#yuvafem

[theo-rise]

I’m curious about whether your provider mentioned:

Using finasteride (a DHT blocker) to prevent further hair loss.

Using minoxidil to reverse the hair loss that you already experienced.

Using localized topical estrogen like Yuvafem or Imvexxy estradiol vaginal inserts to reverse vaginal atrophy.

Switching from weekly subcutaneous injections to daily testosterone gel so there will be a constant level of testosterone in the body and you won’t have the lows before the next shot that occur when there’s a greater difference between peak and trough testosterone levels as seen in an injectable testosterone cycle.

I know that the ability to have a child and the stress/hassle of refilling a controlled substance would still be motivators for stopping testosterone, but it would be interesting to see an update or edit to your original June 13th post about whether your provider fully explained your options beyond just prescribing birth control to avoid menstruation, even if you ultimately decided you weren’t interested in those aforementioned alternatives.

So I mostly just told him the short story: that I had always planned to stop, and my main reason was that it would make life simpler, so if I could deal with it now that I have the permanent changes, then I might as well. In that context, it would have been strange to bring up points 1-3. Technically he did propose gel as an option when I first saw him a couple of years ago, but I don't have a problem with troughs and gel is more expensive here, so nah.

I'll be seeing him again in ~6 months, so if I'm not satisfied with my hair at that point maybe we'll see what he suggests on that front. Same goes for any issues I may run into with the pill. Really though, from our other discussions so far, he comes across as very well informed and supportive, right down to criticising the government for only subsidising injectable T ("it's like they think trans people have to suffer").

Thanks for the question!

#transition diary #stopping T #nonbinary #trans #ftm

[buildingadrian]

Does anybody have experience using local estrogen like Yuvafem or even local progestin? My endo and ob want to have me take yuvafem for my atrophy but i cant bring myself to do it. I understand that its a micro dose that wont affect my t levels but its still estrogen, plus it causes breakthrough bleeding which i already deal with fairly often, and it causes more discharge. Because of my issues with yuvafem my ob offered a local progestin but wants to wait for me to get insurance after the first of the year. I cant find anything on progestin being used for atrophy, only fertility purposes. Does anyone have experience with it?

#ftm #trans #transgender #transition #atrophy treatment #atrophy #yuvafem #local progestin #local estrogen

[marcdouffet]

More Treatment Options for Post-menopausal Symptoms

There is a new product on the market called Imvexxy, which was developed to treat the dryness that post-menopausal women develop. Although the medication, estradiol, is not new, the delivery system is. Instead of a cream or tablet, this is a vaginal gel cap. It comes in the standard dose (10 mcg), and a lower dose (4mcg), giving women more options to treat this very common condition.

A tablet is inserted twice a week. What is different about Imvexxy is you can insert the gel caps whenever you want, as opposed to the creams which can be messy and preferably inserted at night. It avoids an applicator, which many patients have complained about with the Yuvafem. And studies show very few or even no side effects which is nice. And it comes in lower doses, for patients who would prefer to use as little estrogen as possible.

What I like most about Imvexxy is knowing that there are companies out there looking for new and improved ways to treat post-menopausal issues. No one treatment is right for everyone, so it is nice to have a few more options.

If you are experiencing menopausal symptoms, contact us for a free consultation and learn how we can help.

The post More Treatment Options for Post-menopausal Symptoms appeared first on Maze Women's Sexual Health | Improving Sexual Health One Woman at a Time- Painful Sex, Hormone Treatment.

More Treatment Options for Post-menopausal Symptoms published first on https://medium.com/@PickupSexDolls

[newssplashy]

Opinion: Prices keep rising for drugs treating painful sex in women

For years, Lenny Hanson has watched in alarm as the price of a drug she takes has ticked steadily upward, doubling in the last five years to more than $200 a month today.

The product, Vagifem, is one form of a drug, estradiol, that is used to improve women’s sex lives by treating a painful, often unspoken condition experienced by older women: a dry vagina, which can cause uncomfortable intercourse and complications like urinary tract infections.

Estradiol has been around for decades, but the price of the various creams, vaginal rings and tablets that contain the drug has climbed steadily in recent years, according to an analysis by the consumer website GoodRx. And insurance coverage is spotty — many plans refuse to cover some products or require that patients pay high out-of-pocket costs.

While women privately fume about the costs, drugmakers have been able to raise their prices without a public outcry in part because the topic — women’s sex lives and their vaginas — is pretty much taboo.

“Unlike EpiPen, women are not going to be rising up and saying, ‘My vagina is dry and I don’t want to pay $2,000 to $3,000 a year,'” said Dr. Lauren Streicher, medical director of the Northwestern Medicine Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause.

This week, the FDA approved a new estradiol product, Imvexxy, a development that in any other market may have offered hope for some price relief. But in the upside-down world of prescription drugs, that isn’t happening. Imvexxy’s manufacturer, TherapeuticsMD, said that its new product would be sold at “parity” with others on the market, and did not elaborate.

The story of estradiol products echoes others in the prescription-drug market, where older medicines like insulin or multiple sclerosis drugs have become more expensive, even when rivals are introduced and should make prices competitive.

The increases often result from secret, back-channel deals: Drug companies, pharmacy benefit managers and insurers all play a part, profiting along the way. Drugmakers set higher prices because of the way they sell their product to insurers and employers.

Instead of offering an upfront discount, companies pay after-the-fact rebates that are negotiated with pharmacy benefit managers like CVS Health or Express Scripts. These managers keep a percentage of those rebates, which are generally not shared with consumers, creating what some have described as a perverse incentive to keep list prices high.

Insurers, on the other hand, say drug companies keep raising prices to make more money.

Health insurance has traditionally covered the bulk of patients’ drug costs, so until recently, prices weren’t on people’s radars — drugs weren’t seen as a consumer product like, say, breakfast cereal. But as manufacturers have raised prices, insurers have passed a larger share of the costs to patients in the form of high deductibles or copayments.

Drugs to treat sexual health, like the estradiol products, are frequently placed on a higher formulary tier, meaning some patients have to pay as much as half the list price, said Adam J. Fein, chief executive of the Drug Channels Institute, which studies the industry.

“Although it is technically covered by the insurance company, your insurer is paying very little for the drug,” Fein said.

The prices for estradiol products for vaginal use have risen significantly over the past five years. The price of a tube of Estrace cream has more than doubled, to a pharmacy cash price of $372.17 in May, from $183.98 in January 2013, according to GoodRx. The Estring, a ring that is inserted in the vagina for three months, cost $520.66 in May, compared to $284.11 in January 2013.

Representatives for drug manufacturers said their products were generally covered by insurance and that they offered assistance to patients who could not afford them.

“These are medications that many women have to take for several years,” said Thomas Goetz, chief of research at GoodRx. For those with poor insurance coverage or none at all, “people are being exposed to what can be profound increases in price.”

Hanson, 71, of San Francisco, has resorted to ordering her drug from overseas at a cost of about $80 for a three-month supply. “It’s absurd,” she said.

The newcomer, Imvexxy, has a few features that its manufacturer hopes will distinguish it. It comes in a lower, 4-microgram dose (the lowest Vagifem dose is 10 micrograms). The soft gel capsule — in pink, naturally — is manually placed in the vagina, compared to Vagifem, which is used with a disposable plastic applicator.

In 2017, TherapeuticsMD announced that the FDA had turned down its application for approval because there was no long-term safety data beyond 12 weeks of use. The company later submitted a review of safety data on existing estradiol products to demonstrate that, like the others, its own product did not pose a risk.

The company has said 32 million women suffer from the condition that their drug addresses, but only about 7 percent — or 2.3 million — receive treatment. Sales for menopause-related treatments totaled nearly $3 billion in 2017, according to IQVIA, which tracks drug sales.

Some said Imvexxy had a role to play. Many women are worried about taking estrogen because of earlier studies that showed taking oral hormones carried serious risks. The lower dose may allay those concerns, although other vaginal estradiol products have also shown that they do not significantly increase estrogen levels throughout the body. All of the products, including Imvexxy, carry an FDA warning that they can increase the chance of developing cancer and other serious disorders. But several women’s health experts said those risks have never been substantiated and they have been lobbying the FDA to remove it.

“Hopefully this will be a solution for the woman with breast cancer who is going without,” Streicher said. TherapeuticsMD paid her to lead one focus group for women that discussed sexual health and did not mention Imvexxy, she said.

“If we were having this conversation in the context of drug prices being reasonable across the board — hey, good news,” said Cynthia Pearson, executive director of the National Women’s Health Network, a consumer group. “It’s just infuriating that the price has gone up and up and up for no good reason.”

She said the issue has not gotten more attention because “how many people will say ‘vagina’ in a public setting?”

Some companies are using a playful marketing approach, signaling the issue is not as taboo as it once was. The website of Imvexxy — which rhymes with sexy — features an image of a ripe, juicy peach, boasting the product is “distinctly designed for sweet relief.” A similar product, Intrarosa, which does not contain estradiol, features a photo of a nude older woman, her head thrown back in pleasure.

Some of these products may soon come down in price. In October 2016, a generic of Vagifem, called Yuvafem, entered the market at a slightly reduced list price. Then, in July, Teva Pharmaceuticals began selling a second generic at an even cheaper price. But the pharmacy cash price for Teva’s product — $163.91 for a month’s supply of eight tablets in May — is still higher than what Vagifem cost in 2015, according to the GoodRx analysis.

If more generic manufacturers enter the market, the price could tumble more and Vagifem could become an inexpensive drug like many cholesterol or blood pressure medicines. The same could become true for Estrace cream, which lost its patent protection at the end of last year and now has several generic competitors.

With two generics for Vagifem now available, the drug companies are most likely negotiating big discounts with insurers, meaning patients with coverage may see their costs drop. Elizabeth Traynor, an illustrator in Guntersville, Alabama, had tried virtually every estradiol product and balked at the prices, frequently doing without. But she recently called her insurer, the Government Employees Health Association, and learned she would have to pay $20 for a three-month supply of Yuvafem. “It’s about time,” she said. “Hooray!”

Estradiol has been around for so long that it has survived several rounds of debate over high prices. In 1959, a Senate inquiry found that drugmaker Schering, now part of Merck, had marked up estradiol — which comes in many forms — by more than 7,000 percent over the cost of materials.

In an echo of modern-day industry talking points, a Schering executive was quoted in an article in The New York Times, saying the high prices were necessary to finance new medical research. “The consumers of today must contribute to the benefits which the future will bring,” the drug executive said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

KATIE THOMAS © 2018 The New York Times

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/06/opinion-prices-keep-rising-for-drugs_4.html

#News

[buildingadrian]

My atrophy is pretty bad and my ob initially prescribed yuvafem (local estrogen) the thought of taking it made me so dysphoric and angry i just wanted to break it and hurt myself so i didnt use it. There was one time i did because the burning had me up until after 5 am and i was desperate. That led to major dysphoria the next few days so i never took it again. Now she has prescribed intrarosa which is prasterone. It starts as prasterone and my body converts it to estrogen which that thought makes me dysphoric. I just want progesterone but thats still in studies for it's effectiveness. I feel so fucking stuck all of the medications available cause discharge and bleeding, both cause a lot of dysphoria for me. I feel like i have no choice but to take these awful things in order to be physically comfortable but even the thought of taking them really hurts my mental health which already isnt great and i just need help. Idk what to do im stuck in a shitty situation. Ive discussed it on reddit and they all say its not that bad but i think that all depends on dysphoria and how your body reacts. Without these meds im already dealing with bleeding despite being on t and the depo shot so idk

#ftm #trans #transgender #transition #atrophy treatment #atrophy #medications #help #bottom dysphoria #dysphoria