an issue of testosterone levels<\/a> among the \u200btroops.\n <\/p>\n\n While healthcare providers can prescribe approved medicines any way they see fit, an FDA spokesperson said these off-label uses have not been evaluated by the agency for safety, efficacy or dosing.\n <\/p>\n
\n With no approved testosterone for women, patients must divide packaged versions designed for men often at many times the doses they\u2019re seeking.\n <\/p>\n
\n Jennifer Lanoff, a women\u2019s health nurse practitioner in Washington, D.C., said Amazon Pharmacy rejected prescriptions from her practice for the first time this year.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019ve done (off-label testosterone prescriptions) forever. It\u2019s clinical guidelines recommended. Amazon has not given us \u200ba problem before,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know exactly what happened or why they rejected. They say it was a new policy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Lanoff said she has had some success rewriting prescriptions under which patients discard leftover gel rather than splitting \u200bdoses for later use.\n <\/p>\n
\n Amazon Pharmacy said it does not dispense some testosterone prescriptions that require women to customize doses in order to ensure safe and compliant dispensing. It added that the policy is not specific to testosterone or based on a patient\u2019s \u200csex or \u2060gender identity.\n <\/p>\n
\n The company said it refers customers to compounding pharmacies that mix ingredients for specialized doses.\n <\/p>\n
\n Compounded testosterone can cost about $100 for a three-month supply compared with $30 after discounts for a 10-month supply at a commercial pharmacy, Lanoff said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Most insurance companies do not cover testosterone for women, the doctors, nurses and patients said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Magen Price, a nurse practitioner and founder of Mystic Valley Sexual Wellness, said more than one-third of the 80 patients in her practice who currently use testosterone have encountered issues with their prescriptions, including at CVS and Walgreens pharmacies.\n <\/p>\n
\n The issues that began last year have worsened, Price told Reuters.\n <\/p>\n
\n When Amy Swan, a 55-year-old graphic designer outside Boston, tried to fill her first testosterone gel prescription in \u200bMarch, she expected a simple pharmacy visit.\n <\/p>\n
\n Instead, she spent weeks \u200btrying to get a pharmacy to honor a \u2060GoodRx discount coupon that would reduce the cost by 25%.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHours of my time were lost just being able to get this one prescription,\u201d Swan said.\n <\/p>\n
\n CVS said its pharmacies regularly fill prescriptions for topical testosterone gel for women. Other retailers with large pharmacies including Walgreens, Costco and Walmart did not respond to requests for comment. Kroger declined to comment.\n <\/p>\n
\n Kevin \u200bSchipper, a pharmacist and director of product lifecycle management at consulting firm ProPharma, said pharmacies may decline prescriptions due to concerns over dosing accuracy and medication safety, \u200bas well as stability, storage \u2060and contamination if single-use packaging is opened and reused.\n <\/p>\n
\n Because it is a controlled substance \u2014 similar to aspirin with codeine \u2014 each state also has record-keeping requirements for the government.\n <\/p>\n
\n Over 30 trials studying testosterone use for various health conditions in women are underway or planned, according to ClinicalTrials.gov<\/a>, including a Marius Pharmaceuticals-sponsored sexual dysfunction trial due to start as soon as later this year.\n <\/p>\n\n Aviva Bio is developing a next-generation testosterone product that would address breast cancer risk associated with use of the \u2060hormone.\n <\/p>\n
\n Products currently used \u200bby women include branded and generic testosterone gels, such as AbbVie\u2019s AndroGel, Keenova Therapeutics\u2019 Testim and Upsher-Smith\u2019s Vogelxo.\n <\/p>\n
\n Upsher-Smith declined to comment on whether \u200bit plans to develop testosterone products specifically for women. AbbVie and Keenova did not respond to requests for comment.\n <\/p>\n
\n Cynthia Stuenkel, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, said she hopes the FDA will prioritize evaluating a testosterone product designed for women.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis would \u200bcertainly ease the ability of clinicians to more confidently prescribe testosterone and for women to more easily and confidently use testosterone specifically dosed for them,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reuters\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Women increasingly turning to testosterone therapy to manage menopause symptoms are running into unexpected prescription delays and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97],"class_list":["post-850895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}