Hello & Welcome to this conversation with my guest today, Dr Siobhain O'Mahony, who has not only a successful career as an academic and researcher in the field of the microbiome and women's health, from fertility to menopause; she also works in the Women's Health Research and Innovation space.

In this conversation, we discussed everything from fertility to endo to menopause, including :

• ​the Microbiome Gut-Brain Axis and how it influences so many facets of women's health, from infertility to endometriosis to pregnancy & postnatal health and into menopause and beyond
• ​how the gut and brain communicate - the Vagus nerve, the HPA axis and the immune system
• ​the role of the gut microbiota is different types of pain, particularly endometriosis
• ​research looking at how diet, microbiome and CBT for better outcomes with endometriosis
• ​how hormonal changes at perimenopause influence gut health; and why that's a bidirectional conversation
• ​what we can do to optimise gut health, hormonal health and stress resilience (spoiler alert: BROCCOLI!!!!)
• ​and much, much more!

You can find Dr O'Mahony on LinkedIn & x.com - and you can find me mostly on Instagram (@michellelyons_muliebrity)

This is the final episode of 2024 but I have some exciting conversations already lined up for 2025...in the meantime, if you'd like to continue your women's health education AND save €75, don't forget to use the code COCCYX24 at checkout! All the course info can be found hereAnd so...enjoy the festive season and I'll see you in January 2025! Onwards & Upwards, Mx #celebratemuliebrity

Hello & Welcome To This Week's Episode!

I'm really excited to share the conversation that I recently had with Dr Lori Brotto, and to take a dive into the research around mindfulness & pelvic health

If you're enrolled in my Female Pelvic Pain Rehab or my Female Sexual Dysfunction courses, you'll know that I love the research of Dr Lori Brotto; I think she makes the science around mindfulness & pelvic health clinically useful & accessible

Dr Brotto is a researcher and clinician who has authored over 150 papers on the benefits of mindfulness and she is also the author of one of my most recommended books, 'Better Sex Through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire'

She is a fan of multimodal biopsychosocial approaches to pelvic health, whether we are talking about GSM at menopause, vestibulodynia and sexual health concerns including lack of desire

In this conversation we discuss:

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did - I've been practicing and teaching mindfulness for years now but I definitely picked up some more pearls of wisdom here!

You can find Dr Brotto on Instagram as @drloribrotto and she also features on Masterclass (in the Menopause class) and The Principles of Pleasure on Netflix

If you'd like to learn more about multi-modal approaches to pelvic health AND ave some money, don't forget to use the code COCCYX24 at checkout on any of my online courses to save €75 - but only until the end of this month! All the course info can be found at CelebrateMuliebrity.com

Until next time! Onwards & Upwards, Mx

Hello & Welcome To The Latest Episode!

I'm so excited to share a recent conversation I had with exciting pelvic health physio and researcher, Dr Malgorzata Starzec-Proserpio

In 2024, Gosia released 2 papers that I think will have profound implications for the way we work with women who have pelvic pain and dyspareunia (and maybe challenge some biases along the way!)

'From Fragmented to Whole: Multimodal Physiotherapy as a Multifaceted Approach to Pelvic Pain in Women - Clinical Commentary' Starzec-Proserpio et al 2024

'To contract or not to contract: should we use pelvic floor muscle exercises in the treatment of dyspareunia?' Solomon et al 2024

In this episode, we discuss:

• ​the clinical implications of these articles for us as clinicians, and also why literature reviews are essential and their role.
• ​Common hypotheses about pelvic floor muscle exercises in dyspareunia
• ​Can PFM exercises be harmful for women with dyspareunia? If so, when? What are the consequences?
• ​Evidence for the use of pelvic floor muscle exercises in the treatment of dyspareunia – effects and outcomes
• ​Our Conclusions: Nuances, nuances, and more nuances! Pelvic floor muscle exercises don’t necessarily mean doing 100 near-maximum Kegels a day! Blanket statements on social media may limit access to potentially beneficial interventions.

You can find Gosia's papers by clicking on the links above and also on Research Gate and you can follow her on Instagram as @ starzecproserpio_phd

You can find my continuing adventures in women's health there too - I'm @michellelyons_muliebrity

Want to learn more about female pelvic pain rehab? Or learn more about female sexual dysfunction, contraception & fertility? And save some money?

My December sale is ongoing - just use the discount code COCCYX24 at checkout and save €75 on all my courses including the Female Pelvic Pain Rehab course and the brand new Female Sexual Health, Contraception & Fertility (along with all my other online offerings, including the Female Hormonal Health Masterclass,, the Breast Cancer Rehab course, Bowel Health & Women's Health, Female Pelvic Oncology Rehab, Women & Back Pain and Hysterectomy: Prehab to Rehab - all the info is HERE - but don't forget to use the code COCCYX24 at checkout to avail of this December Discount!!

Hello & Welcome To This Week's Episode!

In this week's podcast I'm sharing the audio from a presentation I did recently for my new course 'Female Sexual Health, Contraception & Fertility'

If you're working with people with pelvic health issues, whether that's pelvic pain, sexual pain or dysfunction, a history of trauma or violence, or going through fertility difficulties...then we need to provide a trauma informed approach for everyone that we are encountering, one that's consistent and evidence based

I wanted to share this information outside of the course as I think this is an important conversation for everyone working in pelvic health to have.

The references for the studies & research that are mentioned are in the new course, Female Sexual Health, Contraception & Fertility, which is on pre-sale now (for the lowest price it will ever be!) It will go to full price on November 20th, when Module 1 on sexual health goes live; Module 2 goes live on November 27th, on Sexual Health in Pregnancy, Postpartum, Menopause, Hysterectomy & for Cancer Survivors, along with an overview of contraceptive methods, and Module 3 goes live Dec 5, and that will cover Menstrual Cycle tracking, Barriers to Fertility, including STI's, End, REDs, Fibroids & PCOS, Pelvic Rehab & Lifestyle Strategies for Fertility and a Resource Section that includes setting up BioPsychoSocial Sex Ed classes.

⁠You can find all the details and sign up at pre-sale special pricing HERE⁠

and don't forget...make sure you're following me for details of my Black Friday sale - I'll be doing things a little differently this year! Stay tuned for all the details on⁠ my Instagram @michellelyons_muliebrity⁠

Until next time, Onwards & Upwards, Mx #celebratemuliebrity

Research Nerd Alert!

This is an overview of our current understanding of what central sensitisation (aka nociplastic pain) is and how it impacts pelvic pain syndromes and of course...what we are goibg to do about it!

Some great research around this topic has emerged over the past couple of years, with a growing understanding of why just focusing on the issues in the tissues is not enough and how we can incorporate lifestyle strategies such as sleep, nutrition and physical activity into our anti-inflammatory treatment toolbox

So although this review is very evidence based for the first part, I do explore why this means when we are working with real life people - why and how to screen for CS and what steps we can take to get better outcomes - ultimately to help women with persistent pelvic pain live well!

If you are in my online course, Female Pelvic Pain Rehab, the video with all the references will be uploaded tomorrow; I will also be posting this as bonus content in my upcoming course Female Sexual Health, Fertility & Contraception, which goes live on November 25th - but its on pre-sale now!

All the details of all the online courses are HERE!

As always, thanks for listening & needing out with me - I'd love it if you could rate, review and subscribe so we can keep spreading the word about evidence based women's health!

See you next time - Onwards & Upwards! Mx #celebratemuliebrity

Welcome to this week's episode, where we're starting to look at preparing for the upcoming festive season - full of stress, different eating, sleeping and travel planning - the perfect recipe for stress, unregulated nervous systems, digestive systems and pelvic floor dysfunction! All this month, we're going to look at the evidence for multimodal pelvic rehab & lifestyle strategies for pain & digestive distress.

Let's start the conversation with Inflammatory Bowel Disease - including Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis - how does it impact female pelvic health, from sexual health, contraception choices, fertility, pregnancy & postpartum recovery?

There's a significant (and growing!) body of evidence to support the role of a biopsychosocial pelvic rehab approach to helping women with IBD live well

Did you know:

The problem might be that gastroenterologists don't know you can help! All the research, especially around sexual health and pelvic floor dysfunction emphasises the need for a multimodal pelvic rehab approach as part of an inter-disciplinary approach to improving quality of life for women with IBD

Want to take an even deeper dive into Bowel Health during the perinatal year? I've added a bonus module to my online course, Bowel Health & Women's Health, looking at bowel function in the perinatal year, from the influence of IBS and IBD, but also fissures, haemorrhoids, OASI, anal continence and more...

Stay tuned as we look at other strategies for pain and stress management and digestive health throughout the leadup to the festive season (seriously, how can it be November already?!)

Thanks for being here and if you can, I'd love it if you can rate, review and subscribe to the podcast - and be sure you're following me on Instagram @michellelyons_muliebrity for all the latest in women's health

See you next time! Mx (and don't forget to celebrate muliebrity!)

Hello & Welcome to the latest episode of the CelebrateMuliebrity podcast!

In today's episode, I have the pleasure of chatting with Dr Amanda Homen, a Toronto based physiotherapist and we chatted about the role of Hypermobility in Pelvic Health.

Some of the topics we discussed include:

Amanda will be presenting on this topic at the upcoming Pelvic Health Solutions Symposium - there's a great line-up of speakers and topics, from pessaries to prostatectomy rehab - full details and registration info at the pelvichealthsolutions.ca website

Want to learn more about women's health - from the comfort of home? Check out my online courses at celebratemuliebrity.com and make sure you're following me on Instagram @michellelyons_muliebrity for the latest clinically applicable research in all aspects of women's health & wellness

Until next time,

Onwards & Upwards & CelebrateMuliebrity!

Mx

October is awareness month for both Menopause & Breast Cancer, and one area of overlap between these two issues is that of musculoskeletal health

Sometimes, when we think about musculoskeletal health at menopause, we might immediately think of osteoporosis. Although that's a really important issues, and one I'll be addressing in upcoming episodes, for today I want to talk about muscle & joint pain at menopause

Musculoskeletal dysfunction affects between 70 and 80% of women going through peri to post menopause, with 25% of women having severe symptoms, including rotator cuff dysfunction or gluteal tendinopathy (which affects 1 in 4 women in their 50's and is often misdiagnosed as hip arthritis)

In today's episode, I'll discuss the latest research around why this happens (spoilers: oestrogen, inflammation & sleep disruption) and of course the evidence based strategies that we can use to help women live well before, during & after menopause, and (of course!) where pelvic health at menopause fits into the discussion!

If you'd like to learn more, there's a whole module on Menopausal health, including lifestyle, nutrition, sleep and physical activity, in my online course 'Female Hormonal Health Masterclass' which you can find here, alongside my other online courses. You can find & follow my continuing adventure in needing out on women's health research & education on Instagram @michellelyons_muliebrity

As always, I'd be super grateful if you can subscribe, rate & review the podcast on either Spotify or Apple

Until next time, Onwards & Upwards, Mx #celebratemuliebrity

Welcome to the latest episode of the Celebrate Muliebrity podcast!

In today's episode I have the pleasure of chatting with Surabhi Veitch, an amazing physiotherapist from Toronto

(Before I tell you what we talked about - please note I had an equipment malfunction about 18 minutes in - it gets scratchy just on my end for approx 60 seconds then settles down - if it was just a solo episode I would have redone it but Surabhi gave so many clinical pearls I had to share this!

we talked about:

and so much more! Surabhi shared so much of her own journey which is why she is an amazing communicator and clinician - if you're not already, please follow her on instagram as @thepassionatephysio

Want to learn more about sexual health? There's a whole section on sexual health at menopause in my online Female Hormonal Health Masterclass but also...in November, I'll be releasing my new online course, Female Sexual Health, Contraception & Fertility (it is on pre-sale now and goes to regular pricing when it goes live in November - here's the link where you can find info on all my online courses!

Until next time, take care and don't forget to #celebratemuliebrity Mx