We spend decades preparing for milestones like careers, families, and retirement — but few women are ever truly prepared for menopause. When the symptoms begin, the search for answers often leads to frustration: dismissive doctors, outdated advice, and treatments that overlook the complexity of women’s health in midlife.
That gap is exactly what Courtney Shihabuddin set out to close when she founded Empowered Wellness, a telehealth clinic dedicated to helping women navigate perimenopause, menopause, and the years that follow.
For Courtney, this mission is deeply personal. At just 35, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The treatment triggered a sudden medical menopause, bringing on night sweats, depression, weight gain, and declining sexual wellness. When she turned to her oncologist for relief, she was offered antidepressants — off-label, and not a solution. “The straw that broke the camel’s back,” she recalls, “was when my gynecologist offered vaginal estrogen against my oncologist’s advice. It changed everything for me.”
That moment not only restored her quality of life — it also exposed a troubling truth. Despite years in medicine, Courtney realized she had never been properly educated on menopause management. “OBGYNs receive, on average, just seven hours of menopause training in eight years of medical school,” she says. “Women are suffering because the system doesn’t prepare providers to help them.”
So, she took matters into her own hands.
A Practice Built from Experience
Empowered Wellness was born from both science and empathy. Courtney combines her background as a clinician, her lived experience as a breast-cancer survivor, and her ongoing training in functional medicine to guide women through one of life’s most misunderstood transitions.
Her practice operates completely through telehealth, meeting women where they are — literally. “So many women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond are juggling careers, caregiving, and everything else. Telehealth makes care accessible without adding another obstacle.”
The approach is holistic but medically rigorous. For patients who can’t take estrogen due to hormone-sensitive cancers, Empowered Wellness offers evidence-based non-hormonal therapies to manage symptoms like hot flashes, mood swings, and sleep disruption. For others, hormone therapy — when used appropriately — can provide life-changing benefits.
Rethinking the Hormone Debate
Much of the fear surrounding hormones stems from the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study — a landmark trial that linked hormone therapy to increased breast cancer risk. The study’s findings led millions of women, and their doctors, to abandon treatment overnight.
But the story didn’t end there. Over the years, new analyses have challenged those early conclusions. “The WHI studied women with an average age of 65 using synthetic hormones,” Courtney explains. “That’s not the same as starting bioidentical hormone therapy within ten years of a woman’s last period.”
This “timing hypothesis” — now widely recognized — shows that beginning hormone therapy closer to menopause can actually reduce breast-cancer incidence by up to 60 percent, while also lowering risks of heart disease, dementia, and bone loss.
Despite this, fear still dominates mainstream medicine. “The science has evolved, but education hasn’t caught up,” Courtney says. “That’s why so many women are still told to just ‘tough it out.’”
Beyond Hormones
For patients like Courtney, who can’t use estrogen or progesterone due to past cancer, Empowered Wellness focuses on individualized, non-hormonal solutions — from testosterone therapy for energy and mood, to newer FDA-approved medications targeting vasomotor symptoms like night sweats.
She also educates patients on what’s now known as Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause (GSM) — a less stigmatizing term for vaginal dryness, discomfort, and urinary symptoms. “These are real medical conditions, not just side effects of aging,” she stresses. “And we have ways to treat them safely.”
With dietitian Claire Roche on her care team and an increasing focus on functional medicine, Empowered Wellness integrates nutrition, movement, and lifestyle into every plan. “Longevity isn’t just about adding years,” Courtney says. “It’s about improving the quality of those years.”
A Lifeline for Women Everywhere
Through telehealth, Courtney sees patients across the state, helping women who once believed relief was out of reach. Whether they’re navigating early perimenopause, recovering from cancer treatment, or simply searching for a provider who listens, Empowered Wellness offers both expertise and empathy.
“Science changes every day,” Courtney says. “The problem is that too many clinicians stopped learning 20 years ago. Women deserve better.”
Her words resonate with countless women who have felt dismissed or minimized when voicing their symptoms — told they were “too young,” “too stressed,” or “within normal range.” Empowered Wellness is rewriting that narrative, one patient at a time.
A fairly new term, telehealth is when a medical appointment is taken over a video call. Learn more or schedule a telehealth consultation with Courtney at Empowered-Wellness.com.
“Women don’t have to suffer in silence — relief is possible, and the right education can change everything.”
“I opened Empowered Wellness because I lived this. I know what it’s like to beg for answers and be told there are none. There are answers — and women deserve access to them.”