There Was No Playbook for Perimenopause—So I’m Helping Write One

As a healthcare practitioner, I’ve come to recognize a familiar truth: many of us are among the most informed—and often the most challenging—patients. That pattern held true throughout my own life where my clinical training, combined with personal experience, gave me a sense of confidence and perspective. Having lived on both sides of the exam table, I felt confident and prepared to face the inevitable transitions of health, aging, and the ever-changing hormone status of being a woman.

But when perimenopause hit, that confidence disappeared: it was brutal. Despite more than two decades studying the human body, I found myself unprepared and frankly, upended (what felt like overnight) by what I experienced. The symptoms were abrupt, intense, and disorienting, and the guidance available felt limited and impersonal. The advice I had dispensed for years suddenly felt insufficient, and I wasn’t feeling the reciprocated empathy from my practitioners that I have strived for so long to give.

While I’m fully aware of the natural approaches available to me, I still I found myself searching for answers to more acute issues like uncontrollable bleeding, only to encounter solutions that felt extreme, outdated, and brief. Very little conversation, iteration, or wholistic approach was offered from my peers. I remember thinking: this can’t be the best we have to offer.

That’s when I realized the depth of the women’s health gap: 71% of women in their 40s report feeling unprepared for how disruptive perimenopause symptoms can be. Only after experiencing the disruption firsthand did I understand what was being missed—symptoms overlooked, concerns dismissed, and solutions that simply didn’t exist, or weren’t readily available.

Traditional perimenopause care barely scratches the surface. Beyond managing immediate symptoms, it often fails to address the root of the problem. Even worse, it fails to address the experiences of women from a place of understanding and empathy. Women navigating this transition often face physical and mental changes which are disruptive, embarrassing, and deeply personal, with their experiences dismissed or mishandled.

Symptoms like hot flashes, disrupted sleep, and fatigue are visible or measurable. The invisible ones, like anxiety, depression, changes in sexuality, and brain fog, are often minimized despite research showing 70% of perimenopausal women experience these psychological shifts. When these changes are written off as “stress,” or symptoms we must “endure” because they are part of being a woman, opportunities for meaningful intervention are lost.

The standard approach to perimenopause has largely been reactive—focused on managing symptoms after they appear, rather than supporting women through the full experience. That leaves a real gap, not just in care, but in understanding.

My own experience brought that into sharp focus. As a clinician—and now as someone leading Medical, Clinical, and Scientific Affairs at Thorne, a global health and wellness company—I found myself asking a different question: What would it look like to approach women’s health differently?

What I’ve come to believe is this: I have witnessed how powerful it is when women with firsthand experience are in the rooms where decisions are made—whether in research, product development, or clinical strategy. We move faster and build better. Women who have lived through these transitions bring a perspective that data alone cannot capture. They identify gaps others might miss, challenge assumptions, and push for solutions that actually work in the context of how women actually live and feel—not just what can be measured. Just as importantly, we bring empathy and nuance into the process; opening the door to better conversations, which forge better solutions.

Lived experience doesn’t just inform care—it humanizes it. Too often, women’s health has been approached through the lens of reproductive utility, rather than overall quality of life. When women enter perimenopause and are no longer trying to conceive, the solutions presented can feel like they’re focused on “shutting things down” or simply managing symptoms—sometimes in ways that feel extreme or disconnected from how women want to feel in their bodies.

But women don’t stop needing care once fertility is no longer the central focus. What’s needed are solutions that prioritize a woman’s experience—supporting healthy aging in body and mind, hormonal shifts, and overall psychological well-being in a way that aligns with how women live, work, and age. It’s about shifting the goal from managing decline to sustaining health, vitality, and joy over time.

Putting women at the center of R&D in health and wellness is transformative. It allows us to ask the right questions, develop multi-ingredient solutions, and treat the whole experience rather than just trying to force a hormonal balance, or masking symptoms. Instead of asking, “How can we make this symptom quieter?” we start asking, “How is this affecting her sleep, mood, relationships, and energy?” In practice, this means creating solutions for how we can help women feel more comfortable, confident, and at peace with their bodies through change.

The future of women’s health must be proactive and functional, not reactive. By 2030, over one billion women globally will be perimenopausal or postmenopausal—yet this population is still underserved by solutions that truly reflect the complexity of their experience. Women deserve more: more research, more rigor, and more relevant, actionable support.

This is what product development “for women, by women” truly means. We use this phrase at Thorne not as a tagline, but as a true shift in how we build our products and processes. When scientific expertise is paired with lived experience, we move faster and with more empathy. We create products and services that are not only evidence-based, but deeply human. We design for quality of life, not just clinical outcomes.

We cannot afford to wait decades for traditional research pathways to catch up. By amplifying the voices of women now—bringing them into research, product development, and leadership—we can accelerate the next generation of women’s health innovation today.

Because when women are part of the process, the solutions don’t just improve—they transform.

About the Author

Amanda Frick is a trained naturopathic doctor (ND) and acupuncturist and the SVP, Medical, Clinical, & Scientific Affairs at Thorne.

With over two decades of experience across the medical and health & wellness industries, Dr. Frick brings a unique combination of clinical expertise and scientific understanding to her work, enabling her to create solutions that are clinically meaningful, safe, and trusted. She is deeply committed to advancing human health through evidence-based innovation, with a focus on optimizing women’s health, longevity, and overall wellness. She is passionate about elevating standards in the natural products industry through scientific rigor, quality, and transparency.

Dr. Frick has a doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine & Health Sciences, a Master of Science in Traditional Oriental Medicine from Emperor's College of Traditional Oriental Medicine, and a B.S in Psychology from Central Michigan University.