Women's Hormone Care:
Part of Whole-Person Care

If you’re in your late 30s, 40s, or early 50s and something feels off — your sleep is disrupted, your anxiety is worse than it used to be, you’re struggling with brain fog, mood swings, or a short fuse that isn’t like you — hormones may be at the root of it. Perimenopause can begin up to ten years before your last period, and its effects go far beyond hot flashes and night sweats.

Most hormone providers — OBGYNs, primary care physicians, hormone clinics — focus on the physical symptoms of menopause and refer out when mood, anxiety, or cognitive symptoms surface. Most psychiatrists treat mood disorders without ever considering whether hormonal changes are driving them. As a double board-certified family and psychiatric nurse practitioner with specialized training in women’s hormone therapy, I do both. I evaluate and treat the full picture — hormonal, psychiatric, and physical — in one practice, with one provider who knows your complete history. For many women in perimenopause, this integration is what finally makes treatment work.

The symptoms I treat include hot flashes and night sweats, sleep disruption and insomnia, anxiety, irritability and mood swings, depression and low motivation, brain fog and memory lapses, low libido, weight changes, fatigue, hair thinning, and joint pain. Many of these overlap with — or are worsened by — anxiety disorders, depression, ADHD, and trauma. Treating them in isolation rarely works. Treating them together often does.

Treatment is personalized and evidence-based, informed by your symptoms, medical and family history, hormone levels, and your own goals and comfort level. Options may include FDA-approved bioidentical estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and DHEA, as well as non-hormonal options, psychiatric medication management, and evidence-based supplement recommendations. I treat your symptoms — not just your labs.

I’m frequently asked whether there’s a menopause specialist in Louisville — yes, and one with an unusual combination of credentials. I’m one of fewer than 3,000 clinicians in the US (and one of only two in Kentucky!) certified as a Women’s Hormone Therapy Specialist through Dr. Heather Hirsch’s clinician training program — Dr. Hirsch is a Harvard-trained internist who founded the Menopause Clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I’m a proud member of the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, and I’m listed on Dr. Mary Claire Haver’s The ‘Pause Life listing of menopause therapy providers.