Dr Kirstey Holland is the Founder of The Holland Clinic. Helping women in perimenopause restore energy, clarity, metabolic balance, and a deep sense of vitality—so they can feel like themselves again, and function at a high level. Through a structured, doctor-led approach, women are guided through the Hierarchy of Healing—a process developed over 26 years of clinical practice that addresses gut health, hormones, metabolism, and the nervous system in the right order. This work is brought to life through the Holland Clinic Protocol: Eat, Sleep, Move, Think, Connect, Test, Prescribe. Author of This Is Perimenopause.
Perimenopause is not menopause, and the difference changes your treatment
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Hello, There is something I see often in my clinic. A woman has gone several months without a period, decides she must now be menopausal, and accepts a treatment created for menopausal women. Her bleeding gets heavier, her breasts get tender, her sleep gets worse, and she wonders what she is doing wrong. She is doing nothing wrong. Until twelve months and one day have passed without a bleed, her ovaries are still active and she is still perimenopausal, which is almost the opposite hormonal state to menopause. In perimenopause oestrogen soars and falls while progesterone leaves first; menopause is a steadier, lower oestrogen state. The care that helps in one is not the care that helps in the other. This is almost surprising to say out loud, and it can feel as though it cannot possibly be true, but it is. The trials supporting menopausal hormone therapy were conducted in menopausal women, not in perimenopausal women. Yet the current guidelines allow perimenopausal women to be treated as though they are in menopause, when the two phases are opposite. The studies that have looked at perimenopausal women show that 300 mg of oral micronised progesterone improves sleep, hot flushes and night sweats, and eases many of the symptoms that affect women in perimenopause. Inside the Vitality Clinic this week we are making sense of all of it: the four phases of the transition, how to find yourself on the map, and the questions that help your doctor treat the body and phase you are actually in. It is the kind of clarity that tends to change how a woman feels about her own body. If this is resonating with you, the link below will help you see whether the Vitality Clinic is right for you. Warmly, Dr Kirstey Holland O.M.D
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The Holland Clinic
Dr Kirstey Holland is the Founder of The Holland Clinic. Helping women in perimenopause restore energy, clarity, metabolic balance, and a deep sense of vitality—so they can feel like themselves again, and function at a high level. Through a structured, doctor-led approach, women are guided through the Hierarchy of Healing—a process developed over 26 years of clinical practice that addresses gut health, hormones, metabolism, and the nervous system in the right order. This work is brought to life through the Holland Clinic Protocol: Eat, Sleep, Move, Think, Connect, Test, Prescribe. Author of This Is Perimenopause.
Hi beautiful, A woman came to see me a few years ago, and on paper there was very little wrong. Her gut had settled, she was sleeping more than she had in months, and by every physical measure she should have been feeling better. She sat across from me and told me she felt heavy, like she was moving through water. We had repaired a great deal of the biology and something was still unwell, and it was not bacterial, it was not a deficiency, and I could not put a pathology form on it. That is...
Hello beautiful, We tend to think of bone loss as a menopause problem, something to worry about later. The evidence suggests it often begins earlier, in the years when ovulation becomes less reliable and progesterone, the hormone that builds new bone, starts to fall. That is the part so many women are never told. You can have a regular-looking period and still not be ovulating every month, and from your mid-thirties that becomes more common. So the bone-building side of the equation can...
Beautiful, I want to tell you what happened on the Vitality Clinic Conversations call earlier this week. Robyn came onto the call having just finished her job. Her last day was the day before; she was due to start somewhere new on Monday. And, in her own words, she was an ugly-crying mess. She said it out loud. She had never cried so hard leaving a job in her life. She did not think much of the company itself; she loved her people. So there she was , raw, asking out loud whether she had made...