Gyno Girl Presents: Sex, Drugs & Hormones

Millions of women take SSRIs for anxiety and depression and many times no one tells about the sexual side effects, let alone that there's a solution. When it happened to a sex therapist and an OB-GYN themselves, they refused to accept "just add Wellbutrin" as the only answer. Dr. Laurie Mintz and Dr. Suzette Johnson join Dr. Rahman to share the deeply personal stories behind their new venture and...

One of the things that hasn't gotten a lot of attention in the menopause space is the gut. It's one of those symptoms that you may have not even thought was related to this stage in life. You may find that you have diarrhea, constipation, and less tolerance with certain foods. Or like my guest Cynthia Thurlow, one bout of food poisoning can turn your gut upside down and have lasting effects for ye...

Perimenopause is typically attributed to the hallmark symptoms—hot flashes and irregular bleeding. But that represents only a fraction of the clinical picture. The reality encompasses a range of symptoms that often emerge gradually and go unrecognized as perimenopausal. Dr. Amy Jean Voedisch is a gynecologist whose clinical approach mirrors mine. We practice evidence-based medicine through extende...

Gen Z gets a bad rap for being lazy, but they're actually the most entrepreneurial generation we've ever had. Calle Foster, a leadership coach who spent 12 years in corporate learning and development, explains why that stereotype is costing you as a leader. The real issue? It's how we're leading them. Gen Z was raised in a very different world than previous generations, and that context shaped how...

AI is making people in medicine nervous. Doctors worry it's going to replace them. But Dr. Ami Bhatt, Chief Innovation Officer at the American College of Cardiology and Chair of the FDA Digital Health Advisory Committee, has a different take. She explains what collaborative intelligence actually means and why clinicians shouldn't be scared. We talk about how wearables are giving women the data the...

For decades, men had Viagra. Women were told to relax and have a glass of wine. That imbalance in pharmaceutical innovation is finally changing, but it hasn't been easy. In this episode, I talk with Sabrina Johnson, the founder and CEO of Dare Bioscience the only publicly traded pharmaceutical company focused entirely on women's healthcare. We discuss why the pharmaceutical industry has historical...

Kids' mental health looks different now than it did a decade ago. More kids are struggling with anxiety, OCD, and ADHD, and parents are often unsure whether what they're seeing is normal or something that needs professional help. In this episode, Dr. John Parkhurst, a child psychologist at Northwestern, helps us understand what's really happening with kids right now. He explains why anxiety spikes...

Trauma shows up in unexpected ways. Chronic pelvic pain. Lost desire. The inability to tolerate a pelvic exam. These aren't always about what happened last week sometimes they're about what happened decades ago. In this episode, I talk with Brooke Bralove, a psychotherapist and sex therapist, about Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) a treatment that works differently than traditional talk therap...

Women's health is a team sport. That's something we've all learned the hard way—not in residency, but years later when we realized how much we weren't taught about vulvovaginal health. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Meredith McClure from Dallas and Dr. Ashley Fuller from Seattle. They co-host the Labialogic podcast and both specialize in treating the conditions that most doctors either miss...

Endometriosis is often talked about as a pelvic disease, but it's actually a systemic inflammatory condition that affects the entire body. And the way we diagnose and treat it is still failing too many patients. In this episode, I sit down with Jandra Mueller, a pelvic floor physical therapist in San Diego and the incoming educational chair for the International Society for the Study of Women's Se...

This week we welcome Beth Crosby, aka Garbage Mom, to the show. Beth is an actress, comedian, and content creator. She started creating content during the pandemic as an outlet to connect with other women and share in the perimenopause transition. She now has over 250k subscribers and is the creator of Perimenapalooza™. We talk about her symptoms of perimenopause and how anxiety was one of the wor...

We start with a frustrating reality: 70% of OB-GYNs never ask patients about orgasm. And when women finally get the courage to bring it up themselves, the answer is usually "I'm so sorry, this just happens when you age." I ask Dr. Streicher to break down what an orgasm actually is and why arousal has to happen first. We discuss the different types of orgasms clitoral, cervical, and the controversi...

Why do so many women with chronic pelvic pain get told "this is just motherhood" or "it'll get better when you go through menopause"? What if the heaviness, the aching, the constant discomfort isn't something you have to live with? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Julie Baron, a pelvic floor physical therapist and director of Pelvic Health and Performance Center in Bellevue, Washington. Dr. Ba...

Why are women always apologizing for their bodies? Should you feel guilty about wanting plastic surgery in midlife? And what actually happens during a labiaplasty? In this Between Two Labia episode a subseries of the podcast filmed in my office I sit down with Dr. Dahlia Rice a board-certified plastic surgeon and owner of DMR Aesthetics Chicago. Dr. Rice started her career doing autopsies and teac...

Is age 35 really a fertility cliff? Should everyone freeze their eggs? And why does your doctor speak in such vague terms when you ask about your chances? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Lucky Sekhon, a double board-certified reproductive endocrinologist in New York City and author of the bestselling book The Lucky Egg . Dr. Sekhon has spent years watching patients walk into her clinic overwh...

Comprehensive sexual health care requires time and a team approach. I'm joined by two of my team members Karen Badley, my nurse practitioner, and Grace Prete, our pelvic floor physical therapist. We talk about why complex conditions like pelvic pain, painful sex, and hormonal changes don't fit into 10-minute appointments. You can't address someone's full picture when insurance only reimburses for...

Katalin Rodriguez Ogren is a certified badass. She's owned POW Gym in Chicago's West Loop for 25 years, she's a lifelong martial artist who played the female ninjas in Mortal Kombat 2, and she just wrote a book on nutrition for menopause after her GP handed her marriage counseling referrals instead of addressing her hormones. When Katalin started experiencing severe skin issues during menopause, h...

Welcome to Between Two Labia, a new series filmed in my office in front of my 8-foot vulva. When colleagues come to town, I sit down with them to talk about the things you want to ask but think you shouldn't. These are the conversations I have with friends and colleagues that you wouldn't normally get to listen to. Dr. Shieva Ghofrany is my first guest, and you'll see these episodes pop up from ti...

Women were were excluded from federally funded medical research until 1993. Health journalist Meghan Rabbitt interviewed over 100 female experts to create a manifesto for women's healthcare everything from why we're still learning anatomy named after dead men to why your gynecologic history affects your heart disease risk decades later. Meghan is a health journalist who's been translating complex...

Sexual medicine is underfunded, misunderstood, and often dismissed. But it's also one of the most collaborative fields in healthcare. Dr. Tami Rowen recaps this year's ISSWSH conference and what it revealed about where the field is heading. Dr. Rowen is the current president elect of ISSWSH and has been instrumental in shaping sexual medicine education and research. We recorded this right after th...

Most people think sex therapy means Masters and Johnson-style homework or uncomfortable demonstrations. Dr. Shannon Chavez explains what it actually is—and why sexual concerns are rarely about sex at all. They're about intimacy, attachment, and learning to feel safe in your own body. Dr. Chavez has spent her career helping individuals and couples navigate sexual shame, intimacy disorders, and comp...

Dr. Sadia Malick has practiced medicine across four countries. She's delivered babies in the UK's best hospitals and in the mountains of Pakistan where women have nothing. She's founded a charity that's saved 8,000 mothers' lives. And she's spent her career caring for women who are told their suffering is just "the age of despair." Dr. Malick has spent her life caring for women across the UK, Paki...

Your dizziness when you stand up is real. Your pelvic pain is real. Your fatigue is real. And there's actually a connection between all of it that most doctors were never taught to look for. If you've ever been told your dizziness, palpitations, or pelvic pain is "just anxiety," this episode is for you. Dr. Dr. Alexis Cutchins is a cardiologist treating POTS and MCAS—she's willing to say 'I don't...

Can you really "have it all"? Dr. Sharon Malone OB-GYN, New York Times bestselling author of Grown Woman Talk , and Chief Medical Advisor at Alloy Health joins me for an honest conversation about what it really takes to balance medicine, motherhood, and everything in between. Dr. Malone and I talk about the things we don't usually say out loud. How do you balance being a great doctor, a present pa...

Hysterectomy is one of the most common surgeries for women 600,000 are performed every year in the United States. But are women truly getting all their options? Board certified OBGYN Dr. Kameelah Phillips joins me to discuss her groundbreaking book The Empowered Hysterectomy and why understanding the full history and context of this surgery is essential for every woman. In this powerful conversati...