The Consultation

What actually happens
at your first consultation.

No sales pitch. No 90-second telemedicine banner. You'll see exactly how the four-group intake works, how your answers map onto an approach recommendation, and what “research-backed” actually means in our practice — not a clinician you never meet, but a research-backed clinical curator who reads your intake personally and threads your record across hormonal phases.

Before you arrive

No preparation required

There’s nothing to prepare. There’s nothing to memorize.

Most women who arrive at an Eterna Femme consultation have never been on peptides. Many haven’t been inside a forward-looking clinic in years. The intake is built for that reader — not a clinician with a checklist in hand, not a researcher with a screening instrument, but a woman in midlife who wants one careful conversation about whether peptide therapy fits her.

The form takes five to seven minutes. There is no fasting. There is no lab work — though if you have recent bloodwork, you’re welcome to share it. The form does the heavy lifting. Your job is to answer honestly; ours is to read what you wrote.

Not sure which hormonal phase you’re in? Read the phase primer →
The intake

A research-aligned intake

Four groups of questions. That’s the whole form.

The intake is broken into four groups: where you are in your transition, what you’re experiencing right now, your hormonal and medical history, and your daily life and goals. Each group has a specific job.

Group A

Where you are in your transition

What the form asks

  • Perimenopause — irregular cycles, early symptoms
  • Menopause — no period for 12+ months
  • Post-menopause

Why we ask

The phase marker tells us how to read the next twelve months. Perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause aren’t adjacent stages with the same playbook — they’re three different hormonal environments with three different approach emphases. One answer keeps everything downstream in the right register.

Read the perimenopause stages primer →

Group B

What you’re experiencing right now

What the form asks

  • Hot flashes
  • Sleep disruption
  • Cycle irregularity
  • Mood shifts / emotional sensitivity
  • Joint comfort
  • Energy / fatigue
  • Libido / changes in desire

Why we ask

These seven tokens were chosen because they’re the symptoms most consistently reported by women 40+ — not a generic checklist. Selecting what’s present now gives the curator the symptom-axis fingerprint that drives the approach “lead with” decision below.

Group C (optional)

Hormonal & medical history

What the form asks

  • HRT status — currently using, recently stopped, considering, no, or not applicable
  • Hysterectomy / oophorectomy history
  • Current medications
  • Known allergies or contraindications

Why we ask

These details are specific to perimenopause and beyond — not lifted from a general intake. HRT use and surgical history shape which approaches can be sequenced; medications and contraindications keep the recommendation safe. Skip what doesn’t apply — we’ll reconstruct the rest from the conversation.

Read how peptides and HRT compose together →

Group D (optional)

Daily life & your goals

What the form asks

  • Current supplements
  • Hormones you’re taking
  • Sleep quality — restful / light / disrupted / insomnia-like
  • Stress load — low / moderate / high / sustained
  • Exercise frequency — sedentary / light / moderate / consistent
  • Your goals for this work (free text)

Why we ask

What you’re carrying day to day is separate from your medical history. Sleep, stress, and exercise modulate how a compound settles into your system; your free-text goal line sets the recommendation lens. “Sleep depth” reads very differently from “body composition” against the same symptom picture.

See what the first 90 days actually feel like →
The mapping

From answers to recommendation

How your answers map to an approach

The intake is read against four core approaches. The mapping is a starting hypothesis — never a prescription — refined on the follow-up call.

Recovery & Vitality

BPC-157

Lead trigger: recovery and energy, especially in early perimenopause — joint comfort, fatigue, or a connective-tissue conversation.

Read Recovery & Vitality →

Sleep & Restoration

CJC-1295

Lead trigger: primary sleep concern — fragmented, wired-and-tired, or insomnia-like — paired with perimenopause or menopause.

Read Sleep & Restoration →

KLOW

KPV + GHK-Cu + BPC-157 + TB-500

Lead trigger: a multi-axis picture — recovery plus sleep plus inflammation plus a premium-posture answer. The quad stack answers several axes at once.

Read the KLOW complex →

The mapping is a starting hypothesis, not a prescription. The intake review and follow-up call refine it. If your primary concern is sleep but your secondary one is cellular aging, the curator can lead with one and open the other before the end of the first cycle.

What “research-backed” means

Plain language, not a banner

“Research-backed” in practice, not in marketing.

The phrase usually means a magenta banner: talk to a doctor in 90 seconds. It does not mean what we mean by it. We mean that a research-backed clinical curator — not a triage queue, not an auto-responder — reads every intake personally, then is on the follow-up call with you. Your record threads across hormonal phases. Re-onboarding is not how this works.

Here is what that looks like, in three concrete practices:

  1. Reviewed personally by a clinical curator — not routed through a regulated intake pipeline, not reviewed by a form-letter template that matches three keywords.
  2. A 20-minute follow-up call scheduled within ~2 business days — to walk through the intake answer-by-answer, ask the questions the form doesn’t, and align on which approach — or combination — fits.
  3. One record, threaded across phases — when your cycle ends and the phase field updates, the curator who already knows your intake, your goals, and your sleep architecture is still the curator.
Read the published research →

Before Anything Else — Get the Guide

The Midlife Questions Worth Asking is a concise, woman-first guide to six midlife health topics, with established evidence and open questions kept clearly in view.

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Continue learning

Where to go next

Hand-picked reads that follow from this page — not an algorithmic suggestion.

Common starting points

Come back from your symptoms

If you’re not sure this page matched what you’re feeling this week, the symptom-first entry at /start-here is where most readers place themselves first.