Woman applying estrogen patch during hormone therapy.Halfpoint Images | Moment | Getty ImagesEstrogen patches are in short supply as demand for the menopause medications skyrockets, and it could take at least a year for manufacturers to catch up. Prescriptions of estrogen patches have increased 162% over the past two years, according to data from HealthVerity. Already rising demand was turbocharged last fall when the Food and Drug Administration removed a more than 20-year-old black box warning discouraging women from taking hormone replacement therapy. Manufacturers are struggling to keep pace. Three types of patches are in shortage, according to data from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which relies on reports from healthcare providers. The FDA, using a different methodology, hasn’t declared a shortage of estradiol. “You can get them, but it takes a lot of time and effort when we’re all so busy at this time of our lives,” said Dr. Susan Loeb-Zeitlin, director of the Women’s Midlife Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Doctors across the country describe the difficulty their patients are experiencing to find hormone replacement therapies, particularly estrogen patches. When asked how much time she spends trying to help people find the medication, Dr. Francesca Turner, a doctor in Iowa, just laughs. “Between my nurse, patients’ pharmacists and myself, we are doing this pretty much every day trying to figure out how to navigate this for our patients,” Turner said. Doctors prescribe estrogen to treat the symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes and brain fog, which occur when a woman’s body produce less of the hormone. Estradiol is the most potent type and is commonly administered through a patch that gradually releases the hormone on the skin to help ease physical and mental symptoms of menopause. Doctors prefer giving estrogen topically because it’s considered a safer option than orally, Loeb-Zeitlin said. For more than two decades, the FDA advised women to avoid treating menopause with estrogen because a 2002 study called the Women’s Health Initiative suggested it could put women at greater risk of breast cancer and other conditions like dementia. Later analyses found the participants in the study were older …
