BBC1, 8PM Tomorrow (Monday 30/9). Panorama - The Menopause Industry.

[SebastianFlytesTrousers]

Documentary presented by Kirsty Wark investigating the multi million pound global menopause industry.

Should be interesting.

Menopausal women are no use in society. Because we can't bear children. That's how I feel.

I've been using Newson for more than a year and have felt supported. I do think that 13 women out of the 40+k they have treated is not really indicative of an issue. I had very mixed advice on the NHS- some great but some awful - one female GP (herself appearing to be 55+) telling me "yes having children is tiring isn't it, oh well I hope you feel better".

Having said that, the Newson doctors I've seen are very willing to prescribe and this counters the NHS approach which is definitely much more reticent (and as above often obstructive). I think that there might be one or two cases where women may end up accepting a higher dosage than they need, and whilst those are individually concerning cases I think those cases will be few and far between. I'm sure the greater problem is the countless women not receiving any help via the NHS when they should be.

I'm on Estradot 100 patch twice a week plus 200mg Ugesterone for 14 days per month. As a perimenopausal woman I'm at the younger end and we require more oestrogen but my dose is still within the UK license.

I’ve been waiting for the backlash.

Shall we talk about the erectile dysfunction industry while we’re at it?

Despite my negative experience which I’ve written about earlier in the thread, I think they’ve done a lot of positive things for women’s health and really highlighted aspects of the menopause that many women had no idea about - for example, vaginal atrophy. So many women, older women in particular, just had no idea that being so dry it’s actually painful is relatively easily solved by introducing vaginal oestrogen (Ovestin etc). That has been really life changing for me and I talk to a LOT of other women about in the various groups I’m in and it’s fabulous we can all talk about these things now. I suspect my Mum and Gran would have used vaginal oestrogen if they had even heard of it.

I think the difficulty comes when it feels like Newson health is a business with their own motives to keep women on certain doses - more follow ups etc - and when women have several health issues it’s really hard to get an integrated approach. There’s also the risk that women’s health issues are being put down to menopause and then pushing a higher dose to correct this when there may actually be completely different things going on that require different investigations.

I had a pretty crappy experience with the Newsom clinic. It felt like a sausage factory - the same prescription for everyone.

And despite my known problems with progesterone, I was still prescribed the oral dose, and consequently felt shite for two weeks out of every four. I managed three months (half feeling dreadful) before I gave up on HRT altogether. At the appointment when I explained how the progesterone was making me feel, I was immediately offered an entirely different regime, which I felt very uneasy about - months of oestrogen, and only a short break every six months with progesterone. With my adenomyosis and heavy periods, I was too nervous to do this. It felt like the wild west.

Only my experience, but I would never recommend the clinic.

My worry is that this will put women off seeking HRT. After the flawed WHI study where 20 million women ditched HRT we are only just seeing more positive accurate information around HRT. Though the NHS tends to be crap and many women are denied this.

I am treated by a different private clinic as I needed a specialist - not a GP with an hours training on the menopause.

It is really hard to get the dose right and it’s individual. I’m on a very low dose - 25mg with progesterone and will look to increase if I get no symptom relief.

I admire the work Dr Newson does. Out of 46,000 patients there may be a few with issues but do we really need a panarama witch hunt? How about highlight the errors of the WHI research? How about talking to all the women who are refused HRT for no reason on the NHS?

This feels like a real step backwards.

I don't know what others think but my feeling is it's pretty unfair to single out one clinic because they can't really counteract the information - other than what's already been quoted by LN so far.

The CQC is 'looking into reports' and it's unclear who has reported them. So nothing has been proved yet.

As posters here have pointed out, there are probably millions of women NOT getting the right treatment via the NHS.

This forum alone has almost daily posts where women are asking 'how to take their hrt meds' because their GPs or nurses haven't told them. Just prescribed it without any explanation. Similarly, some are given incorrect information, or the wrong type of hrt, or no hrt at all when they don't have medical contraindications yet their GPs think they have.

I agree.

It comes across so far as if there is a vendetta against her, based on a tiny number of cases.

Of course, there may be something to address, and even one case of bad prescribing is worrying, but sometimes it's more about a bringing down a successful woman .

If women could get HRT easily and all the other tests then we wouldn’t need to go private.

I had an hour with the most amazing Dr - a qualified breast cancer doctor and a menopause specialist. She really knew her stuff. I’d get 10 minutes at most with a GP and often they haven’t had the training.

If people have the money and are happy to pay for extra service and knowledge then that’s their choice.

They are also being criticised for prescribing testosterone. That’s because there’s no funding
or research in to this area and therefore nothing licensed to give to women. That’s unacceptable. Instead we have ridiculous witch hunts.

Not necessarily associated directly with LN but I felt like I got completely whipped up by the whole new menopause movement (various groups, celebrity endorsements and forums via social media) and started to push for a prescription for Testosterone (had already been on HRT for a few years).
When I had finally been seen by a gynaecologist ( a rather rude man) who seemed resigned to give it to me, as if he was thinking here we go again a one thinking it's the elixir of life.

I felt like I had won something getting access to it with so many things I'd seen reinforcing how amazing and life changing it was.
I was a strong self advocating woman that hadn't been fobbed off.

Once on it I first felt nothing at all, then felt awful and had some horrible side effects.

I changed GP and my new one was appalled I'd been prescribed it and left to it, she said it should always be accompanied by close monitoring and that side effects often outweigh any benefits.

My poor health symptoms turned out to be nothing menopause/ hormone related and I am now being treated for something different.
I do think it has taken on a cult like following.

I wish they would do a documentary on menopause support from the NHS. I don't know of many positive stories there! I've literally just had an appointment with Newson Health so disappointed to see this today and will watch the programme with interest.

Exactly this!

FWIW, Newton isn't a specialist, she's a GP.

The maximum dose patch that is licensed for use in the UK is 100mg. There seems to be quite a lot of evidence that the clinic regularly exceeded this. At the moment, no-one knows if this is safe or what the long term risks are.

The clinic was also prescribing testosterone, which isn't licensed for women in the uk. Studies suggest it helps increase sex drive, but has no other positive benefits. Again, this is an unknown which is why NHS GP's quite rightly will not prescribe it, though it can be obtained on the NHS through a consultant.

I agree that the NHS offer fails women, as it does across the board for female health. But that doesn't make it ok to set up a private clinic and charge desperate women a lot of money for potentially unsafe doses. There's also an issue around informed consent - was it made clear to women that these doses were unlicensed and therefore potentially harmful?

In my experience with NH they did make it clear that testosterone gel was only licensed for men in the UK and went through the risks, and how they are mitigated. It is widely prescribed by the NHS off license but the whole licensing process seems to be a slow (and possibly male) beast.

It's licensed in Australia and NICE support its use for low sexual desire. Newson also provide blood tests.

I do think it's wrong to dismiss sex drive as not important to women over 40, and not important for their mental health.

My main beef with Newson, having been with them for 3 years now is that they don't do baseline testing of hormone levels before you start HRT so how can they know what they're working with? That makes it all too hit and miss. Without knowing what an individual's initial levels are (and I know hormones fluctuate to a certain extent) how can they continue to keep upping prescription levels and it be anything other than finger in the wind? I've had 3 different Doctors now, the first was bloody useless, the second left (and I always wondered whether she wasn't happy with how things were being run) and now I have another one, who has upped my prescription again. I'm way over the NICE guidelines and still not absorbing patches. I've tried gel, spray, patches, none of them work on me.
Haven't seen the documentary yet but saw it advertised on iPlayer and will watch it later with interest.

The one used in australia is called Androfeme, which you can get here with a private prescription but it's vv expensive. Otherwise women are given tostran/testogel which are made for men and so dosing is very difficult.

I didn't say that sex drive isn't important, but testosterone has been marketed to women as a magic pill and it isn't. None of this is. Menopause is hard. Being menopausal is hard. I went into meno in my thirties because I had to have my ovaries removed, and haven't felt properly well since.

But none of it excuses the clinic giving women such high doses of oestrogen when there's no evidence that it's safe.

The problem with baseline testing is that it's unreliable so symptom control is used as an indicator, and the aim isn't to get you back to baseline, it's to make symptoms bearable with as low a dose as possible.

Has anything been said about the hormone implants? They are another alternative if hormone absorption is an issue.

Do GPs do baseline testing? I don’t think they do. Especially if you’re peri rather than post menopausal, your levels will fluctuate daily.

I think best practice for all clinics is to start off on as low dose as possible and increase every 3 months if no symptom relief. It’s very individual.

The problem is some women, as you’ve seen, have absorption problems . So even though the dose is way over the levels they should be - they aren’t absorbing the oestrogen.
Dr Newson herself had this issue.

My friend had to switch to oral oestrogen as the patches and gels were not working.

I don’t think we can downplay loss of libido and the impact that has on relationships. I don’t think testosterone is a magic bullet and no not every woman should be on it. But it is something we can test for. So why don’t we? Why don’t we have a cheap version available for women in this country?

If men had no libido what do we thing would happen?

There needs to be more research, more investment.

Same reason we have no non-invasive test for endometriosis, and no decent treatment. It's female health and therefore considered a luxury extra if there's time and money left over after working out how to fix things that affect both sexes (with a fix that is only tested on and only works for men)

@Delatron I think best practice for all clinics is to start off on as low dose as possible and increase every 3 months if no symptom relief. It’s very individual.

I just find it so unscientific. How do women know whether their oestrogen levels are actually at a decent level and would be better served with some natural remedy for symptom control? I don't really have bad symptoms at all and yet am at massive risk of osteoporosis because my oestrogen levels are non existent. If Newson were going on just symptom control rather than actual blood levels, I wouldn't need anything.

Quite a lot of? Six people on Panorama out of 45,000 patients is not quite a lot.

There are an awful lot more than 6 women on various social media platforms talking about the high doses the clinic has put them on, and have been for a couple of years.

Can I ask who told you that your osteo risk is high, and if you are having dexa scans?

• The one used in australia is called Androfeme, which you can get here with a private prescription but it's vv expensive. Otherwise women are given tostran/testogel which are made for men and so dosing is very difficult.

I didn't say that sex drive isn't important, but testosterone has been marketed to women as a magic pill and it isn't. None of this is. Menopause is hard. Being menopausal is hard. I went into meno in my thirties because I had to have my ovaries removed, and haven't felt properly well since.

But none of it excuses the clinic giving women such high doses of oestrogen when there's no evidence that it's safe.*

I'm not here to defend Newson and think there needs to be transparency all round. I just think that your post is very sweeping.

Firstly testogel is only complicated to dose because the sachet is designed for men to use! All they need to do is design sachets for women to use! Instead we have to eke out each sachet over a designated number of days - not impossible but fiddly and prone to error for anyone not being careful.

Secondly in my experience I've only ever been advised to take the appropriate level progesterone to mitigate the risks of the oestrogen. If this small number of women weren't then of course that's malpractice but it's sounds like a few isolated incidents among tens of thousands of patients.

Finally yes menopause is hard but you sound like you want it to remain so! If men were all put through peri / menopause do you think there would be all these problems with licenses? No!