A Menopause Clinic Becomes Reality

Betsy LeRoy, M.D., embraces those reporting symptoms that impair their ability to function daily.
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Betsy LeRoy, M.D.

Photograph by Devyn Glista

There’s a catchphrase floating around that “Menopause is having its moment.” But Betsy LeRoy, M.D., a gynecologist and obstetrician with TriHealth, hopes not. “Moment implies a moment in time,” when it needs to be now and forever, she says. “This stage of life is going to encompass about half of a woman’s lifetime, and there are so many ways we can optimize health during that time frame.”

LeRoy delivered her first baby more than 20 years ago, and she recently noted that her patient population was “growing a little bit older with me.” Menopause, when a woman reaches the end of fertility, and perimenopause, the three to 10 years prior and roughly a year after menopause, were seemingly on everyone’s minds, she says. “With perimenopause, one day your hormones are high and the next day they’re really low, and there’s a lot of physical and emotional side effects that result.” Symptoms can range in severity and include hot flashes, brain fog, achy joints, and problems with sleeping, depression, and sexual health.

The average age of menopause for women in the U.S. is 51, and there are 450,000 women over the age of 50 in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. Yet, because of social norms and stigmas—which LeRoy says are finally beginning to shift—even gynecologists receive little medical training in menopause.

Knowing that 80 percent of women report symptoms significant enough to impair their ability to function daily, LeRoy saw a need in her patients and the region. “This shift happens in a pivotal time in a lot of women’s lives,” she says. “The kids are getting a little bit older. The parents may be leaning on them. Sometimes their own personal care slips by the wayside. You wake up one morning and realize maybe you’re not the same emotional or physical person you were a few years back. We can blame a little bit of that on life and all the stresses, but also there are profound hormonal changes happening in a woman’s 40s and 50s.”

To do more, LeRoy knew she needed to know more, so she enrolled in a certification program through the Menopause Society, passed its licensing exam, and pitched the idea of a menopause clinic to the higher-ups at TriHealth. They were on board with her evidence-based, holistic approach for an underserved demographic.

TriHealth officially opens the clinic this month, and LeRoy now sees patients at Good Samaritan Hospital in Clifton and at TriHealth’s Western Ridge campus in Green Township. Her colleague, Regina Rae Whitfield Kekessi, M.D., provides clinic services out of Kenwood and Global Partners in Rookwood.

During a clothed in-person, 30-minute consultation, patients can discuss concerns about menopause and ways to maximize their health considering personal medical history, family medical history, nutrition, exercise, and sexual wellness. They can also discuss stress management, sleep optimization, and treatment options such as hormone replacement therapy and nonhormonal choices. Consultations are not meant to replace a woman’s annual gynecological or primary care visit, LeRoy says, and should be covered by insurance as a specialist appointment.

“In a basic physiological sense, menopause is a chronic condition of estrogen depletion, so we’re going to treat it like that,” she says. “But we’ll also use the tools we have to give someone a program and a plan that helps them feel better now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, and so on.”

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