Book

This fiction book begins as eight frustrated midlife women—from all walks of life—meet Dr. Kailey Madrona, a woman specialist. All are in perimenopause, the long and chaotic transition to menopause. They are as different as women can be—yet they share the mysterious experiences of perimenopause, night sweats, flooding periods or mood swings. We follow these women as they consult Dr. Madrona, learn the surprising hormonal changes explaining their symptoms, get better or worse, and try or refuse therapies. As each woman lives through her particular challenge, we begin to see how we, too, can survive perimenopause!

In this revealing work, Dr. Jerilynn Prior teams up with Susan Baxter, a medical writer, to explain the controversy over medicine prescribing estrogen for perimenopausal women in the United States, and to detail why progesterone is actually a far more effective, and a far less risk-ridden, approach. Citing long-standing and emerging research, patient vignettes, and personal experience, endocrinologist Jerilynn Prior and writer Susan Baxter tell us how false beliefs on estrogen became entrenched in U.S. medicine and culture, and why business and politics have played a role in this erroneous thinking.