Dr Linda Dear: Menopause Specialist on Estrogel becoming available to help treat menopause

Another treatment to help people to manage the symptoms of menopause is available from today.   

Estrogel will now be available for those requiring oestrogen to meet rising demand for hormone replacement therapy.

The other funded patch option is in global short supply.  

Menopause specialist Dr Linda Dear says Estrogel will make a massive difference for patients, doctors and pharmacists.  

She says having another option out there means we're not so dependent on patches anymore, which is good news for a lot of people.  

Pharmac funding's also taking effect for a suite of new treatments, for various cancers and other medical conditions. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A step forward for women with menopause. From today, farmac
is funding the hormone replacement therapy medication estragel. In May,
there was a shortage of the hormone therapy replacement patches
due to an increase in demand. So now the funding
means that thousands of Kibi women will have access to
the gel that can help manage some of the symptoms
of menopause. Doctor Linda Deere is a clinical director of

(00:22):
men a doctor and she's with us this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Good morning, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Tell me how effective is this estrogel?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's wonderful stuff. So yeah, estrogel contains what we call
body identical estradial, which is the specific type of estrogen
that women's ovaries make, and that's the stuff that goes
a bit bonkers and then drops around menopause. And that's
why women can get so many different symptoms because that

(00:53):
hormone talks to a lot of different parts of women's
bodies and brains. And estragel is a way to put
that moon back into a woman's body in a nice, reliable,
stable level every day.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
So did do you have to take it? For everthing?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Now? Most women don't take HRT or we're supposed to
call MHT now menopause will hormone therapy. Most women don't
take it forever. It just gets them through the rough
bit as their body kind of adapts in the background.
So I'd say average five to seven years, women take
it four, but there are some women who take it forever,
and we actually think that's okay for some women to

(01:32):
do that.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
What does it feel like having minopause?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
So menopause itself is when a woman's periods stop, and
that happens because her ovaries run out of eggs and
stop making hormones. But before that happens, there's another phase
called perimenopause, which is often really what we're talking about
when we say menopause. That's a bit before the ovaries
fully stop and they actually just get tired the ratic

(02:00):
and it's a bit like puberty, but the other way around.
So you've ov is a shutting down instead of starting up.
And I can go on for quite a few years,
and it actually starts in a woman's forties perimenopause, so
there can be symptoms in that time that are often
not recognized as hormonal and then yeah, menopause happens as
in a woman has her final eber period and then

(02:23):
everything after that is what we call postmenopause, and women
can continue to have symptoms after their periods stopped as well,
because the low levels of hormones can cause problems, So
women might need help at any point in that kind
of whole journey they move through.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
I've got lots of friends. I've got lots of friends
in this particular age breakt and they swear by this gel.
Is this is a question from a man. We run
out of testosterone at some point and we start testosterone
starts reducing. Do they have pictures for men for testosterone replacement?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Do you know you've got you used to have a patch. Yeah,
I think the patch has been discontinued now, But there's
a testosterone gel. And it's true men's testosterone does decline.
It doesn't dramatically quit on you in the way that
estrogen dramatically quits on us. So it's because it's so

(03:18):
gradual for guys mostly that doesn't cause problems, but you're right,
for some men it does. And there is there is
a testosterone deficiency that men can suffer with. And you know,
measuring levels can tell a man if that's happened for him.
And it's also interesting that men's testosterones these days are

(03:38):
lower than they used to be, so there has been
a decline. So even a man of the same age
now has a lower testosterone level than twenty years ago.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Interesting. Interesting though that it drops off at different rates,
doesn't it for men and women? And we have to
leave at there, Doctor lunder Deer, thank you very much
for coming on the program. Clinical director of mena doctor
talking about the fact that this Estra deell is now
available funded by FIMAC from today. It is twenty minutes.
I was told that you lose one percent of your
testosterone every year after the age of thirty. I don't

(04:11):
know if that's true or not, but basically the thing is,
you need to get into shape. You need to get
as muscly as you possibly can while you've still got
the testosterone before you lose it all and there's no
hope of getting muscli. That's what I've been told. For
more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to
News Talks at b from five am weekdays, or follow

(04:33):
the podcast on iHeartRadio.