Question: What filler do you use for your compounded pork thyroid? I have tried two different products, one w/ Avicel and one with lactose. With both products my TSH and hypothyroid symptoms increased significantly. I have read that some fillers can interfere with absorption. I don\’t know whether to think it was because of the fillers or because the dose was too low.

Larry’s Response: TSH will go up and symptoms return when the dose is too low.

We use Avicel as a filler. It is unlikely that the filler is interfering with the thyroid. It is more likely that the dose is wrong – too low.

Thyroid USP is the substance they use to make Armour Thyroid. However, the actual levels of T3 and T4 are adjusted in the final product to a certain standard. Compounders do not have the information about the Armour Thyroid standard so we don’t know how to adjust the Thyroid USP powder. They may have been adjusting the contents of their products without appropriate FDA approval. This may be one of the reasons Armour Thyroid is in such short supply.

A superior approach is to start with the effective dose of Armour Thyroid and then use a combination of T3 and T4 that approaches the reported content of the commercial product. Then, the amounts of T3 and T4 can be adjusted individually to meet the user’s needs. It is more time consuming, but the results are superior.