Resolve IBS and IBD Naturally
This podcast is for you if you are struggling with symptoms of IBS and IBD and want to get to the root cause of your symptoms so you can take back your health through a holistic, whole-person approach.
Resolve IBS and IBD Naturally
Episode 57: The Fibromyalgia-IBS Connection, with Tami Stackelhouse
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Tammy, a coach who specializes in fibromyalgia, shares her personal journey from diagnosis to remission and offers insights on the fibromyalgia-IBS connection. She explains how fibromyalgia acts as an "amplifier" for other pain conditions and describes the four main symptoms that characterize this misunderstood chronic illness.
• Fibromyalgia's primary symptoms include widespread body pain that moves around, unrefreshing sleep, fatigue related to mitochondrial dysfunction, and brain fog
• Many people with fibromyalgia first experienced IBS or digestive issues in childhood or early life
• Chronic antibiotic use in childhood may contribute to later chronic health conditions
• Fibromyalgia diagnosis depends mainly on patient symptom reporting as there's no definitive test
• Women are diagnosed more frequently (6.4%) than men (4%), possibly due to healthcare biases
• Almost all fibromyalgia cases have a trauma trigger – physical, emotional, or stress-related
• Shifting from an antagonistic relationship with your body to one of partnership is essential for healing
• Fibromyalgia can go into remission with proper treatment despite common medical messaging that you must "get used to your new normal"
• Coaching can help identify personalized approaches and provide guidance from someone who understands the condition firsthand
• The Fibro Wellness Summit (fibrowellnesssummit.com) begins October 13th, focusing on navigating holidays with less pain and more joy
ABOUT TAMI:
Tami Stackelhouse is an award-winning author, founder of the International Fibromyalgia Coaching Institute, host of the Fibromyalgia Podcast®, and executive producer of the feature documentary, INVISIBLE. Tami teaches fibromyalgia patients how to take back control of their lives and health using her signature Fibromyalgia Wellness Framework℠ — so they can break free from the prison their bodies have become and begin living lives they love.
Register for Tami’s FREE summit here: FibroWellnessSummit.com
Connect with Tami on Social Media:
FB/IG: @FibroCoach
Follow Tami on her podcast: FibromyalgiaPodcast.com.
Link to a free 30 minute Gut Check Call
Disclaimer: None of the content discussed is meant to be taken as medical advice. All information presented is for educational purposes only and listeners and viewers assume all responsibility around implementing any changes to their health and medical regimen.
Episode Introduction
Speaker 1Welcome to Resolve IBS and IBD. Naturally, I'm Courtney Cowie, a nutrition therapy and functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner. If you are struggling with the symptoms of IBS or IBD and want to get to the root cause of your symptoms so you can take back your health through a whole person approach, this podcast is for you. Just a disclaimer that the information I'm presenting in this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice. You should always consult a qualified practitioner before making any changes to your health or medical regimen. That being said, let's get on with the show.
Speaker 1Well, tammy, I'm really looking forward to our conversation today about fibromyalgia. I know when you and I first connected, we were talking about just the crossover between conditions like IBS and fibromyalgia. So I have a really strong hunch that a lot of people listening to this podcast are struggling with fibro, whether they're diagnosed or not diagnosed. And, as you know, there's just interesting parallels with IBS and fibromyalgia because they kind of fall into that gray area of conditions that aren't really definite diagnostic criteria, right, like there's a lot of these clusters of symptoms, but then people will go into the doctor and often just kind of get left with this diagnosis of exclusion that doesn't really mean anything. So I think you'll be able to bring a lot of interesting insight from the fibromyalgia end. But to start, why don't you talk a little bit about your background, how you got into this work and why fibromyalgia for you?
Speaker 2Oh yes. Well, that last question is the easiest. I got into fibromyalgia because I was diagnosed with it, so that was in 2007.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was married about six months and so, yeah, but way before that, if we go way, way back, ibs is really one of the first things that I struggled with. And I was a kid I, you know, back in the 70s, if I, you know, mentioned my age, we weren't thinking things like that. But if I was a kid now, 100% I would have been diagnosed with IBS. You know, as early as I remember having issues in third grade, fourth grade, yeah, I won't go into all the gory details, but I mean I had. I remember doing the exams where you drink the barium shakes and they watch everything go through, and not just once but a couple of times.
Speaker 2So you know it was, it was pretty bad and I, so that really was my first um, real, I won't say chronic pain, because that I didn't experience pain so much. It was just the not going for me, it was more about constipation and um. That you know, at such a young age, like my parents always joked, they took me to the doctor for maintenance um, because I just always had something that was going wrong and they always had to okay, what's, what is it? This time, you know, um, and then after that, of course, that just like continued throughout my life, but my my first, real chronic pain diagnosis was I was diagnosed with chronic daily headaches and migraines when I was in high school, so so I have a very long history with chronic illness.
Speaker 1Wow. So like thinking back to some of some of this stuff, did you, did you have any intuition once you kind of got into the holistic health spaces to some of the potential things that might've set the stage for, first, the IBS issues and then later, like the chronic pain issues in high school?
Understanding Fibromyalgia Symptoms
Speaker 2Yes, yes, definitely. So the other thing that I had, you know the other maintenance issues. I also had a lot of ear infections and a lot of like. Eventually I had my tonsils taken out, tubes put in my ears, things like that. So there was a lot of antibiotics in my life.
Speaker 1Such a classic thing in the 70s. I'm a child of the 80s. I wasn't far behind you. It was very similar to them too, right?
Speaker 2Yes, yes, and I mean the things that we know now, we didn't know then, and it is what it is, you know for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1But it sounds like your parents at least had some awareness and were willing to recognize something wasn't totally right and take you into the doctor and at least have these checks done. And I mean I feel you, tammy, because I for years too struggled with GI symptoms and even good GI doctors Well, I thought they were good GI doctors like missed things in my situation. I did the barium swallow test as well, and nobody like again and this wasn't that far back, this was probably even as of the 2000s, as an adult at that point still getting kind of workups done Like nobody thought to check me for celiac genes, any of that wheat sensitivity. So yeah, I feel you it's. This is why we need to have this conversation, cause I still feel like as, even though it's progressed and we're at a better place now, just the conventional approach doesn't have the tools and the methods to always have a good framework to understand these things Right.
Speaker 2That's right. That's right. And you know our Western medicine is all very compartmentalized, right. So I saw the neurologist for the headaches, I saw the GI guys for the IBS, I see the fibro people for the fibromyalgia IBS, I see the fibro people for the fibromyalgia, but it's really all connected, yeah, right. And so, without taking that step back and looking at the whole picture and sometimes that takes somebody outside your medical team, you know somebody like you or me that works with our clients in that way to be able to look at the whole picture. Right, it's really necessary for that. And not all doctors have the same education either. Right, like it's something like nine hours of pain education here in the US, I think Canada's maybe 18 hours, but that is all pain, that's not even chronic pain, and then everything else on top of that. So you know our poor primary care doctors.
Speaker 2They get to know this much about a lot of things, and so it's not really their fault either. I don't think you know, it's just partly a product of the situation, right?
Speaker 1Oh for sure I did not know that. Coming from like the nutrition heavy angle, I definitely knew doctors got very little hours in nutritional education, but I did not know about the pain piece. So that's so fascinating. And being a body work therapist as well, I know that you know when people will come to me, not necessarily with fibromyalgia or diagnosed with it at least I do have a few of those but like they'll be. Like, well, if I go to the doctor, what will happen? Well, often it's a PT referral or some sort of pain relief medication, and those are kind of your two options, as you probably know, right, and just not a lot of digging deeper to really understand what might be driving that Right.
Speaker 2That's right, that's exactly right. And you know, fibromyalgia is a complicated thing, right, it tends to. Sometimes it shows up first, but more often it shows up after other things. I think there's you know, this is just Tammy theory, this isn't proven or anything like that but I think there is something that happens to us where there's like this switch that gets flipped and it sort of pushes us over the edge into fibromyalgia. And I know that was for sure my case.
Speaker 2I, you know I told you about some of my childhood, but I also, right before I was diagnosed, I had spent nine years working for a software company. I managed the support department. So the call center, the email support, customer events that we did, all of that went through my department and it was a really stressful job. Nobody called us just to say hi, you know they all called us when they had a problem. So it was.
Speaker 2It was definitely a challenge, and so, coming off of that, I think all of that chronic stress was the thing that flipped the switch and I was diagnosed, like I said, in 2007. And I was actually diagnosed right around the time of the very first fibromedication that was approved. So there weren't a lot of options, and now we actually just had a fourth medication approved just a little while ago. But there are a few more options. There is a little bit more education, but it is still a lot of trying to figure things out, trying to find the people who have the right answers, doing your own research. It still can be a struggle for folks and that's why I do what I do right.
Speaker 1Oh for sure, Tammy. Yeah, and not knowing a lot about the fibromyalgia medications, if they're anything like the autoimmune class of drugs, usually it's modulating and blocking the immune system which temporarily or we could say artificially seems to reduce the symptoms. But there's always a trade-off, right, a negative trade-off to that too, which can, again, if you're a savvy consumer of healthcare, you know that. And then you have to ask yourself that question Am I okay doing this now for the rest of my life? If it even quote unquote, works, right, right.
Diagnosing Fibromyalgia
Speaker 2And when you're talking chronic pain, you're also talking pain medications right, which come with a whole other category of concerns and questions and decisions to make Right.
Speaker 1Absolutely, Tammy. Yeah, what I, what I want to ask you? I was thinking to myself we should probably like make it pretty, pretty obvious to people listening who maybe don't totally understand fibromyalgia what are the potential symptoms of fibromyalgia, right Like just at a very basic level that might tip somebody to think like, wow, this could be actually me struggling with this.
Speaker 2Yes, that is a really good point we should talk about that I was like we back it up here, back it up, rewind.
Speaker 2Yeah, so there are, like there's a whole constellation of things that come with fibromyalgia, but really there are four main symptoms. Widespread body pain is really the hallmark of fibromyalgia, and the thing about fibropain is that it's not associated with any particular damage in your body, so like if you look at an x-ray, you look fine, like all the things right. Also, fibropain moves around, so you might, your legs might hurt one day, your back and your neck might hurt another day, your stomach might hurt. So that is one thing that I think your listeners can think about. If my pain is in my belly, that's one thing, but if that pain starts to move around outside of that, then that could be fibromyalgia.
Speaker 2We also do have unrefreshing sleep, which is a big one. We'll sleep and sleep and sleep and wake up and feel like you never slept at all. So that's a biggie Fatigue, and it's a different kind of fatigue. It's not just being tired. We have a smaller capacity for energy, there's actually some mitochondrial dysfunction. So we're like those old cell phone batteries that you'd charge all night and they might last a few minutes. Right, that's more like us. And then we do also have some cognitive dysfunction or brain fog, and so I think the things to think about.
Coaching Approach to Treatment
Speaker 2Obviously there's a few things that are different there versus IBS and some of those kinds of conditions. But the other aspect of fibromyalgia that I always like to point out to folks is that it is an amplifier. So whatever pain you have, fibromyalgia will take that and turn up the volume. So if you are experiencing gut pain, for instance, fibromyalgia will take that and make everything else hurt and make your gut pain hurt more Interesting. So we have to address the underlying um, we have to address the fibromyalgia, but we also have to address all those other underlying triggers of pain, right? So we can't get fibromyalgia fully managed if we're not also treating the migraines, the IBS, the whatever else is going on.
Speaker 1Yeah, kind of like that's the stomach inflammation, right, right. And then another question I wanted to ask you too, because this is just something I've personally seen working with people, is I don't think I've ever met a man who struggles with fibromyalgia. So, statistically, do you know, like how many men are affected by that condition?
Speaker 2Yeah, so statistically speaking it is something like 6.4% of women and 4 point something percent of men. So it is fewer men than women. But between us and everybody else listening, I think part of what's happening there is guys, don't go to the doctor.
Speaker 1Yeah, right.
Speaker 2If something hurts, they just keep going Right. Like I'm always surprised when my husband is like oh, my gosh, my, my, I can barely lift my arm. I'm like I would have checked that out way before we got to this point, right. So I think a lot of guys don't go to the doctor and I think it is seen as a women's illness, so guys are less likely to be diagnosed, even if they do go right, like they might be diagnosed with lower back pain or something, but not actually get the fibromyalgia diagnosis. So I think there's a few factors there, but statistically speaking it is, at least right now, more women than men being diagnosed.
Speaker 1Oh, very interesting, and I would not have thought about just even like the conventional provider bias on that, because I now that you say that, Tammy, that does strike me as like kind of spot on. Like, when I hear the word fibromyalgia, I automatically picture a woman in my mind. I would rarely, but I'm listening to your list of symptoms, I'm like, wow, that could actually be a number of male clients that I've worked with over time too, which prompted me to ask the question. So this leads to the next question how do doctors actually diagnose fibromyalgia?
Speaker 2if at all right.
Speaker 1Or is it kind of like IBS, where it's a diagnosis of exclusion?
Speaker 2It has its own diagnostic criteria, so it's not 100% a diagnosis of exclusion, but there also isn't a definitive diagnostic that says you have fibromyalgia, like there isn't a blood test. They can see things on stuff like functional MRIs, but that's not something that's used in a clinic, right. So we don't really have an external objective measuring. Yes, you have fibromyalgia. So there are a lot of other things that we do have to exclude, right, because those symptoms can be so many things. So we do want to rule out. You know, is this not just your thyroid? Is this not just a sleeping problem? Is this not just a magnesium deficiency or you know, whatever it might be? We do have to look at those things and you can have fibromyalgia and other stuff. So somebody you know goes through those diagnostics and discover oh yes, you do have lupus. You can have lupus and fibromyalgia, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, so interesting, so like yeah, and just even to thinking back on, like when I've come across people with fibromyalgia and even things like rheumatoid arthritis I think there can be quite a bit of crossover to like lupus as well, because there's a degree of pain with that. So when you've seen clients that are coming in and let's say they've got maybe two or three of these different diagnoses plus fibromyalgia, like where would you start? How would you approach that?
Speaker 2Right. Right, because it can be a bit of a mess. So, yeah, if people get a fibromyalgia diagnosis, that's usually based on patient reporting of symptoms. We do take into consideration what you've been diagnosed with, what you haven't, what came back negative. We also look at certain places in your body where you have pain. So we look at all of that and then when somebody comes to me as a coach and they like, hey, here's my list of diagnoses. My best friend calls them the evil sidekicks and I don't know. She added up once that she had I was like 30 some odd evil sidekicks with their fibromyalgia and we kind of I don't know.
Speaker 2There's lots of ways you can approach this as a coach. I think the best way for most people is to pick the low hanging fruit right, like let's start getting some wins, because so often we feel like we can't do things because we've had all these roadblocks, we've had these challenges. So I like to start my clients off with you know the simple, easy things that can help you feel better and feel like, oh, maybe I can do something right. Sometimes that might be treating another condition, like if somebody comes to me and they're really, really struggling, they have been diagnosed with migraine and they have them all the time. There are lots of good treatments out there for migraine. I might start actually there, because if we can bring that down that helps everything right, because fibro is an amplifier Sometimes like this actually just happened last week I might have somebody that is maybe not quite on the right dose of a medication.
Speaker 2So last week the situation was somebody was on Lyrica, which is one of the FDA approved fibromeds, but she was still on the ramp up dose, like the starting dose. She had never been moved to the actual therapeutic dose.
Speaker 1Ah, gotcha.
Speaker 2Right. So that was the first thing for her was hey, you know you need to talk to your doctor and see, is there a reason? I mean, I'm not a doctor, I can't tell you to not take your meds, but you can have that conversation and say, hey, is there a reason? You have me on this dose? The therapeutic dose for fibromyalgia is actually this, which was double what she was taking. So you know the simple changes like that. Sometimes I'll look at things like what's going to give us the biggest bang for the buck, right, is there one thing that will maybe help a bunch of stuff?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Right. It just kind of depends on the client what their biggest challenges, what their, what their goals are, what they want to accomplish, what's important to them, and really go after those things. My perspective is that fibromyalgia is not really the problem. The problem is you not being able to live the life you want. So how do we make that happen? Which usually means we need to make your fibro better, right. But there's lots of ways to get you back to living your life that don't require you know a prescription or a doctor or a specific treatment or a you know.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely, tammy.
Speaker 1And like what I hear you say, which is so awesome and this is kind of the beauty of the coaching element that you know can be so vital to helping very multifaceted conditions like this with the brain fog and the energy challenges is that just having somebody who can, with a lot of experience and understanding, take a look at the whole picture and then be your advocate, help you advocate for what might be the first best step or, you know, make sense of all of the information that you're bringing in the door, which is just helping you decide.
Speaker 1Okay, what is the best thing to do here, along with just making decisions based on energy efficiency and economy of energy, because I'm sure, like I get this even in my practice with IBS and IBD because they can be so depleting, right, those conditions it's like sometimes people are really motivated to make all these changes, but we have to consider, like what is your energy available right now? And, realistically, like what can you do? You might want to be eating a whole foods diet 80%, but if you're only at 10 or 20% right now and the thought of chopping vegetables for 30 minutes makes you want to pass out, that maybe isn't the place to start right.
Speaker 2Exactly exactly so much. Yes, I will say that it is more often that I tell clients to do less than telling them to do more, because, you know, especially if somebody gets to the point where they've hired a coach, they're they're ready and willing to do the work Right, and so they want to go from that 10, 20% to 80%, and you know, we, as the coaches, are the ones who are like let's maybe go for 25.
Speaker 1Right yeah.
Trauma and Fibromyalgia Connection
Speaker 2Right, cause we want it to be doable, we want it to be sustainable. You know, I think I think that's the difference, maybe, to uh talking with a coach versus talking with your doctor, right? Your doctor might say I want you to go gluten-free, read all the labels, do all the things, like immediately, right now, go gluten-free, and there may be times where you need to do that. Right, if you've been diagnosed celiac, you know you don't want to mess around, but maybe for other people, the best way is let's cut out the big things, let's cut out the bread, let's cut out the pasta. Then maybe, down the road, we start reading salad dressing labels, right, because we want you to succeed at doing it. And if you have to start reading all the labels, what are the chances you're actually going to do it?
Speaker 1Yeah, so true, so true.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's so spot on, and I think we can harp on this a little bit more for a second Tammy.
Speaker 1But I feel like sometimes in my world, because I do functional testing with my clients, they come in super excited and motivated about that and it is fun.
Speaker 1I love running tests, they're great, they can give us awesome information.
Speaker 1But the part of the work we do that I feel is consistently the most underrated and potentially underappreciated is the coaching skills, because you can run all the amazing testing and get all of the root cause data points that explain everything you've got going on, but that doesn't, in and of itself, give you a process that's going to get you from like point A to point B, which is where you want to be, where you're, like you said, living the life you want to having the skills, having the behaviors and habits that are sustaining this level of health. And that is probably one of the hardest processes, I would say, arguably, to help get a person it is and it isn't right Like I think, just figuring out where our own mental and emotional and habitual roadblocks are and having this person advocating and helping to guide us and get us to sort of see what is it we can do and what do we want for ourselves. That is really where, like, the secret sauce is, in my opinion. I would love to hear you talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2Yes, oh, I totally agree. I totally agree. You know, I think of my job as a coach like being the guide that maybe helps you climb Mount Everest. Right, I'm going to tell you, no, we want to go this way. No, we need to rest right now, like I'm the person who's walking beside you, helping you get to where you want to go. And I've been there before, yeah, right, and I feel like sometimes our doctors are maybe I don't know, maybe the travel agent who helped you book the trip Like, yes, they're helping you get where you want to go, but they're not walking beside you.
Speaker 2They sometimes haven't even walked the road themselves. Right, a lot of our providers have never dealt with the things that we're struggling with, and I think that makes such a difference. But, yeah, I and you know, as a coach, I have a coach because we can't see our own stuff. You know, it just gets we're, we're stuck in the weeds, right, and we just can't see our own stuff, and we just need that outside perspective to say, oh, did you look at this, did you try this? Or oh, you know, maybe you're tired right now because you got your flu shot and you are trying to change your sleep schedule and you increased your, your activity all at the same time.
Speaker 1That was me last week your activity all at the same time? That was me last week, right, exactly, exactly, yeah, so do you find? I'm just curious about this because I know in my world with like the IBS, ibd stuff, there often is a very strong I hesitate to say mental, emotional, because it makes it sound psychosomatic. And it's not that, tammy, but I would say there's a lot of just potentially repressed or suppressed or unconscious either life events or experiences or relationship issues that people struggling with IBS and IBD have had that are very much through the nervous system, impacting their gut function as like a theme. And so I know anytime someone presents with that stuff I'm going to have to at least evaluate on some level and give them some tools to work with whether they really glom onto that or not as kind of like individual to individual. But like I'm curious about fibromyalgia, do you see certain patterns of like lifestyle factors or mindsets or that type of thing in that general population?
Speaker 2Yes, definitely so. Fibromyalgia almost always has some kind of a trauma trigger, and that could be anything from physical trauma, like a car accident or an illness, a fall, those kinds of things, to an emotional, mental, that sort of trauma, right, like abuse or my case I think it was that stressful job, right, that's its own kind of trauma. So there, there almost always is a trauma. So the question then becomes how much of that is still sticking around, right, especially that mental, emotional part of it, right, you maybe are in a car accident, your body heals from the car accident, but there's still stuff going on. And maybe you've addressed the physical side of the trauma but you haven't addressed the mental, emotional, nervous system side of the trauma. And I think it's important to to remember that that trauma is what your body thinks it is Right. So sometimes I see people coming to me and it seems like it's such a small thing. You know that it didn't really bother them, it didn't doesn't really bother anybody else, and yet that was still something that that flipped that switch right and sent their body over into fibromyalgia and seeing everything as pain. So I think we do have to evaluate that. Not that fibromyalgia is a psychosomatic illness. Like you said, it's a real physical illness with real things going wrong in your body, and our brains are powerful how we think about our bodies, how we think about our illness. We sometimes just take a bad thing and make it worse. Yes, you might be in constant pain because you have a chronic pain condition, but then we add on to that all the extra drama, right, what does it mean to be in pain? What does it mean to not be the mom I want to be? What does it mean that I have to keep canceling things? You know, what is it going to mean for the rest of my life to have this, right, like we keep piling on all this stuff and it just it jacks up our nervous systems and it makes it so that we can't get out of fight or flight, jacks up our nervous systems and it makes it so that we can't get out of fight or flight. You know, even if you set aside all the mental trauma maybe talk to a, you know, psychologist kind of subject, right, if we set that aside, physiologically we still have a jacked up nervous system, right, that needs to get back out of fight or flight and our, our stress about our fibromyalgia or even sometimes our stress, about our stress, right.
Speaker 2There was actually a study done where they looked at a whole bunch of people I forget it was like in the 100,000. It was. It was a big study and they found that the people who had the population group that had the most deaths were the people that thought stress was bad, and it was a higher number than the people who actually had worse stress than them. Wow, right. So it's our thoughts about our illness, about our bodies, about our life situation keep our nervous system jacked up and we need to calm that back down, right. So I think it's something everybody needs to look at, and some people it's a bigger piece of the pie than others. You know, I've had a lot of clients who have said this. You know the the missing piece for me was seeing my, my fibromyalgia in the context of my trauma, and for other people it was like, oh yeah, that's right, I have to make sure I do my stress reduction practices and that's the end of it, right. So it just really varies, but absolutely it's a big piece of this.
Speaker 1Yeah, I love so much of what you just said there and I've heard it said too, like when you mentioned kind of just like, is it just this little thing that I'm maybe having an overt stress reaction to that a normal person wouldn't have? But it's you really. What I've found is you can't, you can't compare almost right Like in and just my own experience with going through different types of, like trauma therapies or, you know, like nervous system support methods, right, what I've come to understand is that, like a lot of where some of these like life experiences that we consider adverse or stressful, that are stuck in the body, it's almost like that part of you frozen in time, and so I think a big piece of it is being able to go back sort of in that space and time to yourself at that given age and offer that compassion and be like maybe as an adult looking back, I don't see that as being a big deal in the context of things, but to that child or to that individual at that point in time, that was actually a problem. You know that was a problem. Some boundary got violated, something happened that activated the nervous system in a big way and now the body's basically recorded that and that's that sort of memory that we have to process fully and get out of the system.
Speaker 1And I think, too, just what you were saying at the end there, tammy, about just so much of just mindset and perspective all the way down to like the conditioning that we've received.
Speaker 1Right Like a lot of us, I think sometimes don't even feel like we've gone through big stressors per se right Like, but what's so normal to me might be really not normal to somebody else, and that's where our own framework and context is important and I know, just as I've had to go through my own healing journey with IBS and IBD it's like really sort of understanding in a new light, like some of my own thinking patterns that I just took it like face value, normal would be considered pretty critical and harsh by someone else Maybe who doesn't think that way.
Speaker 1Right, it's just a very enlightening journey to like inevitably opens up that potential for you to explore yourself in a new way, which is maybe the hidden gift in having a challenge whether it's fibromyalgia or IBS is like you have to kind of go through these layers of like rediscovering and almost reinventing yourself as you go through this healing process because, I would argue. To improve that condition holistically you do have to change your own relationship with yourself and your own expression of yourself on some level. Right, it has to evolve in some way.
Shifting Your Relationship With Your Body
Speaker 2Absolutely, absolutely. I know, when I was fairly newly diagnosed, I mean, I shared a little bit about my history growing up in a body that didn't quite work right. And I remember in high school, even like I was, I was praying, talking to God and I'm like, hey, you know, if my body was a car, I would have qualified for the lemon law by now. You know like this thing is broken, it doesn't work right, you know. And so I kind of had developed this attitude where there was me, like the real me inside and I'm stuck in this body that just doesn't work right. And so it was very much a me versus my body attitude, right, and there's. Things really didn't shift for me. Until that got fixed, that's honestly thanks to my husband.
Speaker 2I was doing like we girls do, saying bad things about my body. He looked at me. We were still really newly married. He looked at me and he said you know, every time you say stuff like that, you're really putting me down. What the heck? This doesn't have anything to do with you, what are you talking about? And he's like I think you're beautiful, I chose you, and every time you say things like that, you're basically calling me a liar.
Speaker 1Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 2Like that was the moment, that was an absolute gift and, yeah, that that shifted it for me, you know, because I really started to think, whoa, hey, you know it was. It was like a slap in the face kind of you know, like let's rethink this and really realizing that, you know, our bodies are amazing, right, they're designed to heal themselves, right. And so what I was doing was that that antagonistic relationship with my body was really keeping my body from being able to do that right, because I sort of treated it like the donkey that was misbehaving, right and just sort of, you know, beating it into submission kind of thing, right. So I'd stay up, not get enough sleep, not eat the right things, even though I knew it was going to make me sick, like all the things right. And then just realizing, oh yeah, no wonder my body isn't like supporting me the way I want her to, because look at how I'm treating her and if I can start that shift of my body and I want the same thing, we're on the same team, right. I want to feel better, my body is made to heal. Let me support her in that.
Speaker 2And that really was a massive turning point for me and I think you're 100% right. I think that there is a point where we can only go so far until we heal that relationship, because it's it's the foundation for everything we do, right, whether or not I eat what I'm supposed to eat, go to bed when I'm supposed to go to bed, you know, take my supplements, my medications, stop and rest when my body is screaming for it. Right, like it's that relationship with our bodies that that fuels all of that.
Speaker 1Yeah, so true, so well said, tammy. Yeah, I've really kind of reached that same conclusion as well, and I think you could pick any chronic inflammatory disorder and kind of really just sit and contemplate, like the way that the disease is showing up in the body right and in nine times out of ten it's some degree of self-attack or lack of self-acceptance on some level. I mean especially digestion right, like if you literally can't process your food, you know, to what you just said. It's like if inside of your head there's a lot of self attack or criticism or negativity, you could be eating the most clean, organic, nutrient, dense, whole foods diet and the vessel that's trying to actually process that and break it down is is constantly, you know, in the state of like I'm not being loved, I'm not being appreciated, right, like good luck, right, you're fighting an uphill battle and I mean we make it sound so simple using these analogies. It's really not. It can be life. I personally think it's lifelong work, like you're always getting better at it, and it's kind of two steps forward and one step back, because truly, I think for a lot of us, a lot of this wiring was set early in life, which then makes it very ingrained in the brain and kind of this.
Speaker 1This ongoing being coaching is this type of process too. Like you can never really get to this place of completion, which is why you said you have your own coach right, why I also have my own coach, why it's always good for all of us to be on a path of of you know, utilizing other resources and other supports and other people to help guide us, because there's always going to be those blind spots and I think it really like gives it context to think about, like you know doing all the physical supports are fine and good, but it definitely needs to be this whole person support process where you're looking at all the factors, lifestyle, mindset, all of it. Right, I couldn't even go for a walk without planning my bathroom breaks. If you have IBSD or IBD and feel trapped by your gut, you're not alone. I used to plan my life around bathroom breaks until I found a three-step solution that finally worked To get my free guide IBSD and IBD relief. A three-step solution to end bowel urgency and loose stool. Click the link in the show notes below.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, and I think this can be a really slippery slope, because it's not that far from what we're talking about to saying that your illness is your fault. Yeah, and that's not what we're saying here at all. But but how you think and how you treat yourself is an impact. Right, it would be the same if you I don't know if you lived in an abusive household, right? Maybe? Maybe the house up here is abusive, right?
Speaker 1Right, right, right, exactly. Yeah, exactly, Tammy, and I think it can help sometimes to say that you know, if you think of it like being almost conditioned, right, like as a child, children are just sponges and they, they sort of take their world at face value and they're not necessarily going through their life as like, well, you know, how mom and dad talk about themselves Isn't very loving. You know, like children don't have those thoughts, it just kind of imprints, and so I, I I would never say and I know you agree with this too Like it's never this conscious decision Any of us make to say like, oh well, I'm going to purposefully like create the conditions in my body to get ill. I think it's really kind of a bunch of things plus this like relationship that unfortunately gets wired into us, that unfortunately doesn't have often a great healthy model to it. That is just like one of the biggest kind of pillars in this foundation that cracks when everything falls apart.
Speaker 1And so once you become conscious of it, that's when you can actually take the responsibility anew. Because you've now got that awareness, it's like, oh my God, like this, this whole component I wasn't aware of, like I need to be aware of this now and, like start to actually work on this, and that's great, because I mean, ultimately, the work we do we're really trying to inspire and empower people that they have a lot more control over how their health is than what the conventional system would lead them to believe. Rather than being told you have to be on a med, you have to just accept this now as your destiny. It's like, really do I, though, because epigenetics really shows us that there's a lot of things we do have control over that can really, you know, impact in a big way how the body functions right.
Hope for Remission
Speaker 2Oh, absolutely Absolutely. And fibromyalgia is very much like that. You know we, when we are diagnosed, most of us hear things like get used to your new normal, right, there's no cure, but you know we can help you manage it. And it's true there is no cure for fibromyalgia, but it can be managed to the point Like I haven't had any fibromyalgia symptoms since 2018, I think right, no body pain. I have the energy to do what I want to do. I don't have brain fog Like all of those things. I can live the life that I want to live. My fibromyalgia is in remission. We're not told that's possible.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly yeah, and it's interesting and there's probably a lot of reasons why that's the case, tammy. I mean, I think a lot of it gets back to just how the medical paradigm is constructed. Doctors don't have time to sit down and teach people skills to reverse their symptoms Right, and there's a lot of incentive in keeping people on medications for a long period of time right. There's a lot of factors that go into that and I think there's also some degree of just protection and buffering that like I don't want to paint this picture of hope and possibility, because what if you don't get there? Are you going to come back and hold me, the doctor like liable for that or whatever? Right, like there could be a lot of things going on there.
Speaker 1But the potential is there and, like you said, I've seen it too. I've seen it with so many different conditions where you know and it does sometimes take quite a bit of work and quite a bit of learning, and you know guidance and one step at a time, you know walking, walking the path, but, like, I think, if you're, if you're in that place where you're really starting to question, gosh, is this really the life that I'm going to have now for the next 40 years, 50 years, however old, you are right, and am I really going to have to be stuck on this medication? It's only really working 50% anyhow. Like this, this really should open the door to really start to think about what is possible, because, absolutely, tammy, there's so many people that are able to reverse their condition and or even if they get 50% better and they can function 50% better, right, like that's amazing in my right, yeah, right, because that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2Right, being able to live your life. And you know, I I have the privilege of being able to talk to medical students a couple times a year. I'm usually part of a patient panel at Oregon Health and Science University and when I go, the main things that are in my heart that I want to get across to our you know, next generation doctors is that, first of all, listen to us, believe us If we tell you something like trust us, we know our body's better than you. You know, do that and remember that every conversation you have is is not about the pain, it's not about the symptoms. It's about my ability to live my life.
Speaker 2So if you're telling me we need to reduce my opioid medication because of the risks, you need to understand that what I'm hearing is that's reducing my ability to live my life, exactly Right. So we need to, we need to shift that thinking and that paradigm and and start thinking more about um. It's about quality of life, right, and sometimes that means reduction of pain, reduction of symptoms, but sometimes that just means learning new ways to do life right, right, reframing your expectations, and I mean there's no right way to do it.
Speaker 1Like you said, like it's it's.
Speaker 1I think there's so many variables and you know, as I'm hitting my midlife stride, it's like, even if you know I was feeling 10 years younger than I am.
Speaker 1I mean, the truth is I'm getting older too, so I think you know a lot of it plays into it. Like you know, all of us, even if we're healthy, we age and we lose some degree of function and capacity, and I think half the battle with any chronic condition is how much function can I get back and what's realistic and reasonable for what I want to be doing in my life at any given stage of life too right, and I think that's just part of the process of like, aging through life is you're going to not be able to do necessarily what you did in your twenties or your thirties if you're an older person, and that's where coaching can be very, very helpful too. It's just getting clear on, like you know, great, you have these goals and do we need to maybe look at are some of these like realistic for like, even in best case scenario, like where, where you could land right.
Speaker 2Right, right. And I think, when we have these chronic health conditions that have maybe been going on for decades, right, sometimes we think back to I wish I could get back to the way I was before, but we forget that age piece of it, right. I mean, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia at 35. I was diagnosed with migraine at, I think, 17,. Maybe I am never going to go back and be like I was before I was diagnosed with migraines, like I'm never going to be a teenager again, right, and so we need to. We need to keep that aging piece in mind, because we're never going to be able to turn back time. We might be able to, you know, get your chronic illness in remission, even right, but we can't make you younger.
Speaker 1Right, right, right, so true, so true. And I know, as, like a former hardcore athlete, I don't really have any, like you know, dreams of doing that anymore, but you know I still enjoy exercise and sometimes I'm like, wow, like I've really lost capacity, like since I was in my twenties, but then I'm like, well, maybe that's kind of normal though too. So I think part of it is even like energy output and all of that. Like you know, as you age, your body isn't going to have this like crazy reserve of energy healthy or ill, right, like, if you're ill, you have to adjust it even more. But yeah, all of that just starts to kind of like change and it's, it's the process, and you can still have a great life. But part of that greatness is also giving yourself, I think, more rest, more recuperation, just more grace to not have such high expectations for output and getting things done as well.
Speaker 2Right, absolutely, absolutely. And you know, the older I get to, the more I realized that I have may have limits on my capacity because of whatever health reason, right, but the other mid 50 year olds out there, they probably have limitations on what they can do to like, maybe they got bad knees, maybe they're starting to get arthritis, maybe you know, I mean there's we, the older you get, the more everybody's got limitations. That's it Right, and so I it's. It's comforting to me and I try to remind my clients of that that you know you might need to sit down and rest, but there's somebody else out there probably does too.
Speaker 1Totally, totally, totally. It's kind of like the aging sort of levels of playing field a little bit right. And whether you've got a diagnosis of fibromyalgia or IBS or whatever it is, just as you get older your average peer group is going to be struggling with something, even if they're not diagnosed with anything, and so I think that can be comforting. Like you said, you don't feel like you're as much that only person in your family or your peer group that's struggling with this condition that nobody else has or understands. Right, right, right. Well, is there anything else about fibromyalgia that you feel people don't necessarily understand or is often misunderstood?
Speaker 2that's going to become, and there are a lot of things that can be done to treat and manage fibromyalgia. So if you have fibro and you are really struggling and your doctor doesn't know what to do with you, I'm not surprised. But there are people out there who do right. So you may have. You may think you've tried everything, but you've just tried everything you know to try. You've tried everything. Maybe your doctor knows to try, but there are absolutely answers out there. This is a real physical condition with real things going wrong with your body that we actually have to work on and there are a lot of things within your control too that that you can tweak and change. And talking to somebody who's been there done that can be super, super helpful with that. So I think those are really like the main things about fibromyalgia that you know. I want people to know this is real. We really can do stuff. You don't have to live the way you are. You can get better.
Speaker 1So good, so good. I love that, yeah, and I second that 100% based on what I've seen and I don't work directly with fibromyalgia, but certainly other chronic inflammatory disorders. That's just so spot on. And yeah, commonly people will say like I've tried everything.
Speaker 2Well, you probably haven't actually so I promise you, I have never had a client yet. Tell me. Oh yeah, I tried everything that you've said.
Upcoming Fibro Wellness Summit
Speaker 1There's always something 100%, 100%, which is why it's like having that person who can, who can be just a few steps ahead of you, who's got a lot of experience and expertise in that area, really can be the game changer, I think. Well, tammy, I know you have a summit coming up very soon, so I'd like you to share a little bit about that, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2So we had done our first summit back in January and had so much fun that we are crazy enough to do it again, and we thought we would do this year's in October so that we could help you prepare for the holidays. So our focus is really on helping you navigate the holidays with less pain and more joy. So to help you give yourself more grace, some practical tips on like how to navigate food choices at the holidays or managing your energy. When there's all these things going on, how do you be the mom you want to be and still not end up in a horrible flare because of it? So those are our topics. So it is free to join the summit. We do have a VIP upgrade with some extra goodies if people are interested in that.
Speaker 2But our first, our kickoff, our very first day, is October 13th. It is me and seven of my coaches. So it's real fibro people who have actually found ways to feel better, sharing with you what they know. So this isn't a bunch of talking heads. These are real people who have really gotten better and can you know, help, help, guide you with that. We just have one speaker a day, monday through Friday for two weeks, so we've got 10 talks and we would love to have you guys join us. The URL to register is just fibrowellnesssummitcom. Just make sure you get three S's in the middle. It's kind of weird, fibrowellnesssummitcom. When you type it out, it looks really weird.
Speaker 1Now that you say that, I'm like oh yeah, that is three S's. Well, I will put it in the show notes so it's linkable, and that way people watching the episode can go ahead and register. And I mean, I might just suggest, even if you don't have fibromyalgia, because trying to navigate the holidays, any chronic illness you're probably going to pick up some great tips.
Speaker 2Just participating and listening in.
Speaker 1So and I love the fact that you're doing such a focused talk per day. I think that's amazing, tammy, because having been on some summits, I mean they've all been great experiences. But sometimes I think it can get a little bit overwhelming with multiple people all on a panel sharing information and I can't imagine from the recipient standpoint trying to like, okay, now who said what? And like, you know what I mean. So I love your setup. That sounds amazing.
Speaker 2Yes, yes, that was really one of our our big considerations going in, like, we're fibro people. We know you're fibro people, right? And so how do we make that doable for a fibro person, right? So we've got recordings for you. The recordings are available for a couple of weeks. There's just a lot of things, one speaker trying to keep it, you know, 45 minutes or less. We even are doing it as a private podcast. So you know we're recording a podcast right here. So if you're listening to this, you are a podcast person. You can actually get the summit delivered straight to your favorite podcast app.
Speaker 1Oh, that's amazing. That would be like so convenient People could just put that on when they're driving or out walking with dogs or whatever.
Speaker 2That's right.
Speaker 1That's how I consume all content, even books, nowadays, because it's just so much easier and I have more time when I'm on the go to get that content in than being a busy, you know business person mom and all that.
Speaker 2Just like a lot of your people are so Right. You can't be stuck at your computer watching you know whatever's happening. It doesn't always work that way and our brains. Fibro brains don't always work according to somebody else's schedule Right, so we've tried to make it as easy as possible and accessible as possible.
Speaker 1Oh, that's great. That's such a super idea. I love that so well, good. Well, I will post that information in the soap notes so everybody will be able to access that, and it has been such a pleasure having you on, tammy. I love the insight and the experience and wisdom you brought on fibromyalgia Certainly not a topic that I've gotten to dive into, so I'm super happy we got to have this conversation today.
Speaker 2Yes, me too, and we'll have to have you on the fibromyalgia podcast to flip the roles there.
Speaker 1I would love that. I look forward to that. Did you find this episode informative and helpful? I'd love to have you leave me a five-star rating. Do you have questions about holistic approaches to optimizing gut health that you'd like to ask? Thank you,