Speaker 1: This texture, asked Mandy, how did you cure your fibromyalgia?
Speaker 1: Let me talk about this for just a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: Number one, about five years ago, was before COVID. I
Speaker 1: started having horrible, horrible, horrible crippling pain in my back,
Speaker 1: in my hip. I missed work from it. A couple
Speaker 1: of days. I had to call in sick because I
Speaker 1: couldn't get out of bed. It was horrific, absolutely horrific.
Speaker 1: And thus began my visit to I feel like every
Speaker 1: specialist in the history of specialists. I went from doctor,
Speaker 1: structural doctor. First, I saw hip doctor, orthopedist. Everything's fine,
Speaker 1: back doctor. He actually said, we don't see spines that healthy.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, I am in crippling pain. And
Speaker 1: I'm not really a baby about pain. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty good about pain. But it was crippling pain, the
Speaker 1: worst pain I'd ever had in my entire life. And
Speaker 1: so finally one doctor says, you may have rheumatory arthritis
Speaker 1: that runs in my family. I go, great, Finally I
Speaker 1: was excited that that could be it. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not wanting rheumatoid arthritis because I know
Speaker 1: what it's about But so I go to a rheumatologist
Speaker 1: and he does all these tests, more tests. At this point,
Speaker 1: I've had like gallons of blood taken out and have
Speaker 1: X rays of every part of my body and nobody
Speaker 1: can tell me why I'm in crippling pain. And I
Speaker 1: go and he says, well, the good news is your
Speaker 1: inflammation markers are very low. You don't have rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker 1: And at this point I am crying in the doctor's
Speaker 1: office because there's no answer to what is going on.
Speaker 1: And he says, but I think you have fibromyalgia, to
Speaker 1: which I responded, that's not a real disease because I
Speaker 1: just thought it was whiners. I'm just I look back
Speaker 1: now and I'm probably was like judge some people harshly
Speaker 1: because I really was just like, suck it up, Buttercup,
Speaker 1: you know, this is come to find out. And that
Speaker 1: doctor was very very nice, gave me a diagnosis, but
Speaker 1: didn't really give me any help. Didn't really he gave
Speaker 1: me some information, it was just really outdated and old
Speaker 1: and didn't seem to be helpful at all. So I
Speaker 1: did what I did I do, and I went on
Speaker 1: the internet and I started looking at medical studies around
Speaker 1: the world, and I found a guy in Mexico City
Speaker 1: who had been studying fibromiologia specifically for thirty five years.
Speaker 1: And after thirty five years of all these different hypotheses
Speaker 1: of what causes this and all these different issues, he
Speaker 1: had come to the conclusion that fibromialgia is a stress
Speaker 1: related illness, and as a stress related illness, there's nothing
Speaker 1: to treat except the underlying stress. And this was me.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'm not stressed. And then I
Speaker 1: had to come to terms with the fact that, for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons that have to do with my
Speaker 1: personality type, my childhood, I was one of those people
Speaker 1: that was never going to let you see me sweat.
Speaker 1: I think if you asked people in my past, have
Speaker 1: you ever seen Mandy freak out about anything. There's been
Speaker 1: one time where I freaked out, and that was when
Speaker 1: my dad had a stroke. I freaked out, but luckily
Speaker 1: I was at home, so I could freak out at home.
Speaker 1: I don't freak out. I don't panic. It's like when
Speaker 1: things start to get crazy, I'd drop into a lower
Speaker 1: gear and then I'm just like, nope, we can work
Speaker 1: this out. It's the vulcan side of me, or at
Speaker 1: least I thought. Then I started going, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what if I'm actually just not allowing myself to admit
Speaker 1: that I am having stress, I am not recognizing that stress.
Speaker 1: What if all of these things, What if I'm not
Speaker 1: handling stress at all, and by not handling at all,
Speaker 1: I've made myself physically ill. Now that was something to
Speaker 1: wrap my head around, because there's a big part of
Speaker 1: me that's like, that is not a real disease. But guys,
Speaker 1: I am not exaggerating when I tell you that. The
Speaker 1: next day, when I woke up and said, Okay, if
Speaker 1: this is a stress related illness, I'm willing to try
Speaker 1: anything else. If they had told me I needed to
Speaker 1: go on fifty medications, I would have absolutely done it
Speaker 1: if it made the pain go away. So I said,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna figure out how to do this. I
Speaker 1: doubt this is again how I roll. I downloaded podcasts
Speaker 1: on how to manage your stress. I listened to other people,
Speaker 1: I read books. I read books on stress related illnesses,
Speaker 1: which I did not realize were as common as they are,
Speaker 1: very very common stress related illnesses. And I started when
Speaker 1: I started to feel stressed instead of blowing it off,
Speaker 1: and Chuck probably got sick of this. I would walk
Speaker 1: into my husband and I would say, here's what I'm
Speaker 1: stressed about, and I would list off whatever I was
Speaker 1: stressed about. But for me, just saying whatever it was
Speaker 1: was a big part of stress management, just recognizing that
Speaker 1: I had stress. And within a week all the pain
Speaker 1: went away. And then I started thinking, well, maybe this
Speaker 1: is the placebo effect, right, Maybe I've just convinced myself.
Speaker 1: But then I thought, if I can convince myself not
Speaker 1: to have pain, perhaps my body convinced itself to have pain.
Speaker 1: And just so you guys know, and part of my
Speaker 1: medical study reading on fibromyalgia, they have done multiple studies
Speaker 1: where they actually are doing a functional MRI on people's
Speaker 1: brains while they are actually having a fibromalagia attack, and
Speaker 1: their brains are lighting up in the same exact way
Speaker 1: that someone experiencing horrible physical pain from an injury does.
Speaker 1: So it's not your brain is really creating that response
Speaker 1: in your brain and it manifests itself in a variety
Speaker 1: of ways, and stress related illnesses are one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of thing. And now I tend to go to it
Speaker 1: first when people say I've got this. Whenever anybody says
Speaker 1: the doctors can't figure out what's wrong, then I'm like,
Speaker 1: have you considered that it might be a stress related illness?
Speaker 1: Because I am now beyond a true believer in this.
Speaker 1: I absolutely feel it when I am in the middle
Speaker 1: of something, or if I'm having a challenge that I'm
Speaker 1: working through in any way, shape or form. If I
Speaker 1: don't catch it, I start, the pain starts to come
Speaker 1: back between my shoulder blades and then it moves down
Speaker 1: into my spine and hip. And I'm telling you, guys,
Speaker 1: it is like being in a car accident. That's the
Speaker 1: only way I can describe it, and not knowing why
Speaker 1: was making me absolutely in I mean good gravy, absolutely nuts.
Speaker 1: So that's the story. I mean, it's for me, it's
Speaker 1: been a stress related illness. I've now shared this with
Speaker 1: other people who suffer with fibromyalgia, and some of them
Speaker 1: have had great success in figuring out how to manage
Speaker 1: their stress. And everybody manages their stress differently. You just
Speaker 1: have to find a healthy way to manage your stress
Speaker 1: and not rely on ignoring it or self medicating or
Speaker 1: any of those other things. That we normally do for
Speaker 1: managing stress. So here's how I manage stress really quickly,
Speaker 1: and then I will never talk about this again. I
Speaker 1: have to exercise every day. I must get some form
Speaker 1: of exercise every day. Yesterday I didn't get to work
Speaker 1: out in the morning. I went home yesterday afternoon, and
Speaker 1: Rake leaves because I'm telling you, Rake and leaves that
Speaker 1: that counts. That counts. And then I have to make
Speaker 1: sure I get as good as sleep as I can get.
Speaker 1: And when something causes me stress, I say, this is
Speaker 1: really causing me stress, which for me is enough. So
Speaker 1: there you go. That is how I cured my fibromyalgia.
Speaker 1: And I realized there's a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: that spent a long time not being believed for this.
Speaker 1: And I hope just by having this conversation, if this
Speaker 1: happens to someone you know, at least you will go
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't a figment of their imagination, because I
Speaker 1: live through it and I'm here to tell you it
Speaker 1: is no joke. I mean no joke.