Written by Jason Phillips>
Women’s health is often mismanaged when it comes to perimenopause, menopause, and hormonal imbalance. Instead of determining the underlying causes for certain symptoms, clinicians sometimes reach for antidepressants or generic symptom suppressors.
Mood disturbances, anxiety, irritability, and sleep disruption are common during the menopause transition due to erratic hormone fluctuations. In perimenopause and early postmenopause, estrogen levels fall and fluctuate, which elevates the risk of depression. According to the Mayo Clinic, the risk of depression may rise during perimenopause or early menopause when estrogen is significantly reduced.
Despite clear hormonal involvement in these mood symptoms, antidepressants often become the default treatment. Antidepressants, particularly SSRIs and SNRIs, are sometimes effective at relieving menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and mood swings.
Dr. Meena Malhotra, founder of Heal n Cure Medical Wellness Clinic in Glenview, is among the physicians challenging that standard approach. Her clinical work views hormone health as a foundation of wellness, particularly for women aged 40 to 60 navigating the menopausal transition.
Dr. Malhotra specializes in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), testosterone therapy, and integrative approaches to perimenopause and menopause. She also addresses issues often under-discussed in conventional care, such as incontinence, intimate wellness, PCOS, and fertility concerns in younger women. In focusing on restoring hormonal balance, she is working to improve quality of life in areas that standard prescriptions frequently fail to reach.
Dr. Malhotra’s focus area goes deeper than just mood or hot flashes. Conditions such as incontinence, vaginal dryness, and sexual wellness are frequent concerns during menopause but often go untreated or minimized in traditional settings. By addressing these issues through hormone therapy and targeted treatments, Dr. Malhotra validates her patients’ feelings and improves their quality of life through personalized care.
She also works with younger women experiencing PCOS and fertility issues, and she recognizes that hormonal imbalances affect women well before menopause.
“PCOS is a big mess. Those girls have a very hard time getting pregnant, and they already have a hormonal imbalance. The endometriosis girl, PCOS girl - those are all young girls having crazy symptoms, not sure or confident about their bodies. And as they progress with life, it just keeps getting worse and worse,”explains Dr. Malhotra.
Platforms like Midlife Upgrade work in alignment with clinicians like Dr. Malhotra to amplify these conversations. Both reflect a growing movement to equip women with resources and options that go further than short-term symptom suppression. “Women’s health, this hormonal imbalance from younger age to PCOS, perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause, that is our forte,” says Dr. Malhotra.
Breaking the silence on hormones requires shifting away from reflexive antidepressant prescribing toward individualized strategies that recognize the complex hormonal transitions women experience. Dr. Malhotra’s practice at Heal n Cure offers an example of this by providing a clinic designed to restore health by addressing the root causes of symptoms, with an emphasis on education and empowerment. Her work illustrates how focusing on hormone health can help women reclaim physical and emotional well-being during all life stages.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario