At 42, I was told I needed a complete hysterectomy, which I got without question. Soon afterwards, my quality of life just tanked. I became a different person. I didn’t like myself. I had no energy. I was seriously depressed and even contemplated taking my own life. After a year that included 12 different doctors and nine different medications, I wasn’t getting any better. This made me all the more depressed.
Then a good friend sent me a book entitled “Screaming to be Heard,” by Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet. It was about how women suffer silently, how we hide our pain and let it fester inside us. Luckily, she lived near me and I was able to meet with her. She immediately started weaning me off of my medications and put me on Estrogel and Magnesium, and after just a few days I started feeling better.
But as I started to get better, I started to get angry. I thought, if I was in so much pain for so long, even with the best medical attention in the world, what are other women going through? That is why I started EmpowHer.com, the resource I wish I had when I was sick. This site provides women with exceptional medical resources as well as a community to share our individual stories so women can stop suffering in silence.
Learn more about my story
EmpowHER's Press page
When you have a family history of cancer, the risk for getting it yourself increases. It is important to take as many precautions as possible to reduce the risk of getting cancer, especially if it ...
May 14, 2013 - 12:42pm
I recently came across this informative article about thyroid cancer and thought I would share.Between 1997-2006, thyroid cancers increased by 6.5 percent each year, according to the National ...
May 13, 2013 - 9:23am
If you’ve ever had a hot flash, you know they are no fun. I found out the hard way at age 42 after my complete hysterectomy. Suddenly, my body had no way to produce many of the hormones it needed ...
May 9, 2013 - 2:00pm
Do you say what you really mean? Do you try to tell it like it is? Or perhaps you believe that honesty is the best policy?Well, according to a recent study from Queendom.com people who do not ...
May 8, 2013 - 4:06pm
What do most people say they want from sex? Some combination of pleasure and closeness. But that’s not what people usually focus on during sex.
Our Medical Advisory Board member, Dr. Marty ...
May 6, 2013 - 4:42pm
Recently, I watched a two-part interview series from DrugstoreNews.com about what women are looking for in healthcare needs.
The main topic they focused on was where women turn for answers to ...
May 2, 2013 - 1:26pm
Do you ever find yourself wishing you could be more like other people you know? Maybe you like the way they look or how confident they always seem. Maybe you wish you could always find the right ...
April 26, 2013 - 7:33am
We all know criticism can be hurtful. But that doesn’t stop us from going to extremes in criticizing ourselves. Minor flaws or problems that we would easily overlook in others become ongoing ...
April 11, 2013 - 1:18pm
Technology can give us great excuses not to be active and fit. We spend hours in front of the TV or at the computer and then wonder why we gain weight and lose muscle tone. So I was excited to ...
March 29, 2013 - 9:50am
I recently came across this article and thought it was important to share.
We are all aware that taking in too much salt can lead to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and it has been ...
March 29, 2013 - 9:16am
Today is the first day of spring!
To celebrate, the experts at the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD) suggest that spring cleaning rituals include keeping your oral hygiene in top ...
March 20, 2013 - 9:50am
Being in business and being stressed seem to go hand in hand. And if you’re a woman, the stress can seem even bigger as you try to juggle work responsibilities, your “family” at work, and your ...
March 16, 2013 - 12:40pm
Dr. Machelle Seibel, a member of our Medical Advisory Board, Ob/Gyn and Professor at the University of Massachusetts has just announced the arrival of My Menopause Magazine!
“Today the average ...
March 12, 2013 - 11:51am
I would like everyone to know of the most recent FDA approved drug for women. In a press release on Feb 26, 2013 Shionogi & Co., Ltd. announced that the F.D.A. has approved a non-steroidal ...
March 4, 2013 - 9:11am
I need your collective voice!
I will be going back to the FDA on March 5 to testify on behalf of women to have two non-hormonal FDA approved treatment options for Hot Flashes.
PLEASE Take 2 ...
February 28, 2013 - 12:25pm
If you’ve got a trip coming up, whether it’s for work or fun, the last thing you want is to get sick while you’re away from home. But traveling is one of the fastest ways to get exposed to a ...
February 27, 2013 - 11:53pm
I need your collective voice!
I will be going back to the FDA on March 5 to testify on behalf of women to have two non-hormonal FDA approved treatment options for Hot Flashes.
PLEASE Take ...
February 27, 2013 - 10:10am
If you’re like me, it’s easy to make new resolutions at the start of the year, but harder and harder to keep them as the days and weeks go by. Once you get past January, the rest of the year ...
February 13, 2013 - 2:52pm
Dr. Mao gave me these tips on how to fight off the flu and boost up my immune system. I wanted to share Dr. Mao’s expertise!Can you believe one in three Americans suffers from the common cold ...
January 31, 2013 - 4:06pm
When it comes to picking water, there doesn’t seem to be one, definitive answer to the question of which kind is better for you.
Bottled water providers claim their water is more pure and put ...
January 31, 2013 - 11:28am
What kind of water are you drinking this year? That may sound like a silly question. After all, water is just water, right? Wrong! The basic chemical composition of H2O may be the same, but ...
January 15, 2013 - 4:03pm
Even though Arizona is still sunny and warm during the day, the longer nights with the sun setting at 6 p.m. are hard to deal with. It makes doing anything after 6 p.m. difficult because it ...
December 7, 2012 - 4:35pm
If you have received a difficult diagnosis, you may feel like you are alone in a sea of information and decisions without a life raft. My first advice to you is not to try to go it alone! No ...
December 4, 2012 - 10:00am
If you or someone you love receives a difficult diagnosis, your first instinct may be to jump into action to make the problem go away. You may try to grasp at the first treatment option that you ...
November 8, 2012 - 3:52pm
Receiving a difficult diagnosis is a frightening experience. No one wants to hear that they or someone they love has a serious health condition. As a health advocate, I think it’s natural to ...
October 25, 2012 - 11:21pm
With the Holiday season beginning I know my social calendar doubles with events. This is my favorite part of the year but the parties and events often take a toll on our daily routines and our ...
October 24, 2012 - 3:19pm
Being an advocate for women’s health, I want to take a minute and encourage the EmpowHER community to take a look at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. On our site we ...
October 22, 2012 - 4:48pm
I wrote an article in May about reactive foods that can cause inflammation (click here to read it). My dietician Lyn Genet explained to me that some foods are more reactive than other foods and ...
October 16, 2012 - 2:24pm
As women, we don’t always take the time to take care of ourselves. But we can be fierce advocates when it comes to the health of our children. Advocating for a child can be challenging, but the ...
October 11, 2012 - 11:21pm
By having regular blood tests, you can learn a lot about your health. The more you know, the better you are able to take care of your body. Your blood can tell you something is wrong even before ...
October 8, 2012 - 1:28pm
Understanding your health insurance is important for the health of your body and your wallet. For some basics on health insurance and the difference between in network and out of network ...
October 2, 2012 - 11:32pm
If you’re like many people, you probably spend as little time thinking about your health insurance as possible.
Your premiums come out of your paycheck, so you don’t even have to think about ...
September 28, 2012 - 3:09pm
If you are expecting a baby, congratulations! This is an exciting time for you. You’re probably making plans to decorate the nursery, shop for car seats and cribs, and get everything ready. This ...
September 27, 2012 - 9:11am
I am excited to share the news that EmpowHER Medical Advisory Board Member Dr. Pam Peeke will be on Katie Couric's new show, The Katie Show on Friday September 21st. She will be promoting her new ...
September 21, 2012 - 10:55am
I recently read about a new treatment for UTIs and wanted to share because this is something that almost everyone experiences at some point in time. If you are allergic to certain antibiotics ...
August 23, 2012 - 2:20pm
I loved the idea of this competition and wanted to share this story with the EmpowHER community.UnitedHealthcare and Bronner Bros. recently sponsored the third annual "Hair Fitness" competition in ...
August 17, 2012 - 1:23pm
As women, we often put aside our own health concerns to take care of our family. So when we finally go to the doctor, we want quick, accurate answers and we want to feel better. That’s a great ...
August 16, 2012 - 11:34am
If you’re like most people, you head out to a restaurant with the best of intentions. But as soon as you smell the food cooking or see the pretty pictures of all those high-fat foods on the menu, ...
August 2, 2012 - 2:43pm
Have you picked your advocate yet? If not, you should! A medical advocate is someone who will speak for you if you can’t speak for yourself. That could mean you were in a car accident or had ...
July 27, 2012 - 1:32pm
Have you ever had a day when your brain just didn’t seem to be working right? Maybe you forgot someone’s name or couldn’t remember where you parked the car. If it just happened once, you may ...
July 12, 2012 - 1:57pm
Transparency is a hot topic these days. We want our politicians and businesses to be “transparent” in all their dealings. After all, we have the right to know what’s going on ... right? As a ...
July 2, 2012 - 11:53am
Is your desk neat as a pin or do you have to dig to find the surface hiding under mounds of paper? For many of us, filing and record keeping are at the bottom of the list of things we want to ...
June 12, 2012 - 11:03am
Did you know that some foods are reactive? I don’t mean radioactive, although I guess that’s possible! I mean some foods will cause bad reactions in your body. The trick is to figure out which ...
May 8, 2012 - 8:31am
This just in... men and women are not the same! That may sound like a no-brainer. But when it comes to healthcare, you might be surprised at how many ways women are treated like men when they ...
April 26, 2012 - 4:24pm
At EmpowHER, we share tips and references to women to be better health advocates. Here are my 5 tips for dealing more effectively with your own healthcare.Tip No. 1 -- If you're not happy with ...
April 17, 2012 - 10:45am
When it comes to sciatica, there’s a lot I can tell you about what not to do... because for a while I was doing a lot of things I shouldn’t have been doing. This is a great example of “Do ...
April 17, 2012 - 8:54am
“They Teach It at Stanford,” that is going viral via email reminds us to value our girlfriend time and how we love to share!
"The last lecture was on the mind-body connection--the relationship ...
October 6, 2011 - 4:55pm
What are you doing for National Women's Health Week? Michelle King Robson, founder and CEO of EmpowHER offers tips on taking control of your health.
May 3, 2011 - 2:37pm
EmpowHER founder and CEO Michelle King Robson talks about how she feels now that she's back from The Ranch, a wellness retreat in Malibu, Calif.
April 28, 2011 - 8:56am
You’ve got a headache. Should you go to your family doctor, your gynecologist, a neurologist, or a brain surgeon? And, depending upon which office you head to, will your insurance cover it? Then, ...
Michelle King Robson commented on Andrew Schorr's post Do You Need a GPS for Health Care?