What was the concern about the new gel packaging?

[DustyLee123]

I’ve just started my first bottle of the new packaging. I know there was some concern at the time, but can’t remember what?
My sleep has gone rubbish again, and I’m wondering if that might be the cause.

Some women feel there's a return of symptoms

not the packaging, but the content - different amount being dispensed, and yes a return of symptoms for some/many women as if the active ingredient is different. Long running threads in the menopause section. Not sure what soliton is, think I might change to a different product

Hi I feel the same it's had a bad effect on me and insomnia is off the scale. Tried gel for 6 weeks noticed such a sudden increase in anxiety, jittery, panic and not able to get to sleep as wired up. I've always been able to get to sleep but a whole month without one good night's sleep has put me off continuing. I can't function so I'm going back on patches. Thanks for sharing I hope you get it sorted.

What gel are you talking about? A brand of oestrogen?

Oestrogel

There's another thread with the picture of the old bottle and new. Oestrogel pump pack 750 micrograms actuation gel Estradiol Oestrogen only. They are having the same issues.

Someone did a lot of digging into this. From memory, the internal packaging, and the dispenser are identical. It is a different shape of bottle. That is all. Everything else has to be the same or it would be a breach of the marketing authorization.

Thank you. I think I just don't get on with the gel but came across the different bottle topic when seeing if anyone else was in the same boat. Yes it doesn't make sense that the contents would change.

And yet, so many women saying they have a return of symptoms which had gone away while using the original bottle. Have they all become immune to the oestrogen?

I emailed basins healthcare and completed a yellow card report yesterday as all my symptoms have come surging back with the new shape bottle.
Check out bloomingthroughthemenopause on Instagram, she has been weighing the dose out and it's upto 20% less than what it should be.
I'm going back to the gp next week do discuss options.

The pump mechanism doesn’t disperse as much as the old pump did.

It's a type of social contagion. Someone reads something on the Internet, or a friend says something, whatever. People start looking for things and assume that they have found the cause.

Oestrogen levels fluctuate all over the place during peri-meno. I regularly adjust my dose up for a few weeks, then back down again. No link to a change in the bottle, just good old biological variation.

Do you reckon? Lots of us have been on HRT for years and are well used to handling our symptoms and treatment. Is it social contagion that the bottles are not dispensing the same amount of oestrogel?

@Farwell you only need to check out this graph to see that the new bottles arent dispensing the correct amount. Check out her Instagram page for more info of her daily weighing of doses. Very insightful.
@Crispsandwichrock I had very controlled symptoms on the old bottles with square symptom for a long time, so I knew something wasn't right.

I’ve voted with my feet and ditched the Oestrogel in favour of Ssndrena last week.

@SaltySeaCat I'm going to ask my dr about doing this. I think it's 1mg pack of sandrena equals two pumps of oestrogel.

@Crispsandwichrock yes I was on 2 pumps of Oestrogel and am now on 1.0mg of Sandrena. I did go up to 3 pumps of Oestrogel when the problems started and that helped but I figured I’d only need the equivalent of 2 pumps.

@Chrisg79 I work in the pharma industry. I am not going to take anything from a blogger's unverified data. There are no labels on her axes, nothing about what scales she is using, the repeatability. It is one bottle of each being compared. I could go on. It would be very easy for me to create a bar chart on my computer that shows the complete reverse.

@Farwell I wasn't saying it was a researched published article 🤣....just another example of possible dosage dispensing issue.

I've had 2 full bottles of the "new style" now - it's working for me fine but I should've gone through 3 bottles by now & I'm nowhere near finished this 3rd bottle yet.

Swapped from patches as allergic to the glue. I'm clearly not getting the full dosage & sometimes it is obviously a "short dose"

Just grateful for once that I'm managing ok x

A new Eostrogel factory was opened up in response to the HRT shortage over the last couple of years. The UK seems to be receiving imports from the new factory.

It appears that the product produced in the new factory is not as effective as the product from the original factory. Also there seems to be issues with the pump not dispensing enough gel, as we as varying quantities.
Although they should be identical, I am convinced that the products differ. DH is also very sensitive to the smell of the original gel, but cannot smell the new one at all. I've found that the new gel is not working at all well for me and I have changed to Sandrena now, which is working better for me than the new gel, but not as good as the old gel.