The Hormonally Vulnerable Woman: Relief at last for PMS, mood swings, fatigue, hair loss, adult acne, unwanted hair, female pain, migraine, weight ... the problems of perimenopause and menopause!

by Geoffrey Redmond

According to Geoffrey Redmond, M.D., a majority of the 42 million American women between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five suffer from vulnerability to their own hormones. Appearance, emotions -- and even sex drive -- may be affected. Symptoms include thinning hair, persistent acne, mood swings, low energy, loss of pleasure in sex, weight gain, irregular periods, and pain. While the media has emphasized the problems of menopause, Dr. Redmond explains that all too many women experience hormonal miseries even in their thirties. Lab tests are often normal because the problem is not the hormones themselves but how a woman's body reacts to them. Healthy, active women suddenly find that once quiescent hormones have taken over control of their lives. Because their problems are often dismissed as trivial, women who are hormonally vulnerable are frequently thwarted in their quest for help. Too often they are brushed off with remarks such as, "Your tests are normal; there's nothing wrong with you." This is tragic because, as Dr. Redmond demonstrates, hormonal balance can nearly always be restored with the treatments he details, which include individualized use of prescription medications, herbal supplements, lifestyle changes, and even spiritual practices. Many women have heard that testosterone can help sex drive, but most have not been warned about the damage that careless testosterone therapy can cause on skin and hair. In this book, Dr. Redmond, an internationally recognized authority on testosterone in women, explains the only safe ways to use testosterone. With informative sidebars, quizzes, and personal stories of women who have overcome hormone vulnerability, this helpful book will empower you to find treatments for your hormone problems that are tailored to fit your own body, biochemistry, symptoms, and lifestyle.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction

480 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Dr. Geoffrey Redmond is an endocrinologist at the Hormone Help Center of New York. He received his medical degrees from both Columbia and Rockefeller universities in NY. Over the years, he has helped thousands of women with hormonal issues such as hair loss, PMS, polycystic ovary syndrome, menopause transitions, and persistent acne. Today, he continues to help women across the world through his extensive research and lectures in female endocrinology.

Reviews

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any woman at any stage of life should read this book. It was fascinating to me. It clearly states the reasons for acne, thyroid etc. with common sense. I got this book from the library but am going to purchase it for myself as a point of reference. It is important to be your own best advocate and this book gave me language I needed to go to my own doctor's consultation and ask for the action plan I feel is for me. This book gives hope and answers many questions that I always had. I am so happy that I stumbled upon this book and I am all the better for it.

[Mikayla Guck · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of the information is outdated- especially that about endometriosis!

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

10.06.07. Just wanted to see what kind of info is out there about hormones, and maybe learn more about how i might temper them (or at least sort of understand the fucking hell that is pms). this user-friendly book breaks things down by life stages, and also, by particular hormones, and also also, by different categories of troubles you can get from hormones. so it's pretty easy to find the chapters that get into your particular resentments. the doctor makes a lot of suggestions about what pills to take, but does also acknowledge and describe (and sometimes tout) various natural remedies. he seems to be all about lifestyle changes too, which makes me respect his position, and therefore consider taking his advice on using "artificial" pharmaceuticals to adjust/correct my "natural" hormonal imbalance -- which is counter-intuitive for me, as i tend to defensively side with the perspective that womanhood is not shameful, nor does it need to be "fixed." what needs to be fixed in some of us, not all, is a goddamn hormonal imbalance. duh. The thing with medical/health books is that you never know whether the author is a quack or not, because facts and statistics can be so easily manipulated to support anyone's hokey idea. and even if they are totally sincere, they could just be wrong. But i am pretty sure this guy is giving it to us straight about pretty widely-accepted ideas, and that gynecologists just leave all this stuff out when you complain about hormones, mostly because they are in such a goddamn hurry to cram fifty patients in. So about the book: at the very least, it is helping me get an idea of which birth control pills would likely make me more crazy and which might ease the psychosis.
AND anyway it's never too early to get educated on menopause, if you have the time to read about it. but i am skipping those sections, i have enough to worry about.

[Christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in this book mainly because of my ovarian cysts...so far it seems like this is a book that most women can read and get something out of it.