EmpowHER Founder Michelle King Robson tells the story of her personal health struggles and how that led to creation of the women's health Web site EmpowHER.com.
Hi, I'm Michelle King Robson, the founder of EmpowHER.com.
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 9 different doctors and multiple 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, and I feel blessed that it has already helped millions of women all over the world learn to advocate for their own health, and to support each other. The site provides women with exceptional medical resources as well as a community to share our individual stories so women can stop suffering in silence.
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After watching your video message it really inspire me and give an extra energy to do some thing like you , you are such a motivational person for the young generation and for those as well who faces the same pain which you felt in past .
I really thanks you, that you just not only came out from that worse situation but also provide a hope of bright light for others as well
April 7, 2016 - 2:23amThis Comment
thank you. we all really needed someone like you to think of us all, and have enough gumption to develop a site such as this. at least, for nothing else, to be able to read similar histories and to be able to verbalize and share some of the frustrations and issues we are being forced to deal with since this thing called illness broke into our homes and took over our lives. i would like to offer a suggestion. the thing i have always said i needed most and wished i could find, still unsuccessfully... real, live, physically present advocates. i swear i wish i had a body gaurd with me everytime i must go through the trauma of another doctors appointment. i have read that there is documented evidence that people who must deal with an incident of desease alone are not as well cared for, are more likely to have medical benefits taken advantage of, and are less likely to be able to gain an accurate diagnosis and appropriate medical treatment than people who give an appearance of having people (usually family) who are going to be paying attention to every part of the medical experience of thier loved one and wont be too sick to question things that should be questioned or argued. noone should go to a medical appointment alone. thank you. i hope you have been fortunate enough to have made a full recovery.
October 21, 2014 - 9:35amThis Comment