Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Dr Linda Dear: Menopause Specialist on Estrogel becoming available to help treat menopause

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Dr Linda Dear: Menopause Specialist on Estrogel becoming available to help treat menopause · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: A step forward for women with menopause. From today, farmac
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  Speaker 1: is funding the hormone replacement therapy medication estragel. In May,
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  Speaker 1: there was a shortage of the hormone therapy replacement patches
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  Speaker 1: due to an increase in demand. So now the funding
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  Speaker 1: means that thousands of Kibi women will have access to
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  Speaker 1: the gel that can help manage some of the symptoms
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  Speaker 1: of menopause. Doctor Linda Deere is a clinical director of
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  Speaker 1: men a doctor and she's with us this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me how effective is this estrogel?
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  Speaker 2: It's wonderful stuff. So yeah, estrogel contains what we call
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  Speaker 2: body identical estradial, which is the specific type of estrogen
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  Speaker 2: that women's ovaries make, and that's the stuff that goes
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  Speaker 2: a bit bonkers and then drops around menopause. And that's
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  Speaker 2: why women can get so many different symptoms because that
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  Speaker 2: hormone talks to a lot of different parts of women's
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  Speaker 2: bodies and brains. And estragel is a way to put
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  Speaker 2: that moon back into a woman's body in a nice, reliable,
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  Speaker 2: stable level every day.
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  Speaker 1: So did do you have to take it? For everthing?
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  Speaker 2: Now? Most women don't take HRT or we're supposed to
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  Speaker 2: call MHT now menopause will hormone therapy. Most women don't
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  Speaker 2: take it forever. It just gets them through the rough
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  Speaker 2: bit as their body kind of adapts in the background.
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  Speaker 2: So I'd say average five to seven years, women take
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  Speaker 2: it four, but there are some women who take it forever,
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  Speaker 2: and we actually think that's okay for some women to
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  Speaker 2: do that.
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  Speaker 1: What does it feel like having minopause?
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  Speaker 2: So menopause itself is when a woman's periods stop, and
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  Speaker 2: that happens because her ovaries run out of eggs and
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  Speaker 2: stop making hormones. But before that happens, there's another phase
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  Speaker 2: called perimenopause, which is often really what we're talking about
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  Speaker 2: when we say menopause. That's a bit before the ovaries
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  Speaker 2: fully stop and they actually just get tired the ratic
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  Speaker 2: and it's a bit like puberty, but the other way around.
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  Speaker 2: So you've ov is a shutting down instead of starting up.
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  Speaker 2: And I can go on for quite a few years,
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  Speaker 2: and it actually starts in a woman's forties perimenopause, so
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  Speaker 2: there can be symptoms in that time that are often
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  Speaker 2: not recognized as hormonal and then yeah, menopause happens as
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  Speaker 2: in a woman has her final eber period and then
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  Speaker 2: everything after that is what we call postmenopause, and women
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  Speaker 2: can continue to have symptoms after their periods stopped as well,
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  Speaker 2: because the low levels of hormones can cause problems, So
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  Speaker 2: women might need help at any point in that kind
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  Speaker 2: of whole journey they move through.
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  Speaker 1: I've got lots of friends. I've got lots of friends
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  Speaker 1: in this particular age breakt and they swear by this gel.
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  Speaker 1: Is this is a question from a man. We run
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  Speaker 1: out of testosterone at some point and we start testosterone
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  Speaker 1: starts reducing. Do they have pictures for men for testosterone replacement?
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  Speaker 2: Do you know you've got you used to have a patch. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I think the patch has been discontinued now, But there's
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  Speaker 2: a testosterone gel. And it's true men's testosterone does decline.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't dramatically quit on you in the way that
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  Speaker 2: estrogen dramatically quits on us. So it's because it's so
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  Speaker 2: gradual for guys mostly that doesn't cause problems, but you're right,
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  Speaker 2: for some men it does. And there is there is
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  Speaker 2: a testosterone deficiency that men can suffer with. And you know,
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  Speaker 2: measuring levels can tell a man if that's happened for him.
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  Speaker 2: And it's also interesting that men's testosterones these days are
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  Speaker 2: lower than they used to be, so there has been
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  Speaker 2: a decline. So even a man of the same age
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  Speaker 2: now has a lower testosterone level than twenty years ago.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting. Interesting though that it drops off at different rates,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it for men and women? And we have to
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  Speaker 1: leave at there, Doctor lunder Deer, thank you very much
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  Speaker 1: for coming on the program. Clinical director of mena doctor
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  Speaker 1: talking about the fact that this Estra deell is now
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  Speaker 1: available funded by FIMAC from today. It is twenty minutes.
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  Speaker 1: I was told that you lose one percent of your
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  Speaker 1: testosterone every year after the age of thirty. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if that's true or not, but basically the thing is,
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  Speaker 1: you need to get into shape. You need to get
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  Speaker 1: as muscly as you possibly can while you've still got
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  Speaker 1: the testosterone before you lose it all and there's no
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  Speaker 1: hope of getting muscli. That's what I've been told. For
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