Androcur- Liberation testimonies- September 11, 2018- “This medication turned upside down my life”
Androcur: "This medicine turned my life upside down"
By Lysiane Larbani - September 11, 2018
Four women bear witness to the consequences they suffer after taking this prescribed medication in the event of hormonal diseases.
- Androcur : "This medicine turned my life upside down"
Are we at the dawn of a new health scandal? On the hot seat, a drug: Androcur. Précrisse since the 1980s with patients with hormonal diseases such as hyperpilosity or acne, and men to alleviate the side effects of prostate cancer, this progesterone derivative has been on the Selete for two weeks and the publication of an alarming study by the National Agency for the Safety of Medicine (ANSM) and Health Insurance. The results are very much concerned: Androcur would multiply in women the risk of meningiomas, benign brain tumors.
To read also Androcur: a cachet with the perfume of sanitary scandal?
Four women under treatment in recent years, sometimes suffering from meningioma, testify to their care path and evoke the loss of confidence in the medical profession.
"This medication turned my life upside down"
Géraldine Godard, 49, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges
In August 2016, Géraldine Godard, 47, went by car from Metz to Brussels to help her daughter move. During the night, she was taken from ills of violent heads, vomiting and hallucinations, believes in meningitis. But in the emergency room, it is detected four meningiomas, including a bleeding, the size of a clementine. "The doctors asked me if I took Androcur, when I hadn't said anything ," she recalls. The medical team is just aiming for: for twelve years, Géraldine Godard has been taking 21 days out of 28 a 50 mg tablet, as we take a contraceptive pill. A treatment prescribed by his gynecologist in 2004 to reduce his hirsutism, excessive hair on the face. "It's incredible to risk your life for hairs ," she gets carried away.
It is operated two weeks later. She is then rid of her bleeding tumor but she keeps serious sequelae of her meningiomas: losses of memories, big fatigue, some epilepsy attacks for which she follows a treatment. She also talks about the psychological consequences that she has to face: "I stopped working," explains this former owner of a ready-to-wear and sale deposit. I was isolated myself, I lost many friends, this medication turned my life upside down. ” Now she has the will to fight "for others" . “I had no follow -up during my treatment. No MRI before or during, I was not warned of the risks. Today, I was considered miraculous ... Before my operation, I had been told that I could no longer walk, that I was likely to be blind. The surgeons do not come back that I have been so recovered. ”
"It's like drugs"
Coline Le Meler, 26, Melun
Coline Le Meler saw his life switch in 2017 when diagnosed with a big stadium meningioma. She is then taken up of violent heads and sees double. She details: "My tumor pressed the optic nerve". The link is quickly made by her neurosurgeon with the Androcur she has taken for seven years to solve her hormonal problems. Since her puberty, she has suffered from irregular rules, acne, has hirsutism on the face. “My treatment was treating me completely. I had beautiful skin, beautiful hair. When we are prescribed that, it's like drugs. " Until then, Coline Le Meler was not very worried, reassured by his gynecologist: "She told me that at my age, I was not likely to have meningioma". However, these seven years of treatment earned him nine hours on the operating table. The consequences of the surgical procedure are still visible on his skull: a scar of 80 stitches which continues to make her suffer. In addition, there are almost daily headaches and fatigue.
Coline Le Meler will no longer be able to take hormonal treatment in the future. On his skin, acne and hirsutism have returned, "worse than before" . But it doesn't matter: "When you have been operated on with all the risks it involves, you know what is vital and what is no longer."
"I was walking slower than my 70 year old mother"
Nathalie Bricout, 39, Meaux
To reach the end of the acne that was rotting with her life, Nathalie Bricout chained hormonal treatments: Diane 35 pill, Roaccutane, Provames and finally Androcur in 1997, while she was 18 years old. For more than ten years, she took these last two tablets simultaneously. Only the Androcur makes it possible to stabilize its pimples on the bust, face, back. His long treatment is followed by far by five successive gynecologists. But none makes him go from a health or hormonal assessment before prescribing these drugs.
In January 2012, the avalanche of alarming symptoms begins: epilepsy attacks, the arm and the left hand which have trouble working, headache, big fatigue. "I was walking slower than my 70-year-old mother ," she says. "My doctor thought of a carpal tunnel syndrome but prescribed an MRI for me by ultimate precaution." Verdict: four meningiomas, one of which is 5 cm, another on the olfactory nerve, very close to the optic nerve. His neurosurgeon makes the link directly with the Androcur and stimulates any hormonal treatment. "MRI highlights olfactory meningioma and I hope that the androcur stop will allow a regression of this meningioma as described in the literature ," he said in his operating report.
At 39, after a year of convalescence, Nathalie Bricourt found a "almost normal" . There remains the bitterness of all these years spent not understanding what caused its important acne: a syndrome of polycystic ovaries (SOPK), which explains its hormonal problems.
"We have a sword of damocles above us"
Mylène, 29, Toulouse
Since the publication of the ANSM study and health insurance, questions and stress have increased in Mylène, 29, who has been taking Androcur for ten years for a hyper hair on the face. Also suffering from endometriosis, it takes 50 mg/day continuously so as not to have rules: "We wonder if it will fall on us or not."
The young woman spends a hormonal assessment every year, and considers herself happy, she has no side effects linked to her treatment. However, if she thought she was informed, she so far underestimated the risk of meningioma, multiplied by 20 after five years of treatment. "My endocrinologist told me that the cases were rare and minimal, but I don't believe it anymore ," she explains. Without being determined to stop her treatment, Mylène wishes to see if there are no other alternatives to Androcur, and how to strengthen the prevention of meningiomas. “We never do an MRI, for example. Now I'm starting to be really afraid. It is as if we had a sword of damocles above us. ”
Androcur- Liberation testimonies- September 11, 2018- “This medication turned upside down my life”
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