Dear Friend,

On April 12, 2004, Women's Health America, Madison Pharmacy Associates, LLC, will celebrate its twenty-second anniversary. We are proud to have been part of so many positive changes in women's health care since we began in 1982.

It All Began By Listening

When I graduated from the University of Wisconsin Pharmacy School in 1978, most women with symptoms like anxiety, depression, mood swings, bloating, and food cravings were treated with tranquilizers, antidepressants, and diuretics. They were told what they were experiencing was "all in their heads." However, many of these women knew intuitively that their symptoms were associated with the hormonal fluctuations of their monthly menstrual cycles. During the first half of their menstrual cycle they were symptom free, then symptoms would escalate, build to a crescendo, and peak during the second half of the cycle. Once menstruation began, symptoms would disappear. It was not uncommon to hear these women say, "I feel like I'm living only half of my life."

I listened carefully to these women and their wisdom about their own bodies, and I realized they were indeed suffering from something hormonal. I began to question the treatment offered to them, which was generally, "Here, take this prescription and see me in a month." If their problems were hormonal, then treatment with a tranquilizer like Valium® was certainly not the best solution. My search for a better understanding of the nuances of hormonal fluctuation had begun.

Word Spread About the First Natural Progesterone Treatments in America

At that time, premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, was a medical diagnosis in Europe, for which progesterone therapy was conventionally prescribed, in either suppository or injection form. In America, premenstrual syndrome was not yet considered a real diagnosis, and progesterone was available only as a painful and inconvenient injection. I began to learn as much about progesterone and PMS as I could. Working with women's doctors, I was soon formulating natural progesterone treatments for women who suffered from hormonal symptoms - and they worked. In fact, the very first woman in America to use progesterone therapy for PMS was in Madison, Wisconsin.

Other women and their doctors heard of my work and began calling. Over the next two years, by word of mouth, one woman became 50 women, became 500 - all with questions and concerns about the role hormones played in how they felt. It became a grass-roots effort, with PMS education spreading from woman to woman across the country, and on April 12, 1982, I founded Madison Pharmacy Associates - the first pharmacy in America to specialize in women's health.

Learning Continued Through Observation

Our pharmacy worked closely with women and their doctors, gradually unraveling more and more of the mysteries of women's hormones. It was a transformational time in women's health care. It was a time when medicine and pharmacy were practiced as they were meant to be.

Looking at daily symptom records, we found that every single patient was different. Some women had specific symptoms at certain times of the month, while other women had daily symptoms that worsened just before menstruation began. Others recorded having symptoms only after eating certain foods, drinking alcohol, taking a medication, or going too many hours between meals. Still others had symptoms that occurred regularly every other month or every three months or varied according to season. There seemed to be more to the story of hormones than we ever imagined.

Individualization Became the Key

Where progesterone was prescribed, patients would often tell me within an hour to an hour and a half of taking their medication that, "I feel like myself again." Many said it was like a cloud had been lifted. Most were able to stop taking tranquilizers and antidepressants. But that was just the beginning of what we were to discover.

Over the years, working with thousands of patients and physicians and studying the effects of low-dose, natural hormone therapy, we became acutely aware of the individuality of women and the extreme variations in their hormonal needs. Some women might need as much as 400 milligrams of a hormone while others needed as little as 25 milligrams for a positive response. I began recording all the subtleties of absorption and metabolism and refining the way in which I formulated hormones.

I knew I was approaching hormone supplementation in a whole new way, but that it was the right way. When treatments were individualized, women's responses were infinitely better. I encouraged other healthcare providers to consider individualizing hormone doses, but what I needed was a scientific method for proving what I was observing.

Testing Took Away the Guesswork

When I was introduced to saliva testing for measuring hormone levels, it was like taking the lid off the box and finding scientific confirmation for the symptom changes I had been observing. Through the technology of saliva testing, we can now monitor each woman's hormonal changes over time, and get a true picture of how she responds as an individual to hormone therapy.

This is an exciting advance in women's healthcare that is the foundation of our Restore^® program, where we work with patients and healthcare providers to take the guesswork out of prescribing and managing hormone therapy. It allows us to help healthcare providers determine the lowest effective dose of natural hormones for PMS, perimenopause, menopause, and beyond. In 1999, I co-authored two ground-breaking books, Self-Help for Premenstrual Syndrome and The HRT Solution, describing the role of testing and the hormone management protocol I had developed over the last twenty years.

Women Have Options

Today, we want women to know that conventional, one-size-fits-all, synthetic hormone therapy is not their only option. We want women to know that many of the side effects of hormone supplementation come not from the hormones as such, but from the random and often excessive way in which they are prescribed. We want women to know that hormone therapy can be both a beneficial experience and an enjoyable one as well.

It's been a great twenty-two years and we still have so much more work to do. If it is time for you to "feel like yourself again" or "have the cloud lifted," please call us at 800.558.7046 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . We are here to help.

Here's to a vibrant you,

For more information, we recommend the following links:

Women's Health America website

About Women's Health America

Circle of Friends Membership can save you up to $200 a year!

Some of the best products on the shelves of Women's Health America are the result of Marla's personal quest to find a solution for a friend's or patient's health care challenge. If you or someone you know is looking for help, email Marla at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Circle of Friends Membership can save you up to $200 a year!

It's not a pill or a patch, but it is one of our greatest pharmacy innovations! It's our Circle of Friends Membership Program, designed to help you save up to $200 per year on prescriptions and over-the-counter products. We started the program several years ago and recently gave it a name that truly fits - Circle of Friends - because that is what our members are.

The benefits of the program are exceptional. For just $29.95 annually, you will:

• Save 20% on compounded prescriptions and over-the-counter health products all year long! (Some restrictions apply)
• Receive one FREE new prescription or prescription refill valued up to $30.
• One FREE 28-ml pump bottle of DermaFex^™ Instant Face Lift - a $24.95 value.
• Save $20.00 on a Restore^® BioBalance Bone Loss Analysis to determine rate of bone loss.
• Save 50% on standard shipping and handling. (Does not apply to test kits.)

But the value of the program goes beyond discounts and free products. Our Circle of Friends is the women we turn to when we need answers to questions about women's health concerns and when we have new products we would like to introduce. The Women's Health America Circle of Friends recognizes and celebrates that women share many of the same feelings, concerns, and needs. We reach out to touch each other's lives simply by talking, listening, and resolving concerns that are uniquely ours. Shouldn't you be part of the circle?

For more information or to join our Circle of Friends, call 800.558.7046, ext. 1211.