Hi lovely ladies
Not usually one to post on forums but felt it my duty to share my experience of Femseven Sequi and the alternatives. I have been on Femseven for 8 years now having started my meno early at 38.. Over the last year I have really struggled to get my hands on my 3 monthly prescription (I live in Scotland) and of course now it has been taken off the market completely with no real warning or advised replacement. I noticed in my previous 3 month supply that some of the individual patch packaging had changed with stickers on them saying they had been repackaged by ‘MPT pharma LTD' but also that they were indeed Femseven Sequi. Due to a very unwelcome return of hot flushes, constant sore heads and nasty nasty depression I decided to dig further and peel the very sticky sticker off.. Underneath was a totally different name ‘Femsept combi', made in France and judging by my side effects nothing like Femseven even though the prep seems the same. Worst has been the dreaded depression, I thought I was losing my mind and couldn't understand why. So today I went back to my Dr, who knew nothing of this alternative patch I had been given, and so prescribed Evorel Conti patches that have cleared my sore head in just a matter of hours! I'm devastated they have stopped manufacturing F7S as they really worked for all of my symptoms but for now Evorel has been my saviour 🤞🏼 Hope this helps anyone else who has also been given this same alternative patch unknowingly..
S X
Hi Stella71
Thank-you for letting us know about this and sorry to hear you experienced a temporary return of symptoms. We have had a few threads about this ie Femseven being discotninued and reformulated and all who have enquired have been given the same reply from Theramex/Teva - that the re-issue date is unknown.
Following your concerns about the substitute patch I had a quick Google and in fact Femsept combi is an alternative name for Femseven sequi (not conti I don't think?) - and they are in fact exactly the same patch with the same ingredients, manufactured by Theramex/Teva.
MPT Pharma Ltd has just repackaged the patches - not sure if the actual foil pouch is the same in both cases, but I imagine it is? The patient information leaflet should still say Femseven as that is what this product is called in UK and Femsept is not on our list of medicines. (Sept being the French word for 7!!). They (MPT) are a parallel import company which happens quite a lot as we (UK) are (fortunately still) a member of the EU. The same product is often supplied to different countries within (and even outside) the EU but with a different name and it means that if there is difficulty getting hold of the one in our named packet, then a different named packet of the same stuff can be sourced! We have come across this before with another HRT product which casued no end of confusion (Oestrogel/Oestrodose) and it is the different packaging and the names of all the different parallel importers which cause the problems identifying what HRT you've got and thinking it's different.
Rest assured that you received the same product provided it has been stored under favourable conditions - from what I can gather (I looked up the product info on the |French database of medicines) and therefore if you are still peri-menopausal then most likely just coincidence that your symptoms came back temporarily. Which phase of the cycle did you feel the symptoms returning?
Pleased to hear that they have now disappeared and that the Evorel suits you! Just one thing though - if you were on Femseven sequi then you should have been given Evorel sequi too ie 4 patches of Evorel 50 mcg followed by 4 patches of Evorel conti, rather than Evorel conti which are the conti patches all the time and only intended for women or are post-menopause?
Hope you continue to feel well
Hurdity x