I discovered functional medicine by accident — and it changed the way I saw health, symptoms, and the power of listening. But when I started working with women in midlife, I noticed something was missing.

They’d done it all: the detoxes, diets, supplements. And still didn’t feel better. What functional medicine often overlooks is the one thing at the root of it all for women 40 and up: hormones.

Rigid menopause guidelines don’t reflect the full midlife experience. Here’s why real healing happens when we listen to women—and trust what we hear.

After age 35, our hormones naturally begin to decline, marking the transition into perimenopause. And with this hormonal aging often comes a frustrating mix of symptoms: weight gain, brain fog, stress intolerance, and more.

From birthwork to hormone care, Emily shares how midwifery shaped her mission to offer women the personalized, compassionate support they deserve in midlife—and why it’s long overdue.

Most conventional doctors aren’t trained to test for - or treat - these changes. They look for disease, not dysfunction. They rely on broad, outdated lab ranges. You’re told your results are “normal,” but you know that can’t be true. 

There’s a better way. Comprehensive hormone and metabolic testing can tell the real story of what’s happening in your body, and give you a roadmap to feel like yourself again.

Exhausted, overwhelmed, and not sure why? It might be your HPA axis. Learn how chronic stress affects your hormones—and how to restore energy, calm, and clarity in midlife.

The most common concern I hear every day is “but is it safe?”. For most of our mothers, hormone therapy wasn’t an option, or it was taken away. My own mother was 50 when the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) headlines hit in 2002, and like millions of other women, she was never given the chance to start hormones. That moment changed the trajectory of midlife medicine, but the story was not what it seemed.