Information for You and Your Doctor

• As of November 1st, 2008, Goldshield Levothyroxine has become a funded medication. You can now tell your doctor that is the brand you want to be prescribed. Other brands may be available from individual pharmacies... Synthroid, Actavis/Almus and Teva are examples. Doctors can prescribe any of these medications simply by writing "Generic Substitution Allowed". You will have to pay for any variety that is not funded. Check with the pharmacist BEFORE handing over your script. Let your fingers do the walking & find a pharmacy that will dispense another version.
  You can also import your own, 3 months supply is perfectly legal. If it is stopped at customs, a prescription must be produced to release it.
  Levothyroxine brands available from www.internationalpharmacy.com are Synthroid (Abbott), Levoxyl (Jones), Levothroid (Forest), Unithroid (Lannet). They also stock Liothyronine - Cytomel brand (King), Armour Thyroid (Forest) and Liotrix, a T4/T3 synthetic combination - Thyrolar brand (Forest).
• Pharmaceutical Compounding NZ Ltd is a pharmacy that supplies Whole Thyroid Extract as a prescription medicine, either from compounding Desiccated Whole Thyroid Powder (capsule form) or distribution of tablet form. These medications are not funded by PHARMAC, but can be prescribed by your Doctor.
  - Whole Thyroid
  - Prescribing Summary

  The following links are to pdf files from TPA-UK who have given us permission to reproduce them:
   

• The Thyroid Patient Advocacy –UK (TPA-UK) response to the British Thyroid Association’s (BTA) Statement on the Use of Combination Thyroxine/Triiodothyronine (Liothyronine) Therapy 11 pages
• The Thyroid Patient Advocacy-UK (TPA-UK) Response to: “A Statement from the British Thyroid Association Executive Committee on Armour® Thyroid” 14 pages
• BTF response to the research papers 8 pages
  Also from TPA-UK - information on natural desiccated porcine thyroid extract for patients and doctors Here