HRT - nobody gives a fuck about women

[Missproportionate]

Angry face 🤬

Can't get Estrogen Gel for love or money. Having been on it a year I know I can't function without it - as in I have to lie perfectly still and not move for hours on end due to vertigo, flushes dizziness, palpitations... (not posting for advice as I've done lots of posting about that elsewhere and researched myself coz GPs know fuck all)

I have spent many, many hours I won't get back being misdiagnosed, minimised, etc before finally getting a prescription. Now it's totally unavailable and I have to spend hours on the phone getting GPs and pharmacists to re-prescribe whatever estrogen is available within a 20 mile radius, taking time off work, cancelling appointments for myself and all the people in my family I care for (sandwich generation of course 🙄 - = I provide free care for elderly rels as well as DCs)

I've had it and angry. Aibu to think this is a fundamentally mysoginistic problem I have and I feel like this stuff is being witheld by almost deliberate means?

Even when I do get it they won't give me enough as they are too stupid to do the sums. The pharmacist managed to work it out so I only got 2 weeks worth (when GP agreed to 3 months) and now I'm off on another phone spree round the pharmacies!
Congratulations if you've read all that. I felt this board the only one that will sympathise!

I'm also angry at the general schooling of women into health woo because we don't get our health problems properly addressed and the women I know who won't take HRT and suffer this shit because they 'don't want to take hormones' or 'GP said not suitable for me' or 'I will suffer and then take this ineffective herb and pretend it helps'

I've been told I'm too young as I should only take it for 5 years because of the risk of breast cancer, so need to wait for actual menopause. I just took that as standard

literally none of that is true. I despair at the outright lies being told to women by the medical profession.

I've been told I'm too young as I should only take it for 5 years because of the risk of breast cancer, so need to wait for actual menopause. I just took that as standard

I was told exactly the same thing and given anti depressants. I even had one GP, young and female, say that she had seen women I’m tears because the flushes were making them so miserable and I didn’t seem that bad. As if that’s the only symptom.

For anyone who is being fobbed off by their GPs about whether they are even menopausal, take in a copy of the NICE guidance: www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng23

It was published in 2015 so they really should have some idea what's in it. But it's worth having a read yourself and highlighting the bits that are relevant to you - for example, if you're over 45, GPs shouldn't be giving you blood tests to assess whether you're menopausal - they should, you know, just listen to you describe your symptoms.

Re. the discussion about early onset and the BS you should only be on it for 5 years, start with this piece useful piece from Louise Newson which realistically talks about the long and short term benefits of HRT as well as the risks

www.newsonhealth.co.uk/uploads/2021/06/Menopause-and-me-A-guide-for-younger-women-v15-03-2.pdf

and a good debunking thread on the breast cancer myth here.
www.newsonhealth.co.uk/uploads/2021/07/Breast-cancer-and-HRT-Feb-22-update.pdf

to sum it up:

Young women taking HRT do not have a greater risk of breast cancer

The increased risk of breast cancer with taking combined HRT is very low or not increased at all

Women's gynaecological healthcare is an absolute joke. My poor mum has been backwards and forwards to the doctor with post menopausal gynaecological problems for the last 4 years. They were supposed to preform a hysterectomy and prolapse surgery at the same time last year and fix another simple but painful problem with her urethra. She came round from the surgery and they announced they had only fixed the prolapse because according to the male surgeon, the other things weren't urgent and didn't need attention! 🙄 So now she's still suffering with constant bleeding that they keep saying is from dryness and the other problem with her urethra they don't give a shit about. She said she's in discomfort with it every day and nobody is interested and she keeps having to go backwards and forwards and getting fobbed off. But it could easily have just all been sorted when she was under general anaesthetic last year and she could be fine by now, but some know it all male doctor made the call that it didn't need doing, because he was an expert in woman's genealogical health. I bet if it was something wrong with a mens penis it would have got sorted, heaven forbid a man's kn*b might be a bit uncomfortable!

Well it’s all going to shit for women. I went to collect my anti sickness meds as I’m suffering terribly with hyperemesis during this pregnancy and there is currently no supply in the UK.

As a pharmacist I’ve only been able to ever sympathise with those of you that can’t get hold of your HRT, but I now have a small inclination of the fear and anxiety felt when being told you can’t get something that makes you able to live a daily life!! Before these tablets I was admitted to hospital and then bed bound for 5 weeks.

The odd thing about this specific tablet I’m on is that it is the ONLY tablet licensed in the UK for women with pregnancy related sickness and only to be used for this diagnosis alone - I may be being sceptical here but shock that it’s us women that seem to suffering

I may be being sceptical here but shock that it’s us women that seem to suffering
Well when we all stop doing the unpaid gruntwork because we simply can't anymore or we are too fucked off or too tired and achey or the flushes are preventing us from leaving the house, then it'll get fixed or we will all realise that the damn gruntwork doesn't fucking matter. Or y'know men might step up.

Proper chuckling now, as if the men will ever step up.

Well this is potentially positive

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/29/sajid-javid-appoints-hrt-tsar-to-tackle-shortage?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

"The head of the UK’s vaccine taskforce has been appointed to a new unit set up to help tackle the shortage in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) products.

The health secretary, Sajid Javid, announced Madelaine McTernan will lead the new HRT taskforce. It is hoped the lessons from supplying millions of coronavirus vaccines rapidly throughout the UK can be applied to HRT product shortages, Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) ministers said."

From a bbc report:

"Demand for HRT has risen with a 38% increase in the number of prescription items over the last seven years, according to the Department for Health and Social Care."

So this has been going on longer than the impact of Davina and indeed some other charities that only formed more recently.

Interesting map in the daily mail. Data includes all female hormones including contraception.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10751229/How-HRT-prescriptions-DOUBLED-five-years.html

to give an update on my prescription. I asked for a repeat last week, I used 2 pumps of oestrogel daily.

Ive just been to pick it up and they have switched me to Sandrena and I’ve got a box of 28 sachets. Thanks for a spectacularly unhelpful pharmacist ‘use as directed’, I’ve had to google what dose I need and I need to use 2 sachets, so just another 2 weeks worth.

so relieved I’m not going cold turkey, but pissed off that I have to go reorder again next week.

Absolutely ridiculous what is their excuse for just getting 2 weeks worth? Surly if the gp prescribed you 3 months then they pharmacy owe you more and they should be able to just order it in without having to reorder through gp

If I were you I’d try and book an appointment with the GP to make them aware that a box of 28 only lasts you 2 weeks! Most prescriptions for sandrena that I fulfill are for 112! So with your dosage that would last you 2 months.

GP’s need a little reminder sometimes of dosage and how far something goes….

My prescription goes straight to the pharmacy, it’s next door, so I don’t know how much was prescribed. It does seem a bit mad that they think 2 weeks is ok. I have the pre payment certificate so the cost isn’t an issue but GP doesn’t know that.

I wasn’t expecting Sandrena, so I was more concerned with asking how I switch, what the dose should be.
Until I got home and looked it up, I didn’t know I needed 2 sachets a day.

it didn’t occur to me that maybe they were holding some back.
ill go and check with the pharmacy, hopefully when there’s someone less unhelpful there.

Just read this thread and wanted to add my voice to a campaign by MN @JustineMumsnet Sounds like a great thing for MN to get behind. So many women (eg me!) joined MN at the babies/ ttc phase and now have teens and are facing menopause / peri menopause.

Is it all HRT because theres been supply issues for a few years but my pharmacist was always able to tell me which ones they could still get, and to ask for that temporarily.

It’s predominantly oestrogel, but there may well be a knock on effect on other types.

Haven't read the full thread, but according to the Irish Times there's a shortage in Ireland as well - is anyone here outside Britain & Ireland? Are there shortages where you are?
www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/women-on-hrt-face-disruption-in-supply-until-at-least-july-1.4863601
(On a separate note Irish Times is also reporting some shortages of paracetamol due to difficulty getting the active ingredient - not sure if it's affecting UK...yet)

Oh, Irish Times behind paywall, so some of article:
"......
There have been supply interruptions in two of the more frequently prescribed HRT options for Irish women – Evorel and Estradot – at several points over the past couple of years.
Evorel is once again available, according to the HPRA, after a supply problem at the beginning of the year. However, Estradot, which is made by drug company Novartis, is not expected to be fully available until July.
.....

Novartis conceded that supply was “intermittent”, something that it attributes to “currently unprecedented demand for menopause treatment in Ireland”.
Industry sources say health awareness campaigns in Ireland and Britain in 2019, with a “huge emphasis on HRT” have led to a surge in demand with which suppliers cannot cope. Few have figures but all agreed that the increase over the past couple of years was well in excess of 50 per cent and possibly close to 100 per cent.
That’s a multiple of expected growth worldwide for HRT products. Prior to 2020, they say, demand for HRT products had been stable for many years.
....
“Medicine shortages are increasingly prevalent worldwide over the past decade,” the HPRA said, “and several other countries have also experienced shortages of HRT patches at various times in recent years.” "

Menopause reshapes the brain and HRT should be prescribed much earlier, researchers

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/01/menopause-reshapes-brain-researchers-find-hrt-should-prescribed/

Going to be discussed in a documentary presented by Davina McCall tonight at 9pm on Channel 4:

entertainment.ie/tv/tv-highlights/davina-mccall-sex-mind-and-the-menopause-521196/

twitter.com/birdfacepower/status/1520095773928529923?s=21&t=Ff-S6qE2eP3woPynf2U0MQ

Well here is the solution apparently.

There are other meds to take for menopause - I've had perimenopausal symptoms since I was like 30 because of a hormone imbalance and I take natural meds for them which are amazing. Trans women need HRT more than cis women.

🙄

TRAs need to be very careful saying this sort of stuff. There's a lot of angry women around over this and if it gains traction there will be ructions.

Agreed. I would hit the fucking roof. No more Ms Reasonable.

Trans women need HRT more than cis women

I actually don’t have words for how angry that makes me.

There are other meds to take for menopause - I've had perimenopausal symptoms since I was like 30 because of a hormone imbalance and I take natural meds for them which are amazing. Trans women need HRT more than cis women

🙄. Gosh. If only perimenopausal women had thought of trying 'natural meds' before struggling to get a GP appointment and dealing with uninformed HCPs. Also, the R in HRT is REPLACEMENT.