Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book : Making Informed Choices About Menopause - Softcover

Love, Susan M.; Lindsey, Karen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081296392X ISBN 13: 9780812963922

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 1998

Synopsis

"We're the baby boomers," writes renowned women's health advocate Dr. Susan Love. "We wanted to change the world in the sixties. During the sexual revolution we claimed the right to enjoy our bodies. We wanted more knowledge about how our bodies worked. We read books about menstruation and childbirth. Now we're approaching menopause, and we want to decide for ourselves how we'll experience this process as well. But how do we do that? We're faced with all kinds of options, and with them all kinds of questions."

With Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book, Dr. Love will help you decide for yourself how you want to move through this stage of life. Here's the information you really want to know to answer your most pressing concerns:
You've been having symptoms -- hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings. What are your options for coping with them?

You've read in the newspapers that after menopause women are in danger of heart disease or osteoporosis, and you don't want to wind up like that hunched-up elderly woman you saw in the supermarket checkout line. How likely is it?

Your doctor thinks taking hormone replacement therapy might be the answer, but you're not sure: How does it work? What can and can't it do? Is it safe?

Your mother sailed through menopause and your symptoms don't bother you. Do you need to do anything at all?

You've had breast cancer or heart disease. What choices will work for you?

You don't like the idea of medication. Are there any life-style changes or alternative approaches worth exploring?
With clarity and compassion, Dr. Love will help you sort through the answers to these and other confusing questions. She emphasizes that menopause is not a disease that needs to be cured; it's a natural life stage. She tells you what you need to know about coping with symptoms and addressing concerns about osteoporosis, heart disease, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, and more. And she walks you through every option for the short and long term.: lifestyle changes (diet, exercise, and stress management), alternatives (including herbs and homeopathic remedies), other medications, and a thorough discussion of the pros and cons of hormones. An in-depth questionnaire on your personal health risks and lifestyle preferences will help you put it all together to make choices to fit your unique needs--choices Dr. Love encourages you to reconsider as your life situation changes. Also included are guidelines for finding the right health care professional, a resource guide of helpful books, newsletters, and organizations, and more.

You know your body better than any doctor, and you're in the best position to assess your individual needs, risks, and lifestyle choices and to decide how you want to more through menopause. With Dr. Love's authoritative, comprehensive new book, you'll have the information you need to make the decisions that work best for you.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this title

Review:

In an empowering and demystifying book about menopause, Dr. Susan Love, a noted breast surgeon and women's health advocate, tells it straight about hormones. "Hormone therapy is neither a fountain of youth nor an 'evil empire,'" Love writes with her coauthor, Karen Lindsey. "I can't tell you in this book whether or not you should take hormones, but I can spell out the pros and cons, examining the various promises that have been made for menopausal hormone therapy, and letting you know what the side effects and dangers can be."

But even before she gets into the promises and the pros and cons, Love lets the reader know what menopause is biologically, and how its symptoms can vary widely. Particularly fascinating is the second chapter, titled "The Medicalization of Menopause." Love's examination of how women in other cultures actually look forward to menopause, and of how the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry have a vested interested in making menopause a disease, is a convincing one. It puts menopause and hormone therapy into a whole new light.

Chapter by chapter, Love reviews the scientific evidence for the promised benefits of hormone therapy--protection from osteoporosis and heart disease--and for the potential risks--increased chance of breast and endometrial cancer. And she answers almost every imaginable question about alternatives to hormones, from dietary changes to exercise to acupuncture to herbs.

While Love and Lindsey, who worked together previously on Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book, are up-front about their perspective on hormone therapy, they also give women the information they need about the various hormones on the market and provide a questionnaire to help them assess their values, so that readers can make their own informed choice about hormones during menopause.

About the Author:

Dr. Susan Love, M.D., is coauthor with Karen Lindsey of Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book, called "the bible" for breast care by The New York Times. She is a breast surgeon and an adjunct associate professor of clinical surgery at UCLA and director of the Santa Barbara Breast Cancer Institute. She was a member of the Medical Advisory Committee of the Women's Health Initiative, helping to guide the largest study ever on postmenopausal women in this country.

Karen Lindsey is the author of Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Interpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 081296392X
• ISBN 13: 9780812963922
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400