read my article "Thyroid Awareness Month in 2005: The REAL Issues Thyroid Patients Face".
