Women's health

Your cycle

Periods are natural. Suffering because of them is not something you are meant to put up with, whatever you may have been told. This includes PMS, both physical and emotional, as well as its more severe form, PMDD.

I ask how you experience your whole cycle, and about the symptoms you notice. Just as important is what all of this is like for you.

As with everything else, the aim is to help your body find its way back to a healthy, comfortable cycle.

Fertility

Fertility specialists and clinics look closely at fertility itself. I look at the whole person: how your body is doing physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically. The aim is to help create an environment in which fertility can arise. Sometimes there are structural difficulties, and acupuncture can support other processes. If you decide to go through IVF or another form of medically assisted reproduction, acupuncture can help the body adjust to it and work with it. If you come as a couple, I can see your partner too.

I understand that having a child may be your goal. My role is to support you as a whole person, not to treat fertility in isolation. I say this clearly from the start.

Perimenopause and menopause

Perimenopause is the time leading up to menopause, often several years, when the cycle starts to change and hormones fluctuate. It is often when symptoms begin: irregular periods, hot flushes, poor sleep, changes in mood. Menopause is a natural transition, and I try to meet it as one. It can bring difficult symptoms, and I take those seriously. In my experience they can weigh more when the transition itself is not honoured. Humans are one of very few species in which women go through menopause, and I see it as an initiation: a passage from being a fertile member of society to becoming an elder. It is an invitation to eldership. So alongside the symptoms, I am interested in what this path asks of your body and your mind.

Hormones move in waves, so symptoms often ease and then return as the body goes through a new step. We work with each wave as it comes. The aim is to support you through the changes, not to treat menopause as something to be feared.

A note from me

I am a man, and I do not experience a cycle or menopause myself. What I know comes from twenty years of working with women, and I keep learning from each of you as you share your experience with me.