Also there were some remarks further back about perceived differences and posts about this being about views and whether someone was right or wrong. It is absolutely not about this at all!!!!
From my point of view I was genuinely puzzled about all of this - as I have said several times, and especially as I have a friend who has used the two products for years so wanting to get to the bottom of things and amidst all the rumours of what was going on and stuff being imported from elsewhere or an inferior product being manufactured - wrote to Besins. I have no axe to grind whatsoever but as a scientist (retired!) am intrigued. I thought I would do this to try to help and attempt to solve an ongoing controversy...
Re perceived differences - as is said frequently – we are all individuals, so we will respond differently to different types of HRT such as gel, patches, and tablets – and one particular method and dose (or a combination of methods) will suit us best – at one particular phase of our lives or all of it. We will also individually respond differently to other women to the same product such as estradiol gel even the same product at the same concentration. Equally we will respond differently ourselves on different occasions to exactly the same product – which in the case of estradiol gel could be: where we are in menopause, products on our skin, the ambient temperature, our body temperature (skin surface) the location on the body of the gel application, and the size of area that it is spread on – and probably other factors too. All these may affect how quickly and how much of the product is absorbed and therefore systemic levels of the estradiol in our body.
Therefore when using Oestrogel/Oestrodose – there are likely to be variations in how much is absorbed, and this will vary from woman to woman and from time to time, with some women noticing the difference and others not.
As mentioned on the other thread, there is also likely to be a strong placebo effect (in some women) re Oestrogel and Oestrodose and the apparent “superiority†of Oestrogel. This does NOT mean that any PERCEIVED difference is imaginary – far from it – but that the EXPECTATION that Oestrogel is superior (because this was the name given to the estradiol gel for the UK market - that was originally named Oestrodose in Belgium/France as I understand) leads to the ACTUAL result that it has a superior effect. As I said on the other thread, the placebo effect is responsible for a large (and very important) part of any response to a treatment (conventional or alternative) which is why placebo controlled trials are essential for measuring the effectiveness of any treatment that results from that treatment alone.
The notion that Oestrodose is inferior to Oestrogel is quite natural – as they are packaged completely differently – and in the absence of any other information, it is only natural to think that this was a differently manufactured generic product which did not perform as well as the real original (UK) branded product Oestrogel. This was compounded by all the rumours about where Oestrodose was manufactured compared to Oestrogel.
The correspondence I had with Besins established that the two products are exactly the same – Oestrodose is just the French name given to Oestrogel, and also used in other countries. I have had four letters from them which are quite detailed and the contents of which I posted on the other thread. The aim was to find out the facts behind the two products (partly for my own curiosity!) and then to reassure women who were using Oestrodose, NOT to expect any difference whatsoever (other than difference to the same product or because they are respondingly differently for reasons given above).
As I said in the post below - there still remains a possible explanation in some cases, that there is some shady business going on that Besins are unaware of – that the parallel importer when repackaging (btw this does not mean filling the inner pouches – it just means putting the inner pouches in different outer plastic pump mechanism and carton and changing the leaflet) is occasionally using batches of Oestrogel imported from elsewhere in the world which could account for some difference - (and worryingly an allergic reaction to a different ingredient) and also if it was happening sporadically - would also explain why some women experience a difference sometimes and not others. As I said before - Besins want to know about this....
The difference in consistency - if consistently different
- is a starting point but easy to resolve in terms of batch numbers as MIS71MUM suggests.
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Topic: Oestrogel and Oestrodose - they are exactly the same (Read 45484 times)