Dense Breasts, Family History and Your Mammogram: How to Know your Real Risk

In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with breast oncologist Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky, author of Beyond the Pink, to take on the dogma that women with breast cancer — or a family history of it — can never take estrogen. They cover why estrogen does not cause breast cancer, who is and isn’t a candidate for hormones, the script for a dismissive appointment, vaginal estrogen and DHEA for survivors, and the NCCN’s shift on testosterone from “contraindicated” to “use with caution.” Guest links: Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky (Website) https://interludecancerstories.com/ Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky (Instagram) https://www.instagram.com/drteplinsky/ Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky (Substack) https://drteplinsky.substack.com/ Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky (TikTok) https://www.tiktok.com/@drteplinsky Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky (Facebook) https://www.facebook.com/drteplinsky/ Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky (LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/in/eleonora-teplinsky-md-fasco-220aa02 Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/@drteplinsky Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky (X) https://x.com/drteplinsky INTERLUDE: Cancer Stories with Dr. Teplinsky (Apple Podcasts) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/interlude-cancer-stories-with-dr-teplinsky/id1451816690 Living Beyond Breast Cancer https://www.lbbc.org/ Books: “Beyond the Pink,” by Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/dr-eleonora-teplinsky-m-d/beyond-the-pink/9781538777145 “The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://thepauselife.com/pages/the-new-perimenopause-book “The New Menopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKBZ4K1Z Never miss an episode—sign up for The ‘Pause Life Newsletter: https://thepauselife.com/pages/newsletter Medical Disclaimer: The information, including opinions and recommendations, on this platform is meant for informational and educational purposes only. Mary Claire Media, LLC, the unPAUSED podcast, and The ‘Pause Life are not medical organizations. Medical advice or medical diagnosis cannot be provided to you through the platform, any associated website, or customer portals. Using this platform does not establish a patient-physician relationship.

In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver continues her conversation with board certified pelvic floor physical therapist Dr. Sara Reardon, known on social media as The Vagina Whisperer — and this time it’s the toolkit: what you can actually do, starting today, to protect and rebuild your pelvic floor. They begin with pessaries, the internal support devices so few women are offered, why getting one fitted properly is harder than it should be, and the over-the-counter silicone supports that let women run, lift, and travel leak-free while they strengthen. From there they get into the everyday habits that quietly weaken the pelvic floor: pushing when you pee, straining on the toilet, scrolling past the five-minute mark, and holding your breath while lifting — plus hemorrhoids, what healthy stool should look like, and why a simple toilet stool changes everything. They then take a deeper dive into genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM), why nearly three quarters of women with symptoms never mention them to a clinician, and why hormones alone aren’t enough — you lose urinary sphincter strength every year after age 35, so the muscle training has to happen too. Dr. Reardon covers keeping vaginal tissue healthy with or without a partner, what vaginismus is and why “just relax” fails, the woman who endured ten years of searing pain — and surgery to remove her labia — when the real culprit was a compressed pudendal nerve, the $5 billion vaginal rejuvenation industry, her five free daily pelvic floor habits, and the message she wants every woman to hear: it’s never too late, with patients in their 80s and 90s still getting better. Guest links: Dr. Sara Reardon (Instagram) https://www.instagram.com/the.vagina.whisperer/ Dr. Sara Reardon / The Vagina Whisperer (Website) https://thevagwhisperer.com/ NOLA Pelvic Health (Website) https://www.nolapelvichealth.com/ The V-Hive App (The Vagina Whisperer) https://thevagwhisperer.com/membership/ Books: “Floored: A Woman’s Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage,” by Dr. Sara Reardon https://thevagwhisperer.com/floored/ “The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://thepauselife.com/pages/the-new-perimenopause-book “The New Menopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKBZ4K1Z Never miss an episode—sign up for The ‘Pause Life Newsletter: https://thepauselife.com/pages/newsletter Medical Disclaimer: The information, including opinions and recommendations, on this platform is meant for informational and educational purposes only. Mary Claire Media, LLC, the unPAUSED podcast, and The ‘Pause Life are not medical organizations. Medical advice or medical diagnosis cannot be provided to you through the platform, any associated website, or customer portals. Using this platform does not establish a patient-physician relationship.

In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Dr. Sara Reardon, board-certified pelvic floor physical therapist, founder of The Vagina Whisperer, and author of Floored, to talk about the muscles 68% of postmenopausal women say no one ever taught them they had. Nearly 1 in 3 women lives with a pelvic floor disorder — urinary leakage, prolapse, pain with sex — and the US spends over $20 billion a year managing it rather than fixing it, while women are offered a device, surgery, or “just live with it.” Dr. Reardon explains why leaking isn’t just part of being a woman, why diapers aren’t your destiny, and why these symptoms are treatable at every age. Dr. Reardon walks through what happens at a pelvic floor PT appointment (you can self-refer in every US state, covered by insurance), why over 50% of women do Kegels incorrectly — and why Kegels alone were never the answer — the difference between a weak and a too-tight pelvic floor, and stress vs. urge incontinence. They dig into night-time bathroom trips and the fall-and-fracture risk nobody connects to them, why vaginal estrogen should be prescribed proactively — including the study showing it cut recurrent UTIs from 5.9 infections per patient-year to 0.5 — the truth about prolapse (half of women over 50 have some degree of it), what to ask before consenting to any prolapse repair, and the vaginal mesh scandal. Framed throughout by Mary Claire’s own mother’s story: three failed incontinence surgeries, decades of leaking, and the hip fracture after which she never walked again. Guest links: Dr. Sara Reardon / The Vagina Whisperer (Website) https://www.thevagwhisperer.com/ Dr. Sara Reardon (Instagram) https://www.instagram.com/the.vagina.whisperer/ Books: “Floored: A Woman’s Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage,” by Dr. Sara Reardon https://www.thevagwhisperer.com/floored “The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://thepauselife.com/pages/the-new-perimenopause-book “The New Menopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKBZ4K1Z Never miss an episode—sign up for The ‘Pause Life Newsletter: https://thepauselife.com/pages/newsletter Medical Disclaimer: The information, including opinions and recommendations, on this platform is meant for informational and educational purposes only. Mary Claire Media, LLC, the unPAUSED podcast, and The ‘Pause Life are not medical organizations. Medical advice or medical diagnosis cannot be provided to you through the platform, any associated website, or customer portals. Using this platform does not establish a patient-physician relationship.

In this episode of unPAUSED, pulled from the archive because it’s one worth hearing again, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Dr. Rachel Rubin, board-certified urologist, nationally recognized expert in sexual medicine, assistant clinical professor of urology at Georgetown University, and a lead advocate behind the 2025 American Urological Association guidelines on genitourinary syndrome of menopause. The conversation starts with the number that explains everything: three training programs in the last three years even acknowledge women’s sexual health — men have more than 27. The reason your doctor doesn’t know how to talk to you about libido, arousal, orgasm, or pain is that no one ever taught them. Dr. Rubin delivers the anatomy lesson medicine skipped — why the clitoris and penis are the same tissue, why the cervix is triply innervated despite being taught as nerve-free, and why “my orgasm changed after my hysterectomy” is biology, not psychology. They cover why sex should never hurt and pain always deserves a diagnosis, the vulvar vestibule tissue most doctors were never taught to examine, the hormone changes that start in your 30s — not at menopause — and the case Dr. Rubin has built her career on: vaginal estrogen and DHEA prevent more than half of UTIs and could save Medicare an estimated $6–22 billion a year. Plus the medications that quietly affect sexual function, the two FDA-approved drugs for low libido most women have never heard of, and the five hormone options every woman deserves to know are on her menu. Guest links: Dr. Rachel Rubin (Website) https://www.rachelrubinmd.com/ Dr. Rachel Rubin (Instagram) https://www.instagram.com/drrachelrubin/ Dr. Rachel Rubin (X) https://x.com/drrachelrubin Books: “The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://thepauselife.com/pages/the-new-perimenopause-book “The New Menopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKBZ4K1Z Never miss an episode—sign up for The ‘Pause Life Newsletter: https://thepauselife.com/pages/newsletter Medical Disclaimer: The information, including opinions and recommendations, on this platform is meant for informational and educational purposes only. Mary Claire Media, LLC, the unPAUSED podcast, and The ‘Pause Life are not medical organizations. Medical advice or medical diagnosis cannot be provided to you through the platform, any associated website, or customer portals. Using this platform does not establish a patient-physician relationship

In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with entrepreneur Mark Cuban, cofounder of the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, to unpack the estrogen patch shortage and why so many women in perimenopause and menopause struggle to find and afford hormone therapy. Holding up her own patch, Dr. Haver asks the question her patients keep asking: why is this so hard to get? Mark explains why the shortage hit so hard — patches require specialized manufacturing that pills don't, demand surged after the black box warning was removed, and supply couldn't keep up — plus how Cost Plus Drugs has worked to buy every patch manufacturers can produce, and who gets served first when a generic drug runs short. Then they take apart how drug prices are really set: how pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) decide what your insurance covers, how rebates drive list prices higher, and why a handful of conglomerates now own the insurer, the pharmacy, the PBM, and the physician practice all at once. They compare what a generic estradiol patch costs to make against what many women pay at retail, cover Dr. Haver's case for vaginal estrogen as one of the most affordable treatments in menopause care, why there's still no FDA-approved testosterone for women, how untreated symptoms push women out of the workforce, and the playbook for lowering your prescription costs — from 90-day supplies to comparing cash prices with your copay. Guest links: Mark Cuban Companies https://markcubancompanies.com/ Cost Plus Drug Company https://www.costplusdrugs.com/ Mark Cuban (Instagram) https://www.instagram.com/mcuban/ Mark Cuban (X) https://x.com/mcuban Books: "The New Perimenopause," by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://thepauselife.com/pages/the-new-perimenopause-book "The New Menopause," by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKBZ4K1Z Articles: Menopausal Hormone Therapy Use Among Postmenopausal Women (JAMA) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2823976