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The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause
For nearly as long as women have been around, they have been going through menopause. It is a bodily process as old as human birth, death, and of course, menstruation. Like many normal biological events, menopause was gradually medicalized, and with the rise of pharmaceutical medicine, women and their doctors were convinced that it was an "estrogen deficiency disease" that could be treated by supplementing the body's declining estrogen levels with hormones. By 2002 hormone treatment had been on the market for more than fifty years when doctors and women alike were shocked by the results of a massive clinical trial, the Women's Health women taking hormones had more heart attacks, breast cancer, strokes, pulmonary embolisms, and blood clots than women who did not, and patients were left scrambling to find new and sometimes difficult answers to their menopause and midlife health questions.
In The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause , Barbara Seaman, a legendary figure in the women's health movement, and Laura Eldridge have written a comprehensive, easy-to-use resource that will give you all the information you need to make smart and informed decisions that will put you in control during this time of transition -- medically, psychologically, sexually, and even financially.
With the latest research on everything from hormone replacement therapy to skin creams to preventing osteoporosis, The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause is the definitive manual on this important subject. You'll find out which changes are expected and natural and which can be a cause for concern; how hormonal shifts can affect your heart, your sex life, and your mood; and what you can do to address these issues. Whether the authors are discussing the risk factors for heart disease, the benefits of lifting weights, or if you should consider a hysterectomy, they offer unbiased, straightforward information and advice with a signature blend of wisdom and sensitivity.
Perhaps most important, you'll learn how to evaluate what you read in magazines, hear on the news, and are told by your doctor, so you can distinguish between solid facts and dubious claims. By learning how to read and evaluate scientific studies and becoming familiar with what goes on behind the scenes in research labs, at doctors' offices, and at pharmaceutical companies, you will be able to become your own advocate. The next time you go to the doctor's office, you will know how to make the most of your visit and leave feeling confident, informed, and in command. There is no one way to experience menopause and no single way to handle the challenges it can present, but as a no-nonsense patient, you will have the tools you need to make decisions that are right for you.
In The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause , Barbara Seaman, a legendary figure in the women's health movement, and Laura Eldridge have written a comprehensive, easy-to-use resource that will give you all the information you need to make smart and informed decisions that will put you in control during this time of transition -- medically, psychologically, sexually, and even financially.
With the latest research on everything from hormone replacement therapy to skin creams to preventing osteoporosis, The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause is the definitive manual on this important subject. You'll find out which changes are expected and natural and which can be a cause for concern; how hormonal shifts can affect your heart, your sex life, and your mood; and what you can do to address these issues. Whether the authors are discussing the risk factors for heart disease, the benefits of lifting weights, or if you should consider a hysterectomy, they offer unbiased, straightforward information and advice with a signature blend of wisdom and sensitivity.
Perhaps most important, you'll learn how to evaluate what you read in magazines, hear on the news, and are told by your doctor, so you can distinguish between solid facts and dubious claims. By learning how to read and evaluate scientific studies and becoming familiar with what goes on behind the scenes in research labs, at doctors' offices, and at pharmaceutical companies, you will be able to become your own advocate. The next time you go to the doctor's office, you will know how to make the most of your visit and leave feeling confident, informed, and in command. There is no one way to experience menopause and no single way to handle the challenges it can present, but as a no-nonsense patient, you will have the tools you need to make decisions that are right for you.
- GenresNonfiction
496 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2008
8 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Seaman
20 books9 followersOne of the most tireless health advocates, Barbara Seaman (1935-2008) was co-founder of the National Women's Health Network, and a pioneer in a new style of health reporting that focused on patient rights. Her groundbreaking investigative book, The Doctors' Case Against the Pill (1969), prompted Senate hearings in 1970 that led to a warning label on oral contraceptives and the drastic lowering of estrogen doses due to dangerous health effects. Well received by a mass audience, Seaman was a columnist and contributing editor at Bride's Magazine, Ladies' Home Journal, Family Circle, and Ms. Magazine. She also contributed to the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsday, and others.
Books
* The Doctor's Case Against the Pill (1969)
* Free and Female (1972)
* Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones (1977)(with Gideon Seaman, M.D.)
* Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann (1987)
* The Greatest Experiment ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (2003)
* For Women Only: Your Guide to Health Empowerment with Gary Null (2000).
Contributor to many books, including:
* Career and Motherhood (1979)
* Rooms with No View (1974)
* Women and Men (1975)
* Seizing our Bodies (1978)
Contributor to several plays and documentaries, including:
* I am a Woman (1972)
* Taking Our Bodies Back (1974)
* The American Experience Presents the Pill (2003)
Books
* The Doctor's Case Against the Pill (1969)
* Free and Female (1972)
* Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones (1977)(with Gideon Seaman, M.D.)
* Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann (1987)
* The Greatest Experiment ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (2003)
* For Women Only: Your Guide to Health Empowerment with Gary Null (2000).
Contributor to many books, including:
* Career and Motherhood (1979)
* Rooms with No View (1974)
* Women and Men (1975)
* Seizing our Bodies (1978)
Contributor to several plays and documentaries, including:
* I am a Woman (1972)
* Taking Our Bodies Back (1974)
* The American Experience Presents the Pill (2003)
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 9, 2009
I liked this book for its more scientific approach. When I first found out I was in menopause, a little early at 44, I was reeling. Yet this book helped me with information I needed. I wished I'd had the book during the perimenopause phase. I liked that they believe that menopause is a natural process. They are not totally unbiased as they are against any hormonal intervention. This book presented researched information in a way that appealed to me, not like they are having a conversation, but as here are the symptoms and here are ways to cope. I liked it. It really helped me understand the changes my body was experiencing. I felt better after reading the book.
July 12, 2021
Informative. I went through it quickly - just looking to see what others experience in their menopause journey.
December 3, 2010
Here's what drew me to this book: Sound scientific information, and an appendix that promises to give readers the ability to distinguish between sound science and marketing come-ons. An evidence-based medical approach, coupled with a feminist viewpoint that menopause is a normal life stage that need not necessarily be medicalized. Relatively unbiased (but opinionated and engaging) presentation of facts, instead of a one-size-fits-all prescriptive approach (eat only low glycemic index foods! take bioidentical hormones! come to my speaking tour and buy my snake oil! etc). Authors' opinions strongly influenced by the results of the Womens Health Initiative clinical trial that revolutionized the medical treatment of menopausal women when they were first reported in 2001 (and rightly so), and that bias laid out for all to see right in the first paragraphs of the introduction. Chapters that specifically describe perimenopause (the stage I am in) and depression related to menopause (a symptom that is particularly troubling me). A discussion of the history, politics, and other cultures' experiences of menopause.
However, I had a couple of issues with the way the authors approach the material. The chapter on perimenopause was excellent, as was much of the rest of the book, and it'll be an excellent reference to return to for advice for most symptoms. However, increased incidence of migraine associated with the onset of menopause (another of my symptoms) rates a meagre two sentences in the whole book, with no discussion of how treatment options affect that symptom. More troubling, the chapter on depression was VERY confusingly written, giving equal weight to huge clinical studies and anecdotes from internet chatrooms, talking simultaneously about PMS-like mood swings and depression (NOT the same thing), and drawing few conclusions. Worse yet, it was unsympathetic in tone - the authors seemed to conclude that there is no hormonal basis for depression, then almost immediately contradict themselves with a too-brief 'except during perimenopause' statement that failed to erase the impression that they were telling readers suffering from depressive symptoms that it's all in their heads. If a graduate student submitted this chapter as part of their thesis and I was their advisor, I'd suggest a rewrite.
(Dear other reviewer: If you don't believe in evolution, why would you think a book that explicitly says on its cover that it covers the latest scientific research on the subject is going to speak to you? Seriously? Giving a nonfiction book about science a crappy review because you don't believe in science is ignorant in every sense of the word.)
However, I had a couple of issues with the way the authors approach the material. The chapter on perimenopause was excellent, as was much of the rest of the book, and it'll be an excellent reference to return to for advice for most symptoms. However, increased incidence of migraine associated with the onset of menopause (another of my symptoms) rates a meagre two sentences in the whole book, with no discussion of how treatment options affect that symptom. More troubling, the chapter on depression was VERY confusingly written, giving equal weight to huge clinical studies and anecdotes from internet chatrooms, talking simultaneously about PMS-like mood swings and depression (NOT the same thing), and drawing few conclusions. Worse yet, it was unsympathetic in tone - the authors seemed to conclude that there is no hormonal basis for depression, then almost immediately contradict themselves with a too-brief 'except during perimenopause' statement that failed to erase the impression that they were telling readers suffering from depressive symptoms that it's all in their heads. If a graduate student submitted this chapter as part of their thesis and I was their advisor, I'd suggest a rewrite.
(Dear other reviewer: If you don't believe in evolution, why would you think a book that explicitly says on its cover that it covers the latest scientific research on the subject is going to speak to you? Seriously? Giving a nonfiction book about science a crappy review because you don't believe in science is ignorant in every sense of the word.)
September 10, 2009
Not there yet but decidedly walking the path of every woman’s health continuum, desiring navigational knowledge, I checked out (from our local public library) the “No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause” written by two women with sensible names, Barbara and Laura. The book is touted as “a comprehensive resource with simple unbiased advice on managing this important life stage.” And this is where the problems start.
First off, unbiased, this book is not. The authors begin by pondering the evolutionary origin of menopause wondering why the female human animal differs from other female mammals. Totally clueless, totally, the authors fail (totally) to consider that perhaps human women are different from female animals because God created them that way, simple. Filled with medical management, scientific studies and hypothesis, pharmacological cocktails, feminist musings, depressing menopausal anecdotes, and long drawn out lists of what goes wrong with women as they age, the authors tell us how this is normal, except for when it isn’t and in that case: don’t be afraid, just trust your doctor.
As I depart the season of childbearing for a season of celebrations, I really don’t need advice. I’m searching for traditional wisdom (not management), for acceptance mixed with joy, for humor stirred (not shaken) up with the best of holistic care and caring, womanly tools for life’s womanly journey. As I place my trust in God’s plan for my natural life, a life as natural as childbirth, or walking barefoot in the sand, I know I am powerfully and wonderfully created.
First off, unbiased, this book is not. The authors begin by pondering the evolutionary origin of menopause wondering why the female human animal differs from other female mammals. Totally clueless, totally, the authors fail (totally) to consider that perhaps human women are different from female animals because God created them that way, simple. Filled with medical management, scientific studies and hypothesis, pharmacological cocktails, feminist musings, depressing menopausal anecdotes, and long drawn out lists of what goes wrong with women as they age, the authors tell us how this is normal, except for when it isn’t and in that case: don’t be afraid, just trust your doctor.
As I depart the season of childbearing for a season of celebrations, I really don’t need advice. I’m searching for traditional wisdom (not management), for acceptance mixed with joy, for humor stirred (not shaken) up with the best of holistic care and caring, womanly tools for life’s womanly journey. As I place my trust in God’s plan for my natural life, a life as natural as childbirth, or walking barefoot in the sand, I know I am powerfully and wonderfully created.
October 25, 2018
Very informative. I'm glad I read it before I experienced the symptoms.
August 25, 2024
Healthy diet and daily exercise. Great idea.
June 13, 2013
This book was almost what I was looking for, a basic work on what 'normal' menopause looks like, and what warning signs and issues should send one to the doctor.
Given that, it was a little bit heavy on the politicizing and consciousness raising. I came into this aware that medical science is heavily influenced by Big Pharma, and that women are understudied and over treated. Although the information is important, and I admit that it's probably a good idea to get a reminder of the facts every so often, the balance was not what I would have liked.
Given that, it's a good book. I'd recommend it to someone looking for basic information on the subject, but it's a lot to wade through.
Given that, it was a little bit heavy on the politicizing and consciousness raising. I came into this aware that medical science is heavily influenced by Big Pharma, and that women are understudied and over treated. Although the information is important, and I admit that it's probably a good idea to get a reminder of the facts every so often, the balance was not what I would have liked.
Given that, it's a good book. I'd recommend it to someone looking for basic information on the subject, but it's a lot to wade through.
November 12, 2010
Combines information on Western medical approaches to menopause such as hormone replacement therapy with alternatives such as herbal and other alternative treatments. Barbara Seaman takes a very practical approach when making recommendations on how to research and select appropriate treatments for menopause-related issues.
March 12, 2011
The first 150 pages of this book are great. But after wading through about 100 pages of drug/hormone info I'm bored and ready to move on to another book that has more about dealing with menopause from a practical viewpoint.
May 16, 2010
Some of it was no-nonsense a lot of it seemed alarmist. Did like the stress that what is happening to our bodies is normal--just not being young.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews