Supplies of estrogen patches run low as demand surges
An estimated 1 million women in the U.S. rely on estrogen patches — a form of hormone replacement therapy — to treat menopausal and perimenopausal symptoms like hot flashes, sleep disturbances and fatigue.
Use of these treatments, designed to supplement the body’s estrogen when it decreases in midlife, has surged.
They are now in short supply across the country, and relief could be months or even years away.
Why has demand for estrogen-based treatments surged?
Estrogen hormone therapies have been around for decades, but they became more widely used and accepted in the early 2020s. With newer research and analyses, The Menopause Society released a position paper in 2022 concluding that the benefits of hormone therapies, including estrogen patches, outweigh the risks for many healthy symptomatic women younger than 60 or within 10 years of the onset of menopause.
In the following years, hormone therapies were widely discussed and recommended by clinicians, health and wellness influencers and by A-list celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Halle Berry.
Menopause was no longer a taboo subject, and women gained more information and greater access to treatments like bio-identical estradiol products in the form of patches, gels and topical creams.
Another watershed moment for these therapies came in November 2025, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended the removal of a longstanding black box health warning on some estrogen therapies. That move helped ease worries about the potential risks of these medicines.
Within months of that FDA change, use of estrogen patches spiked 26%, according to the health data and analytics company Truveta.
Today, roughly 1 in 20 American women between ages 45 and 54 have received an estrogen patch prescription. In that age group, the use of these therapies has tripled since 2018, Truveta found.
Women scramble to fill prescriptions
Now, women across the country report difficulties getting their estrogen prescriptions filled due to recent shortages, which they say are getting worse.
Dr. Monica Christmas, director of the menopause program at the University of Chicago Medicine, told Straight Arrow News that some of her patients are having trouble finding estrogen patches in the most widely prescribed dosage, so she has had to prescribe slightly higher or lower doses or switch them to alternative treatments.
To get their treatments, “patients have to do some legwork,” Christmas said. “They have to call around, and for people who are motivated, that seems to help.”
The FDA has not, at this point, added estrogen patches to its public shortage database. But the agency has publicly signaled supply problems with some estrogen products and said the agency is coordinating with companies to boost supply, according to Reuters.
The FDA did not immediately respond to SAN’s request for comment.
However, some estrogen patches have already been listed as subject to shortages by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which maintains current drug shortage bulletins used by pharmacists and hospitals.
Meanwhile, women are left scrambling to get their prescriptions filled.
It’s important that they have a regular supply, Christmas said.
When they have to go off these treatments, she said, “they may have a recurrence of menopause symptoms that can impact their quality of life.”
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
