This is super interesting. It suggests that there is an increasing in bleeding disorders starting abruptly in Jan 2021. The first candidate that comes to mind is aplastic anaemia. Tranexamic acid is also used for heavy menstrual bleeding which of course would only affect under 55s but would also cause anaemia.
The April 2020 figures are skewing your LOWESS function because they are artificially low due to hospital closures. Consider removing these points from the function and replot, you should then see when the take off in prescriptions was more clearly.
Three friends dead in 24 hrs. Heart attacks. I am 72 y.o. And a retired nurse practitioner. Never witnessed three people die this close together. Who is next? How many more?
Thanks again, appreciate your work. I would love to know the attendance rates to Emergency Depts for miscarriage/threatened abortion and dysmenorrhea, as an ED doctor of over 25 year's experience I've anecdotally never known so many attendances for of these presentations.
The data aren't clear -- or, perhaps need interpretation.
The data shows that births are down about 15% compared with pre-covid. This is odd; could be due to medical issues or behavioural.
Routine obstetrics appointments are down about 8%. This is odd given the decrease in births.
Emergency consultations wrt obstetrics are up about 10% -- this is doubly odd given the decrease in births and decrease in route obstetrics activity.
Use of misoprostol (ie, hospital data) is fairly flat over the period. Note that this isn't appropriate for all miscarriages and the data for the use for miscarriage will be diluted by the use for treating ulcers. Mifepristone appears to have had a slight increase in use, but nothing substantial. Of course, if birth rates are down because of a lower pregnancy rate then 'flat' in this regard would be an increase. I'll write more about this later in the series.
Re dysmenorrhea -- the data on this are sketchy, mostly because the main treatment for this is 'take a paracetamol' (acetaminophen). There appears to be an increase in the use of some GnRH drugs (eg, leuprorelin), but I'll have to go through the data carefully as there's a danger that there's been substitution / change in guidelines that might explain things. I don't have any data on hysterectomy.
My wife took tranexamic acid for the first time to control unusual heavy menstrual bleeding early last year. She is unvaccinated but was spending time with recently vaccinated individuals. And subsequently additional iron supplements as she had become anemic.
This is super interesting. It suggests that there is an increasing in bleeding disorders starting abruptly in Jan 2021. The first candidate that comes to mind is aplastic anaemia. Tranexamic acid is also used for heavy menstrual bleeding which of course would only affect under 55s but would also cause anaemia.
The April 2020 figures are skewing your LOWESS function because they are artificially low due to hospital closures. Consider removing these points from the function and replot, you should then see when the take off in prescriptions was more clearly.
Three friends dead in 24 hrs. Heart attacks. I am 72 y.o. And a retired nurse practitioner. Never witnessed three people die this close together. Who is next? How many more?
Thanks again, appreciate your work. I would love to know the attendance rates to Emergency Depts for miscarriage/threatened abortion and dysmenorrhea, as an ED doctor of over 25 year's experience I've anecdotally never known so many attendances for of these presentations.
The data aren't clear -- or, perhaps need interpretation.
The data shows that births are down about 15% compared with pre-covid. This is odd; could be due to medical issues or behavioural.
Routine obstetrics appointments are down about 8%. This is odd given the decrease in births.
Emergency consultations wrt obstetrics are up about 10% -- this is doubly odd given the decrease in births and decrease in route obstetrics activity.
Use of misoprostol (ie, hospital data) is fairly flat over the period. Note that this isn't appropriate for all miscarriages and the data for the use for miscarriage will be diluted by the use for treating ulcers. Mifepristone appears to have had a slight increase in use, but nothing substantial. Of course, if birth rates are down because of a lower pregnancy rate then 'flat' in this regard would be an increase. I'll write more about this later in the series.
Re dysmenorrhea -- the data on this are sketchy, mostly because the main treatment for this is 'take a paracetamol' (acetaminophen). There appears to be an increase in the use of some GnRH drugs (eg, leuprorelin), but I'll have to go through the data carefully as there's a danger that there's been substitution / change in guidelines that might explain things. I don't have any data on hysterectomy.
My wife took tranexamic acid for the first time to control unusual heavy menstrual bleeding early last year. She is unvaccinated but was spending time with recently vaccinated individuals. And subsequently additional iron supplements as she had become anemic.
This post is an absolute cracker. Well done you!