25-Year-Old Hours Away from Heart Attack or Stroke: Thanks, Yaz

Quinns Rocks, AustraliaImagine you are 25 years old and told that you were likely 24 to 48 hours away from having a massive stroke or heart attack. That’s what happened to Amanda Saul, from Esperance, Australia. Now 29, Saul said doctors had discovered a number of Yaz DVT (deep vein thrombosis) blood clots in her lungs in early 2010.

“I had one (blood clot) close to my heart and I had one in my lung that had blocked off an entire section and was turning gangrenous,” Ms. Saul said in comments published in The West Australian (8/20/13). Saul reports that she had been taking Yaz for two years and had not experienced any outward Yaz side effects. However, she did have health issues nonetheless, and doctors told her that her use of Yaz “greatly exacerbated” her health issues.

Yasmin birth control and its sister product Yaz were introduced by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals as a new-age oral contraceptive based on drospirenone, a synthetic hormone. The duo was promoted as featuring many benefits to younger women, including minimized weight gain and help with acne. Women the world over embraced the pills. While Bayer admitted that users of Yasmin and Yaz were at a risk for Yasmin blood clots, the risk for blood clots was no greater than that for other birth control pills.

However, that does not appear to be the case, as various studies have suggested a higher risk for blood clots associated with drospirenone. Thousands of Yaz lawsuits and similar actions involving Yasmin have been launched against Bayer.

According to The West Australian, Trine Kremer also had a close call with Yaz, after blood clots formed in her lungs last year. The 42-year-old from Quinns Rocks noted that “I see myself as lucky because I could have easily ended up in a box, but I’m still here,” the mother of two told the newspaper. “I have never been through anything as scary as that.”

The two women have joined a potential class-action lawsuit related to their Yaz side effects. Yaz has been on the market since 2008, and Saul switched to Yaz as soon as it appeared. Yasmin arrived on the scene in Australia first, in 2002.

Two studies published in the BMJ in 2011 found that women who used contraceptive pills like Yasmin were twice as likely to develop blood clots, including Yasmin and DVT.

Yasmin gallbladder problems have also been alleged.