If you've spent the last few years feeling like your own body stopped answering to you — sleep that won't come, a brain that won't focus, weight that won't budge, moods that swing without warning — and you've been told it's "just part of getting older," you are not imagining things, and you are not out of options.

You may also have been offered an antidepressant, a sleep aid, or a shrug, when what you actually needed was someone to look at the whole picture. That's the gap a menopause specialist is meant to fill. Here's what one actually does, and how to tell a good one from someone selling you hormones out of a brochure.