The Merchants of Menopause
More, May 2007

I got a letter today from a prestigious research hospital. "Menopause may cause many changes in your life, both emotionally and physically," it began. Just reading the M-word ignited a hot flash. I reached for my hand-held battery-operated fan, pointed its whirring wind at my burning face, and read on.

"Based on your age range, we thought you might be interested in learning about one of our latest studies." Translation: Some company I've done business with-menopause-related business with-must have sold them my name, with age attached. Was it the online organic pharmacy where I buy my plant-based estrogen pills and St. John's Wort? Or the holistic doctor who took my pulses, closed her eyes, and prescribed a diet of yams and tofu? Could I have been sold out by the AARP?

"Some women view menopause as an unwelcome sign of aging," the letter went on. "Others see it as a liberating, positive end to menstrual cycles and birth control." Recalling the myriad product offers that started appearing in my mailboxes when I turned 50, I thought: And others see menopause as a vast market of overheated, under-lubricated, sleep-deprived, women, desperate enough to try, and buy, anything that might help them survive their "liberation."

If you do what I did after I missed my third period-Google "perimenopause," then start clicking on the linksÐyou'll see what I mean. "Wicking Sleepwear" promises to "relieve the discomfort of night sweats and hot flashes brought on by menopause." (But why is it shown on a model who's a ringer for Penelope Cruz, only ten years younger and ten pounds thinner?) Perhaps you'd benefit from a teleseminar, support group, and/or coaching session from PathPartners, whose website bubbles, "Midlife Crisis? Bring It On! Midlife offers a unique opportunity to reevaluate and, if necessary, correct your course."

Once you've "corrected your course" (presumably from maniacal to mellow, and not the other way around), MinniePauz.com will sell you "Humor Replacement Therapy:" puzzles, chocolates, and t-shirts with slogans like "Menopause is the New Puberty" and "Rebel With The Pause." For $25, you can order a MenoCheck test and "take action" (again, unspecified) "to manage the potential discomfort of menopause symptoms."

Keep clicking if you'd like to say a little perimenopausal prayer over a Zena Moon Menopause Candle, play HotFlash! The Menopause Game, lay your head on a Chillow Pillow, wrap your sweating shoulders in a MagiCool Cooling Scarf, whip up a yummy yam and tofu dinner from The Hot Flash Cookbook, or refresh your ever-foggier memories of childhood with the MenOPop pop-up activity book.

Maybe I'm just cranky. Maybe five years of relentless sleeplessness, "mood swings" that bear more resemblance to gaping sinkholes than playground equipment, and having to do Kegel's exercises just to keep my pee in its place have taken a toll on my sense of humor. But puh-leez. Few things in life are as irritating (to put it mildly) as menopause. But the marketeers' frenzy to sell us stuff as silly as "Our Lady of Menopause" mugs and "Women's Bread with Soy Isoflavones" comes pretty damn close.

Is there anything that goes wrong for baby boomersÐour weight, our insomnia, our acid reflux, our kids' attention spans, and now our hormones-that hasn't spawned an industry determined to separate us from our allegedly disposable income? What's next? "ForgetIt! The Alzheimer's Game?" Wicking Adult Diaperwear modeled by skinny twenty-year-olds? T-shirts with slogans like "Ninety Is The New Thirty?"

In my search for relief since perimenopause drove its Hummer into my life and parked, I've written checks to a naturopath, a homeopath, an osteopath, and a faith healer who turned out to be a psychopath. They've sold me pills, pillows, and potions, all the while assuring me that menopause is a stage of life, not a disease. Disease or not, I've found some medicines that work for me. Hiking with friends in the redwood forest. Cooking real food; eating (gasp!) when I'm hungry, even on 'fat days.' Doing whatever it takes (hot baths, Law & Order reruns, the occasional pharmaceutical) to get seven good nights of sleep each week. Reminding myself that like hot flashes and the Bush presidency, this, too, will pass.

The menopause industry, on the other hand? Now there's something that could make a person sick.