Autoimmune disease management is often reduced to one question: which medication comes next? This episode pushes back on that narrow frame. For listeners living with fatigue, brain fog, pain, or gradual loss of function, that frustration is real. The conversation with Dr. Terry Wahls centers on a different idea: autoimmune disease is not only about immune signaling, but also about …
Have you ever started perimenopause hormone therapy and expected relief, only to feel more bloated, more irritable, more tired, or more in the grip of insomnia instead? If that sounds familiar, you are not imagining it. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Pamela Langenderfer about why hormones can be an important tool, but not the whole story. A prescription …
Before we get started, I want to share something I’ve been working on with you. My new book, ADHD and Women, was born out of years of seeing women struggle with symptoms that are often overlooked, misdiagnosed, or dismissed entirely. So much of the conversation around ADHD has been centered on men, and it leaves women without clear answers. In …
What if the first sign that perimenopause is shifting hormones is not a hot flash, but broken sleep? For many women, the earliest clues are more subtle: waking at 2 a.m., feeling wired but tired, noticing more palpitations, or realizing that brain fog and irritability are showing up alongside restless nights. In this episode, Dr. Jolene Brighten sits down with …
Perimenopause doesn’t announce itself the way most women expect. There’s no official start date, no clear signal—just a slow unraveling of things that used to feel easy. Your brain misfires mid-sentence. Your body sends strange, almost unbelievable signals. And somewhere along the way, you’re told, “Your labs are normal.” Except they’re not. They’re just not being interpreted through the right …
If you feel like “protein” has become a competitive sport on your social media feed, you are not alone. Between the “What I Eat In A Day” videos and the pressure to carry hard-boiled eggs in your purse, the message is clear: more is better. But for the woman in perimenopause, “more” is not a strategy: it is a recipe …
Midlife weight gain is often blamed on a “slowing metabolism.” But the science tells a different story. Between ages 20 and 60, your metabolism barely changes. What does change? Muscle mass. Exercise habits. Hormonal signaling. Cardiovascular risk. And increasingly, the conversation around GLP-1 medications like Ozempic. In this episode, we unpack the real drivers of midlife weight gain, the surprising …
If you’ve noticed a shift in your desire for intimacy in midlife, you’re not alone—and it’s not simply a hormone problem. In this episode of The Dr. Brighten Show, Dr. Jolene Brighten sits down with relationship and intimacy expert Emily Morse for a candid, clinically grounded conversation about why so many women experience changes in connection, closeness, and physical responsiveness …
Testosterone is having a moment—but much of what women are being told about it is incomplete, oversimplified, or outright misleading. If you’ve been told testosterone is only about libido, or that your fatigue, emotional flatness, loss of motivation, or inability to build muscle is just “getting older,” this episode challenges that narrative. In this conversation, Dr. Jolene Brighten breaks down …
