EP 1 Intro Podcast - Why should I care about women’s health?

Transcript

HMTM Intro Podcast EP1

[00:00:00] Priscilla Brock: You're listening to the Hand Me the Megaphone podcast, where we amplify women's voices on women's health. I'm your host, Priscilla Brock.

[00:00:08] For this season, we're primarily focusing on physical health, but we're going to have guests that touch on mental health and more as well, because it's all interconnected. We'll be taking both a wide and deep dive on all things women's health.

[00:00:22] Hand Me the Megaphone exists as a place for all women seeking and promoting healing. It's likely if you clicked on this podcast, you're searching for some answers for yourself. As I thought about my listeners, I thought of three categories you may fall into, although I'm sure there could be more. Because women's health impacts more than just women.

[00:00:42] It impacts our families as well. I wanted to go through three categories I thought you might fall into as a listener. So one would be the casually curious. You don't have any big health problems, but maybe you have a family member who's talking about hers, and you're a woman too, so maybe it's worth checking out.

[00:00:59] I'd highly encourage you to stay. There is so much value in educating ourselves, and the more we know, the more we can advocate for ourselves and those around us. You are welcome here and the more you know, the more other women around you will and that could drastically improve or save the life of a loved one or your future self.

[00:01:18] You are so key to increasing our awareness as a society of women's health. I applaud you for being proactive because health didn't really matter to me until it mattered to me. So thank you for taking steps in advance to protect yourself. and your loved ones and to advocate for them. Number two, I'd like to call the just diagnosed and I was here, I've been here.

[00:01:44] I wouldn't call myself a casually curious because I wasn't casually curious like until it affects you like until it affects you, you often don't care which is why I think the casually curious is the most necessary form of listeners. It's hard to be that person. It's hard to educate yourself, but you should be curious about women's health.

[00:02:06] And I wish I had been sooner. So when I first started caring about health, it was when I was in category two, the just diagnosed when you're in this place, You need answers, and you need them yesterday. There's a sense of urgency to your googling and seeking others who have been through the same thing.

[00:02:24] Quite possibly, it's been years to get your diagnosis. It's both a relief to finally have it, and a frustration to have it so late. Maybe it hit you out of nowhere. My hope is that this podcast is one you can easily find a guide to through clear titles and descriptions. I'm going to do my best to provide those to let people know where things can be found in podcasts.

[00:02:49] I always love YouTube videos for examples that have where you can jump to. where the thing is. I would encourage everyone to listen through everything because you never know what nugget is going to be the nugget that you need. But if you're going through something specific, my hope is that you'll be able to find a title as this podcast goes on, the title and description for the thing that you need to listen to.

[00:03:11] And it might not even be the thing you know, that's the thing you'll know if you're diagnosed. But even if you're diagnosed, you might have like a correlating illness, something that's not diagnosed yet, like my Lyme's when I had PCOS. So it would have benefited me to listen to a Lyme's podcast when I had PCOS.

[00:03:27] The first thing you're going to want to do is listen to a podcast on the topic of what you have, right? So I want you to be able to find that PCOS. or whatever it is for you, podcasts, before you'd go back and listen to the other ones, because you need to deal with what you know you need to deal with.

[00:03:42] Priscilla Brock: And for the just diagnosed, I want you to connect to women who've been where you are, discovered what worked for them, and connect you to the providers that helped women like you discover these issues and help you take control of your future health. My hope is that you will find actionable steps you can implement immediately from the episodes.

[00:04:02] And a provider that matches your individual personality and needs, because this is the thing, if you're going to private pay for a practitioner, you want to find the practitioner who specializes in or has a general knowledge of what you're going through. One you will vibe with and who will approach your health issues in a manner that you'd like to approach them because arguably Your provider is one of the most Important people on your journey.

[00:04:31] You're gonna do so much work with them And you both need to be actively searching for answers for yourself. And I will tell you, it is absolutely incredible when you are just diagnosed and you're trying to figure out what to do beyond just oh, take this, that, and just move on. It is absolutely incredible to have a provider who will get in the trenches with you.

[00:05:02] And if you haven't found that provider yet, they're out there. I believe that. I know that. And you're going to find some of them 100%. I really want you to find a provider you can confidently start working with and get the essential support for your health journey. And if you have something where this might not be a doctor where this is going to be something else.

[00:05:23] We're going to have a lot of people who aren't necessarily doctors on our show as well. So we're going to have a lot of women who help in all areas because women's health is so multifaceted and we are multidimensional beings. So I'm so excited to talk about eating disorders, mental health, physical health, dieticians, all of that.

[00:05:46] There's multiple other avenues of support you may need. And especially getting through a recent diagnosis, there's so much support you need. My genuine hope is that you can find a provider. and additional support people in your journey. The third one is the multiple diagnoses. Perhaps like me, you've become an expert in your own health problems, racked up a few diagnoses, and went on an investigative journey.

[00:06:12] Advocated hard for yourself and made a lot of progress. You're doing all the right things, but you're not feeling 100%. It feels like you're missing something to heal or manage your health. You find yourself asking, is this really it? Is this all my doctors have to say? Surely there must be something more.

[00:06:31] What else is there? Who else is there? Like the just diagnosed My goal is to provide you with actionable steps so you can try out and connect with the right provider or support person. When you become a complex case, it feels even more crucial and I don't believe I or you should just settle for misery.

[00:06:53] You don't know what you don't know rings true, which is why this podcast is dedicated to finding answers and connecting women. Hey there, thanks so much for listening this far into the podcast. I hope you have an idea of which category you fall into. I'm about to transition the podcast and you're going to be able to tell.

[00:07:11] I'm going to get super fired up and a little bit disillusioned as I think about all the things that have happened to me and my personal health. journey. But I hope you'll stick around because this is really where my personal passion intersects with the mission of this podcast. There's just so much in my own story that has led me to want to create a podcast and a space for women.

[00:07:40] Thank you so much for sticking around and listening to my personal journey. I really appreciate it. And I really look forward to bringing you other people's stories on this podcast in the future. Thank you. Most women aren't proactive, in my experience, about their health if something is really wrong.

[00:08:00] However, there's this, there's what I'll call pain creep, weight creep, just general not feeling good creep. And when this happens, it becomes your normal. And unless a doctor or provider is specifically asking about these specific symptoms, at least this is my experience, I don't think of them as symptoms.

[00:08:26] And you probably wouldn't either. Maybe you're tired all the time, but you're like this is just the way it is. Everyone's tired. Is this normal or is it not? And so those are the ways that I find women, most often, unable to advocate for themselves or even know. what options might be out there. If we don't know what's going on with ourself, or we don't know these things, if we're dismissing, almost gaslighting ourselves, our doctors certainly aren't going to be able to automatically Ask us these questions because the way the healthcare system is set up is for routine physicals assuming everything's good and also for crisis like cancer, heart issues, like the really big things.

[00:09:22] So there's this gap between preventative, there's a gap in preventative medicine and the gap is this. If you're going and you're healthy. Your quick yearly checkup is probably going to be fine, but between that and a major diagnosis, there's a period of time where you just don't feel right. Where something is going on, but you don't know how to communicate it to your doctor.

[00:09:57] Your doctor doesn't know to look for it because it's not obvious. They're not seeing you regularly. They're not involved in your day to day life. And there really is this gap. And into this gap, a lot of preventative and holistic options have arisen. And it can be hard to wade through them. It can be hard to know which one is the right one for me.

[00:10:23] And so we often end up in this place. of trying to figure it out, trying to search the internet, but not knowing what we're searching for, right? And this is where we end up in, I'll call it like a Google no man's land, I don't know it's just a Google, it's a pile of stuff. I do believe with the internet, eventually, we'll get our right answer.

[00:10:54] Eventually, if you're searching on the internet, you'll probably find what you're looking for. At least that's my belief. But the gap of time it'll take, the hours of searching, the hours of not even knowing what to search for, right? Because fatigue can be so vast and can, and I'm just using this as an example, fatigue can be so many things and a symptom of so many illnesses and they all show up as fatigue.

[00:11:21] You need a provider. to walk you through it, or you'll be searching for a really long time. And that's how my journey started out. My journey started out with nine years of consistently gaining 20 pounds. And I'd go to the doctor and I'd say, Hey, I'm gaining 20 pounds a year. And I don't understand what's going on.

[00:11:48] So for me, this would have started in 2013, the year I graduated high school. And then it would have continued up until recently. So I got my, I finally got my PCOS diagnosis in 2021. And the average time for a woman to go undiagnosed with PCOS is nine years. And this is the gap I'm talking about. This is specific to my story, but it's happening for other women in issues beyond PCOS.

[00:12:24] So when we think about going undiagnosed for nine years, that's crazy, but our in terms of like education, what's out there, women's health care is underfunded and like most health care struggling in terms of being understaffed. When I go to my doctor and say I'm gaining 20 pounds, it's within their reason to think, oh she's depressed.

[00:12:57] Oh she's overeating. And in some instances. Those were true statements. Not the overeating. In fact, when I finally decided to journal my food, because my doctor said, I finally had a doctor who said to me, look, track your food, see what's going on and try doing these HIIT exercises. I couldn't do the HIIT exercises.

[00:13:22] I was at that stage too overweight. It was. incredibly hard. I couldn't keep up with the pace. But I started tracking my food because that was the one thing that I could do. And when I started tracking my food, I discovered that what I thought was binging was actually not binging in the sense is that I wasn't eating massive amounts of food.

[00:13:42] I wasn't overeating in terms of this calorie situation. What I was doing, and this is really unhelpful for women with PCOS, is I was going through these long phases. of starving myself, usually related to body image. So I'd step on the scale, I'd weigh myself and be like, Oh my gosh, I really have to get control of this.

[00:14:05] I'm gaining weight. And so I would under eat like I would just eat salads, etc. And what this did, what this created was a period of starvation for my body, and if you know anything about blood sugars this is going to make my blood sugars drop, right? And so I would do this for as long as I could willpower my way through it.

[00:14:28] And what ended up happening is at some point my body would win over my mental willpower. My body would say, girl, you're starving us, and I would binge. And when I say binge, I mean I would eat high calorie, high sugar, in one sitting, say, a bag of donuts. And then mentally, I'd feel really guilty, and I'm sure this was horrible for my blood sugar, but it would be such a relief.

[00:15:03] My body would be so relieved. Because I was putting myself through this feast and famine experience, and all I saw prior to tracking was,

[00:15:20] I'm Overeating. Like I'm always overeating. I'm chronically overeating. That's what I thought was the story. And so when I started tracking this on paper, I saw there was actually a pattern. It was rarely about emotional eating. And I'm not saying people don't emotionally eat. I'm not discrediting other people's journeys and struggles, but it wasn't emotional eating for me.

[00:15:45] When I looked on paper at the facts, I was like having an emotional trigger around self worth. I was saying, oh gosh, I'm not thin, I need to eat less. So that was the emotional part, right? But the emotional part was leading to what you would think of as a positive thing, like restricting willpower, all that type of stuff.

[00:16:08] And then finally, because of starvation. My body would say, no girl, we have to eat more. And when I realized that, I realized, oh, I'm probably I'd be fine if I just ate regular. If I just ate regular, it'd probably be about the same amount of calories. It just wouldn't be all in one sitting versus none.

[00:16:32] It wouldn't be really low and really high. I didn't even really understand blood sugar at that time, but I knew what I was doing wasn't good for me. And so I stopped that. And. That year, I cured my binge eating. That year, I was free. Mentally, I was free. I stopped tying my worth. I knew it was going to fluctuate up and down on the scale, but I was like, Oh, if I just eat regular, I still might gain the 20 pounds in the year, but I won't be putting myself through this vicious cycle.

[00:17:14] And that year, I believe it was 2019 And prior to this, there was a lot of stressful factors in my life childhood trauma, working a really stressful job, working really long hours. So those things certainly contributed and then I had a little less of that because I was married and we were on two incomes.

[00:17:37] But when I realized that I could eat normally, eat regularly and not starve myself. And at that time, I don't know if I was really eating breakfast, but I was making sure I was eating lunch and dinner. And I wasn't saying I could only have a salad. So I wasn't eating extremely low calorie and then suddenly eating a lot of calories at once.

[00:18:00] When I started. just eating consistently throughout the week, throughout the month, throughout the year. I felt so much better that year and I'm not surprised that I felt better in that way because mentally I wasn't abusing myself and physically I wasn't abusing my blood sugars. I wasn't taking them on this massive roller coaster.

[00:18:23] So those were two incredible things for me. But the thing about it is that year I still gained 20 pounds and I was like really frustrated. I was like, why is this still happening? Like I'm not benching anymore. What is going on? So then logically you would look at calories and I will tell you because of my fixation, I can't count calories.

[00:18:52] It would be detrimental to my health, my mental health, and therefore my physical health. I went back to the doctor in 2020 and said, Hey, I stopped the binging. I figured it out, but I'm still gaining 20 pounds and nothing. And then in 2021. I believe it was March, April, May, I missed my period. I missed my period for three months.

[00:19:21] I was married, but I knew it was unlikely that I was going to be pregnant. I'd taken a couple of pregnancy tests. Every time I'd missed my period, I'd have this like scare and I'd take some pregnancy tests, always negative. And it would be like really illogical. I'd be like, there's no way this happens.

[00:19:38] I was aware of my period cycle and I was like, I don't think I'm fertile. I don't know why. This would have happened and I never was pregnant, but when I was without my period for three months and at that time I think I weighed three thirty three twenty that seemed to be the point where like my body had finally gone into enough dysfunction.

[00:20:04] Not that it wasn't in dysfunction prior, but that was the point where my body was in enough dysfunction that it shut off my period. And the way that this works is you can think of progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, women have all three and more hormones, right? But Yeah. The main three, like in PCOS, you have high estrogen, you have high testosterone.

[00:20:25] And what ends up happening is progesterone is a monthly, almost like a wave, like it cycles. And at some point it should get higher and higher because progesterone is the hormone for fertility. There comes a point when you have estrogen and testosterone dominance, which I had. Both. And people think like you, you'd either be estrogen or testosterone dominant.

[00:20:48] I had both. I have. When you, progesterone can't get above the estrogen, and when progesterone can't get above the estrogen, you can't have a period because it's, it. It's like a switch. Like it's trying to cycle up and then stop. So like it would cycle up to get ready for the baby and the egg wouldn't get fertilized and it would drop.

[00:21:09] And when the progesterone drops, you shed your uterine lining. And that wasn't happening for me. I remember sitting in the car with a friend and saying, I haven't had my period in three months. I don't know. This is crazy. And she said, Oh, you should maybe talk to a doctor about that. They're like, okay, you know what?

[00:21:29] You might be right. And so it, it couldn't leave my head. So I hopped on, when I got home, I hopped on a Teladoc and I said, I haven't had my period in three months. And the doctor said, Oh you probably have PCOS. Like you'll go to your regular gynecologist and get labs done because this is late at night.

[00:21:50] He said, you'll go do that. But I can say with almost 100 percent certainty, you have PCOS. And I was. literally floored, like floored. What? You can just say that so confidently? And the reality is, this is what I'm talking about when I say there's a period of time between when you're healthy and when you get diagnosed as a period of time where you know you're healthy and when you Something is wrong, but you don't know how to articulate it, and you don't know how to articulate it in a way that the doctor can understand.

[00:22:38] And the doctor can't technically diagnose you because you don't have a strong enough symptom. It's this weird wandering space to be in. And that was my life, but that is a lot of women's life who go through these experiences. And it's not just women. It's not just women's health. This is across the board, right?

[00:23:01] But it happens consistently for women. Really, truly, I believe women's health is under researched, underfunded, and we don't have enough time with our doctors. And our doctors are not in a place within the healthcare system to give us the care that They would desire right when we look at the structure when we look at how doctor's appointments are set up Doctors have the opportunity to make sure we're not bleeding out Ask us some questions get an idea of what's going on, but we have to tell our doctors This is the thing we have to tell our doctors Do not have time to play detective with us because that's not the way the system is set up But in order to get the answers that we need for our health, for our longevity, we need a doctor to come alongside us and play detective.

[00:24:02] And for that reason, we often have to private pay. Because doctors need to be able to have the schedule, the time. Doctors need to have the ability to schedule themselves with enough time and charge enough for their time to take care of us. to do the research. And it's a really good doctor that takes the time to do the research, because that's what we need to prevent.

[00:24:34] When we talk about preventative medicine, that's what we really need. And I think there are a lot of other practitioners that can come alongside doctors. in this process. There are people that specialize in gut and diets, so like dieticians. An interesting thing I learned on this journey is that in the traditional sense, doctors actually Don't get very much training on diet and I'm not saying that it couldn't be something that they specialize in and do research on their own But their actual medical training doesn't have a lot of focus on diet You'll get sent to a dietitian and that's just the way it is And that's the structure, like how things are broken down.

[00:25:19] So it's worth knowing. But also a dietician, in my experience, and there could be other truths to this, but like this is my experience. I went to see a dietician and I've had other people talk to me about seeing a dietician in the health care system. And it's basically track your food, which I talked about.

[00:25:36] I did track my food and that was beneficial. It's track your food and then come see me. And then let's talk from there. And it's about the calories and stuff, right? So I truly think that what we're learning about nutrition and all of that, we have to be careful what we're listening to. But there's a lot of information that's coming out there.

[00:25:56] And this is the other thing, there's a gap between the knowledge that is out there and when it's actually going to get into our medical system, because things have to go through processes. And so there might be something new, but it's not going to be utilized. It's not going to be a part of the structure for a while yet.

[00:26:19] And that's good, right? We want things to be safe, but if you are, and I think the stat I had heard for medical stuff was about 11 years behind. And we don't want to just be allowing anything and everything into our medical systems in terms of like testing, etc. We want things to be proven, right? And insurance for sure wants things proven before they pay for it, which is why we have to pay for a lot of this kind of alternative functional stuff out of our own pocket when we're like, oh, something is really wrong, but I can't figure out what.

[00:26:51] I have so much more I could say on this topic, but when I got my PCOS diagnosis, I was really floored because it's wow, I've had this all along. I knew something was going on, but no one could help me. It's just hard to think about. And I have a similar experience with In 2023, I got diagnosed with Lyme's disease and it was a similar experience of I had done all the dietary work.

[00:27:22] I'd worked with a doctor for an extensive period of time. And like I looking back, I wish I would have just shelled out the money at the beginning of the program in January instead of waiting until August. I would have shelled out the money. and taking the Lyme disease test. I took a questionnaire at the beginning of the program that was about like my toxin load and these types of questionnaires.

[00:27:47] I'm so glad when I go to a functional or integrative doctor and they provide these things because these are the questions that we're not even aware of that we need to ask. Oh, that is a symptom? Oh, I didn't think that was a symptom. Yeah, I do experience that. In January, when I took this questionnaire, I had a relatively high toxin level or a lot of symptoms.

[00:28:14] That I took. I think they called it an MSQ form, like multiple, is it multiple symptom questionnaire? I'd have to go back and look. And they said we'll do the program, we'll do the cleanse, we'll do all the things. And if things still don't clear up, if you're not, your symptoms aren't fixed, then we might do a Lyme's

[00:28:35] test. And I look back at that now with a positive Lyme's test behind me and think we should have done it. And so what I ended up doing actually is in January or February when I started the program, they mentioned Lyme's and I thought, okay, I will go and do this through my insurance. I thought, my insurance will cover this.

[00:29:02] My Husband has good insurance and so I can get the free lab testing and I went in for some other things that I wanted to see at my traditional health care. I went in and I said, Hey, I'm here for X, Y, and Z. Oh, and also one of my other doctors that I'm private paying for suggested that I might have Lyme.

[00:29:27] And I was wondering if you could run like a blood draw for Lyme's and other diseases, other tick borne diseases. And she said, sure. And she said, just so you know that this Lyme's test may come back a negative, and that doesn't mean that you don't have Lyme's. And I was so blessed that I had that conversation with her.

[00:29:51] I wish I'd taken it a little bit more seriously at the time, because she said. What can happen is you get this Lyme's test, but Lyme's can go into your muscle and Lyme's can hide. And so this test may not be sensitive enough to detect it. And what her sister had done, she had shared, was her sister had gone to a clinic in Milwaukee called Serenity Clinic and gotten these injections, I believe, the injections can pull it out of the muscle, I haven't done a lot of research about it. And She said that her sister did that and then came back and got a positive Lyme's test. Because our bodies are trying to protect us, like our bodies are allies. They want to do whatever they can to protect us. And so sometimes they do it in ways that we're really body?

[00:30:47] Really? But they're really just trying to do damage control. So she had shared this and I didn't pursue that. I had a sticky note on my fridge for a while that said Serenity Clinic because I thought this might be something that I have to look into. And what ended up happening is I went through the program and I had this, for me, it was like a cold symptom.

[00:31:08] Like I'd always had a cold symptom and I always thought, oh, I have a weak immune system. And. I can look back, and these are only my personal symptoms, everyone's symptoms could be different to them, this is not, none of this in this entire podcast is medical advice but this was my experience, and I said, okay I don't have Lyme's, so I'm fine, because it didn't show up on that test that I had Lyme's, but then I had this cold that kept showing up, and what ended up happening is I went off the diet for my doctors, I had this cold that It just wouldn't go away.

[00:31:43] And so I was, I stayed on like meat and vegetables for two, three months. Like it was longer than it should have been because they were like start back up when that symptom goes away. And I couldn't add anything more into my diet because the symptom wasn't going away. And then I had a real eff it moment in April right at the end.

[00:32:02] I had some like right at the end of April I had some I had some long term stress that had started like at the beginning of the month and then I did a 48 hour film project which was a short term stress and literally the thing that broke me. Was I was trying to order a bowl of food from Qdoba and I picked out all the vegetables because I couldn't have tomatoes and whatever So I picked out what I could have and I had my bowl made and I went to go hit press Yes Because the PA was going to go ahead and make a special run to Qdoba for me Versus everyone else was gonna have pizza and I went to hit it and then it was like no We're not taking online orders at the time and I was just like so mad.

[00:32:46] I was like so bad. I was like, I can't handle and I was not going to hold up the PA for my little dietary thing and it was just really there must have been like so much cortisol in my system. I think I was just so tired and so exhausted and I said, that's it. No more of this nonsense and just went off the diet.

[00:33:09] And so then I just ate whatever I wanted. Pretty much through June, because my anniversary was in June, and I just wanted to eat what I wanted to eat on my anniversary. And then like middle of June, I went back to clean eating, and the cold symptom, which would mostly only come in the mornings, came back, and I said to my doctor, I don't know what's going on.

[00:33:33] This cold symptom is back here, like it's, I don't know what's going on. And so they said we should probably. Test you for Lyme's and I said, okay, so I didn't tell you this, but like I when you mentioned that I went to my traditional doctor and I got tested for Lyme's and I don't have Lyme's and she said no this test is more sensitive than the test that's available through traditional health care.

[00:34:04] And I was like. What? So this is where I think the stat is like I am I have said this already The stat is like 11 years that it takes about 11 years So in 11 years, hopefully say if I had a kid this test would be available for my kid in the traditional healthcare system Like that's the hope right but it's not currently available So there are things out there that can change your health that can give you answers that you don't have access to through your insurance and through the insurance system through traditional health care.

[00:34:42] So I got my diagnosis. I did have Lyme's. I had three alternative tick borne illnesses and one from one carried by a mosquito. So that was interesting. And I was just really taken aback by the whole thing. I think I had taken that test sometime at the beginning, January or February, and had gone into most of the year thinking, okay it's not Lyme's.

[00:35:07] I'm fine. I don't have Lyme's. And then I truly thought that I would, this is the thing with doctors As a patient, sometimes you feel like you just got to do the thing to prove to the doctor that it's not the thing. And that's like where my mind was at when I took this second Lyme's test. I was like I really don't want to spend 300 something bucks or I don't remember exactly what it was.

[00:35:34] I really don't want to spend this money, but like I'm going to have to do it to prove that it's not Lyme's and that it's something else. Like I really seriously thought, I thought because my traditional test had said that I didn't have Lyme's, I thought I did have Lyme's. And I was taking that test fully expecting it to come back negative.

[00:35:57] So I was truly shocked when the test came back positive, like beyond shocked. And I just think about that now. I should have paid for the Lyme's test right up front. It can really start to feel when you have a chronic illness that you're like paying for all these labs and none of it is making sense and it's confusing, if you're in a Lyme endemic area, which I discovered I do live in a Lyme endemic area, maybe Lyme's is one that you can shell out some money for and it's hard when you're private paying for all of this to justify all the different labs And so I understand where my doctors were coming from, and even a little bit where like I was coming from.

[00:36:37] But like now I look back on that because of Lyme's, I'm sensitive to beef. I actually, I have the same experience with like my food sensitivity test. Like it's one of those things where you're like, Oh, do I get a food sensitivity test or do I not? And I know so many people who like get them and don't even do anything with them.

[00:37:00] So I was like, ah, I don't know, I'd done all the hard work of eliminating stuff. And I did this in 2021. So I had two years of experience of controlling my diet. And I thought, okay, fine, I can probably do at least the top five or whatever.

[00:37:14] So first of all, one of them was barley, was like, really highly sensitive. And another was green beans. I've eaten green beans. They're not my favorite, but I've eaten them. In fact, I even grew some in my garden in 2023. And I ate my fresh grown garden green beans.

[00:37:29] And the barley one I don't even have to worry about that because I don't ever eat barley. And I, I don't know if I've ever craved green beans but the one tied to Lyme's is beef. And my doctors had it in the pamphlet of the diet. They had said, just note as you add food back in that if you suspect Lyme's that you should maybe test beef.

[00:37:53] And I didn't test beef. I thought, I don't have Lyme's I tested it at my traditional doctor and I have Lyme's so I, when I added meat back in after the detox and the vegetables, and then I added meat back in, I immediately added beef because they had this recipe for like beef with cabbage and carrots.

[00:38:11] And it was using coconut aminos. This is an Asian type vibe and it really helped when I needed like an Asian fix. And so I. ate that, and I didn't even think anything. I didn't think I needed to redest beef, but the other one that came back really big on my food sensitivity test was beef.

[00:38:33] And tomatoes are too, and so tomatoes were one of the very first ones I tested back and had a reaction. Eggs were one. Eggs are one of the ones that I tested back and had a reaction. So when I had tried to add things back, I had done potatoes and then tomatoes and then eggs. And then I was like, Oh, I can't, all I can eat is potatoes.

[00:38:51] So I was trying to eat potatoes for a calorie thing because that was like the only like carby thing that I could have at that time when that period from like up until April when I said F it. I literally cannot believe that I've just eaten so much beef in my life. And I feel like I've probably had Lyme's for years and years.

[00:39:12] You don't know when I didn't have a red bullseye thing. But I was a farm kid. I was always outdoors. It's highly probable that all of this could have started years and years ago. A decade plus ago, even if it happened more recently, it's still be bad. But if it happened back then, I think about all the beef I've eaten, what ends up happening with Lyme's, there's this thing where you can become sensitive to beef and to some degree eggs too.

[00:39:38] Because of a protein and so your body's fighting the Lyme's and so it also reads that. I don't understand the science behind it, but it also reads that and says we gotta attack this thing. So I'm eating beef and my immune system is like, girl, we gotta kill the Lyme's we gotta kill this. That's how I imagine it.

[00:39:57] And I just, I can't believe it that I was eating beef all this time and it was causing so much inflammation. in my body. I can't believe it. Like I still can't believe it. So I think about one of the things and I mentioned the tomatoes. One of the things when I got married, we started eating a lot more Italian type food.

[00:40:18] And it's not that we didn't do that at my family growing up when I was a kid. It's not like I never had spaghetti, right? Spaghetti is a good thing for a large family. But I started eating a lot more spaghetti when I started dating my husband. One of the big things that, it's like a comfort food and a food that I always knew if I made spaghetti it would make his day.

[00:40:43] And so we ate a lot of it. It would be a regular staple, but I think about that, and I think about what I've done over the last five years that I've been married, almost six now, and I think about how much spaghetti, which includes wheat, Tomatoes and beef and then we'd put Parmesan cheese on it.

[00:41:00] So like at the beginning of like this health journey or once I started trying to add dairy back, I was so confused that I was experiencing inflammation with Dairy, because I, it came up on my Facebook memories that at one point I had added in 2021, I had added in, tested back in some Greek yogurt.

[00:41:23] I said, yay, I have no reactions to like Greek yogurt. I'm not sensitive to dairy. And I was like so happy about it in 2021. And here I was in 2023 thinking, oh my gosh, I'm sensitive to dairy. I can't believe it. This is unreal. My food test came back. I'm not sensitive to dairy. You know what it was? Like I've been thinking about this.

[00:41:47] I am sensitive to tomatoes and it turns out I'm massively, like almost to the point of being allergic, sensitive to beef. And here I was eating something that contained wheat, which I mean, I don't think I'm that too bad sensitive to wheat, but contained wheat, tomatoes, and beef. Sure, there's cheese, but I was thinking it was the cheese when it was the beef and the tomatoes.

[00:42:13] I just don't think about that. It just makes me laugh. Like it makes me laugh. Like what? This is the thing. You think it's one thing and it's another thing. And I do think labs are worth it in that sense. Like you don't even know what's going on. You're blaming one thing and it's something else. So one of the things for me is when I experienced inflammation.

[00:42:34] And I was experiencing this when I was testing dairy back in, right? And it makes sense. When I was testing dairy, I'd almost always eat dairy with beef. Not always, but mostly. I went down a size through this last year on my wedding ring back to like my original wedding ring size because I used to have so much inflammation even at a size up in my ring.

[00:42:55] It was like so swollen. And I went down a size in my ring and then. When I eat too much what I thought was dairy, I'd experience a swelling in my finger and this is where, this was my tell for inflammation. Like I, I don't experience like a lot of bloating or anything, like no other like major body changes, but it's my ring finger.

[00:43:17] Like it'll get tighter, like uncomfortably tight. I thought, Oh gosh, I'm going to have to do something about this. Thought I had to cut out dairy because every time I ate dairy, I couldn't wear my ring. because my ring finger would be literally so swollen. And then I made a post on Instagram, and this is where you never know when you're going to be wrong.

[00:43:38] And it's okay if we change, like we, we can turn things around. But I made a post on my Instagram saying, talking about my ring and how I use it as a marker, and that one of the things was dairy. And then the next week, I got my food sensitivity test back. And my food sensitivity test talked about beef.

[00:43:58] And dairy was fine. I understand why I thought I shouldn't take the time for the Lyme's test or the food sensitivity test and why I should hold off. And we were, things were financially tight and I couldn't do these things. But the reality is those are the two big things for me and they might not be for you because maybe you have your food sensitivity figured out, but take my spaghetti story.

[00:44:25] And just know that what you think you're sensitive to might not even be it, which is just wildly mind blowing. And then my Lyme's disease test, like I thought I didn't have Lyme's disease. I had the lab taken where it was free because it was through my traditional medicine and it turns out I do have it.

[00:44:42] when I went through the other lab that I had to private pay for. And just so annoying, it's so annoying to take these tests and find out like, duh, the answer is there right at the beginning. But I have been beef free for about a month, I want to say, and I've eaten dairy. And I've had my things, and I've been able to wear my ring the entire time.

[00:45:07] Just still I know I've said this before, but I'm still flabbergasted. Do I want a hamburger? Absolutely I do. But not that bad. But not that bad. And so I'm just blown away. I think I'm going to try a venison burger because I saw a friend post one in her stories and I was like, dang, I could like maybe, I haven't had venison in a long time and I should.

[00:45:31] I was like, I can get some venison and check off that like burger craving feeling. I've eaten so much chicken in the last month, like an insane amount of chicken. And I really should eat more salmon and stuff, but, and other things. I don't know. It was just like beef was such a staple, but it's a staple that I will gladly remove because now I know what was going on.

[00:45:59] All right. I've talked about my own story long enough. I hope you have an understanding of the reason why I'm excited to host this podcast because the reality is. I think it's not just me, but like every woman has her own health story and these things that we need to figure out for ourselves and for our health, is just one of many.

[00:46:22] And my story doesn't even matter anywhere near as much as yours does for you. Like figuring out what's going on with your health is what's most important for you. And it is what I hope to accomplish on this podcast with the guests. And with the women who are telling their stories because I really want every woman to get answers to get healing and I truly believe that this podcast can be the place like if you have to listen all the way to episode 48 to the very last episode to get your answer, then I want this to be worth it for you.

[00:46:59] I want the steps along the way. to still give you insight. But I want you to find every listener that life changing bit of advice, that life changing doctor, that life changing nutritionist, that life changing exercise on this podcast. I truly want that for every woman that listens. I want us to be empowered.

[00:47:24] I want us to be empowered in our health. I want us to go after the answers that are going to allow us to show up for our families, for ourselves. We can't change the world if we can't take care of ourselves, if we can't change our health. We can, but it's gonna be so much harder. And so our health is worth investing in.

[00:47:45] And I truly believe whether you have chronic health issues or are perfectly healthy at this moment, this is a podcast you need to listen to we all need to be learning about our health. We all need to be learning to advocate because it's not just for you. It might be for your sister, for your mom, for your grandma, for your daughter, for your niece, anyone, we need to raise our collective understanding as women on women's health care. And that would be my hand me the megaphone moment. I just want every woman to be as educated as possible on women's health care, because I truly think it's life changing for us. So that's why I'm hosting this podcast. That's why I hope you stay and listen. And I hope that changes your life.

[00:48:34] As I close this intro podcast, I'd like to take the time to prepare you for the structure of the podcast moving forward. I am committed to 48 episodes, four per month, for this season of the podcast. Two will be guest spotlights, either an expert or a passionate individual sharing their own health story.

[00:48:52] I'm incredibly excited for the guest lineup. I believe it will bring you so much value. One will be a short or long if I ramble, I'm not even going to lie at this point you probably know I ramble because you've listened to the first part of this podcast. So it'll be a short. or long update on my personal health.

[00:49:12] I'll call this a walk the talk episode where I can share what's currently working for me, what's not, and when I just plain struggle along with reflections on my past journey and getting my diagnosis. Big part of that today. And then one episode will be a recap / intro episode. I'll sum up what the guests have shared in the past episodes, how the interviews with them impacted me, share any additional resources that I found throughout the month.

[00:49:39] I'll let you know what topics and guests you can look forward to in the next one. If you'd like to email me questions, I may consider doing a Q& A during this time as well. And you can email me at Prisca Elzen, priscaelzen@gmail.com and you can title it megaphone and with a question. Title it Megaphone q and a.

[00:50:01] If you like this podcast, please share it with family and friends. I'd be honored if you take time to leave my podcast a review. And if you'd like to join my email list for updates when a new podcast is released and a monthly recap email, you can email me and title at megaphone email list.

[00:50:21] Thank you for your time, listening, your interest in women's health, and advocating for yourself. Until next time, Priscilla.

[00:50:28] ​