Natural Desiccated Thyroid Usp Formulations
We also offer Natural Desiccated Thyroid USP formulations. Dosages and fillers can be customized to meet your unique needs. Dye-free and lactose-free formulations are common requests from prescribers. We even have vegetable capsules available for those patients who wish to avoid gelatin.
Give us a to discuss our commitment and dedication to quality and safety. We have the training, technology, and third party testing available to ensure you are receiving the highest quality product available.
What Is The Thyroid
The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in our neck that regulates numerous metabolic processes in the body. The structure and function of the thyroid can change due to thyroid disorders. These disorders can be either acute or chronic, but the symptoms of both may be relieved with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, or BHRT.
What Are The Side Effects Of Bioidentical Hormones
When the FDA approves a drug, the drug company must report any side effects they are told about. These side effects are included in the paperwork you get when you pick your medication up at the pharmacy. Pharmacies that compound hormones do not have to report drug side effects to the FDA or provide paperwork. This contributes to the myth that compounded hormones are safer when healthcare providers don’t know all of the possible side effects of these hormones.
Side effects can occur, especially after the first dose. Your body is not used to the new level of hormones. Many side effects get better as the body adjusts to the new level of hormones. In some cases, the dose may need to be changed.
Some common side effects of bioidentical hormones include:
You may itch or get red around the area where you apply your hormones if you use a patch, cream or gel.
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Iv The Bioidentical Hormone Industry
The bioidentical hormone industry began when the natural foods industry started selling soy- and yam-derived hormones as natural alternatives to prescription estrogens and progestins. These soy and yam products actually contain hormone precursors, along with a smattering of phytoestrogens.
In the current climate, compounding pharmacists prepare, assemble, and package custom-compounded bioidentical hormone products as gels, creams, lotions, sublingual tablets, subdermal implants , suppositories, and troches according to a provider’s prescription. The contents, concentration, quality, and sterility are not subject to regulatory oversight. There are no large, long-term, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies that have determined the effectiveness, safety, or adverse effects of custom-compounded bioidentical hormones .
Custom-compounded hormone products are not legally required to include the black box warnings that all FDA-approved estrogens provide, such as increased risks of myocardial infarction , stroke, invasive breast cancer, pulmonary embolism, and deep vein thrombosis in postmenopausal women . That does not mean that such risks are not present. Overdosing or underdosing is a chronic concern, because little is known about the pharmacokinetics of these products, leading to variable exposure to estrogen or progestin and either a lack of efficacy from underdosing or risk of harm from overdosing.
George Arnold Md Markham Ontario Bioidentical Hormone Doctor
All of the hormones in your body are designed to work together. A hormonal symphony, some would call it. If one hormone is altered, or even deficient, it can affect the actions of all of the other hormones.
No matter what symptoms you are suffering from, there is help available. Many of the women that come to see me have tried other treatments without success, because they have never been properly investigated to determine the cause of their symptoms. It is so important to first identify the cause of your hormone imbalance, for it is only then that a customized program can be put together, specifically for you, to restore balance and alleviate your symptoms.
Dr. Arnold has been in practice as an Obstetrician/Gynaecologist for 20 years. He is highly skilled in the diagnosis and treatment of hormone imbalances. Bio-identical hormone replacement is offered as the preferred option for re-establishing hormone balance. Bio-identical or natural hormones are structurally identical to the hormones your body produces.
They have not been altered the way synthetic hormones have. Doesnt it just make sense that you want to replace a deficient hormone with something identical? The end result: hormone balance is restored: safely and naturally. My patients feel themselves again. Thank-you Dr. Arnold for giving me my life back is a common and gratifying response I regularly receive.
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What Can Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy Treat
Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can help treat the symptoms of many conditions, including:
Menopause
Menopause occurs when your reproductive years end and menstruation ceases. This time can also lead to a sudden drop in the female hormone estrogen. Menopause may also cause many uncomfortable symptoms, such as night sweats, hot flashes, mood swings, and fatigue. Many women also gain weight and experience dry skin or thinning hair.
Andropause
Andropause, or low testosterone happens when mens testosterone levels start to plummet. After the age of 30, men lose about 1% of their testosterone levels each year.
Testosterone is responsible for the development of many male characteristics, including facial hair and muscle mass. Increased abdominal fat and erectile dysfunction are common andropause symptoms.
Thyroid disorders
The thyroid is a gland at the front of the neck shaped like a butterfly. It produces hormones that regulate temperature, metabolism, and other common functions. Too little or too much of the thyroid hormone can lead to weight changes, temperature changes, and more.
What About Combination T4 And T3 Treatment
Some hormone preparations containing both T4 and T3 are available in the United States . Combination T4/T3 preparations contain much more T3 than is usually produced naturally within the body. Because of this, they can have the same side effects as T3 given by itself. It is also given once a day, despite the short life span of T3 in the body. There has been interest in whether a combination of T4 and T3 given separately might result in better symptom control in treatment of hypothyroidism, especially in those patients that do not feel completely normal on T4 alone. In these cases, Cytomel® is taken in addition to levothyroxine , in doses that are closer to the normal human thyroid balance of T4 and T3. One challenge of adding T3 is that it is currently available only as a short acting formulation, requiring multiple doses in a day. Studies are underway to provide more information on the benefits and best dosing of combination therapy. A trial period of 3 6 months may be reasonable to determine if combination T4 and T3 therapy will help.
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The Safety Of Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy
Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is the use of hormone preparations that are derived from natural substances. Learn more in my previous post: What is Bioidentical Hormone Therapy?
Boldly, I say, bioidentical hormone therapy is safe for most women in most cases. Its important to know the difference between HRT and BHRT. Hormone replacement therapy generally refers to the use of any hormones. Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy refers to the use of hormone replacement that has been derived from natural sources .
Further, BHRT involves the use of bioidentical hormone preparations and they are used in bioidentical routes of administration. The most bioidentical way to use bioidentical hormones is topically either through creams, oils, vaginal applications, etc. In this way, the parent hormone is absorbed through the skin and circulates around the body first, before going to the liver for first pass detoxification.
Conversely, when you swallow hormones, they do not circulate as parent hormones, rather, they go to the liver first and enter into first pass metabolism and then the metabolites of the parent hormone circulate around the body. Naturally, our ovaries are not in our digestive tract and therefore most of the hormone that circulates from ovarian secretion is as the parent hormone.
Thyroid Hormone Treatment: Animal Vegetable Or Bioidentical
Posted by Dr. Sue Pedersen | Mar 24, 2019 | Uncategorized
While most people with hypothyroidism feel better once they are treated with standard therapy, there are some who say that they just dont feel right they just dont feel as well as they did before their thyroid problems started. Is there a better way to treat hypothyroidism in these individuals?
Before we get into the treatment options, lets talk a little about thyroid hormone physiology. There are two thyroid hormones in humans: T4 , and T3 . Human thyroid glands make mostly T4, and a little T3. T4 enters our cells where it is converted to T3. T3 is the thyroid hormone that actually has the effects on our bodies, regulating metabolism in every cell of our bodies. The ratio of T4 to T3 that the human thyroid gland produces is about 14:1.
Hypothyroidism is treated with thyroid hormone, in the amount needed to return the individual to normal thyroid hormone levels. . There are several types of thyroid hormone replacement available.
Thyroid hormone needs to be taken on an empty stomach, because its absorption can be diminished if not. I usually advise my patients to take it first thing in the morning, with nothing but water for 30 minutes, so as to ensure that it gets absorbed well. Any vitamins, calcium, iron supplements etc should be taken lunchtime or later, to avoid any chance of impairing absorption of thyroid hormone.
This concludes my three-part thyroid series this month.
Find the first two here:
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Support For The Use Of Armour Thyroid Or Naturethroid
When to Prescribe Thyroid Hormone Combo? Dr. Michael T. McDermott, a professor of medicine and clinical pharmacology, and director of endocrinology and diabetes practice at the University of Colorado Hospital, Aurora gave his expert opinion at an update on internal medicine sponsored by University of Colorado: Adding T3 or liothyronine is a reasonable treatment strategy when symptoms of hypothyroidism persist on optimal levothyroxine or T4 alone. However, he said it should belong on the bottom of the management plan for the difficult thyroid patient only after coexisting autoimmune disease and other medical illnesses are ruled out.
Five published studies demonstrate that many patients experience lingering fatigue, memory problems, and other symptoms despite while on T4 and while their TSH is in the target range of .5-2.0 mU/L.
He often measures a vitamin D level in his difficult cases of hypothyroidism because vitamin D deficiency is a common cause of fatigue. He also encourages his difficult patients to eat a well balanced diet and get regular exercise. He also refers them for treatment of depression. Only after doing all of the above does he add T3.
LT4/LT3 therapy is controversial. The first ever randomized clinical trial was positive , meaning patients did better on it than LT4 alone, however, may studies that followed after showed no benefit. So the book was closed, and doctors were not prescribing the combination therapy.
How Does Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy Work
Peridot Primary Care offers bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to restore balance to your hormones. Your provider implants these small plant-derived pellets beneath your skin, where they release custom-formulated hormones directly into your bloodstream. Your body then absorbs the hormones to mimic the pattern of your natural hormone cycle.
Pellet therapy with bioidentical hormones reduces your risk of experiencing the uncomfortable symptoms that often accompany synthetic hormone therapy. During your initial consultation, your provider orders blood work to customize your pellets. They can then adjust your plan as needed to treat your hormone imbalance.
To learn more about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, call Peridot Primary Care or schedule an appointment online today.
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Benefits Of Bioidentical Hormones For Thyroid
Hormone treatment is an incredibly complex and multifaceted area of medicine. Every person responds to treatment differently, and what works for one person may not necessarily work for another. Unfortunately, commercially-available manufactured pharmaceuticals often do a poor job of providing highly-customizable treatment options for patients. This can leave patients coping with undesired side effects or delivery formats that cause more struggle than they alleviate.
With thyroid conditions, simply not treating the illness is rarely an option. The risk of serious illness is much too high, and chronic stress on the body can spur on concomitant health problems. To further complicate issues, some patients seemed virtually unresponsive to synthetic hormones or if they did respond, they had too many side effects.
Over the last few years, new research is revealing that bio-identical hormone replacement may resolve many of these traditional thyroid hormone treatment options. Unlike synthetics, bioidentical hormones are virtually identical to the hormones your body produces in chemical structure. Many experts believe the body has an easier time recognizing and utilizing bioidenticals for this reason. This makes them less likely to produce negative side effects or fail to treat your condition at all.
Bioidentical Thyroid Hormone Replacement Therapy
Optimal Health Spectrums Contents Services Medical Services Thyroid Issues
A properly functioning thyroid gland makes two thyroid hormones, T3 and T4 in a certain ratio. The most important thyroid hormone the one that controls your metabolism, energy level, mood, and the function of almost every cell in your body is T3. Synthroid, L-Thyroxin and Levothroid are medications that only contain T4. T4 is considered a storage form of thyroid hormone that has to be converted into the active hormone T3 the one that actually binds to cellular receptors and does its many important jobs.
Low thyroid can come from many things especially a nutrient deficiency of iodine, which is very low in the typical American diet, or from toxic exposures to many toxins, such as mercury, bromine, chloride,
To further complicate matters, both T3 and T4 float around in the blood partially bound to a protein that inactivates them. Only the free fraction of the hormone is available to bind to the cellular receptors and function. So total T3 and T4 levels dont tell you if you have enough free hormone to do the job. Many doctors dont check for the free fractions when they test thyroid hormones.
Another problem can occur from something called reverse T3. It is the opposite molecule from the real T3, and it can block the receptor so that the real T3 cant bind to it. So some people have a normal Free T3, but still have hypothyroid symptoms because their high reverse T3 is blocking it.
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Understanding How To Treat Hypothyroidism With Bhrt
Thyroid hormones are necessary for the health of cells in all parts of the bodyincluding the heart, brain, bones, and other organs. Millions of men and women who struggle with the symptoms of hypothyroidism are ready to find a solution. Hormone replacement therapy can be that solution and provide life-changing relief. Bioidentical hormones, in particular, are a powerful and effective treatment option for those looking for an alternative to conventional treatment.
If you are struggling with hypothyroidism, BodyLogicMD can help you find relief through bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. BodyLogicMD expert practitioners complete extensive education and certification to be included in the BodyLogicMD network and are specialists in hormone treatment. They create comprehensive treatment plans for each individual based in grounding principles of natural integrative medicine and holistic hormone healthwhich means your hypothyroidism regimen includes much more than pharmaceuticals. BodyLogicMD-affiliated practitioners work with you to achieve your wellness goals through a combination of medication, nutrition, and lifestyle counseling so you can maintain a healthy balance for years to come. Contact a local practitioner to discover how BodyLogic and BHRT can help with hypothyroidism, or take the BodyLogicMD Hormone Balance Quiz to learn more.
Compounded Vs Pharmacologic Hormone Preparations
Confused? Wondering why so many sources promoting bioidentical hormones seem to make them sound different than what you can get from your pharmacy?
The fact is that what they are calling “bioidentical” hormone replacement therapy is really compounded hormone replacement therapy. And since we know that most pharmacologic hormone replacement options are now bioidentical what we are really looking at is compounded hormone replacement versus pharmacologic hormone replacement.
Compounding refers to a specific method of preparing medication. Pharmacists typically can complete additional training to become skilled in pharmaceutical compounding. Compounding allows pharmacists to create specific and individualized formulations of a medication. And in the case of hormone replacement therapy, a compounding pharmacist can create unique hormone formulations.
This is in contrast to the pharmacologic hormone replacement therapy options available from the drug companies. These medications are mass-produced and come in standard and consistent doses.
Both compounded and pharmacologic hormone replacement therapy options require a prescription from your healthcare provider.
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Bioidentical Hormones Restore T3 And T4 Balance
Most traditional medications prescribed to treat hypothyroidism include only synthetic T4, which isnt convenient for each patient. Usually, therapists examine TSH levels to identify possible issues with the pituitary gland, and T4 levels to check if the thyroid gland produces enough hormones. But the truth is most T4 hormones are bound with proteins and cant interact with thyroid hormone receptors. Little free T4 hormones do most of the work. Besides, some people have poor mechanisms to convert T4 into T3, which can induce hypothyroidism symptoms even if TSH is at the required level. Hormone replacement therapy must provide medications that include both T4 and T3 hormones. Bioidentical thyroid medication can be personalized according to patients needs.
Bioidentical thyroid hormone replacement treatment uses T4, T3 and TSH natural hormones in optimal proportion to effectively deal with hypothyroidism. Before the treatment begins, our experts examine your T3, T4, and TSH levels, discuss your lifestyle and symptoms to develop a personalized treatment plan with an optimal proportion of bioidentical hormones, lifestyle, and nutrition recommendations to improve your health. Each patient is unique, so we put an effort to provide smooth and fast therapy based on patients personal needs.
Receive A Thorough Evaluation
Before diagnosing any type of thyroid issue, an expert hormone health practitioner will discuss your symptoms in detail and perform a thorough physical examination. This step is primarily when goiters may be discovered, and these usually benign but abnormal enlargements of the thyroid can provide further clues as to the lowered function of your thyroid gland.
At this time, your doctor will also submit bloodwork for a variety of lab tests. The most basic of these tests for high levels of thyroid stimulating hormone and low levels of thyroxine in the blood, a combination which usually indicates an underperforming thyroid. However, many patients who receive a negative result from this test still experience symptoms and all too often remain undiagnosed. Thats why the best doctors are taking further steps to isolate markers of thyroid function. Practitioners in the BodyLogicMD network measure TSH, free T4, and free T3 levels in the blood as well as testing for thyroid antibodies to form a more accurate assessment.
Note that some medications and dietary supplements can affect thyroid-related blood testing. Let your doctor know if youre taking antidepressants, blood pressure medications, vitamins, or supplements before testing to ensure you receive accurate results.
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