Photo courtesy of AMD Creative.
Dr. Alan McCool and his wife, Amy, founded Icona Health in Homewood.
To support both women and men through the changes that occur in midlife and beyond, Dr. Alan McCool and his wife, Amy, opened Icona Health in Homewood on June 12. Having lived in Homewood for more than a decade, the couple brings a mix of medical and personal experience to the hormone health and wellness clinic.
Amy knows firsthand what it’s like navigating perimenopause and wants to help other women on similar journeys. She said she didn’t realize some of her symptoms, like middle-of-the-night anxiety and quiet depression during the day, were related to perimenopause.
“Women are often neglected in treatment, and it’s passed off as normal aging and part of life,” Amy said. “They aren’t getting the treatment they deserve a lot of times.”
Women often wait until their annual visits with their gynecologists to seek help and understand what’s wrong, whether they’re experiencing decreases in energy, mood or libido. However, there might not be enough time during that visit for the doctor to fully understand and treat their symptoms, Amy said. She confided in Alan about what she was experiencing, which prompted him to research her symptoms.
With more than two decades of experience, Alan is a board-certified urologist and serves as chief of surgery and chairman of the robotics committee at Baptist Health Medical Center in Jasper. Having observed men receiving proactive treatment for low testosterone for years, Alan said he noticed a deficiency in care for women navigating perimenopause or menopause.
Wanting to change that, he pursued advanced certification in women’s hormone health through the Academy for Advanced Women’s Health Medicine. That also led him and his wife to found Icona Health, which strives to provide wellness that integrates science, artistry and empathy.
Alan is the primary provider at Icona, and they also have a nurse practitioner, Mary Margaret Manzella, who will assist patients. They provide services for both men and women including hormone replacement, weight loss management and supplements.
To create personalized plans for each individual patient, the team at Icona works to pinpoint the right approach and adjust the treatment as needed to achieve the best results. While hormone replacement therapy is their primary treatment, they also offer weight loss management. If patients aren’t candidates for hormones, there are also non-hormonal options.
“We really just want it to be a place people feel comfortable talking about these sensitive issues,” Alan said. “We want to get men and women feeling like themselves again.”
Though it can be a difficult topic for women to discuss, Amy and Alan encourage them to reach out and seek treatment so they can feel more like themselves.
“Women often don’t want to talk about it publicly because either they’re embarrassed or ashamed, but it’s starting to get a lot of attention now,” Amy said. “The hope is that those women who are suffering in silence finally have a place to go and be heard.”
Icona Health is located at 3415 Independence Drive in the bottom floor of the Skin Wellness building. For more information, visit iconahealth.com.
