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When I was 38, I finally understood what women have felt throughout history. There’s nothing quite as frustrating as being told that everything is “fine” when you clearly don’t feel fine.

It started with feeling tired. I’ve always been someone with a disproportionate level of energy for my petite frame. I was a competitive athlete in my younger years and continue to pack my days with rock climbing, HIIT workouts, and yoga. There are few things I love more than the soreness and tiredness from working my body hard.

But one morning I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a bus. I wasn’t just fatigued or sore; I was tired to my very bones. Every part of my body felt heavy, like I was wading through mud. My brain was foggy and slow. I had a complete inability to focus.

Initially, I wrote it off as an anomaly. But no amount of rest seemed to fix it. I started doing cold water immersion and felt better for a while. But then, other minor things started to stack up.

After being an amazing sleeper my whole life, I would wake up in the middle of night with night sweats and sometimes anxious thoughts racing through my mind, the ADHD came back, and I started getting achy joints and a frozen shoulder. My athletic performance dropped off suddenly and dramatically.

Worse still was the emotional rollercoaster. I experienced a sudden loss of confidence in things I never used to think twice about, I would feel intense anxiety seemingly at random. After being highly ambitious my whole life, I suddenly felt unmotivated. After an irritable day which led to intense rage at my partner, I remember thinking, “This isn’t me.”

I wasn’t more stressed, and I had not changed a thing about my diet or exercise, but I felt different.

What followed were many expensive visits to doctors and specialists, after which I was told that all my bloodwork and scans were completely normal. Most did not address how I felt although I was offered an antidepressant. I don’t think they understood that I didn’t want to be normal or simply “not sick” - I want to be optimal. At least, the most optimal I could be.

I kept seeking help and at one point was seeing a functional medicine doctor, a physical therapist, a dermatologist, and an orthopedic surgeon for all my symptoms. But no one connected all the dots.

Because the symptoms came and went and things would seem better for a few months, I assumed that they were unrelated. But one day, I was chatting with a friend when she began describing many of the same symptoms. It suddenly occurred to me that they could actually be related.

I’m a former medical researcher and avid biohacker with a degree in Biomedical Science. So, I decided to obsessively apply all my research skills and figure out what this could be.

I was surprised to discover that it could be perimenopause. Unsurprisingly, I also found out that most women who are in perimenopause don’t know that they are in it.

Are you in perimenopause?

Did you know that there are over 70 symptoms for perimenopause, yet the majority of doctors have only been taught to look out for hot flashes and vaginal dryness.

Perimenopause symptoms

If you are a woman over 30, here are some other important facts you need to know:

• While the average age of menopause is 51 in the US, perimenopause can start as early as your mid-30s.

• Perimenopausal symptoms are so pervasive and intrusive that a study found that 90% of women will seek help from their healthcare provider.

• There is very little research on perimenopause specifically (0.58% of scientific articles compared to that available for pregnancy). But the largest study ever conducted is now labelled by experts as “The largest misinformation campaign in the history of medicine.” This study deprived women of the gold standard for perimenopausal treatment for over two decades. This does not have to be you.

• Wellness and supplement companies are heavily targeting women with false advertising claims. The watchdog organization - Truth in Advertising - Have uncovered thousands of false claims in what they referred to as the “Menopause Deception Epidemic.”

• Dr. Stephanie Faubion, the chief medical officer of the Menopause Society has publicly stated that nothing over the counter works.

  
  

All this means that so many women have not made the connection that their sudden weight gain, sleep disruptions/night sweats, pervasive anxiety, constant ADHD, mysterious joint pains, night sweats, lack of interest in life (but especially sex), loss of confidence, and dry/itchy skin can all be related to perimenopause.

They seek professional help for individual symptoms - often seeing multiple specialists and being prescribed antidepressants and painkillers when the root cause of hormone imbalance is not being addressed. They often end up spending thousands on supplements and wellness products that don’t work. Worse still, some interventions (like SSRIs) can further compound symptoms (e.g. weight gain).

Perimenopausal symptoms can come and go for a period of over a decade. Because these symptoms can sometimes alleviate temporarily, many women never make the connection that they are all connected to our hormones fluctuating.

If you’ve ever felt that you were going crazy because you felt terrible, but your doctor tells you everything is “normal,” you’ve come to the right place.

The good news for you is that there are absolutely things you can do (many are even low cost and pretty easy) to make sure that you have an easier transition, and the research shows that the earlier you start, the better your perimenopausal journey will be.

Why subscribe to this newsletter?

I have spent thousands of dollars on consulting healthcare providers, trying supplements, undergoing wellness procedures, and experimenting with biohacking. I also love doing scientific research. It’s why I decided to become a scientist in the first place. I understand if you don’t. Most people don’t.

The good news is that, now you won’t have to. I started this newsletter so that I could help you make sense of the actual scientific information that is out there, how you should apply it to your unique self, and actionable steps you can take right away.

My Mission

I’m extremely intentional about how I live my life and communicate. So, I would like to share with you what I will focus on in all of my research and messaging to you:

1. Transition is inevitable, make it transformational

I am fortunate enough to live in Boulder, Colorado where I have met many women who are still have excellent brain function and athletic ability well into their 70s. More importantly, many of them shared that perimenopause for them wasn’t just transitional, it was transformational.

It finally forced them to take better care of their bodies, attune to their emotional needs, release difficult relationships, and follow their passions.

I want to collect all the best tips they have and share it with you. More importantly, I want to share their story so that you are empowered to believe that this stage of life could be even better than your youth.

2. Focus on underlying health, not just symptoms

It greatly bothers me that women are being so aggressively marketed to and that most of the marketing is around symptomatic relief but not addressing our foundational health. For example, instead of simply selling weight loss supplements, the first advice to perimenopausal women should be to strength train. Building muscle alleviates multiple symptoms including weight loss, muscle loss, bone density loss, mood issues, self-esteem, and achy joints.

To clarify, I’m not suggesting one OR the other. I’m a big believer in using all tools and resources available. I’m simply saying we should always prioritize foundational health options.

3. Provide transparency on actual science available

In contrast to social media, I will share what is known and what is unknown and not pretend that there are firm truths where there are none. For example:

• I can tell you where something has 4000 studies with thousands of people over 20 years from various funding sources versus 3 studies by one lab on 10 people funded by a pharmaceutical company.

• I will look for ways for you to find certified providers trained in providing menopausal healthcare by linking to databases of physicians such as menopause.org.

• I will also research which companies have had claims filed against them by Truth in Advertising Organization when they make false claims in their advertising.

  
  

3. Help you figure out how to understand YOU

Perimenopause is a uniquely individual journey. You have to remember that when it comes to your body and your hormones, no expert will be 100% accurate about you. YOU are the only expert on you.

Dr. Layne Norton, a prominent nutritional scientist and two-time USA Powerlifting National Champion who is famous for debunking online nutritional myths says, “Don’t turn your brain off. Question everything.”

I want to help you do just that. I want to help you tune into your experience by giving you clear tools and steps to identify your baseline, monitor changing trends, and assess possible solutions.

4. Build community and create shared experiences

A close friend of mine shared how she suddenly had a heavy period and bled through the chair at a meeting at work after months of not having a period. She had to take the rest of the day off to go home and get changed but also because the bleeding did not stop. Do your social media ads help you address the humiliation of that experience?

I want to create a space where you can find other people who have experiences similar to yours and create a central hub for community and resources. I want to organize the information for you better than reddit and Facebook pages.

5. Not our mother’s perimenopause

My mother went through perimenopause not knowing that many of the symptoms she had were related to hormonal changes (achy joints, brittle bones, dry skin) and that she could have had the protective effects of estrogen all along and that it would not lead to cancer.

She gritted her teeth and suffered through it.

But she also wasn’t trying to rock climb at a high level, be an executive in a global company, start her own business, and have the amazing sex lives like me and many women I know are trying to do. We are a new breed of women who are trying to live a completely different life to our mothers.

This is probably the first time in history where we could have the best sex of our lives, earn more money, follow our creative pursuits and thrive at the age of 40 and beyond. I want to help make sure that we are all empowered to do so.

I hope you will join me.