Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Women see a dramatic increase in sleep apnea.

And I had the incredible Dr. Andrea Matsumura on the podcast, who is a sleep medicine specialist.

And she goes into detail about all of this.

It is so worth your listen, because here's what I learned.

Sleep apnea is massively underdiagnosed in women.

We don't snore as much as men, so it's not recognized, but women are hypoxic.

And, you know, one of the ways we are picking it up is that so many of us are wearing trackers of different types that are tracking our oxygen saturation.

So if you're getting a pattern of low oxygen levels while you sleep, and if you're waking up from sleep, you know, in the middle of the night,

and your blood sugar is fine, you're not having a hot flash, this is consistent, you deserve to be evaluated for sleep apnea because it is so common in women and we are missing it and they are suffering long-term because of it.

Why do urgency and leaks persist despite vaginal estrogen?

Great question.

So why do we leak?

Why do we leak urine?

There's a great question.

So I used to, I explained it to patients that there's anatomic reasons, meaning the anatomy.

So we have our bladder.

So if you're watching me on video, I'm trying to, my handout here is a bladder.

And then we have a urethra with a little tube that comes out, right?

And then like that.

And so when we're young and healthy, we have a sling that goes under the urethra, the tube that drains the bladder is called the urethra.