The Pulse

If you go by pop culture depictions, menopause seems like no big deal — a few hot flashes, some comical bouts of hormone-fueled rage, and the “big change,” as it was once called, is over. But for many of the 2 million American women who enter menopause each year, the symptoms can be a lot more serious and long-lasting, ranging from vertigo and joint pain to brain fog and heart problems.

On this episode, we take a deep dive into perimenopause and menopause – what’s going on biologically? What can be done to ease symptoms? And why do so many women struggle to receive help from their doctors?

We talk with menopause experts about hormone replacement therapy, and why it was demonized for many years; find out what researchers have discovered about the causes of brain fog; and hear about new efforts to deal with medically induced menopause.

• In this excerpt from our live event, Reimagining Menopause, host Maiken Scott talks with two certified menopause providers — Robyn Faye, an OB-GYN at Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, and Arina Chesnokova, assistant professor in of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine — about the ins and outs of hormone therapy, which symptoms it alleviates, when it’s safe and when it’s not. Watch the full discussion here.
• Reporter Alan Yu talks with researchers about what’s behind one of the most vexing symptoms of menopause for many women — brain fog.
• For women who have cancer when they’re younger, especially breast or ovarian cancer, chemotherapy and other medications needed to treat the disease can affect hormones - and suddenly plunge them into menopause, years before they might naturally experience it. We explore what their options are, and why so many say they were not prepared for this change.