Desperate to find Estrodot patches

[checkedcloth]

They are the only patch that seems to work for me. I’m on 100mcg, but cannot source them anywhere
I’ve tried alternatives and gel, I just don’t seem to absorb any others and my symptoms come back so quickly .

I am so fed up with this, it’s impossible to maintain your health, hold down a job and family life when you can’t get the right treatment. I feel absolutely at a loss as to what to do.

Supply of HRT treatment, which has been very dodgy for at least past three years, urgently needs securing for the future. We have an ageing population

@FishFlaked totally agree with you.

How women are meant to work, parent, look after relatives, households etc etc, is beyond me, if we are having to play " hunt the bloody patch" every few weeks!

It's so not fair and we shouldn't have to be doing it.

I had to fight for HRT after my cancer diagnosis. I am at the mercy of my MS and can't just easily chop and change to any product which is available at the time.

😞

Solidarity with you SortMyLifeOut
It’s also the stress of knowing we are on this meds indefinitely and going back to hunting it down again every couple of weeks, it’s enraging and such a waste of energy (that especially you don’t have enough of)

@FishFlaked absolutely.

Frustrating is an understatement.
As you say, we don't have the time and energy to search for what we need. Hopefully one day, we won't have to.

🤞🌷

STILL can’t get hold of Estradot. Just had to vent.. this is appalling

I've given up and got Evorel instead.

I had a massive wobble - all my emotional/anxiety/insomnia symptoms flooding back - but feeling a bit better this week so wonder if I'm just sensitive to any fluctuations in estrogen and maybe I absorb one type of patch better than the other.

I'd forgotten how bloody enormous Evorel is compared to Estrodot.

Hello all. Thought I would update in the hope it might be helpful
I have also given up on finding Estradot, I just don’t have the time to be hunting for it for hours every few weeks.
I’ve now been on Lisetto spray for a few weeks. Initially my symptoms came back, very tearful, night sweats etc. However in the last few days I feel better. I do find it gives me sore breasts but I can live with that.

Hi, I'm bumping this thread

Whut the heck is going on with Estrodot?

I'm in surgical menopause, going into my 5th week in recovery from a brutal and extensive surgery. I was prescribed Eostrogel by the hospital, it's been fine, I've had no menopause symptoms. I'm also taking sage leaf extract.

Anyway, I just don't like having to rub alcohol smelling gel all over my arms and wait for it to dry, it's tedious and impractical. I'm a recovered alcoholic and it's also triggering and annoying.

So, I asked my GP to switch me out to Estrodot, which she gladly did. My regular pharmacy is boots and they told me four different stories as to where my prescription was (or wasn't, rather). Culminating in today's story which is 'we can't fill your prescription because we don't supply Estrodot as there's a global manufacturing shortage and you need to take something different'. Oh right. So my GP doesn't know this?? They said any woman would only be allowed 8 at a time anyway, not the 24 my GP prescribed. Like rations!?

So I did some googling and it says there was a shortage during covid. Whut!?! Covid crisis was a long time ago now.

Anyway I'm so sick of having to negotiate prescriptions and go on the beg and have arguments with GPs then Pharmacists and store assistants and goddam security guards just to get my regular medication, never mind bloody HRT. I'll stay on the Eostrogel if it means an easy life. I'm in pain and trauma from surgery I haven't got time to be chasing over London hunting down 'dots' as if it's some rare designer drug. I'll be panicking if I get it this once then I'll not get it the next time.

So, can anyone tell me straight, what gives? Is there no such thing as Estrodot any longer available? What about the other forms of HRT ? Do they go in and out of 'global supply crisis' too?

I use Everol patches and find them great and had
no problem with supply, try them x

Thank you

When I asked my GP for Everol, she told me no because it has progesterone in it. I'm in post surgical menopause and have no uterus so I can't have progesterone seemingly.

Ugh I was just about to say my GP is driving me bonkers with her incorrect info but in fact she's right, it does.

Gahhh conflicting with my own post above... second check says Evorel regular is oestrogen only and 'conti' is combined.

I shall need to discuss with GP.

These seem to have in stock: https://www.pharmacyonline.co.uk/online-doctor/menopause/estradot/

@Agree your GP is correct that post-hysterectomy you only need oestrogen and not progesterone. Some women use Evorel conti, or Estradot Sequi which have both hormones in them. Others prefer just to use estrogen patches and take their progesterone in another way - like Utrogestan tablets.

I am OK for patches at the moment, I am on 75s and these seem to be easier to get hold of than 50s or 100s for some reason. I stockpiled a few boxes through the summer/early autumn. Also, both my local Lloyds pharmacies changed branding about the same time and are now independent, it seems from speaking to friends that it is far easier to get hold of HRT from the smaller pharmacy chains than from the big brands like Lloyds and Boots.

Thanks for this.

Sadly it also doesn't really have them - on all the online sites I've used, when it comes to putting the item in the basket, there's 'sorry this item isn't in stock' which is really annoying as it could just say that in the first place.

I don't really want to live a life where I'm constantly angsting about whether my HRT is working or not or if I can get it supplied or not and will probably taper off it using the oestrogel after what this experience has shown me.

Well unfortunately I have overstock of HRT, because I couldn't find it in any chemist and when I rang the GP up she got angry that I wanted to change my prescription and to "go back to my supplier and tell them there isn't a shortage" yet the BMA and the chemists told a different story. I then put the prescription in online thinking they'd have larger reserves and yes, they came but 6 months later.
By that time obvioulsly I had run out and had to come off it cold turkey, but decided to take that risk as the stress it was causing me was outweighing the symptoms.
So I now have Evorel Sequi, Estrodot and Utrogestan which are all gathering dust, yet there are people crying out for them.

Agreed, that is super annoying and i dread the thought of having to go on a hunt every few weeks when my time comes!

When you ordered online were you able to make multiple orders?

I just went online to order Evorel 50 (which I'm switching over to) and wanted to buy a cannister of Eostrogel too just to cover me in case of the patch not absorbing the same or whatever and it wouldn't allow me to add both. Reason I was doing this is because a) my GP wrote my prescription wrong in the first place; and b) I'm sick to death of trying to deal with my GP surgery and the pharmacy in a constant state of making errors and / or not being able to supply whatever is on my prescription; c) pharmacy staff being generally argumentative and irritated by the fact that anyone wants to cash in a prescription seemingly, don't get me started on their opinion of 'repeats';

The pharmacy site said they have to check with my GP, meantime a member of staff at my GP rang me at that exact moment I was putting in my card payment and said they're going to request my presciption to be amended. So, now I didn't check out my order and will wait til tomorrow to see if they're re-issuing my prescription and the pharmacy can fill it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12978855/Is-prescription-risk-running-pharmacists-warn-stocks-running-low-definitive-guide-drugs-affected.html

Sorry for posting a link to the Daily Fail, scroll down to see Estradot and Evorel 50 both listed here as medications that are / could be hard to get hold of.

I have some that I never used could post to you next week if that would help at all.

@Agree - Hi, sorry, I haven't been back to thread for a while.
"When you ordered online were you able to make multiple orders" - it depends what the GP puts through to the pharmacy, the Estrodot and Utrogestan are combined, so it is one order that you pay for but are 2 products.

The problem with that was, the online pharmacy only had Utrogestan in stock, they sent that out, but it was weeks before the Estrodot came in, by that time I had run out. Also being an online pharmacy, you can't get in contact or negotiate like you can with a local one who might give your GP a ring to sort things out or suggest alternatives, but as you've found local pharmacists come with their own problems.

I also have left over Evorel Sequi because the GP changed me onto Estrodot and Utrogestan (said it was safer?), I think I had a few months supply in the cupboard before i changed.

I just don't understand what is going on with these patches. I am using 75s in Estradot and for the last year supply has been OK. But the 50s and 100s are out of stock everywhere. It seems that the factory is making the patches in the wrong proportions as 50s and 100s are more popular. I have been on HRT for more than 2 years and this has been an ongoing problem, nobody is interested in fixing it.