hormones, menstrual health & menopause

Hormonal Health Is Whole-Person Health — And It Deserves Whole-Person Care

Hormone difficulties and hormonal imbalances have a way of touching everything — energy, mood, sleep, digestion, skin, weight, fertility, menstrual comfort, overall quality of life, and more. Yet the conventional approach often reduces this complexity to a single lab value and a prescription or two. If you've been told your hormones are "within range" while your body tells you otherwise, or if you've been offered medication as the only path forward, you know the gap between what you're experiencing and the care you're receiving.

At The Buddha's Medicine, we take hormonal health as seriously as you do — giving it the depth, time, and individualization it demands.

How We Approach hormonal health

Ayurveda views the body's hormonal landscape in a sophisticated way: not as a set of isolated glands and lab values but as an interconnected system influenced by digestion, tissue nourishment, nervous system regulation, daily rhythm, seasonal patterns, and constitutional tendencies. When hormones are out of balance, Ayurveda asks not only what is disrupted but why the body system lost its equilibrium — and what conditions are needed for it to find its way back.

Dr. Matt Van Auken, MD, MPH brings this Ayurvedic framework together with his training in modern integrative and lifestyle medicine to provide hormone-sensitive and endocrine care that is thorough, personalized, and grounded in root-cause thinking:

A comprehensive assessment that connects the dots. Hormone-related symptoms rarely exist in isolation, and Dr. Matt doesn't treat them that way. His intake process includes examination of the full web of factors that influence hormonal health — digestive function and nutrient absorption, stress and adrenal health, sleep quality and circadian rhythm, dietary patterns and constitutional factors, menstrual history and reproductive health timeline and/or androgen history, and the broader context of your overall health and life circumstances.

Individualized, root-cause treatment. Your care plan is built around what your system's specific needs are. This may include targeted nutrition aligned with your Ayurvedic constitution and current hormone status, herbal medicine and custom formulations drawing from Ayurveda's rich tradition of reproductive and endocrine support, medication and supplement review, lifestyle modifications addressing the daily habits that directly influence hormonal balance (sleep, movement, stress management, and seasonal routine), and coordination with existing providers and specialists when appropriate — particularly for patients already under endocrine or gynecological care.

Support through transitions, not just conditions. Menopause, postpartum recovery, men's aging, gender transitions, and other hormonal shifts are not diseases — they are processes that deserve informed, compassionate support. Dr. Matt approaches these transitions with the understanding that each person moves through them differently, and that the goal is not to override the body's process but to support it with the right tools at the right time.

Care for the emotional and relational dimensions. Hormonal shifts can profoundly affect mood, identity, relationships, and sense of self. Jamie Van Auken offers therapy that holds space for these experiences — whether you're navigating the emotional complexity of a fertility journey, the identity shifts of menopause or a gender transition, the toll of living with PCOS, or the relational impact of hormonal changes on your partnership and family life.

CONDITIONS WE COMMONLY SUPPORT

    • PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome)

    • Painful menstrual periods

    • Irregular menstrual cycles

    • Fertility concerns

    • Menopause and perimenopause

    • Postpartum support

    • Thyroid conditions (hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism)

    • Adrenal distress, fatigue, and burnout

    • Circadian sleep disorders related to hormonal imbalance

    • Low testosterone and men's health

    • Prostate enlargement

    • Gender transitions

    • Healthy plant-based pregnancy

    • And more

"Oh my gosh. I just had my first session with Dr. Matt Van Auken! All I can say is, 'phenomenal.' I have had all sorts of issues with the dreaded menopause and he solved two of the issues in 2 days time. Not one person before him had ever brought up that I could have an allergy to milk that could contribute to my hot flashes. All I can say is I look forward to continuing to work with him and his team!"

Hormonal health is too important — and too personal — for a one-size-fits-all approach. If you're ready for care that meets the full complexity of what you're experiencing, we invite you to schedule a complimentary 15-minute consultation with Dr. Matt — available in-person in Portland, Oregon and via telehealth across multiple states.

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