For many doctors, their chief source of information is the pharmaceutical industry - a real conflict of interest.

Greetings Catherine,

My wife is on Femhrt (estrogen + progestin). She is 54 and just completed her last chemo treatment for Lymphomia cancer. She had 3 large tumors in her back lymph area. The last scan showed they were all gone, Hooray!

My concern is that the side effects listed right on the paper from the drug store for the Femhrt says it can cause cancer, heart dissease, stroke, blood clots, abnormal calcium levels, depression. Well, she is definitely depressed, was in the hospital for dangerously high blood calcium, back in for a blood clot in the neck and is on blood thinner now. The Femhrt warning actually says “risk of blood clots (especially in women over the age of 35). WOW, they got that right!

I have been trying to get her to switch to natural cream and get off the Femhrt estrogen for a while, even before the cancer showed up but since her GYN told her to take the Femhrt, she won’t go off it unless the GYN says to. My wife never even told the GYN about having cancer or her problems! She is waiting for her yearly checkup and MAYBE will bring it up. I think it is already too late and she should be off the HRT now. What can I say, or what can YOU say to convince her to call her GYN and insist to get off this “poison”? Her cancer doctor and general doctor both have no comment since they do not want to get
involved in something some other doctor prescribed.

What should we do now? Should she go by the GYN’s advice and continue the estrogen? Does she need to have testing before stopping and going to cream?

I get your e-mail newsletters and read the letters but it is hard to fight “the system” since I am an engineer, not a “doctor”.

Please comment.

Thanks,

David

Dear David,

First off, it’s good to hear from our men folk out there! The love and concern you obviously have for your wife shines through.

And can I say I’m not an engineer or a doctor or, for that matter, anyone special. I don’t believe we have to be in order to stand up for our inalienable right to access safe medicines that do not expose us to any short or long term risk. It’s time we stopped giving pharmaceutical companies permission to use us as guinea pigs!!

David, if the various doctors treating your wife relying solely on drug company sales reps passing through their office as their primary source of drug education, you have a situation on your hands.

Is your wife’s treating physician(s) an informed and objective patient advocate? Is he or she legitimately confused or choosing to remain ignorant?

In his most recent publication ‘From Hormone Hell to Hormone Well‘ (when it comes to bioidentical HRT “one size does not fit all” - a ‘must read’ for women of all ages), Dr Randolph, a trained pharmacist and Board Certified gynecologist puts forward the argument that “it is almost criminal for physicians to continue to plead ignorance and as a result, prescribe synthetic hormones that have been clinically proven to be carcinogenic.”

Dr Randolph goes on to state, “as long as the pharmaceutical industry has an influence on medical education, physicians will be challenged to seek out information and teach themselves about the options and choices related to synthetic HRT versus human-identical hormone replacement therapy.”

Femhrt is a continuous-combined hormone therapy that contains 2 hormones, an estrogen called ethinyl estradiol (EE) which is synthetic form of estrogen most commonly seen in birth control pills, and a progestin called norethindrone acetate (NA), a synthetic form of progesterone that supposedly causes fewer side effects than medroxyprogesterone acetate (Provera).

These two hormones are synthetic. They are NOT bioidentical to the hormones our body naturally makes, and consequently carry potential risks.

What are the possible risks linked to taking Femhrt?

• Heart disease
• Cancer of the breast
• Cancer of the uterus
• Gallbladder disease
• Abnormal blood clotting
• Vaginal bleeding

I’m not making these up, David. I’ve simply gone to the Warner Chilcott website and found the information sitting there. Something any GP could do by typing ‘femhrt’ into the browser search window.

Here’s the part I found on the site you may want to read out loud to your wife: “Femhrt should NOT be taken if you currently have or have had certain cancers. Estrogens increase the risk of certain types of cancers, including cancer of the breast and uterus. If you have or had cancer, talk with your doctor about whether you should take femhrt 1/5.”

In cases of hormone dependent cancers, it is critically important to maintain optimal levels of bioidentical progesterone and avoid the factors that would promote too much estradiol.

I do know that our healthcare systems lock a patient into certain protocols. My eldest was born in California so I’m aware of how the USA and Australian healthcare models work. Nevertheless, if there is evidence of a breakdown in communication between treating physicians and your wife is aware of this, well, common sense should prevail.

From my own personal brush with synthetic HRT almost a decade ago, I’ve learned that if my doctor does not know what she should know, I’ll end up ultimately counting the personal cost - not her. This is a salient fact we ought to keep in the back of our minds when working with an uncooperative GP who prefers to remain in a state of denial.