A course from the Guidebook
The Perimenopause Guide.
Read your body. Work with your doctor. Build your ninety days.
Twenty short lessons and eight printable worksheets from Dr Carolina Gonzalez, TCM. What perimenopause actually is, the pattern your body is expressing, the eight foundations that carry everything else, and the appointment that takes you seriously.
Or the full course: one payment, $500, lifetime access. Details below.
Menopause is a moment. Perimenopause is a phase. The two words get used as though they mean the same thing, and the confusion causes real harm.
The hot flushes, the broken sleep, the mood shifts, the cycle that stops behaving. These happen inside perimenopause, the corridor leading in, which can last four to ten years. Nobody prepares you for the corridor.
That corridor is what this course is about.
A 2025 study of more than 4,400 women found that over half of women aged 30 to 35 already reported symptoms meeting the criteria for moderate or severe on the Menopause Rating Scale. Among women aged 36 to 40, close to two thirds.
Women wait, on average, twenty years between the onset of real symptoms and treatment for them.
That is not a personal failure. Most clinicians receive almost no training in this stage of a woman’s life, and the standard blood tests are often read as “normal” while the symptoms are not. The course explains the mechanics of both, plainly, so the gap stops costing you years.
You do not need a blood test to earn the right to the word perimenopause. You are allowed to begin reading the stage you are in, whether or not the clinical system has caught up with you yet.
What this course will not ask of you
It will not sell you a supplement stack. It will not hand you a thirty-item protocol. It will not tell you that hormone therapy is the answer, or that it is the enemy. It presents the current evidence beside the older cautions and prepares you to decide with your prescriber.
The work is quieter. Recognise what is happening. Find the pattern your body is expressing. Build eight foundations in the order that matters for your pattern. Walk into one appointment prepared. Then run ninety days and watch what changes.
The lessons
Twenty short lessons, five parts
Each lesson is one sitting, five to twelve minutes, and ends on something concrete. The worksheets sit where the work happens.
Part One · Understand what is happening
The clinical picture almost nobody draws for you.
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01
The corridor: a phase, not a moment
What perimenopause actually is, and why you may be in it years earlier than anyone told you.
5 min · Free with an account
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02
Why your bloods can be “normal”
The mechanical reason a blood test misses perimenopause — and how the story got built this way.
6 min · Full course
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03
What’s actually happening, hormonally
The four hormones, what each one does, and why your month looks nothing like the last.
2 min · Full course
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04
The symptom map
Fourteen systems, one underlying change — and how to read yourself across all of them.
7 min · Full course
Part Two · Find your pattern
The diagnostic lens that matches care to your body.
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05
The five patterns, and why they matter
Why two women with the same diagnosis need opposite care — the pattern lens explained.
2 min · Full course
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06
Depleted & Running Hot
The empty-and-cold pattern and the wired-and-dry pattern, side by side.
6 min · Full course
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07
Stagnant & Damp and Heavy
The stuck-and-tense pattern and the puffy-and-foggy pattern, and what each needs.
5 min · Full course
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08
Losing Structural Reserve, and combining patterns
The silent long-game pattern, and how to work with two or three patterns at once.
5 min · Full course
Part Three · Build your foundations
The eight basics every other intervention rests on.
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09
Why foundations beat protocols — and Sleep
The unglamorous basics every supplement depends on, starting with the most powerful one.
4 min · Full course
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10
Food
The four food patterns driving most symptoms, and the single highest-leverage change.
3 min · Full course
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11
Strength training & Walking
The non-negotiable for the next forty years, plus the most under-rated movement there is.
4 min · Full course
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12
Morning light & Alcohol
A free ten-minute reset for sleep and mood, and an honest reckoning with alcohol.
3 min · Full course
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13
Breath, Digestion & your foundation map
Two simple nervous-system tools, and how to know which foundations to start with.
4 min · Full course
Part Four · Work with your doctor
Walk in prepared. Walk out with a path.
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14
Walking in differently
Why the appointment falls short, and the opening sentence that changes it.
2 min · Full course
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15
The tests, and the HRT decision
Every test worth asking for, why, and a four-part framework for the hormone-therapy question.
10 min · Full course
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16
Reading your results, and when to escalate
Why “normal” is a floor not a target, how to read your own numbers, and the red flags.
4 min · Full course
Part Five · Your ninety days
Where the reading stops and the work begins.
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17
How the ninety days work
Three phases, built to absorb a real life — not to demand a perfection that does not exist.
2 min · Full course
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18
Days 1–30: Foundations
Two foundations, one appointment, one log. The month of starting, not overreaching.
2 min · Full course
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19
Days 31–90: Pattern work & integration
Layering the rest, acting on your bloods, the HRT decision, and making it the shape of your life.
4 min · Full course
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20
The observation log, and the return
How to track three cycles, the red-flags reference, and a closing letter from Carolina.
3 min · Full course
The worksheets
Eight printable worksheets
Recognition maps, assessment forms, plans and logs. Print them, fill them in by hand, keep them. Two of them exist to be carried into your doctor’s appointment. What you write stays on your paper, never on this platform.
Part One · Worksheet
The symptom map
Part Two · Worksheet
Which pattern applies to you
Part Three · Worksheet
Your foundation plan
Part Four · Worksheet
Before your appointment
Part Five · Worksheet
Your ninety-day plan
Part Five · Log
Three-cycle observation log
Part Four · Worksheet
In the appointment
Reference · Keep visible
Red flags: when to escalate
Read this first
Some symptoms should not wait for a course or a tracking month. Unfamiliar severe headache, chest pain, bleeding after twelve months without a period, and a short list of others deserve prompt clinical attention. The medical disclaimer carries the full list. It is free and requires no account.
Three ways to start
Lesson one, tonight
The first lesson as a typeset PDF. No signup, no email. It opens in a browser tab and asks nothing.
Lesson one, on the platform
The first lesson in full, with its figures, read comfortably with your place kept. An email address and a password. No card.
The whole course
All twenty lessons and all eight worksheets, the moment you buy. One payment, lifetime access, seven-day refund.
One payment
$500 USD
One payment, once. No subscription, no upsell, no recurring charge. If the price changes later, access already bought is never affected.
- · All twenty lessons, readable the moment you buy
- · All eight worksheets as printable pages and PDFs
- · The figures: the patterns, the hormones, the ninety days, drawn plainly
- · Short video introductions to each lesson, as they publish
- · Your place kept, in the course and inside each lesson
- · Lifetime access, including future revisions
- · Seven-day refund, no questions asked
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Questions
- What is The Perimenopause Guide?
- A course built from The Perimenopause Guidebook by Dr Carolina Gonzalez, a Doctor of Chinese Medicine. Twenty short lessons across five parts, with eight printable worksheets. It teaches you to read what your body is doing, to prepare for a doctor’s appointment that takes you seriously, and to run a structured first ninety days.
- Who is it for?
- Women whose bodies have started to change and who want a clear account of why. Symptoms can begin years earlier than most women are told, often in the thirties. Lesson one is free, and it names the stage most women never hear described.
- Is lesson one really free?
- Yes. A free account opens lesson one in full. No card, no time limit.
- What does it cost?
- $500, one payment, USD. That includes all twenty lessons, the eight worksheets as printable PDFs, and the lesson videos as they publish. Lifetime access. No subscription, no recurring charge.
- Is this medical advice?
- No. The course is education. It does not diagnose anything and it does not replace your doctor. It prepares you to work with your doctor. Two of the eight worksheets exist for exactly that appointment.
- Do I need a blood test before I start?
- No. The course explains why blood tests are often read as “normal” during perimenopause and which tests carry useful information. You do not need anyone’s permission to begin reading the stage you are in.
- What is the course’s position on hormone therapy?
- The course presents the current evidence, including the 2025 changes to hormone therapy labelling, alongside the older cautions. It does not tell you to take hormone therapy or to avoid it. It prepares you for that conversation with your prescriber, with the right tests and the right questions.
- What shows on my card statement?
- Whollistica, on both the statement and the Stripe receipt.
- How long do I have access?
- The lifetime of the platform. Access lasts as long as this site operates, with no further payment. The worksheets you download and print are yours to keep regardless.
- Is there a certificate?
- Yes. Finish all twenty lessons and the course emails a PDF certificate naming you, the course, and the date.
- What if it is not for me?
- Seven days, full refund, no questions. Email the address on your receipt.
- When should I see a doctor instead?
- Some symptoms need a doctor promptly rather than a tracking month. The medical disclaimer page lists them, and the course keeps the same list in a printable reference sheet. If one applies to you, ask for an urgent appointment or go to an emergency department.
The author
Dr Carolina Gonzalez is a Doctor of Chinese Medicine. The Guidebook grew out of years of clinic conversations with women in this transition: the slow, thorough kind of conversation a short medical appointment cannot hold. The course is that conversation, in order, with the worksheets she wishes every patient had filled in before their first appointment.