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[Gnatty]

Sorry but Joziel why do you have to be so rude to people? It was a perfectly polite question. And actually she is correct. The Doctors name is Annice Mukherjee, not Chatterjee!
And you are in danger - and we all can be guilty of this  - of cherry picking which menopause doctors you listen to  and ignoring those whose narrative doesn't fit in with your own beliefs.

[HellsBells]

I'm so incensed by this Panorama show, I don't know where to begin.

There is an absolute witch-hunt against Louise Newson going on behind the scenes - which extends to kicking her out the BMS. There are people in this thread saying 'but she has been kicked out the BMS' [shock horror] as if this is now proof that she is a dodgy doctor - rather than realising that the BMS would have us all dissing HRT and has been dragged screaming away from the WHI study, never really refuting it with any explicit statement to equal the intensity of their initial support of it. The BMS is ultra-conservative and relies on research which is outdated and incomplete (there will never be funded research of the sort which is needed because this is women's health and we are not talking about new drugs here, but cheap hormones). That doesn't make it any more 'right'.

Secondly, I can 100% guarantee that for every woman interviewed in that Panorama programme with some scary story about high doses of estrogen, they could, IF THEY'D WANTED, easily have found as many women - actually even more - who would have told stories of NEEDING those doses and not having symptom resolution on lower doses, besides having no side effects from this dosage. (Newson herself is just one such case. Me being another. Hundreds of thousands of other women all over social media who are her patients, being more.) The fact that they only interviewed women touting this one angle was incredibly one-sided and unfair and I really hope Newson has got her lawyers on this for sure. That is not neutral and unbiassed journalism, it's professional assassination and a take-down and slander - to present such a one-sided view.

Thirdly, there was no mention in the programme of the distinction between the dosage applied to your skin and the serum estradiol levels. How some of us (with dry skin, with thick skin - who knows?!) just don't absorb very well transdermally. My levels on 6 pumps (and also on 12 pumps of gel - it was the same) was 330pmol. That is not astronomically high. 12 pumps of gel is 3x the max licensed dose. Read that again: I took 3x the max licensed dose and my serum estradiol was the same as many women on 2-4 pumps of gel. Yet this programme was all about the DOSAGE and not at all about the amount absorbed, which wasn't mentioned even once.

Doctors in that episode - like Dr Chatterjee - are actually really ANTI HRT. Until recently they were dissing it and promoting all kinds of other crap supplements to take instead. She is biassed against it as she herself had BC and couldn't take it. And THAT'S who they chose to interview? With no one to present the other perspective?? This is just the establishment (ie the BMS) ganging up on Dr Newson.

My own experience of lying in bed awake through the night, shaking so much the bed seemed to be moving under me, with my heart going at 95bpm (normal rate in my sleep is 40bpm), and hypnic jerks constantly - all of which has got hugely better since I got my estrogen up by taking now almost 4x the licensed dose - with zero signs of high estrogen, no unscheduled bleeding, no sore boobs, nothing - is that I would probably have killed myself by now if I hadn't had access to higher doses of estrogen via Dr Newson's clinic.

So.... I am really f553cking angry.

Absolutely agree.

[Jillyboo]

What puzzles me is why on earth the women who felt worse on the higher doses didn't just stop?

[joziel]

Sorry, I'm not really being rude (can't even remember who I'm responding to) - I am just really angry and incensed by this Panorama thing and how it is really slander, and nothing will be done.

Yes, I got the doctor's name wrong... but the point stands, it's the same doctor on Instagram I unfollowed because she was basically subtlely countering everything Louise Newson said without naming her by name. Newson would post a video and then this doctor would undermine and poop on whatever it was Newson had said, without naming her. It is just too much. Women don't want this. It's gross behaviour from menopause 'experts' to engage in all this. We're not in the playground.

I'm not cherry picking which doctors I listen to - I am going by my own experience and what I've learnt from reading accounts of zillions of other women over the last 4 years I've been battling this. I'm sure there ARE women who have had endometrial issues as a result of high estrogen... BUT 1) they would have had insufficient progesterone (as was glossed over in the Panorama show with one woman who mentioned her progesterone was halved), 2) they would have had high SERUM estradiol, it's not about how much they are applying externally but about testing bloods and 3) for every one woman they find that this applies to, going by accounts on social media alone, there are far more who need the higher doses and are completely fine on them. If there were an epidemic of endometrial cancer in the UK as the result of Newson prescribing high doses of estrogen, you can be sure it would be all over every Facebook group and everywhere else - and it's not. Instead there are plenty women who are doing fine on higher doses and feel they really need them. Who were not interviewed...

So - sorry if I come across as 'rude', it's not directed at any specific person other than the entire Panorama situation....

[Furyan]

Sorry, I'm not really being rude (can't even remember who I'm responding to) - I am just really angry and incensed by this Panorama thing and how it is really slander, and nothing will be done.

Yes, I got the doctor's name wrong... but the point stands, it's the same doctor on Instagram I unfollowed because she was basically subtlely countering everything Louise Newson said without naming her by name. Newson would post a video and then this doctor would undermine and poop on whatever it was Newson had said, without naming her. It is just too much. Women don't want this. It's gross behaviour from menopause 'experts' to engage in all this. We're not in the playground.

I'm not cherry picking which doctors I listen to - I am going by my own experience and what I've learnt from reading accounts of zillions of other women over the last 4 years I've been battling this. I'm sure there ARE women who have had endometrial issues as a result of high estrogen... BUT 1) they would have had insufficient progesterone (as was glossed over in the Panorama show with one woman who mentioned her progesterone was halved), 2) they would have had high SERUM estradiol, it's not about how much they are applying externally but about testing bloods and 3) for every one woman they find that this applies to, going by accounts on social media alone, there are far more who need the higher doses and are completely fine on them. If there were an epidemic of endometrial cancer in the UK as the result of Newson prescribing high doses of estrogen, you can be sure it would be all over every Facebook group and everywhere else - and it's not. Instead there are plenty women who are doing fine on higher doses and feel they really need them. Who were not interviewed...

So - sorry if I come across as 'rude', it's not directed at any specific person other than the entire Panorama situation....

I agree that the documentary is sorely lacking a balanced view, only highlights the accounts of a select handful of women who brought their complaints to national television. However, I do think that the clinic might have shot themselves in the foot at times by prescribing high doses of oestrogen without the corresponding dose of progesterone to balance it. I certainly don’t know each of these women’s stories but, going off what they all described of their symptoms on those higher doses, all sounded like oestrogen excess from not having progesterone to balance it. What some pointed out here, I’m also puzzled that the programme barely mentions the very different absorption rates of women who take transdermal oestrogen. Neither does it mention the thousands of complaints women made to the manufacturer of Oestrogel about not getting enough oestrogen from each pump forcing them to increase the number of pumps they take. This and many other points could have been mentioned and might have helped viewers to get a more balanced view.

Sorry, but I do think there’s a bit of a witch hunt going on as well - it’s not a new thing that NHS doctors turn on their own for daring to practice differently. Ask the many doctors who branched out into natural medicine, including some thyroid doctors. Some have described the relentless victimisation they face from medical boards as like having an X marked on their back. Some have even given up their practices or prescribing rights rather than “fighting these giants”. Sadly, all this does is to take more good doctors (who actually help people and change lives for the better) off the grid. Which ultimately removes our choices of treatment and reduces our options for getting well. It also places the ‘power’ for getting us well into the hands of the few. Lord help us. Just as we ladies are seeking hormonal balance, I think documentaries (and medical professionals generally) should also look to provide balance if they really want to educate and help people.

This is just my view.

[Kathleen]

Hello ladies.

The Panorama programme was everything I expected it to be. It was a typical piece by a journalist putting forward an opinion and certainly not a documentary that explored different points of view.

As we know Oestrogen is a powerful hormone and the medics are right to be cautious about prescribing high amounts but surely it can be used safely with the right systems in place, such as regular blood tests and scans.


Presumably the women featured are now without HRT or are on very low amounts that are next to useless and their debilitating symptoms are continuing. 

Personally I want an HRT treatment that is safe and actually works. That, ladies is the dream!

Take care everyone and wishing you all well.

K.

[Turkish delight]

The Panorama programme was very one-dimensional.

It's goal seemed to be to shame LN, and put fear in women and the private and NHS practices again,
just like the original Women’s Health Initiative study in 2002.

How was this programme helping the wider female menopausal community? It wasn't, it's done the opposite bcz it only gave a few examples of where things had gone badly wrong. I'm afraid the crawling banner that said..."Do not stop your treatment" shows the programme makers knew this would be the effect.
Plus why didn't LN have the right to reply on the programme? I don't recall Kirsty saying....we asked LN to appear on this programme and she declined. Or am I mistaken?

At the core of the programme was a serious point: If you are taking higher-than-licensed doses of estrogen, you need regular monitoring of blood tests measuring estrogen absorption and regular transvaginal scans.

Because the NHS don't freely offer this and the clinics charge extra mega amounts of money for these test women don't end up having them.
I don't know why, for example, the LN clinics don't offer bundles that factor these 2 test into the costs so women don't have to choose to pay more for these and think they can skip them.

In the year it took them to dig dirt on LN they could have done some studies on absorption and the reliability or
the current HRT on offer to women.

TD

[Ayesha]

This documentary was so one sided, although there were statements from the clinics themselves, where was the lady in question who has without doubt had her reputation shot to pieces by this biased based documentary, all her wonderful work on the menopause up in flames.
I await her statement with interest.

[CLKD]

Jillyboo - that's always been a query of mine.  If a medication makes a patient feel worse, then stop taking it and review.  When I began ADs I was told to continue for at least 6 weeks, well in the first 4 'tries', I had to stop after 3/4 days.  Otherwise I wouldn't be here. 

As an aside, I also wonder how many 'charities' get that particular status .......... there are too many trying to drum up funds under similar umbrellas  .

I await the outcome with interest.  It's raining so we may even watch the programme ......... browsing the BBC news last night, it seems that many are unhappy with Panorama! [1 family whose child had been knifed were not consulted about an up-coming programme focussed on the state of the killer's mental health.  No courtesy applied there then.]

[dangermouse]

There was an earlier thread about her being investigated in 2021, as one of the doctors who worked at her clinic had spoken out about her insistence on upping the oestrogen dose as standard. I am sure we would agree it’s very different when absorption issues and, as long as they are doing frequent testing for those on over 100mg, surely those doctors who left her practice would have been comfortable with that?

My main issue with Newson is her over promotion that women must have oestrogen HRT to protect their bones and hearts, insinuating that those who do not are being ignorant and will come a cropper without it. It gets repeated everywhere, including this forum. The evidence is actually very weak on this for menopausal women (only younger women).

The BMS need to follow strict guidelines to receive their funding, hence why they also cannot support BHRT clinics or any others who prescribe strongly off-licence. Perhaps this has helped those understand that BHRT clinics are also not evil, just off-road to help those who cannot be helped with off the shelf doses.

Apparently, Newson Health are now incorporating progesterone only therapy and nutritional support, very important and possibly more-so than hormones to deal with root causes - although I suspect it comes with a high price tag as they had that offered at the BHRT one I used!

Hopefully this means that other medics, and the experiences of her own patients, are educating her that it’s not just about the big ‘O’. 

[laszla]

I am not a Newson patient and found this to be a disgraceful hatchet job - apart from anything else, risible 'journalism' and 'science' - imagine calling a report 'the meno industry uncovered' (or insert any industry of your choice) and then proceeding to zone in on a miniscule sample of people from one private practice.

The oestrogen dose versus absorption distinction was indeed totally disregarded and it's also important to put Newson's approach into context - she hasn't actually pioneered anything herself but rather is largely following the John Studd approach (which in turn formed Nick Panay) but they choose to savage her. That Studd/Panay school is not simply the preserve of monied patients going to private clinics but is practised in NHS settings such as Chelsea and Westminster.

Meanwhile, practically every day on this forum someone reports examples of egregious ignorance on the part of GPs et al. in relation to HRT.

That is the real scandal.

[CLKD]

What happened to Nick Panay?

[Mary G]

I thought it was a very poorly conducted documentary that was full of holes.  I'm not quite sure why Kirsty Wark was looking so baffled and pulling silly faces either.

I have come across Mukerjee before and she is very anti HRT.

The younger woman who went to Newson after a hysterectomy is a strange case to say the least.  Where was her oncologist in all of this?  Why wasn't she having regular scans - in her case I would have thought it would have been MRI scans. 

They didn't make it clear why they were slagging Newson off for prescribing high oestrogen doses but seemed to point towards uterine cancer which the NHS fail to monitor properly because they don't offer routine uterine scans, they just sit back and wait for women to present with symptoms.

So what are the BMS and the NHS going to do for menopausal women then?  What improvements do they intend to make and what do they intend to do about the ridiculous waiting lists for menopause clinics?  Do we know their plans going forward yet?

Bravo Panorama, you just scared thousands more women off taking HRT and lumbered them with years of debilitating symptoms.

[laszla]

What happened to Nick Panay?

He's still very much around, in private practice as well as NHS, though recently retired from Chelsea & Westminster

[Wren]

Woman's Hour on Radio 4 at 10am today were discussing this.  Carolyn Harris, MP, was on.  I missed the beginning so will listen on BBC Sounds when it's available later.