A news report on KOMO, a Seattle TV station, profiles a dental hygienist who suffered a debilitating injury as a result of a blood clot that she attributes to her use of oral contraceptive Yasmin.
Laura Strothers described herself as a “healthy 30-year-old” with no symptoms associated with blood clots, other than her use of the popular birth control pill. After suffering the blood clot, she has to do her work with limited use of her left hand.
“My left arm was ...
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A women’s health advocate said she’s afraid the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision to change the warning label on certain types of birth control pills won’t be enough to protect users from the increased risk of blood clots.
On April 10, the FDA announced the label change for birth control pills containing the synthetic hormone drospirenone, including Yaz, Yasmin, Ocella and Beyaz.
The new labels reflect the findings of multiple ...
continue reading...The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on April 10 that it’s changing the labels of birth control pills containing the compound drospirenone, adding information to warn users that numerous studies found as high as a three-fold increase in the risk of blood clots from those pills compared to other contraceptives on the market.
“Based on this review, FDA has concluded that drospirenone-containing birth control pills may be associated with a higher risk for blood clots than other progestin-containing pills,” ...
continue reading...Strokes, new and recurrent, occur nearly 795,000 times each year in the United States, according to Dr. Dion Graybeal, medical director of the Stroke Program at Baylor Medical Center.
In an interview with KERA, a National Public Radio affiliate station in Dallas, Graybeal said stroke is the fourth-leading cause of death in the country behind heart disease, chronic lung disease and cancer.
The good news is that new medications, which can disrupt the blood clots that lead to strokes, are available to ...
continue reading...The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research reports a study that found a link between the injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera and breast cancer in young women.
The study involved women between the ages of 20 and 44 — 1,028 of whom had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and 919 of whom had not.
The women who received injections of Depo-Provera within the previous five years were 2.2 times more likely to have been diagnosed with breast cancer than those who never used the contraceptive.
According to ...
continue reading...The Coalition to Prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis provides a “DVT Risk Assessor” on the organization’s Website to help people gauge their susceptibility to developing these blood clots, which occur when blood clots form in the body’s deeper veins (usually in the legs).
The Risk Assessor asks about factors that have been known to play a role in the formation of blood clots, such as recent surgery, birth control pills, or a family history of blood-clotting disorders.
According to the tool, if a ...
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