This is a national scandal in the thyroid world. Hop over the channel to France or Germany and you can buy this drug for pennies. Here, the only company that used to make it and sell it to the NHS put the price of a packet of 25 tablets up to £330 (or thereabout). The NHS, rather than sourcing the drug from abroad, for some stupid reason just told patients they can't have it! Now there are other producers in the UK, but seeing how they have the NHS over a barrel, they are all charging the same money.
The whole dreadful state of thyroid treatment and in particularly T3, was discussed in the House of Lords last week and they are looking into it.
There are people who will die without T3. They are unable to convert the inactive thyroid hormone T4 into T3, which is the active hormone and needed in every cell in our bodies. For these people it doesn't matter how much Levothyroxine (T4) they take, they will never have enough active T3. But GP's, hospital trusts and even the vast number of endocrinologists don't understand this. They will only treat by a blood test called the TSH, which isn't even a thyroid hormone test, it's a pituitary test. They refuse to treat on symptoms. It's as if they want thyroid patients to stay sick. They will inevitably get sicker over time and be great consumers of other health services and medications.
It's a horrible scandalous way of treating people with a terrible illness.
