Delia Quigley: STORIES

Chronic Disease: The New Normal

• Delia Quigley • Season 2 • Episode 5

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In this episode, we push back on the idea that chronic disease is “normal” and explore how food, movement, and mindset can shift outcomes. Andrea shares healing choices after a thyroid diagnosis, Alex opens up about fibromyalgia and symptom management, and Gina maps a prevention-first approach with nutrition and community.

• the cultural normalization of sickness and the medical revolving door
• sugar-heavy food culture as a driver of inflammation and disease
• Andrea’s non-pharmaceutical path after a thyroid diagnosis
• living with fibromyalgia, flares, and symptom-by-symptom care
• nutrition, goal setting, and functional lab insights with Gina
• group accountability, yoga, meditation, and meal prep routines
• Delia’s injury, arthritis, surgery, and dietary triggers like sugar
• building agency through daily habits and compassionate self-care

Visit deliaquigley.substack.com to discover more.

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SPEAKER_02:

We live in a world where chronic disease is considered normal. It's normal for your aunt to get breast cancer. It's normal for one out of two people to have heart disease. It's normal to have debilitating conditions. It's normal to be sick.

SPEAKER_03:

Welcome to Stories. I'm your host, Delia Quigley. And yes, I'm still interviewing myself. And I'm interviewing many wise women sharing their life experiences with all of you. Today we dive into a trend that feels all too familiar. The idea that chronic disease has become the new normal. You may have heard statements like, it's normal to develop a chronic condition. Perhaps even cancer. Perhaps even beyond medication your entire life. But what if we stopped accepting this as inevitable and asked the question, why is this happening? And what the hell can we do about it? So this is not a blame or shame episode, nor do I want to get bogged down in statistics. Instead, we'll hear real-life stories from Andrea Beaman, who healed her own thyroid disease, and Gina Sorbonne who's a clinical nutritionist with a focus on prevention through food and lifestyle. We're also going to hear from a young woman living with the pain of chronic fibromyalgia. So together we're going to explore what's really running this new normal and how you might reclaim your health and your body as an expression of your innate wisdom rather than a lifetime of medical dependency. So, Delia, yeah, what this is a huge topic, and one rife with controversy. I know, but I couldn't resist. Come on, let's take a look at some of the numbers. In the US, approximately 76.4% of adults now report having at least one chronic condition. I mean, that's huge. Many of the familiar diseases dominate the list. The usual suspects. So they become normal. Obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, chronic kidney disease, cancer, heart and cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, known as COPD, for those of you still dangling a cigarette from your fingers. All right, Dewey, remember what you said. This is not a shame or blame episode. I know, but the numbers, the figures are just stunning. We're seeing younger onset and rising prevalence of conditions such as arthritis, thyroid disorders, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease. I mean diseases that 20 years ago were less common or less commonly diagnosed.

SPEAKER_02:

We live in a society where they have set it up that it's normal to be sick and you have to go to your doctor to find out what new sickness you have. And when they find out what new sickness you have, then they can either put you on a medication or put you in for surgery, but they put you into the revolving door of our modern medical establishment, which is anything but normal. So I'll give you some fun examples. I went to a barbecue party over the summer, and someone was telling me about the dessert that he brought to the barbecue. And he said, Yeah, on the bottom layer I put crushed uh pretzels, and then on top of that I put peanut butter, and then on top of that I put pudding, and then there was a layer of whipped cream, and then there was another layer of pretzels, and then on top of that layer I put cool whip, and then I put chocolate chips, and he was telling me about all this layers of sugar, sugar on top of sugar on top of junk, on top of junk that he put into this dish that he was bringing or that he brought to the party. And I started to laugh, and he's like shocked that I was laughing. He's like, I saw this on Facebook. This is a very popular recipe on Facebook. And all I think, all I kept thinking to myself was, this is a recipe for diabetes, and this is normalized. The way that people are eating is normalized, and that way of how people are eating is sending them to the doctor looking for the disease that they're gonna get. It's a crazy, crazy situation that we've created. And and when I say we, I don't mean you and I. I mean that for whatever reason, the powers that be have set up this system so that our food is designed to make us sick. The recipes that they put into the world are designed to make us sick. We are expected to eat that like there's no questioning, of course, that's the greatest dessert that ever came to the party. Everybody dig in. It's crazy to me. Completely crazy. I remember when I was first diagnosed with my disease, right? The the thing that was supposed to be normal, right? I I was having heart palpitations, I wasn't feeling good, my immune system was crashing, my weight was fluctuating all over the place, and I go to the doctor for my annual physical, which by the way, I haven't been for an annual physical in about 20 years. But at that time, I was inside that system of searching for disease. So I go to the doctor with all of these different things going on, and the doctor says, Well, you have thyroid disease. And I said, Okay, well, uh what can I do? Well, the doctor says, You can take this radioactive iodine and then you could be on this medication for the rest of your life. And I said, I don't want to take radioactive anything. Why would I take radioactive anything and then be on a medication for the rest of my life? That doesn't make any sense. But that was the normal protocol for someone that was considered sick, that there is no other option. You take the medication, you're put into the system, this revolving door system that keeps you sick, never looking for the root cause because the whole system is set up for chronic sickness, and that's the normal. That is the normal. But it wasn't gonna work for me that way because I didn't want that to be my normal. So instead, I changed my diet, I changed my lifestyle, I started to look at things differently, and guess what happened? I became abnormal. I became abnormal because I decided not to be a part of that chronic sickness revolving door business that has been created. So I'm an outlier. I'm an outlier in this human condition in America. The chronic conditions. When you take care of yourself, and when you put your health first, and you don't eat the junk food, and you don't eat the crap, and you do some yoga and you exercise and you stretch and you connect with a higher power or consciousness or your heart or your intuition, well, then of course you get yourself out of that chronic condition revolving door. Now, I'm not saying that sickness will never come, and I'm not saying that you're not gonna feel achy and breaky and that you're um not uh you're not aging, right? I'm not gonna say that you're gonna be here forever. What I am gonna say is that when you take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and you take control of your health and your wellness, you pull yourself out of the chronic sickness revolving door, and you put yourself into a whole different way of being. And when I look around today and I see that the normal is oh, you gotta go get a mammogram, oh, you gotta go get your colonoscopy, oh, you gotta go get this thing now and that thing. The whole entire system is set up for chronic sickness to support chronic sickness, to look for chronic sickness, to identify chronic sickness, not to get you well. If you want to get well and you want to get out of that revol revolving door, you've got to make some changes. And one of the changes is that you don't eat that crazy dessert, you don't eat that crazy dessert at the barbecue. That is considered normal food. That's not normal food, it's a sugar bomb.

SPEAKER_03:

That sugar bomb just dropped was from Andrea Beaman, health coach and best-selling author. You've heard from her on a few of my other episodes, and you know she's always worth a listen. Why? Because she speaks her truth. You know, regardless of any industry pressure to silence the message, she speaks her truth. So now my next guest is a young woman named Alex. She's 31 years old and lives in chronic pain from fibromyalgia. Now, years ago when I was just beginning my nutritional studies, fibromyalgia was a term floated in the nutrition world with no confirmation as to a cause. It was considered a mystery disease, along with chronic fatigue syndrome and Lyme's disease. But now Alex is going to inform us as to just how far the medical industry has progressed in the past 30 years.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, my name is Alex. I'm 31 years old and I live with a chronic disease, fibromyalgia. One day there's absolutely no pain, and then the next you have no idea what's going on. Mostly because the medical field doesn't really know what causes it, what even all the symptoms are when you get diagnosed, it's they rule everything else out in the world, and then they touch you in random spots. And if it hurts out of so many, then you're diagnosed with fibromyalgia. So for me, it started with what me and my sister referred to as like the skin pain, my skin hurts. And what that meant is if I was wearing jeans or if something would touch my skin, it would like burn. I didn't really know what it was, but I just started calling it my skin thing until finally my sister goes, No, that's a nerve thing, that's a fibro thing, and fibro is mostly nerve pain. For me, when I was seeing my psychiatrist and I mentioned, hey, I have fibromyalgia, she recommended the drug Cymbalta, and that treats anxiety, depression, and helps with the nerve pain and all of that of fibromyalgia. So that has stopped any nerve pain that I've had. Usually it starts, I call a flare-up, it starts kind of right in the inside of my thigh, and then it's like an electrical shot down to my toes, and it happens every 30 seconds or so for hours. The other things that I deal with daily are I have insane back pain, I've gone to the chiropractor, I've gone to spine specialists, I've gone to physical therapy. Well, it must just be your fibro, and they kind of left it at that, um, which sore muscles, very, very common thing of fibromyalgia. So that's just something I try to treat daily. Um, you know, I stretch it a lot. I have a foam roller that I roll out, take baths, try the creams, you know, the anti-freeze, biofreeze, whatever they're called. Um, and that typically helps it. And some days, some weeks it goes on a lot more, and then others, you know, I just kind of forget about it. The only other thing that I really deal with since I'm lucky enough is chronic headaches, which I'm sure is another part of fibromyalgia. So that's why I take a lot of ibuprofen and a lot of Tylenol. Learned recently, ibuprofen is not so great for you. So trying to switch more to Tylenol and be a little bit more selective on what I take and like, okay, figure out what type of headache it is, because sometimes it's tension headaches, cluster headaches, migraines, allergies. So trying to pinpoint what it is to take the correct medication. So there's no treatment at this point in time. I think it's more treating the symptoms. You have nerve pain, let's treat the nerve pain. You get headaches, we'll treat the headaches. I'm not sure how much research is really going into it these days since they finally recognized it, but that's kind of where it stops. Because then there's not actual fibromyalgia doctors.

SPEAKER_03:

So, Delia, did Alex mention that her doctors recommended she change her diet? No, they didn't. But Alex noticed that there were certain foods that caused her flare-ups. Now, remember, that's what the meds do. They mask the symptoms, but they don't treat the issue. Now that leads me to my next guest, Gina Sorbonne. I've known Gina since she was a shy, introverted young woman who found a passion in yoga, stepped out of her comfort zone, and became a very, very good certified instructor. Then she returned to school and earned a master's in clinical nutrition. Most of her clients are young and dealing with autoimmune disease of the intestinal tract. Ooh, ouch. Yeah, that's a tough one. And it's happening more and more amongst young people, especially when the child is raised on highly processed food. So I asked her to break down one of her counseling sessions so you can get an idea of what's involved.

SPEAKER_01:

I think the first thing I work with my clients is what are their goals. Because that's really like to pin down your goal and what you want to do is important because if people don't have a goal and they're just like, I want to look like this, but I don't want to do anything to do that, then it's never gonna work. And I find it's really hard to consult people on nutrition because they actually have to change. They have to change what they're eating and they have to want to change. And food can be really good tasting, and bad food can taste really good. And it's hard to break a habit when they're like, I go to food for maybe comfort, even, you know, and I just eat for comfort, and that's hard to take away from someone. So, anyway, their goal is the first and foremost thing where find your goal, kind of narrow it down. They create their own goals, and I feel like they're going to move on with me in the consultations to actually change. If they don't have a goal, or like I find they don't continue. So I have a couple different ways that I work with clients. I do one-on-one. So I would do a full intake form, and it's really pretty long, actually, and that sometimes deters people from working with me. But I want to really know their history of, you know, what they're eating, their current diet, some medical history, just understanding what they've been through in the past that might have might relate. And then from there, sometimes they give me their blood work as well. So I could look into like a blood analysis for them to see what, because conventional doctors look at ranges that are not optimal necessarily. So there might be a broader range where I'll look at something that's more an optimal range. So it has a smaller area that I look at. So if it's above or below something, there might be something we can do to get it back into an optimal range. And then also I work with clients. Actually, I just started a group. I called it mind, body, and vice because I want to incorporate the yoga aspect and yoga teaching and meditation, but also the foundation of nutrition. And so it's a four-month program where we meet once a month. There's accountability calls once every month between our meeting one-on-one with the clients. And then there's also the group. So the group gets together and you you can go through this process with a group who are also going through something. And it might be, you know, different, they might have different goals, whether they have, you know, an autoimmune disease or health issues that they want to resolve, or maybe it's maintaining weight and trying to eat really good and feel like they're satisfied with their their food and what they're consuming. Or maybe they want to gain muscles or lose weight or whatever the goal is. We work with I work with them individually on that, but then we work as a group. So in that group, the first session, like I said, our nutrition is our foundation. And so it was actually yesterday. So we did a whole, I kind of did a similar thing that you had showed me of really just gathering people into one space. And and food is a good gathering tool. So I cooked, did kind of like a cooking demo for them about how to meal prep and how easy, how easy it can be to cook really good food for the week or for a few days, so that when you're going to the kitchen or going for lunch or dinner, you don't grab the candy bar, but you grab something that's really nutritious that you've prepared and you have in your in your fridge or ready for you to eat.

SPEAKER_03:

So Delia, it's story time. And you've had a hard time coming up with the story for this episode now, haven't you? You know I did. I don't think I was really ready to tell this story. Well, this is the perfect episodes to show and tell, so go on. I bet there's people listening who may be able to relate. You think? Probably a lot of people. Yeah, because it's about pain. The kind of constant pain where you become this entity called pain. Yeah, and that's a bummer. Okay, so the story. Alright, so one day I was showing off, alright? I was showing off. I was doing this yoga move where I was trying to get my left leg behind my head, which I had done before a number of times. But this time I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. I wasn't paying attention to the sensitivities in my body. And then suddenly I felt this tear, this pop, this release deep in my hip groin area. Oh, I knew right away that something had torn, something deep, and and that's a moment, if you've ever done that, where you're thinking, okay, this is bad. This is going to be a long recovery. And I was right. It took about a year to heal. And just when I thought it was at this wonderful level of, okay, the pain began in my hip. Another kind of pain. Because the injury had opened up ground, and I learned this later, that an injury can open up ground for arthritis to slide right in and take root. And soon I was bone on bone in that hip. No doubt there's many of you who can relate to the story, and and you know, you try everything first. I did, I went to the chiropractor, I did the over-counter pain meds, physical therapy, steroid injections. Just staving off the day you have to admit, is time for surgery. In Eastern medicine, it's interesting because out of if you have a list of ten possible treatments you can do for disease or an injury, number ten on the list is surgery. Whereas in Western medicine, number one is surgery. But you know, I had to wait four years for Medicare to start before getting my hip replaced. And now, here's where the story gets interesting. Because I was pretty arrogant in those days. I was in great shape. I was teaching yoga someday, several classes a day, and telling everybody yoga's great, you know, great for the body, and then boom, the fancy yogini has got herself injured. And in a small town, they show no mercy. When someone people imagine deems themselves above the crowd becomes weakened, well, that's when the jackals circle and attack. Not physically, but in words, in gossip. Well, my ego was blistered, my pride battered. My standing in the yoga community became a joke told over many a gin and tonic at the parties in the town. Indeed. I was humbled. The pain was unbearable at times. I mean, each step was a jolt of such pain and a constant reminder of my disability. But you know what? It taught me how unaware I had been of my yoga students' chronic pain. Those with arthritis, with multiple sclerosis, with back pain, who had had injuries. You can sympathize all you want with their discomfort. But when I experienced the searing pain, the searing heat of that constant pain, it changed me. And my eyes were open to how it had changed them as well. My advantage was that in time I would have surgery, resolve my issue, and move on. But others, they don't always have that escape route. Oh yeah. I felt relief when that mine would soon be over, but I have to say I felt a little guilty that I couldn't take everyone else along with me. But you know, I also happen to be very resourceful. And I believe that to every tragedy there is oddly an opportunity. In every dark space there's a light. If you can just wipe the self-pity from your eyes long enough to see it. So that's what I did. And I began to shape to reshape my yoga practice. I began to use a folding chair, which had been made famous by BKS Ayengar in his yoga style. But naturally, I had to do it my way. I had to walk with a cane, also, which proved irritating enough to my students because if they were having a hard time balancing, I'd hand them the cane, which I I think really pissed them off. And every now and then I was tempted a little tap here with the cane for a correction. But I became alert to the women who were aging like myself, but wanted to stay active in their yoga practice. And the chair used correctly as a prop became the perfect solution. So with my business partner and friend Denise Kaye, we created a chair certification program, a way to use a chair for vinyasa style yoga, not just for sitting on the chair and waving your arms up and down, but doing a large part of the Ashtanga practice using a folding chair. We called it chair vinyasa. Some people like myself, who are always going 100 miles an hour, have to be brought to a screeching halt before they can really see the direction or the next direction they need to go. And that was me. I was brought to a screeching halt. And one day I woke from a dream and knew it was time to sell my yoga studio. I needed to regroup. And this was the time. I needed to change my life. I was 65, and so that's what I did. I sold my studio, I sold my big house, and I retreated to a small house on about eight acres. Good Lord, Delia. What did you do out there in the wilds of nature with your your two pups, Maya and Seamus, and your cat Tessa? Well, thanks for asking. Because over the next few years, I wrote three books: Cher Vinyasa and then the third edition of the Body Rejuvenation Cleanse, a great program for cleansing the body, rebalancing your diet, especially if you have pain or any kind of illness. And with my photography, I created an eco fantasy storybook called Maya Awakens, featuring my two doggies and my yellow-eyed cat. And I had the best time, even though I was limping around in chronic pain, just waiting to get the surgery done. Okay, so Delia, eventually you had your hip replaced? Yeah. And like a miracle, the pain was gone. I want to tell you, chronic pain is just all consuming. I didn't want to take pain meds, but I now had arthritis. One surgeon I consulted, he told me, you know, you're a blue-eyed blonde of Irish descent, over 50, and this is what happens. You get arthritis. Okay, well, I didn't really want to believe that, but there I was, living proof. So I asked myself, what has to happen here for me to reduce the inflammation so I could be as pain-free as possible? So naturally, first I looked at my diet, of course, because it's all about the food. When the pain exceeds the momentary pleasures of eating sweets or drinking wine, when that pain exceeds the pleasure, well then the pleasure isn't worth it. Or it wasn't to me. And so slowly, over time, and eventually, I eliminated sugar from my diet. Oh, well, was it easy? No. Because I love sweets. Who doesn't? We need that sweet taste in our diet. And I loved a good glass of wine with my friends or a beer. I love eating out. But you know, I learned that sugar isn't everything. So I had to really take control of it. And slowly the pain dissipated, the swelling went down. I created recipes that satisfied my cravings, and I got on with living full on. Full disclosure. Okay, okay, okay. So one day someone showed up with a beautiful box of chocolate from France, and everybody's sharing in it. And I'm like, well, what the hell? Let's have a go. I hadn't had any sugar in quite a while. And so I have it. I had one piece, oh, so delicious. And then I had another piece. And then maybe I had a third piece. And within the hour, my knee was swollen with massive pain. Literally, couldn't put any weight on it. So then I was like, okay, you have to see that. You have to get off it first for a while. And then when you put that sugar or whatever it is that's causing your pain into your diet, you'll see exactly how it's affecting you. So I'm fine. I do my morning yoga, lift weights, do my meditation, I breathe, do my breathing exercise. But you know, honestly, I never really thought about having a diagnosis called autoimmune disease until I started preparing this episode. And then faced the fact that I've been successfully managing my arthritis. I just don't let it run my life. Okay, so Delia, do you still put your leg around the back of your head? Very funny. No, that is no longer part of my practice. It was not needed in reality. Never needed. I'll leave that to others. Younger, more flexible than me. Although, you know, I've seen some reports of an 80-something yogini who, after three hip replacements, continues to put her leg up and around her head. And I say that's why she's had so many replacements. But who am I to judge? So, Delia, any final words for your listening audience? Well, you know, I think I'm gonna let Andrea, Andrea Beaman, have the last word on this before I come back with thanks.

SPEAKER_02:

Whatever you do, start to look at things a little bit differently. Look at yourself a little bit differently. I think that the human body is perfectly designed. I think that it's designed to house your spirit while you're here, having a human experience. That's what I think. And I think it's designed to work perfectly while you're here, when you give it what it needs. You give it good food, good relationships, good exercise. It's gonna work well. And then you can pull yourself out of that revolving door of chronic sickness that is considered normal. But is actually very abnormal.

SPEAKER_03:

And there you have it, the mere tip of the iceberg that we covered. The health crisis facing all of us, not only in the United States, but the world all over. It's all about the food, y'all. It's all about the food. Eat well, learn to cook. Learn to cook good food and share it. Share it with your loved ones. It is the number one way to share your love is to feed those you love with the best, the best food to keep them strong, to keep them healthy, to keep their mind functioning at its optimal. You've been listening to stories. I'm your host, Delia Quigley. Thanks to my guests, Andrew Beaman, Alex, and Gina Sarbone. And you can see and read more on my Deliaquigley.com. Not a surprises there. I think you'll really enjoy it. Thanks again. Until next time, you can't do that.

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Delia Quigley

Host
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Andrea Beaman

Guest
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Gina Cerbone

Guest