I was driving home from my friend Linda’s house (by the way, she is older than me) in this 90-degree heat with my air on 70 (because I don’t like to freeze, especially in summer), when I felt my seat warmer come on. What was so strange about it is that my seat only warms from the seat area, not the back, and that’s where I was feeling the heat. I checked the dial on the dashboard but the knob read 0. Strange. I reached around and felt the seat and it wasn’t hot to the touch. Then I realized the heat I feeling was radiating from the inside of my body, starting from my back and wrapping around my torso, causing me to shake and sweat – and I’m not talking a damp brow, but a sweat that drenched my scalp and clothes before I even pulled into my driveway.

I’ve been blogging about menopause and the risks of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for the law firm long enough to know that my symptoms were frightfully similar to that of a hot flash. But I can’t imagine that I’m old enough to be going through “the change.” A little symptom Googling and I surmised that it could likely have been a low blood sugar issue. My nurse practitioner friend Kathy said it was possible, but more likely I experienced a hot flash. I described a text book case. She said if my mother went through perimenopause at an early age, I likely could as well.

I can’t ask my mother because she’s dead. And thanks to my regular blogging with the law firm, I now am convinced her HRT killed her.

One most often hears of the connection between HRT and breast cancer. In 1991, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute launched the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), a 15-year research program to address the most common causes of death, disability and poor quality of life in postmenopausal women – cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis. WHI consisted of a hormone trial and that is where researchers began to see an alarming trend –women on HRT were at an increased risk of serious health complications, most notably, breast cancer. The link between HRT and breast cancer has spurred numerous lawsuits against the makers of the one-time wildly popular Premarin and Prempro. People don’t hear so much about the uterine cancer risk because it’s a little different.

You can look up the connection between HRT and uterine cancer (also known as endometrial cancer) at the American Cancer Society or the National Institutes of Health and they’ll tell you the same thing – that the risk for endometrial cancer (this affects women who still have their uterus) is more than five times higher in women who take estrogen-only therapy (ERT) compared to estrogen plus progestin (HRT). Thus, women who no longer have a uterus are often prescribed ERT and women with a uterus are given HRT, which does not carry the same risk of endometrial cancer.

Years ago when my mother sat down with her general practitioner and requested help overcoming her symptoms of menopause, her GP gave her a choice – one pill would keep her menstruating, the other would not. She made the obvious choice. Perhaps the GP was unaware of the increased risk of uterine cancer with ERT. Maybe researchers were still combing the data. But the fact remains, my mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. The next three years involved painful surgeries and procedures. The last six months were of excruciating pain.

My OB/GYN dismisses this connection. He says estrogen-receptor positive cancers are usually less aggressive and easier to treat. Sure, some studies show uterine cancer has an 84.4 percent survival rate. That hardly matters when you fall in the 15.6 range.

If it was a hot flash I experienced and I am embarking on my path down the shady road of perimenopause, I will not choose to take HRT. The risks are just not worth it to me. If the symptoms get worse – and I hear they often do – I will seek out holistic methods, acupuncture, yoga or whatever. And I will pray never to suffer like my mother had to.

Photo, Flikr, erix

Post from: Blisstree

If It Is ‘The Change,’ I’m Not Touching HRT

This week I received a Safety Communication from the FDA about stimulant medication to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that concerned me. I know several children who take or have taken these meds. Their parents tell me they make a world of difference. My niece we medicated for the disorder, and my therapist believes I was among the undiagnosed children before the condition was a household name. I am fully aware that ADHD runs in families and my very active son could be affected.

Earlier this week, the FDA alerted consumers that it is continuing an ongoing review of ADHD meds because of reports of sudden cardiac death in healthy children. The events are part of a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Because of the study’s limitations, the FDA urges parents not to stop a child’s stimulant medication based on this information and to discuss concerns about the use of these medications with the health care professional who prescribed the medications.

The study, which is funded by the FDA and the National Institute of Mental Health, compared the use of stimulant medications in 564 healthy children from across the United States who died suddenly, to the use of stimulant medications in 564 children who died as passengers in a motor vehicle accident. The study’s authors concluded that there may be an association between the use of stimulant medications and sudden death in healthy children.

The FDA raises concerns about the data content because of a number of factors: a significant lag time between dates when the deaths occurred and collection of the data; the difference in circumstances of death varied between family or caregiver; sudden, unexplained death in a child would be more likely to trigger a post-mortem inquiry into the cause of death than death due to blunt force trauma as a result of a motor vehicle collision; and there was a low frequency of stimulant use reported in both the study group and the control group.

The agency advises that any child who develops cardiovascular symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath or fainting during stimulant medication treatment should immediately be seen by a doctor.

The FDA is continuing to review the strengths and limitations of this and other epidemiological studies and the agency along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality are sponsoring a large epidemiological study that will provide further information about the potential for risks associated with stimulant medication use in children. That data is expected to be completed in late 2009.

Photo, foxumon, stock exchg

Post from: Blisstree

FDA reviews link between ADHD meds, deaths