Doctor, there’s no Hyoscine in my Feminax!

Not any more. This was the only medication that ever helped me and many other women with severe and often unbearable period cramps…..and now the makers Bayer have removed this vital ingredient, reducing Feminax, now called Feminax Period Pain Capsules, to just another brand name combination of codeine and paracetamol.

Hyoscine acted on the muscle cramps that cause the discomfort of period pains (and endometriosis), codeine and paracetamol do not. The name Feminax suggests that the drug is, in some way, specially tailored to suit women. It is not. Also, the packaging does not make it clear that the formulation of the drug is no longer the same as it used to be. It’s exactly the same design and colour as it always was. It states on the front that it contains codeine and paracetamol, but it doesn’t say “new formula” or anything by way of a visual ‘clue’ that this same packaging contains a different combination of drugs. If you’ve been buying the same box of tabs for years, you don’t read the blurb on it every time. You also expect a clue when it changes.

The reason Bayer gives for removing hyoscine from Feminax Period Pain Capsules is that it had a sedative effect. So a woman can now be driving her car having taken two Feminax pills, be suffering from severe menstrual cramps and fall asleep at the wheel because she took .3mgs of hyoscine in the form of a motion sickness tablet? Like women are falling asleep at the wheel all the time when they have their period anyway. Codeine has a sedative effect as well, they would have been better to remove that and kept the hyoscine if they believe their concern is justified.

How many women, I wonder, have bought Feminax in the last year and only realised that the hyoscine has been removed when the drug didn’t work the way it used to? How many sales have Bayer benefitted from by not making it clear that this product has been changed?

In my opinion Bayer haven’t made the change clear because they know that, when they do, they will lose a shedload of sales as women buy much cheaper alternatives. No doubt they will eventually be forced to change the packaging to reflect its altered contents but, until then, if you do buy Feminax, please be aware that it’s unlikely to do the job it used to.

The so-called “Ashley Treatment”

http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/blog/

I think this is so wrong. Would these parents have removed a son’s penis in order to prevent him becoming “sexualised” towards his caregivers and “prevent sexual abuse”?

I spent many years caring for adults and children with severe physical and mental disabilities and it horrifies me to think of any of my former clients being moulded to fit in this way. I always treated the people in my care with the utmost dignity. I was always able to care for their intimate needs, properly, without ever touching them inappropriately, so again, I do not see the need to remove this child’s breast buds (and why ONLY those?) to prevent her being inadvertently sexually aroused or provoking acts of sexual abuse, which, by the way, will happen anyway if the wrong person is ever employed to care for her.

Surely one of Ashley’s rights, which her caregivers are morally obliged to defend on her behalf, is to be allowed to grow into an adult female and not to be surgically sculpted into what her carers would prefer her to be.

The parents responded to the “surprising” amount of criticism their actions have attracted by stating that “If the concern has something to do with the girl’s dignity being violated, then I have to protest by arguing that the girl lacks the cognitive capacity to experience any sense of indignity”. By the same token, she also lacks the cognitive capacity to conceive of her breasts as objects of sexual desire therefore there was no need to have them surgically removed.

I’m horrified by this. I’m trying to find something positive about it but I just can’t.

And, I’m sorry, but the term “Pillow Angels” makes me sick to my stomach.

Oh, really, I just don’t know what else to say other than I feel so bad about this.

Is David Hasselhoff insane? Or has he just been in at the Cooking Sherry again?

Says he:

“I think I’m like the dead Elvis who’s actually alive, like I’m like this legend who’s really alive. I’m like the Rocky Horror Picture show – I can’t figure it out. They come dressed as me. It’s very weird“

You’re right, David. It is weird.

Quote from:http://www.gm.tv/index.cfm?articleid=22705

My New Year Resolutions For 2007

To be kinder to my Mother

To rise above the behaviour of the miriad assholes in life

To be more positive

To get into shape (Yes, again)