Welcome to Fempower Health, your go-to destination for trustworthy answers to your most pressing health questions and concerns. I’m Georgie Kovacs, your host, and I am thrilled to share some exciting updates about our rebrand, which includes a new look and a refined focus. As we embark on this transformation, I invite you to join me in making a significant impact on how we navigate the healthcare system together.
Georgie's Personal Journey to Advocacy
For those new to Fempower Health, let me share a bit about my background. I majored in chemistry in college and have spent over 20 years working in the healthcare industry, focusing on the business side. My passion lies in understanding the structure of the healthcare system and tackling the challenges that make it difficult for us to navigate. This passion is not just professional; it’s deeply personal.
My own experiences with infertility and managing a chronic condition while raising my son have fueled my dedication to health advocacy. Despite living in New York City and having a healthcare background, I was stunned by how challenging it was to navigate the system. It took ten doctors to finally diagnose me. This journey inspired me to start Fempower Health, aiming to provide women with the resources and empowerment they need to advocate for quality healthcare.
The Mission Behind Fempower Health
Fempower Health’s mission is to empower women by connecting them with top experts in specialized fields, enabling them to advocate for their health effectively. Over the past five seasons, I’ve had the privilege of engaging with over 150 health experts, researchers, clinicians, femtech founders, and advocacy groups. This extensive experience has informed our decision to rebrand and refine our focus.
The New Fempower Health Look and Brand Identity
Our rebrand reflects our commitment to being your trusted, credible friend in navigating the healthcare system. We’ve shifted from a powerful, bright orangey-red color to more academic and rich colors that symbolize both empowerment and trust. This new look aligns with our core values: advocacy, empowerment, education, and inspiration.
I’m excited to unveil our new website, designed with user-friendly navigation to help you find the information you need more easily. Special thanks to Polly, our website designer, for her incredible work in bringing this vision to life.
Focused Women's Health Content for Better Female Empowerment
Navigating the complexities of the healthcare system requires specialized knowledge. To better serve you, Fempower Health will now focus on two key topics: chronic pelvic pain and perimenopause/menopause. Each topic will have its dedicated podcast channel, ensuring that the content is relevant and focused on your needs.
Chronic Pelvic Pain
Our new podcast channel, Fempower Health: The Chronic Pelvic Pain Hub, will cover all aspects of chronic pelvic pain, including endometriosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, and pelvic congestion syndrome. We’ll address the unique symptoms, treatment options, new research, and tips for advocating for yourself. This channel aims to provide a holistic view of chronic pelvic pain, tackling it from both symptom management and underlying root causes perspectives.
Perimenopause and Menopause
The second channel, Fempower Health: The Perimenopause and Menopause Hub, will focus on the different phases of menopause, addressing symptoms, treatment options, and the latest research. It’s crucial to distinguish between perimenopause and menopause as they require different treatments. This channel will provide comprehensive information to help you navigate this significant life transition.
Building a Supportive Women's Health Community
Your participation is vital to the success of Fempower Health. I encourage you to share your stories, questions, and feedback with me. Follow us on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, where we’ll be sharing valuable content and engaging with our community. Your insights and experiences will help shape the discussions and content we provide.
Looking Ahead
We have some exciting episodes lined up, featuring experts like Dr. Jerilynn Prior and Dr. Lauren Streicher, who will discuss crucial topics such as hormone therapy and cancer risk. We’ll also explore the impact of trauma on chronic pelvic pain, bladder issues, and the structural aspects of pelvic health.
Thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm as we embark on this new path. Together, we can make a significant difference in women’s health. Subscribe to your favorite podcast channel, follow us on social media, and stay tuned for more in-depth discussions on chronic pelvic pain and perimenopause/menopause.
Stay empowered and have a wonderful health day!
Stay in Touch with Fempower Health
Transcript
Welcome to Fempower Health, the go-to destination where you can find trustworthy answers to your most pressing health questions and concerns. This is Georgie, your host. And I have exciting updates for the rebrand that includes a new look and a new focus. You may be used to me interviewing Health experts to empower you to advocate for your health. But instead, I thought I would take the next couple of weeks to go into a deep dive on why we are making this change, and I'm asking for your help because it is us working together that's really going to help transform our experience in the healthcare system. So first, in case you're new to getting to know me, I thought I would give you my quick background. So I was a chemistry major in college And for over 20 years, I have worked in the Health care system. I have either worked at companies or consulting for them, and it's really been all around the business side of healthcare.
So I do have a passion for how things work, the structure of the health care system, and what makes it a challenge for us to navigate it. And those are the types of things that I fix in my day job. Then I had a personal experience with infertility. I also had a chronic condition that I had to deal with my son. So when it comes to advocacy, I have personal experience. And it was my fertility journey that inspired me to start Fempower Health because living in New York City, having a healthcare background, I was shocked even with how challenging it was to navigate the healthcare system. And then it was the 10th doctor who finally diagnosed me. And when I dug further into women's health, I realized this was an issue for so many women well beyond fertility and thus the podcast.
My mission is if I help women hear from the top experts who are very, very specialized in a given field, that will give you the resources and empowerment so that you can advocate for quality Health care, enabling you to live a full complete life. Now Fempower Health is in its 5th season, and I've had the opportunity over the course of these years to engage with over 150 Health experts, researchers, clinicians, femtech founders, advocates, and advocacy groups. I've read dozens of their books, and I've assessed what you respond to and need the most. So now it's time for a change. Let's start with the branding. Fempower Health is here to change the way society approaches women's health. Yes. That sounds quite grand and quite difficult, but I do believe and step at a time, we can make that change.
And right now, given the complexity of our health care system, that change will happen with you, equipping you with quality expert driven information so that you can advocate for better health care. At the core, Fempower health is all about advocacy, empowerment, education, and inspiration. And the way that I look at our brand voice is it's all about being honest, credible, passionate, principled, warm, expert driven, and motivational. So with this, we took a look at our brand. And look, when I researched how is it that I can represent empowerment. And when I looked at the colors, it was really more of, like, a China reddish orange type color that really was all about power. But when we looked back at this brand voice and the core values of Fempower health, it was really time to change the identity. And now what we want to represent is being your credible, trusted best friend, helping you navigate the healthcare system.
And so that is why we have the change. And so rather than this bright powerful orangey red, it's really now going to be much more academic like colors, like rich colors that demonstrate both empowerment but trust as well. So I hope you like the new look. I know that I've gotten such positive feedback. I think some of the people who work directly with me said, thank god the orange is gone. So it is gone. You may see it pop up in places here and there because we are still working on making the changes. I'm not some massive company with a team of 50 people.
It's me, myself, and I and a couple of other people that help out here and there. Okay. So that's the rebrand. And Pain, I hope you like it. I love it. The website is amazing. It's just it's it's really awesome. Just definitely wow.
And I would like to thank Paule, my website designer, because we had an original palette that we gave her. And she said, look. I'm “the color girl.” I'm gonna help you use the colors you gave me, but we're gonna make it look really good. And even the way you navigate the website now is so much better than it was. And just to catch you guys up on website navigation, you know, up until now, I'd covered so many topics in women's health. And in your podcast feed, it can be really annoying because if you're in menopause and you're getting a pregnancy episode, that's kind of annoying because then you may say, why do I need to listen to Fempower Health? And you may unsubscribe. So last year, what I did is redid the website so that you can go on a given page based on your topic of interest and see the resources, including books, articles, podcast episodes, and whatnot dedicated to that given topic.
However, trying to dive deep into topics to really empower you when you're covering so much is really, really difficult to do. And I also found it challenging and frustrating for myself and because I know it's frustrating for you that still in the podcast feed, you're getting all these topics that may or may not be relevant. And so part 2 of the change in fem Fempower health is to focus on key topics. So like I said earlier, when we assessed the data around why Fempower Health is doing what it's doing, and the original mission as well as the types of things that you were Chronic were the top categories. Each of them come with their own challenges as you're trying to navigate the healthcare system. And again, because of my health care background and my strong belief that one of the major ways to make change is to empower you to advocate for yourself and have proper shared decision making appointments with your clinician, I do want to take a deep dive into these topics because that's how I believe that I can help you most. So in the next couple of weeks, I will dive even deeper into these topics so that you can better understand the complexities if these are your areas of interest or areas of your concern and frustration because of your own personal experience. So let's take each and by 1 just to give you a quick highlight.
And, again, I'll dive deeper in the next couple of weeks. So chronic pelvic pain. And of the things that I'm doing now is creating a dedicated podcast channel to chronic pelvic pain. So far, I've taken all the old episodes that relate to chronic pelvic pain, and so you are welcome to listen to those. Now it's gonna be much easier to find them because they're all on one channel, And you can find the channel by going anywhere you listen to podcasts, and you can type in Fempower Health, the chronic pelvic pain hub. And I'm sure if you just type in Fem Power Health, all the different channels will show up so you can subscribe to any of the ones that are of interest. So for chronic pelvic pain, it's really a podcast channel that's dedicated to all things chronic pelvic Pain, and this includes endometriosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, pelvic congestion syndrome, and really tackling pelvic pain from a holistic level by discussing the unique symptoms, the side effects, the potential treatment considerations, new research, tips on how you can advocate for yourself, community support, and more. And one of the things I really also wanna do is rather than looking at the condition itself and going into detail, I also want to look at this from the perspective of the symptoms that you're experiencing because as you know with chronic pelvic pain, there could be many underlying root causes.
And so you as the patient are looking at this from here are my symptoms. What the heck is going on? How do I relieve them? How do I get more healthy? So we're gonna have those types of discussions plus real honest conversations in navigating the challenges. And I believe those areas for chronic pelvic pain will be most helpful for you. So if you or someone you know is struggling with chronic pelvic pain, please do subscribe to that feed and share this information with those who may be of interest. One quick note. For chronic pelvic pain, it may not always be severe Pain like one would associate with extreme menstrual cramps. You know, anything that is discomforting in your pelvic area should be considered pelvic pain. It doesn't have to be excruciating.
So that's another thing to be considering. Again, I'll dive deeper into this in the coming weeks. The second is perimenopause and menopause. First of all, I know we're using the term menopause globally, but they are 2 different phases of life. Perimenopause is the years leading up to menopause, and then you have menopause, which is after 12 months of no menstrual cycle. And it's really important to differentiate between the two of these because it does impact the symptoms that you're having as well as the treatments that you need. So I'm excited to report that just like with chronic pelvic pain, there is a new podcast channel focused just on perimenopause and menopause. And like with chronic pelvic pain, you can go where you listen to podcasts and either type in femme power health or type in femme power Health, the perimenopause and menopause hub.
And you will be able to find that feed. Of course, you can also go on the website and check out the podcast feed information and, including a list of our top episodes for each of these categories. And I also have a dedicated newsletter for each of these areas. So the main newsletter is going to be going away, and we're going to focus in these two areas. But fear not. The current podcast feed will still be there, but I'm going to replay old episodes that I think are going to be relevant for you, but they won't be the chronic pelvic pain or menopause episodes. You've gotta go to the new channels for those. So for this particular perimenopause and menopause feed, the podcast channel is completely dedicated to perimenopause, the symptoms across all the different phases getting into menopause.
And once, you've hit menopause, the new research, tips on advocating for yourself, community support, and more. So if you are a woman in your mid thirties and on, you are likely experiencing the beginnings of perimenopause and may have even hit menopause, especially if you've had surgery and had a hysterectomy. So the value proposition here is really to provide trustworthy, comprehensive information to navigate your perimenopause and menopause journey. So now let's talk about you. At the end of the day, we want to be seen, and we want to be heard. And this is where building community and having your support is so important. I've been posting a lot more on TikTok, which I won't lie. I was really nervous to get on because I'm so used to interviewing other people.
And I thought, oh, see, I'm on social media. I'm interviewing other people. Well, many have suggested, why don't you just start talking Georgie? And that's been a little nerve wracking, but I'm growing more and more comfortable and really enjoying sharing the stories you've shared with me as well as my own experiences and summarizing some of the information from experts. But I would like for you all to share more with me. So, for menopause, we'll be going on TikTok, Instagram, as well as Facebook. And for chronic pelvic pain, mostly TikTok as well as Instagram, not really as much as Facebook. And so if you follow me on those channels, and even in the respective newsletters, I'll be monitoring those and would really like to leverage that information to help further build community, and it also will drive what we discuss on the podcast. So if you've got questions, again, post them on my socials.
Feel free to DM me. You can email me. If I send you a newsletter and that you've subscribed, then you can respond to those newsletters as well. So there's lots of ways to get a hold of me. The other is access to trusted information. This is probably one of the top discussions that I've had with the Health care experts I'm starting to collaborate with as well as discussions with my friends and what I'm seeing on social media. How do you know what is trusted? The thing with social media also to consider is that it's it's and liners. It's a very small snapshot of a bigger health care picture.
And while we would all want the quick fix, the magic pill, oftentimes, it's not that way with Health care. It takes troubleshooting. And I'd hate for someone to take a quick snippet that's on social media and make big decisions based on that. You know, one of the examples that I see on social media a lot is the statement around how because there's so little data on women's health, you just can't wait for the research to catch up. I don't disagree with that statement. However, I think sometimes it can be misinterpreted. So the intent is really true. There isn't a lot of research for many things in women's health, but there is research.
And so we should take a look at what research we do have. And then for areas where there isn't, this is where the shared decision making comes with your clinician. This is not where if it worked for my friend, it must work for me. And, again, trust me. I get it. I went through 4 years of fertility treatments, and if someone said stand on your head, you'll get pregnant, I would have done it. But I also know in the long run, those types of things don't pay off. So please trust yourself, do your research, and then talk to your doctor about different options.
And as you listen to the Fempower Health podcast, the experts that I connect with and interview and I will teach you along the way. So, again, please follow us. And for anyone else who's struggling, please share this information with them. So how do we equip you with the knowledge to advocate for your health? Well, when I talk to these pain experts. I look for ones who are very deep in a given area. So you'll hear me talking to, like, a lot of pelvic floor physical therapists, urogynecologists, like the sub specialists in women's health because they're the ones that women go to after years of struggling and talking to their OB GYNs. And this has nothing to do with OB GYNs being bad. This is that they're kind of like your primary care doctor. They're a generalist.
And just like people who have heart issues, once they go to their primary care, they may be referred to a cardiologist. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with the primary care doctor. It is simply that it's time to go to a specialist. And it just seems like with women's health, a lot of those subspecialists, we're just not as aware of. And I know that when I've interviewed OB GYNs, a lot of them say that one of the hardest things is referring their patients out to people. They may not always know who to refer to because it is complex and many other reasons, I'm sure. So, again, things are changing over the years, but I just want you guys to know the real situation so that you have a bit of understanding of why things can be a challenge. But in these discussions with the experts, I do talk about the dynamics of the condition, the symptoms, why it can be hard to be diagnosed.
What are the questions that you should be asking your clinician? What are the symptoms that you should be monitoring so that you can explain it to your clinician? Because, again, the doctors that I speak to, they say, we are the experts on the science, but you as the patient are experts on your body. But if you're not sure what you need to share with your clinician because it's been normalized, or you're dismissing symptoms or family members are dismissing your symptoms, that can be hard. And so we really uncover those little things that you may not notice that are actually really important for your doctor to be able to help you most. So that's kind of what happens on the Fempower Health podcast in case you're a newer listener. So holy cow. That was a lot. Felt like a lot for me too.
It is very hard when I'm not interviewing someone because I'm trying to be conversational, but, admittedly, I have a bit of an outline so that I don't go off on too many tangents here. So, hopefully, I did a good job in explaining all of this. So what's next? So, and, I would really appreciate you subscribing to your favorite podcast channel, whether it's the menopause channel, the chronic pelvic pain channel, or if you're interested in other topics from some previous episodes, please do subscribe to the main Fempower health channel as Health. And you just go again wherever you listen to podcasts. And I also have a newsletter dedicated to each of these topics. So please check those out, and subscribe to that. And, again, go to the social channels that I mentioned. So just type in Fempower health, which for whichever social media outlet you like, and then you will find the different channels, either the main one, chronic pelvic Pain or menopause.
Feel free to subscribe to all of them. And I would also, more importantly, invite you to share your stories and questions. I can help you best when I understand the challenges that you are facing, and I have some stellar experts who are very much evidence-based when they talk about how to solve the Health care challenges that so many women face. So, please, I can serve you best when I hear directly from you. And, of course, if you know of other women who may be interested in this, please do share. So what's coming next? So I'm gonna give you a few topics that I'm in the middle of doing interviews for or have already finished, so they'll be coming into your feed soon. And real quick, the episodes are gonna alternate. So every other week will be a menopause episode, and every other week will be chronic pelvic pain.
They still have their own channels, but rather than the weekly episodes that you used to see on the main feed, you will get these every other week. So the upcoming episodes. So the first one that I'll be releasing on perimenopause and menopause is with doctor Jeri Lynn Pryor. She has been a guest on the Fempower Health podcast many, many times, and she is one of your favorites. When you see an episode from her, there's a lot of downloads and listens for that particular episode. And I just love speaking with her, and we touch base off and on in between episodes. And so I sent her an email, and I was like, doctor Pryor, it's been a while since we chatted. I feel like you need to come back on Fempower Health.
And she immediately wrote back. And as you all know, she's been studying women's health for, like, 50 years. And she's, if I can say this on the podcast, she's a complete badass. She does not mess around, and she doesn't care if people disagree with her. She uses her research and just, you know, says what needs to be said. Anyway, she wrote me back, and she says, I am so sick of people just calling this menopause because perimenopause and menopause are different. They require different treatments because of what is happening in each stage of life. So that is what we discuss.
And then I'm so honored that Dr Lauren Streicher, who's another popular guest and very well known. She's got a fantastic podcast as well. She will answer your top questions. And so we're gonna do a quick, round robin, so to speak, where I'll be asking the questions that you have, and she will be providing those answers. And so I'm really, really excited to have that. She's a fabulous woman who is also working so hard to make sure that evidence based medicine is what is being shared and navigating this stage of life. Another one for perimenopause and menopause is cancer and hormone therapy. I know there's a lot of fears out there.
You know, there has been data around the women's health initiative study, not properly assessing the data and putting the fear of hormone therapy in everyone for the past 20 plus years. And I was recently at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists meeting in May, and I heard a clinician out of Canada talking about shared decision making, around hormone therapy or managing perimenopause and menopause symptoms, and cancer risk, whether you've had cancer, you're at risk of cancer. And I asked her in our interview to really talk through some case studies. So if you do happen to have a specific case you'd like for me to share with her, please do let me know. Now for chronic pelvic pain. Again, this is just such a complex and thus fascinating area for me. So a couple of the episodes that will be coming your way. and is trauma and chronic pelvic pain.
So many experts I've spoken to say, you know, we talk so much about symptom management and really trying to help women live a more normal life. And with symptom management, just the way medicine tends to work, it tends to be you have pain. Let's do surgery or give you medication. And people have really begun to talk a lot about trauma. And I would like to, you know, talk through how trauma impacts the pain you feel and vice versa. And I'm really excited to share that expert insight. Another is bladder issues. So I had a really interesting conversation with a urogynecologist, And I spoke to her about how so many women talk about UTIs and incontinence and all of these other factors.
And we had kind of an which is as a woman, we're not going to say, hey, I have interstitial cystitis. Let me look this up and do some research. The only way you would do that is if you're a doctor or a doctor said you may have this. Instead, you're going to think I have bladder issues. What the heck is going on? So that's what we're gonna discuss. We're gonna discuss all the all things bladder and what it is you need to monitor about your body so that you can best advocate for yourself. Also, structure and how that impacts pelvic pain. So many people think pelvic health means “do some kegels.”
And if you haven't done your kegels, that's why you've got pelvic issues. But in speaking to this expert who is a doctor of physical therapy, you know, she talks about how our structure can really impact the pain and symptoms that we may have. And I will say I was blown away because a lot of times people say for the pelvic floor, it's everything between your belly button and upper thigh. And in this discussion, we really talk about just how much deeper and further in our body all the structures tie to each other that ultimately do impact that area between the belly button and upper thigh. So I'm really excited to share that episode as well. So, again, I'm really excited. I hope you guys are too. I hope this preview is giving you a good sense of what's coming your way, and I would just like to thank you all so much for your support.
The positive feedback that I have gotten for the new website, the changes. It's been really, really great because it's a lot of work behind the scenes. I just really, really appreciate your support, and please do spread the word. My goal is to, you know, reach as many women as possible to help them with their struggles. And, again, if you've got feedback, suggestions, questions, please do reach out. So next up, I'll dive deeper into each of the podcast channels. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for supporting Fempower Health by listening and sharing, and I hope that you enjoy the new path forward as much as I've been enjoying it as well.
Thank you and have a wonderful healthy day.
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