What I Wish I'd Known at 35

My story starts in naturopathic medical school. I was in a high-stress program, a mother of two small kids — my son Damon was 2, my daughter Sage was 7 — and I started in 2021, right in the middle of COVID lockdowns and isolation. Nine to twelve courses a semester: anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, botanical medicine, homeopathy, psychology, clinic hours, clinical medicine, pharmacology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, manipulation, nutrition, physical medicine, and later electives like fibromyalgia and mental health.

It was a lot, compounded by being a parent. I tend to deal with stress fairly well — or at least I did, before my hormones started shifting. And when they did, I noticed symptoms I didn't recognize as hormonal at all. Honestly, our training didn't set me up to catch it either — menopause got one three-hour lecture in the entire program. That's nowhere near enough, given how much actually changes: symptoms, nutritional needs, the right kind of exercise, almost everything.

The First Signs

The first thing I noticed was unexplained weight gain and a fatigue that didn't make sense. Being a student and a mom, I chalked it up to less movement — studying isn't exactly active, and we'd just moved to the suburbs where walking everywhere wasn't really an option anymore. By year three, I knew I needed help getting through the rest of school, so I booked bloodwork: TSH, T3, T4, B12, HbA1c, ferritin.

Both ferritin and B12 came back just barely above the "normal" threshold. So I did what any decent practitioner would do — I started correcting the deficiencies. Iron, and B12 injections.

I still remember the first B12 shot I ever got, in a class where we practiced injecting each other. That night I cooked a full meal, cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, and did an hour of yoga — I was so wired I could barely fall asleep. The next day, I was back to my exhausted normal, almost like I had to recover from how much I'd overexerted myself. As my levels came up, that swing evened out — but every few weeks I'd notice a twitch in my eye, a dip in energy, and know it was time for another shot.

Why not just take a daily supplement instead? Simple answer: I'm not great at consistency with that kind of thing. My undiagnosed ADHD would tell you I struggle to remember daily routines — I've tried a lot of strategies over the years, and cutting down the number of things I have to remember to take genuinely helps.

Still Tired, Still Not Moving the Needle

Eventually my ferritin stopped being terrible (not perfect, but no longer on the edge of deficiency) and my B12 was in a much better place. So why was I still tired? Not as tired — but real, persistent fatigue, energy crashing hard every afternoon, trouble concentrating. And why wasn't my weight moving?

This part actually surprised me the most, because weight had never been a struggle for me before. I've always been able to lose it with minimal effort, build muscle easily, and I already ate the way I tell my own patients to eat — mostly homemade, vegetable-heavy, shaped by some early food intolerances. All the "right" things. And none of it was working.

So I kept investigating. My next suspect was cortisol — stress, burnout, the whole story. I started an adrenal support (which, true to form, I was inconsistent about taking). Around this time I started napping some afternoons and waking at night, which I chalked up to poor sleep hygiene, even though I knew that wasn't really the explanation — I just couldn't stop being that tired midday. Looking back now, that was one of the clearest hormonal signs of all, and I missed it completely at the time.

My period changed too — shorter, more painful, when it had always been easy and symptom-free before. I told myself, again, that it was stress. I've since shifted how I think about that: stress can absolutely worsen almost anything, but I don't believe it's usually the root cause on its own, except in genuinely extreme cases. In my own practice, I treat stress as a factor that amplifies symptoms — usually ones actually rooted in hormones or gut health — not as the explanation in itself.

Freezing My Husband Out

By this point I was taking iron, doing regular B12 shots, and on an adrenal support, feeling somewhat better but still not like myself. Weight still wasn't moving. Still tired every afternoon.

Then, in February 2025, while I was on an externship in Bellingham, Washington — learning from a hormone specialist about perimenopause, PCOS, endometriosis, fertility, and hormone therapy, of all things — I started waking up at night drenched in sweat. I figured the apartment was too warm, or I just hadn't found the right temperature yet. After weeks of adjusting, I finally got it right.

Then I came home and started freezing my husband out of our own bed. He genuinely couldn't understand why I suddenly needed the room to feel subarctic. I thought he was being dramatic — until I mentioned the night sweats to my mom, almost as an aside.

She laughed and said, "Oh, you started early too?"

I had no idea what she meant. She told me her perimenopause symptoms started at 35, and that they'd been intense.

That conversation changed everything about how I understood what was happening to my own body — and it's where the real investigation actually began. I'll be sharing the rest of the story, including what I tried, what actually worked, and what I still wish someone had told me sooner, in the full account here.