Perimenopause is having a moment:
Books I'd gift my 37-year old self
Short Version: Are you a woman in your 40’s chasing specialists about a variety of symptoms? Do you experience increased irritation, brain fog, or sopping wet pajamas on occasion? Could be you’re in perimenopause. A huge debt of gratitude to the Gen X advocates writing books, posting TikToks, recording podcasts, and generally letting us know how to talk to our doctors and get relief.
Prefer your info in podcast form? Two good places to start.
Psychologists Off the Clock interviews Jancee Dunn, author of Hot and Bothered: How to Survive Menopause. Dr. Amy Shah interviews Dr. Mary Claire Haver here.
Hot and Bothered: What No One Tells You about Menopause
Jancee Dunn
Hot and Bothered is well-reported. Dunn’s interviewed the medical experts and cites her sources. I refer to this book (it’s funny - I listened to it as an audiobook) often as a reference. I bought so many copies—which distributed to moms at the park—that they arrived shrink wrapped. I sent Jancee Dunn a fan email. She wrote me back!
The Menopause Brain
Lisa Mosconi, PhD
Lisa Mosconi is the director of the Women’s Brain Initiative and the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine/New York Presbyterian Hospital. Mosconi’s book offers more of a Menopause 201 course, starting with a historical perspective and including deep dives on specific cases with the overall thesis that menopause is a time of big changes in our brains.
Mosconi introduced me to the term bikini medicine.
Bikini medicine is the practice of reducing women’s health to those body parts found beneath a bikini’s confines. It is saying that, from a medical perspective, what makes a woman a “woman” is reproductive organs and nothing more. - Lisa Mosconi, PhD
One more “yasssss girl!” from Dr. Mosconi:
More broadly, healthcare professionals have often engaged in a disheartening form of medical gaslighting, where they have historically downplayed women’s health issues as a whole, and specifically neglected women’s concerns around their mental health. As patients, we can therefore grow accustomed to downplaying our symptoms in turn, for fear of appearing silly or oversensitive or even to avoid being patronized.” - Lisa Mosconi, PhD
Estrogen Matters
Avrum Bluming, MD & Carol Tavris, PhD
Avrum Bluming, MD (Professor Emeritus at University of Southern California School of Medicine) and Carol Tavris, PhD (social psychologist). Bluming and Tavris recalibrate the Women’s Health Initiative, the large randomized controlled trial (RCT) and the reason you might have ideas about estrogen breast cancer. I love a science and/or medicine wrong righted. They get into the weeds - statistical significance, confidence intervals, oh my!
Bonus material
Dr. Mary Jane Minkin (clinical professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale University School of Medicine) runs the EXCELLENT, resource-filled website Madam Ovary. Lots of reassuring wisdom here. Her audios are like if your unhurried, compassionate physician recorded voice memos just for you.
Dr. Annie Fenn’s (Board-Certified Obstetrician Gynecologist who specialized in menopausal care before transitioning to culinary education) on how perimenopause affects metabolic health.
One more thing
I got this Sharpie by accident. I’m so happy I didn’t return it. I give them out with the note “for all your big ideas.” I love the idea of my friends writing their ideas really big and unapologetic.
Happy reading!
Another two books I found super helpful for different reasons are The Menopause Manifesto by Dr. Jen Gunter (she's also very active on Substack at The Vajenda and social media. She debunks a lot of junk menopause "science" with citations) and Flash Count Diary by Darcey Steinke. FCD is I guess what you'd call a reported memoir. It also brings in the author's personal obsession with orcas, the only other mammal that expereinces menopause.
Kelly- This is such a great article. I think I might check out Hot and Bothered after your recommendation. What are some of the insights that you liked most from that book? Hope you're well. Cheers, -Thalia