The 5 'I's Explained

1 Investment

There are a wide variety of products and services in the perimenopause/menopause space. These options go from the tens to the hundreds and sometimes to thousands of dollars a year.

Keeping in mind that everyone has a different financial situation, we used the following guidelines to talk about investment:

We compare solutions to similar options in each category (supplements, pharmaceuticals, devices, telehealth, apps, and guide).
A device or telehealth solution is likely to be higher cost than Vitamin B so we did our best to compare patches to patches!
Costs are measured on a simple scale of low, medium, or high
Cost often depends on prescription and/or medical insurance, so an option may be low cost to someone with insurance or an employer benefit, and high to someone who is self-insured or doesn’t have health insurance.

2 Invasiveness

Let’s face it, some people are comfortable with putting a device, supplement, or suppository in their vagina and others are not. No judgment here, but this is what we mean when we speak about invasiveness.

Invasiveness isn’t limited to pelvic floor stimulators and hormone rings, it also includes options like hormone injections vs. pills, talking to a chatbot vs. a human, etc…

Keeping in mind that everyone has a different level of comfortability with their body, synthetic hormones, and talking with other humans about their health, we used the following guidelines to talk about invasiveness of options:

We compare solutions to similar options in each category (supplements, pharmaceuticals, devices, telehealth, apps, and guide).
Our scale ranks options as low, medium, or high
We consider pills and patches worn on the skin to not be invasive, but you may only want non-hormonal options. In other words, our low risk may not be low risk to you which is why we also allow you to sort by ingredients too.

3 Indication

Sure, we could have called this category symptoms treated, but then we wouldn’t have had “the five Is of the Fuchsia Tent.”

We used the following guidelines to talk about indication for treatment options:

Treatment options for the menopausal transition often have several different uses
Only FDA Approved therapies have actual indications other categories are not reviewed by the FDA.
We list up to four indications for each option knowing some therapies have additional benefits
While Telehealth services, apps, and guides cannot directly treat symptoms of the menopausal transition, they provide information and so we included them in the indication category

4 Ingredients

We could go heavy duty into all of the ingredients in all of the options, and we definitely get more granular in the membership portion of the site.

To keep our promise of simplicity for all, we categorize ingredients on the main site according to the following guidelines:

Treatment options are listed as hormonal, non-hormonal or both
Both either means we are speaking about a telehealth option that offers both hormonal and non-hormonal options or a product that combines both hormones and other ingredients.

5 Inclusivity

Our goal with The Fuchsia Tent is to create clarity, simplicity, access, and support for ALL!

To honor our promise that this site is for all, we have built the following guidelines for inclusivity:

Inclusivity is rated either low, medium, high, or very high
Very high means most people can either afford or gain access to a solution comfortably.
The other rankings are in relation to both investment and ease of access.
This category is the most nuanced, for example if your employer has a Telehealth option as part of your benefits plan, all care may be highly accessible to you, but for another woman without that benefit through work, the product becomes inaccessible, therefore we would rank that product as low access.