Yet Another Dr. Switch…
Posted on: February 22, 2009 | Posted in: My Story
So, after a year with my ‘new’ doctor, who gave me the Armour “take as much as you need to” prescription I’d been looking for, I accidentally missed my annual checkup appointment. At this office, there’s usually a 2-3 month wait for a new appointment, but I thought I had enough Armour to last until an appointment opened up (and I thought if I ran out, I could just get an easy refill!).
So, I ran out of Armour on a Saturday, and called the Dr’s office on Monday (already feeling pretty run down after a couple days with no meds), and discovered a major problem: Office policy was to never refill a prescription without an office visit. I tried to explain to the assistant that I wasn’t one of his sub-clinical thyroid patients, and taking Armour wasn’t an optional thing for me, but the “best [she] could do” was to squeeze me in at 7:30am, three weeks away.
Not taking any medication for three weeks is just not something I’m willing to do. So I started calling a couple of “Natural Medicine” clinics in town, and discovered a surprising fact about dispensing Armour Thyroid: (at least in the State of Alaska) you don’t have to be an MD to dispense it! Not only that but an ND is much more likely to understand how to dispense natural thyroid properly: adjusting dose based on symptoms rather than TSH tests, and treating “sub-clinical” patients who are often turned away by regular doctors (even for synthetic thyroid treatment).
Not to mention, a naturopath’s office visit rates are often less expensive than specialists, and even some general practitioner MDs (I saved over $200 on my old Dr’s annual office visit fee). If you’re uninsured, have a high deductible, or can’t quite afford to go to an out-of-network MD, visiting a naturopath for your hypothyroid treatment is definitely something you should consider.
So, I got an appointment two days after I called (a lot better than the three weeks I was going to have to suffer), and after looking at my blood tests (my Free T4 was within normal range, Free T3 was just slightly high, and my TSH was pretty much completely suppressed), the ND walked me back up to the front counter and dispensed a bottle of 1 grain (60mg) Armour Thyroid at my current dosage level.
Coming up next: A comparison of my last test results with the most recent ones, and some notes on Armour usage in general…