Menopause Symptoms and Hormone Replacement Therapy

This book provides great information to help women understand what’s going on during menopause and alternatives for controlling the unpleasant effects. I bought several copies and gave them to my younger friends who are in perimenopause. It’s a great read before the annual visit to the OB/GYN. I’m going (lucky me) to the doctor this week and am now armed with a list of questions about alternatives to prescriptions I’m taking, how to improve my well being and why a muffin top is stuck to the middle of a 120 pound woman who does Pilates, yoga and walks a little dog for miles. Lucky OB/GYN
Rating: 4 / 5

Dr. Hess has an expertise and passion that makes him a unique advocate and guide to women all over. His pursuit of the disciplines of Chemistry and OB-GYN blended with solid knowledge of natural therapies and a passion for helping menopausal women gives him an unorthodox yet very balanced view of menopause and women’s options at its onset. For women close to or at the onset of menopause, this book will help them make informed choices that suit their unique individual circumstances.

The book’s tone is informative and balanced without sacrificing verve or enthusiasm. The passion isn’t over the top, and thus has an honest voice when encouraging women to find the right treatment and regimen for them. The information is copious but compact—just the right amount of important information women will need in order to focus on key factors that will help them make informed choices. The balance that the reader detects from the book’s tone is fueled by open-minded prudence—despite pointing out errors and seminal discoveries of past researches, discussing new findings, mentioning cutting-edge research, and touching on radical discoveries and options, the book always returns to central themes: new studies shed new light, findings of past studies show more implications if scrutinized more, and the reader should always remember the possibility that “the answers have changed.”

The book begins with explaining key concepts needed to understand menopause, then it dispels certain myths that have been held about the menopausal condition. It moves on to focus on key studies and treatments that have been crucial in shifting perspectives about menopause and opening up options for women today, and then it takes time to clarify definitions of current available treatments in order to minimize confusion surrounding them. All this information can be considered crucial preliminaries–Dr. Hess is arming his reader with the necessary background knowledge before he introduces them to the seven steps of what he believes is the Perfect Menopause.

As Dr. Hess armed his readers with key concepts and information about menopause in general, so he reassuringly begins his seven steps to the perfect menopause by arming women with the means to gather vital baseline information about their own particular menopause experience. By discussing the key events of a full ovarian cycle (its hormonal implications, salient features, and the unique implications of removing the uterus or ovaries), Dr. Hess gives women a very helpful backdrop that allows them to discover where they are in the cycle. His first step provides information that makes for an enlightening “you are here” map, to help women discern the stage they are in, the symptoms they are experiencing, and anything they feel that seem apart from the norm. Once armed with the knowledge of their individual menopause experience, Dr. Hess then guides women through choosing their treatment goals. In this second step, the discussion of the different kinds of treatments available allows women to either choose a treatment (one that will address several symptoms and alleviate most if not all of them, or one that the woman feels is the best match for what she knows of her overall needs to manage her menopause), or prioritize the symptoms they feel in order to determine which ones need to be addressed by treatment immediately. Again, Dr. Hess presents these options in a very open-minded manner.

Steps 3, 5, 6, and 7 deal with addressing major symptoms of menopause. I group them together not because these steps are similar–it is actually only step 3 that is called “Manage Major Symptoms”: steps 5 to 7 tackle aging and dryness, sexual desire, and sleep respectively–but to show Dr. Hess’s ability to convey comprehensive information in order to give readers a chance to make intelligent choices. Despite these being common to most women going through menopause, customizing how to address these symptoms to fit one’s situation is possible. Dr. Hess tackles each in detail, sharing information, giving options, and for those completely at a loss, conveying recommendations that are worth trying to see if they work. I choose to highlight step 4 (“Get to Your Perfect Weight”) last because the chapter’s flow represents for me the commitment Dr. Hess gives to his readers through this book. After conveying information on how preventing weight gain is beneficial during menopause and discussing the various options for weight loss, Dr. Hess recommends an action plan in order to get to one’s perfect weight–the plan he recommends is practical, requires commitment, and asks one to be responsible for one’s goal as the plan is executed. Dr. Hess conveys himself to the reader in the same way: the help he extends is valuable and practical, with the reader receiving a windfall of solutions–IF they take ownership for seeing to their needs, and IF they commit themselves to executing their chosen plan or treatment.

I feel that through this book Dr. Hess achieved his hope of empowering women to make the choices that address their individual, unique needs for their menopause. He will cite preferred studies, treatments, or service providers, but he always stresses the need to choose the best option for oneself. He guides, he informs, and he weighs the pros and cons for his readers, but he always leaves it up to the person to customize the information to suit their needs and lifestyle. He clarifies what to look for, what is important, and what to be concerned with, and then points the reader to numerous resources that help them implement their chosen goals. My best wishes to Dr. Hess and all the readers who use this book to help themselves or their loved ones–it is a good guide, and at the end one feels in control and able to manage the changes happening.

Rating: 4 / 5

This is an important book for woman and men no matter what their age because there’s not only a lack of information about menopause, even among physicians and other health care providers, but also there has been an astounding amount of mis-information recently which could result in serious consequences for those who are mislead by it. Dr. Henry M. Hess is a gynecologist, chemist, natural therapist and menopause expert who has spent the past 25 years traveling the world learning and teaching about all aspects of menopause therapies as well as helping patients in their search for relief from menopause’s symptoms. (Apparently most medical schools and reputable OB/GYN residencies provide very little teaching and experience on menopause). I love the title and the tag line: “7 Steps to the best Time of Your Life.” This is a promise on which the doctor delivers, spectacularly.

The book itself should be an inspiration to other authors. Written with Tiffany Farrell, a medical writer specializing in women’s health, it is clear, concise, identifies and addresses reader concerns plus provides charts, questions, schedules and case studies that make the subject immediate and real. “Your menopause is not your mother’s menopause,” Dr. Hess writes, “or even your sisters. So much more is known today about all aspects of menopause than even just a few years ago…” My own wife went through menopause five years ago and I now feel I understand it in a way I wish I had back then. Some facts: “The average woman will spend one-third or more of her life in menopause,” “Before 1900, most women did not live long enough to experience menopause,” “Hot flashes and night sweats last for 4-5 years for most menopausal woman; for at least 10% of women, they will last for the rest of their lives” and, very significantly “The famous hormone study of 2002 showed that estrogen causes breast cancer, but recent analysis of this data and additional new studies, show that estrogen use may actually prevent breast cancer for many younger postmenopausal women in at least the first five years of use.”

There are three categories of therapies for menopause: natural therapies, medicinal therapies and hormone therapies. This book addresses the pros and cons of each type. It answers big questions, such as, “What are the differences between natural, synthetic and compound hormones?” and equally important smaller ones, like: “Is a patch a better means of delivery than taking estrogen orally?”– it is. We also learn that “natural” does not necessarily mean safer. Permarin is advertised as a natural hormone because it comes from an animal source (pregnant mares’ urine) but that doesn’t mean it’s natural to humans. I really admire Dr. Hess’s honesty. About proper eating habits: “Most of us really don’t know the elements of a healthy diet, even though we think we do…and the medical profession’s new understanding (of nutrition) has not been effectively translated into practice.” And with regard to sex: “A stale emotional relationship and/or a stale sexual relationship is one of the most significant causes of female sexual dysfunction at any age!” Yes, there is an excellent section on male menopause too.

Like any map, there’s more than one way to reach a goal. Dr Hess presents all of the possibilities in this single, easy to understand book. It is exactly what we need to know.

Rating: 5 / 5