March 9, 2025

She Escaped Chronic Pain—Then Long COVID Changed Everything

Participate in our research study 
Amy's 1st Episode


✅ Ever battled with chronic pain or long COVID symptoms? Discover Amy Eicher's remarkable journey from being dismissed and misdiagnosed to becoming her own best advocate. In this episode of the Modern Pain Podcast, Amy shares her personal story of dealing with chronic pain, understanding long COVID, and navigating the intricacies of the healthcare system. Expect eye-opening insights, practical takeaways on resilience, pacing, and self-advocacy, and much more. Stick around for an engaging conversation that healthcare professionals, patients, and anyone interested in the human side of chronic illness should not miss!

Restoring Venus - https://restoringvenus.com/
Restoring Venus Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RestoringVenus/
Restoring Venus TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@restoringvenuspaincoach
Restoring Venus YouTube -  @restoringvenusamyeicher  


*********************************************************************
📸 - Follow us on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/modernpaincare/

🐦 - Follow us on Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/modernpaincare/

🎙️ - Listen to our Podcast - https://www.modernpaincare.com

____________________________________
Modern Pain Care is a company dedicated to spreading evidence-based and person-centered information about pain, prevention, and overall fitness and wellness

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:00.117 --> 00:00:00.537
Hey everyone.

00:00:00.537 --> 00:00:03.297
Before we dive into today's episode, I have a quick favor to ask.

00:00:03.416 --> 00:00:10.256
We're conducting a research survey to better understand the impact of educational podcasts like this one, and we would love your input.

00:00:10.766 --> 00:00:18.446
The survey is short and won't take more than a few minutes of your time, but your insights will help us better understand the role podcast play in professional development.

00:00:19.027 --> 00:00:24.996
To participate, simply head to modern pain care.com/research or find a link in the show notes.

00:00:25.567 --> 00:00:29.827
Thank you so much for being a valued part of our community and for helping us continue to grow and evolve.

00:00:30.157 --> 00:00:32.197
Now let's get into today's episode.

00:00:32.197 --> 00:00:44.067
I have yet in, in the hundreds of people that I have worked with chronic pain, I have yet to meet a woman that has not had her pain blamed on her weight or anxiety, whether or not she even has anxiety.

00:00:44.692 --> 00:00:53.063
Imagine battling chronic pain for years, finding your way out against all odds only to be hit with a whole new set of medical challenges that no one seems to understand.

00:00:53.633 --> 00:00:56.393
That's exactly what happened to today's guest, Amy Eicher.

00:00:56.932 --> 00:01:02.662
In this episode, Amy takes us on her journey from being dismissed and misdiagnosed to becoming her own best advocate.

00:01:03.082 --> 00:01:06.412
She shares the hard truth about navigating a healthcare system that often doesn't.

00:01:06.412 --> 00:01:06.953
Listen, I.

00:01:07.253 --> 00:01:13.763
The reality of living with long covid and the surprising lessons she's learned about resilience, pacing, and self-advocacy.

00:01:14.362 --> 00:01:21.052
These stories are too common, but ones healthcare professionals must hear, so we can better honor and respect the expertise that a patient holds.

00:01:21.802 --> 00:01:26.153
Whether you're a clinician, a patient, or someone who just wants to understand the human side of chronic illness.

00:01:26.483 --> 00:01:29.692
This episode is packed with eye-opening insights and practical takeaways.

00:01:30.263 --> 00:01:30.923
Stick around.

00:01:30.983 --> 00:01:34.576
This is one conversation you don't wanna miss now onto the episode.

00:01:34.977 --> 00:01:38.777
This is the Modern Pain Podcast with Mark Kargela.

00:01:39.277 --> 00:02:07.201
Amy let's give people a little bit of an update if we'll link the episode before we, you had a quite the journey with your challenges around SI joint and fusions and really coming out the other side in a much better spot and, challenging maybe the status quo of why you got there and really helping a lot of people with your coaching will definitely get into that, but I'd love if you could update people on what you've been dealing with as of late with some of your new engagement with the healthcare system.

00:02:07.403 --> 00:02:08.272
Sure.

00:02:08.372 --> 00:02:16.332
So in, in brief summary back in 1992, I got hurt as a college athlete, had SI joint problems.

00:02:16.582 --> 00:02:23.272
In 2014, I finally resolved that through a deep dive on pain science.

00:02:23.272 --> 00:02:25.872
And since what, 2018?

00:02:26.443 --> 00:02:35.782
18, I have been coaching other women in chronic pain because I was no longer in pain and I'd learned all this stuff and I had clawed my life back.

00:02:35.782 --> 00:02:41.663
And I thought maybe that would be useful to people after being in the clinic as a PTA.

00:02:41.723 --> 00:02:45.943
I span both sides of the table for anybody that's new to me.

00:02:46.742 --> 00:02:48.383
So in.

00:02:48.798 --> 00:02:57.487
December of 21 my darling partner and I went out to dinner and then went on a road trip down to New Orleans.

00:02:57.848 --> 00:03:04.497
Came home and Christmas Eve my glands were swollen and I was quite certain that I had strep throat.

00:03:04.987 --> 00:03:10.948
Went in, turns out, I had COVID! Ha! Surprise! And I was like, but strep throat.

00:03:11.217 --> 00:03:14.478
And they were like no, no strep throat, definitely COVID.

00:03:14.677 --> 00:03:19.777
And after about 12 days, my heart rate was really elevated.

00:03:19.828 --> 00:03:25.768
I was extraordinarily fatigued and it felt like I couldn't catch my breath.

00:03:26.268 --> 00:03:29.758
And then I think there was probably some pressure on my chest, which my.

00:03:30.133 --> 00:03:35.353
Primary care would later ask me a bunch of questions and be like, yes, Amy, most people would call that chest pain.

00:03:35.462 --> 00:03:42.992
And I was like, Okay, doesn't really feel like pain I've experienced, but sure, we can call it that.

00:03:43.592 --> 00:03:45.973
And he was like, so most people would have gone to the ER.

00:03:45.973 --> 00:03:48.853
And I was like, oh, I don't like the ER.

00:03:49.353 --> 00:03:51.622
They've, they treat me like a drug seeker.

00:03:51.622 --> 00:03:53.133
I don't go to the ER.

00:03:53.682 --> 00:03:54.532
I don't do that.

00:03:55.032 --> 00:04:05.247
So there may be some problems that one occurs after being a chronic pain patient and then actually having medical emergencies and not going

00:04:05.247 --> 00:04:06.448
I'm curious about that.

00:04:06.457 --> 00:04:18.377
Cause you, and we spoke to this a little bit before going on, but like you went into your, this issue around your SI green to the medical systems view on things and especially how you hadn't been exposed to pain science at that point.

00:04:18.387 --> 00:04:22.737
You had went down a road that many patients before you went down and, obviously.

00:04:23.237 --> 00:04:26.427
Took you climbing yourself out, which again is always the interesting thing.

00:04:26.427 --> 00:04:33.517
A lot of the folks in similar situation like Gillette is another one who found their way out on their own, despite health care, let alone with health care.

00:04:33.517 --> 00:04:43.627
So I'm curious when you go into health care, knowing that they're probably not as prepared to deal with.

00:04:44.127 --> 00:04:45.877
the complexity of your situation.

00:04:46.177 --> 00:04:54.778
Not that folks out there aren't trying to help people, but we know that we're not arming healthcare professionals in their graduate education, their entry level education, knowing much about pain.

00:04:54.778 --> 00:04:58.877
I just saw somebody posting, they lectured in a medical program and they were actually shocked.

00:04:59.038 --> 00:05:06.218
it's still a big issue that folks that we encounter in primary care and EDs aren't really well versed on pain.

00:05:06.218 --> 00:05:09.757
I'm curious, knowing that, how it affected your engagement this go around.

00:05:10.454 --> 00:05:22.884
so I go into any new medical professional armed with What I think so first of all, I don't access medical care unless I really can't solve it on my own and I will.

00:05:23.404 --> 00:05:25.714
That's the 1st thing I tell whoever it is, right?

00:05:25.714 --> 00:05:28.795
I am here because I cannot solve this on my own.

00:05:29.064 --> 00:05:33.375
I've been trying for 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 months, right?

00:05:33.384 --> 00:05:34.814
I give them the duration.

00:05:34.834 --> 00:05:42.285
I tell them what I've tried in a bullet point list and try to keep it to less than 60 seconds and I rehearse it before I go in.

00:05:42.785 --> 00:05:44.855
So that's where I start.

00:05:45.115 --> 00:05:53.435
And then I, because I do, because I have split the table I come in usually with some things I want ruled out.

00:05:53.475 --> 00:05:55.904
And I will say, I am concerned.

00:05:55.964 --> 00:05:59.064
So what ended up happening was I went back to prompt care.

00:05:59.064 --> 00:06:00.834
They said, you still have COVID.

00:06:00.845 --> 00:06:03.305
And I was like, cool, but we're at like 14 days.

00:06:03.305 --> 00:06:05.375
And my heart rate is like cookie.

00:06:05.925 --> 00:06:13.464
Like I'm laying on my couch and my heart rate is 140 and my O2 stats are dropping to 86.

00:06:14.285 --> 00:06:18.704
And then I feel dumb as a rock because my brain hasn't had enough oxygen.

00:06:19.204 --> 00:06:21.975
Do we maybe want to like, look at that?

00:06:22.014 --> 00:06:24.764
And nobody knows what's going on at this point, right?

00:06:24.805 --> 00:06:31.225
Like long COVID in December of 21 really isn't a thing.

00:06:31.725 --> 00:06:44.925
So there's not a whole lot to look at, other than the fact there is this community that is continuing to experience awfulness after the virus, typical incubation or whatever.

00:06:44.985 --> 00:06:49.095
I complain, they tell me I'm just anxious and they send me home.

00:06:49.144 --> 00:06:53.454
And the minute I hear from any doctor it's just anxiety or it's your weight.

00:06:53.954 --> 00:06:55.665
I know it's time to move on.

00:06:56.220 --> 00:06:57.470
I apologize to interrupt.

00:06:57.970 --> 00:07:04.009
I was actually just about to ask you this because I remember when my wife, I don't know if you remember the episode or if you heard, but she had a microembolic stroke.

00:07:04.009 --> 00:07:07.829
She lost strength in her right side, facial droop, all the whole nine.

00:07:08.509 --> 00:07:15.879
And I remember sitting there in the room and I was ready to reach across strangle some people because they're like, are you sure you're just not having some anxiety?

00:07:16.600 --> 00:07:18.860
The lady's right side is weak for God's sakes.

00:07:18.889 --> 00:07:20.449
I don't think it's her anxiety,

00:07:20.449 --> 00:07:23.839
And I think it's important for our listeners to hear that.

00:07:23.870 --> 00:07:37.120
I have yet in, in the hundreds of people that I have worked with chronic pain, I have yet to meet a woman that has not had her chronic pain blamed on her pain blamed on her weight or anxiety, whether or not she even has anxiety.

00:07:37.680 --> 00:07:38.529
I do now.

00:07:38.540 --> 00:07:39.930
Thanks to y'all y'all.

00:07:40.430 --> 00:07:40.600
No

00:07:41.237 --> 00:07:52.266
Yeah you bet I get in with a new provider and you better believe my blood pressure is higher than it is when I'm with a provider that I know and trust like darn tootin because I go in going, am I even going to be believed?

00:07:52.817 --> 00:07:54.617
So I go to my primary care.

00:07:54.646 --> 00:07:55.536
We're like.

00:07:56.047 --> 00:08:07.276
Sympatico, he gets me, he walked with me through all of the pain stuff, and then has watched me come out of all of that, and we've had great conversations around that.

00:08:07.317 --> 00:08:18.966
So when I said, hey, my heart's doing like really weird things, my normal resting is like in the 50s, and I'm currently in the 120s, 130s, and I don't feel good.

00:08:19.266 --> 00:08:21.601
I feel really bad.

00:08:22.541 --> 00:08:31.601
And it just so happened that while I was in the office and the, I was in the, pre intake or whatever, my heart did its thing.

00:08:32.221 --> 00:08:37.341
And the nurse triaging me was like, Are you okay?

00:08:37.371 --> 00:08:38.591
And I was like, it's fine.

00:08:38.601 --> 00:08:46.631
Now it's when it drops that I start to look all And then it started dropping and she was like, Oh my God, you look like you're going to pass out.

00:08:46.642 --> 00:08:47.322
And I said, it's a good thing.

00:08:47.322 --> 00:08:48.001
I'm sitting then.

00:08:48.011 --> 00:08:48.322
Huh?

00:08:48.841 --> 00:09:03.621
I have inappropriate sinus tack and I had to go through the normal cardiologist who, Let me know that I was overweight and I was like, yeah So this is all happened in the last nine months.

00:09:03.621 --> 00:09:20.062
I gained like 50 pounds in nine months I went and like from fairly normal 40 something year old woman to like completely menopausal like all of my Chick hormones just dropped off and we were like, okay, that's weird.

00:09:20.142 --> 00:09:26.101
Turns out that happened to a lot of women in their 40s after a COVID infection, but we didn't know that yet.

00:09:26.121 --> 00:09:29.111
That research was in process, hadn't been completed yet.

00:09:29.611 --> 00:09:31.552
Got kicked into menopause.

00:09:31.942 --> 00:09:55.241
We put me on HRT, hoping that would help this brain fog and this tired, sluggish Stuff and that didn't work finally got to the electrocardiologist after a five day stay in the hospital, which I can't even tell you about because I will get so angry that let's just say that all of the bad things that every other guest that's experienced stuff has talked about that happened.

00:09:55.741 --> 00:10:01.341
So I'm on the table, they're fishing the thing up through my femoral artery, right?

00:10:01.522 --> 00:10:07.591
I'm awake as can be, the anesthesiologist behind me, we're on a first name basis at this point.

00:10:07.841 --> 00:10:11.072
Because I don't want to feel any of this.

00:10:11.361 --> 00:10:13.831
There's a student with the doctor.

00:10:14.331 --> 00:10:16.552
It gets to about my belly button.

00:10:16.562 --> 00:10:17.912
He's advancing, right?

00:10:18.111 --> 00:10:22.851
And I point and I say, I feel tugging right here.

00:10:23.351 --> 00:10:27.101
Doctor says, you can't possibly feel any tugging.

00:10:27.542 --> 00:10:30.491
Student says, she's pointing right where we're at.

00:10:31.052 --> 00:10:33.101
And I'm like, love you.

00:10:33.131 --> 00:10:35.142
You're going to be in so much trouble.

00:10:36.072 --> 00:10:43.792
Like when you're done here, I basically leaned my head back and said to the anesthesiologist, is it okay if we turn that up some?

00:10:44.292 --> 00:10:46.152
And he was like, yeah, you got it, Amy.

00:10:46.162 --> 00:10:52.871
So he turned me up and then I became much more entertaining until they had to go through the septum of my heart to get what they wanted.

00:10:53.481 --> 00:10:54.552
And then they knocked me out.

00:10:54.552 --> 00:10:56.072
So I was no longer troublesome to them.

00:10:57.032 --> 00:11:08.621
But it was amazing to me that in the procedure while it's happening and they can see it, that they're telling me, no, that's not, you're not feeling what you feel like, what is that?

00:11:08.741 --> 00:11:10.211
Why do we do that?

00:11:10.751 --> 00:11:11.042
What?

00:11:11.542 --> 00:11:21.851
I know you can't answer that, but if your patient is saying something, and I know we're mostly physical therapists here that are listening to this, but if they're telling you something, how about we just believe them?

00:11:22.152 --> 00:11:25.201
I sometimes wonder if it's just it doesn't make sense, right?

00:11:25.201 --> 00:11:34.241
Maybe 99 out of the last 99, but this hundredth patient feels it and it doesn't fit the rule and Therefore, they must be making it up.

00:11:34.272 --> 00:11:35.672
Why don't you say I don't know.

00:11:35.741 --> 00:11:38.841
I think that's just the hard thing for folks.

00:11:38.841 --> 00:11:53.772
And I don't know if it's just a, clutching to your status as a all knowing, expert where I think the X, the best experts I've ever seen are the ones that are willing to say, you know what, I'm not sure why you're feeling it there, but let's figure some things out and see what we can do to make you more comfortable.

00:11:54.032 --> 00:11:54.351
And.

00:11:54.616 --> 00:11:56.527
Instead of invalidating your experience.

00:11:56.527 --> 00:12:01.548
Cause they just they didn't have the answer, that it's because some fancy medical explanation type thing.

00:12:01.605 --> 00:12:01.836
Yeah

00:12:01.847 --> 00:12:04.248
and I forgot how I got to the hospital.

00:12:05.197 --> 00:12:11.878
So I had to have a stress test and climbing the stairs, my heart rate was getting in like 180 to 220.

00:12:11.988 --> 00:12:16.763
I get I'm out of shape, Mark, but I'm not that out of shape, right?

00:12:17.166 --> 00:12:21.596
that's like higher than the highest intensity hit training you can do right there

00:12:21.793 --> 00:12:26.548
And I'm like slowly meandering up the stairs at 180, 220, right?

00:12:26.697 --> 00:12:34.298
As you can imagine, having your heart rate elevated for any amount of time when it's that high makes you a little tired when you're done.

00:12:34.365 --> 00:12:38.926
So we put a halter monitor, which led me to a stress test.

00:12:38.975 --> 00:12:42.115
And then during the stress test, I started throwing out S.

00:12:42.115 --> 00:12:42.265
V.

00:12:42.265 --> 00:12:53.875
T's everywhere and those didn't die down and my blood pressure skyrocketed and my heart rate skyrocketed and everybody in the room freaked out but me because I was like, but this has been happening for four or five months.

00:12:53.875 --> 00:12:55.296
I keep telling you all.

00:12:55.796 --> 00:12:59.995
I'm not scared because I have yet to pass out and nothing terrible's happened.

00:13:00.285 --> 00:13:02.556
I just need to go to sleep and it will go away.

00:13:02.875 --> 00:13:05.336
And they were like, no, you need to go to the ER.

00:13:05.336 --> 00:13:07.975
And I was like, oh, that's way too expensive.

00:13:08.155 --> 00:13:09.076
No, I don't.

00:13:09.975 --> 00:13:12.716
So they let me like stay there for 15 minutes.

00:13:12.765 --> 00:13:16.346
Like three cardiologists came into the room to watch the monitor.

00:13:16.765 --> 00:13:19.535
Everybody but me was flipping out.

00:13:19.576 --> 00:13:24.135
And I was like, I've been telling you all this at every point.

00:13:24.990 --> 00:13:26.019
Isn't it interesting?

00:13:26.019 --> 00:13:36.750
Our integrity is challenged, like that this, it just can't be like when they don't, when people don't fit the textbook, which a lot of our people, as you well know, when person's in pain don't at all.

00:13:37.210 --> 00:13:40.909
So the, just absolutely invalidation that folks go through until.

00:13:41.429 --> 00:13:44.509
apparently the objective proof backs up their experience.

00:13:45.125 --> 00:13:50.505
smacking you in the face and going off as an alarm in the stress test room, right?

00:13:51.035 --> 00:13:59.745
Now, I will say that we are, there's approximately 400, 000, 000 known cases of long COVID worldwide at this point.

00:14:00.155 --> 00:14:01.895
So chances are.

00:14:02.206 --> 00:14:13.586
As a provider for musculoskeletal, whatever, you're going to come in contact with somebody that is experiencing long COVID symptoms and has no idea.

00:14:14.086 --> 00:14:17.696
that is highly likely, so take a cursory course.

00:14:18.176 --> 00:14:21.576
Get yourself acquainted with, the over 200 symptoms.

00:14:22.015 --> 00:14:33.755
That are out there, but like POTS is super real and you had a great podcast on that As is post exertional malaise, and we do not treat that the same way that we treat deconditioning.

00:14:33.850 --> 00:14:37.389
Wanted to, Daria Oller we had on who's got long COVID and long COVID.

00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:41.379
physio is a great resource for folks to, to get into it as your clinician.

00:14:41.389 --> 00:14:42.429
Cause I agree.

00:14:42.429 --> 00:14:57.679
I think Imagine, Amy's journey, your patients are going through the same journey of all these weird symptoms that because we don't have a litany of RCTs to perfectly explain it, healthcare doesn't really have, unfortunately, a great way to deal with it.

00:14:57.679 --> 00:15:02.590
And unfortunately the reaction is invalidation and all the things that you went through.

00:15:03.019 --> 00:15:05.730
Yeah, and then Emily Rich's episode on POTS, huge.

00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:11.029
I'd love if we can, yeah, I'd love if we can get into your post exitional malaise thing.

00:15:11.029 --> 00:15:11.649
Cause I think.

00:15:12.375 --> 00:15:16.845
You know how we are as physios, you're a PTA, and you've been doing this, you're back in the clinic, we'll talk about that.

00:15:17.345 --> 00:15:19.445
Our solution to most things is exercise, right?

00:15:19.525 --> 00:15:20.826
Exercise your way out of it

00:15:21.230 --> 00:15:30.960
Yeah, and then we almost invalidate people and shame them because you're not moving, you're not exercising, yet that is not the best solution for a lot of folks who deal with post exertion release.

00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:38.440
I'm wondering if you could one, speak to your experience of what it's like having it and then how your approach to thinking about exercises may be evolved as a result.

00:15:38.635 --> 00:15:45.916
Yes, so I will tell you once I got my heart results back that said I did not have any inflammation in or around my heart.

00:15:45.956 --> 00:15:47.525
I was like, all right, I just got it.

00:15:47.525 --> 00:15:51.436
I just got to exercise my way out of it because I'm a PTA and I don't know how to do this.

00:15:51.936 --> 00:15:53.056
Wow, is that dumb?

00:15:53.666 --> 00:15:54.936
You don't know what you don't know.

00:15:55.436 --> 00:15:56.875
Until you learn more, right?

00:15:57.596 --> 00:16:02.956
So I started walking thinking it's been, it's been like 6 months at this point.

00:16:03.265 --> 00:16:04.745
They fixed the SVTs.

00:16:04.765 --> 00:16:13.785
They did an ablation and he was also able to find some of the misfiring nodes that were causing my heart rate to skyrocket.

00:16:14.316 --> 00:16:18.346
So he was able to reproduce that by poking at stuff in my heart, burned it.

00:16:18.446 --> 00:16:23.395
And that stopped the astronomical heart rates.

00:16:23.416 --> 00:16:25.046
Like it still is.

00:16:25.495 --> 00:16:30.696
Disequitous and they labeled me with inappropriate sinus tachycardia.

00:16:30.775 --> 00:16:34.905
So it's not like POTS is much more positional.

00:16:35.145 --> 00:16:36.666
Mine just cuz,

00:16:37.166 --> 00:16:37.495
Yeah.

00:16:37.735 --> 00:16:39.346
Just does it regardless of position.

00:16:39.543 --> 00:16:39.822
right?

00:16:39.883 --> 00:16:51.923
So I wish I could lay down to make it better, but I, it doesn't like I can be asleep and it can hit 120 just because any shot of adrenaline will make my heart rate skyrocket.

00:16:52.423 --> 00:16:54.913
So I can't be stressed out.

00:16:54.913 --> 00:16:56.243
Yes,

00:16:56.660 --> 00:16:58.071
your rides at Disney world?

00:16:58.091 --> 00:16:59.510
Like I know, you talked about this.

00:16:59.520 --> 00:17:07.651
Is that something I think you've willingly decided there's things you're willing to expose yourself to in, in the service of your values, which Disney world I know is one of the

00:17:07.782 --> 00:17:08.873
Is one of my values.

00:17:08.923 --> 00:17:12.603
If I could turn my camera, you would see my wall of ears and

00:17:13.040 --> 00:17:13.540
Love it.

00:17:13.653 --> 00:17:23.833
It's next to me, but yes, I decided like the whole family decided we were going to take a trip to Disney and my partner also has long COVID, but he wouldn't call it that.

00:17:23.843 --> 00:17:27.782
He just says he still gets tired at unusual things.

00:17:28.333 --> 00:17:33.442
So we postponed it a year because he and I were both like, I don't think we can do Disney.

00:17:33.462 --> 00:17:36.212
I don't think we're going to survive the experience.

00:17:36.893 --> 00:18:02.063
And I knew from all the pain stuff that like, oftentimes when you're in an environment that you love, when you're doing things that you love, you can do a lot more than you think you can, because I talk about the cup from Greg Lehman I've taken a ton of stuff out of my cup by being in this environment, having it match my values, being with my family, doing all these things.

00:18:02.252 --> 00:18:04.383
So there's a lot more room to make, yeah.

00:18:04.768 --> 00:18:09.458
Harebrained ideas, like walk 12, 000 steps at Disney.

00:18:09.817 --> 00:18:12.817
Did you run up against any people like saying, what the hell are you doing?

00:18:12.877 --> 00:18:15.288
Be it medical or anything to say you shouldn't do that.

00:18:15.357 --> 00:18:16.587
Did you have anybody or

00:18:16.785 --> 00:18:22.615
by that so I got rapidly discharged from the cardiologist because they're like there's nothing else we can do for you lose weight.

00:18:22.654 --> 00:18:23.204
And I was like.

00:18:23.734 --> 00:18:24.125
We're done.

00:18:24.164 --> 00:18:24.795
We're done here.

00:18:24.795 --> 00:18:26.095
We're done here.

00:18:26.684 --> 00:18:30.305
And my primary care, like I cannot imagine Dr.

00:18:30.305 --> 00:18:39.494
Hancock saying that to me basically what we've done for the last four years is I come in with all the inflammation research and stuff.

00:18:39.525 --> 00:18:42.865
And he's on the post viral reserve research stuff.

00:18:43.194 --> 00:18:43.734
And then.

00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:52.440
We talk and I'll say, okay, patients tried this nicotine patch or patients are trying Ozempic or patients are trying low dose naltrexone.

00:18:53.049 --> 00:18:55.269
Here's what the patient community is saying.

00:18:55.279 --> 00:18:58.640
Here's what research says about the inflammation and these things.

00:18:59.140 --> 00:19:04.900
You take all your medical brilliance and tell me if you think that's applicable to me.

00:19:05.470 --> 00:19:09.670
Like we talked hyperbaric chamber at one point and he was like, I don't think that's worth it.

00:19:10.244 --> 00:19:15.795
Like not for you and your symptoms and your presentation, maybe somebody else, right?

00:19:16.234 --> 00:19:18.974
So we just go back and forth with ideas.

00:19:19.025 --> 00:19:20.255
And then it's.

00:19:20.684 --> 00:19:23.265
Are you willing to prescribe to let me try that?

00:19:24.115 --> 00:19:27.394
Or Amy, are you willing to take this?

00:19:27.894 --> 00:19:29.464
And try my suggestion?

00:19:29.964 --> 00:19:35.174
It, I think this is a great example of a doctor that embraces shared expertise, right?

00:19:35.174 --> 00:19:43.075
That That, whole creating the third space that you hear Quintner and Cohen and those folks where they're willing to shelf their ego.

00:19:43.809 --> 00:19:56.200
Contribute their expertise when it's helpful to the context in front of them, but not again force feed it to somebody and really let a patient have, heaven forbid, say and what goes on with their body and what they do.

00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:58.119
I think that's a great experience.

00:19:58.119 --> 00:19:59.910
And and primary care, right?

00:19:59.940 --> 00:20:00.976
It's, sometimes I think

00:20:01.296 --> 00:20:02.915
is my primary care doctor.

00:20:02.935 --> 00:20:09.925
I would also like to add that this is not me going in saying you're going to prescribe LDN at 2.

00:20:09.926 --> 00:20:11.666
5 for 2 months, and then you're going to up it to 4.

00:20:11.666 --> 00:20:15.836
5 and we're going to like, that's not what's happening.

00:20:15.855 --> 00:20:17.726
That's Hey, I read this thing on LDN.

00:20:17.726 --> 00:20:19.675
Hey, it crosses the blood brain barrier.

00:20:19.715 --> 00:20:21.306
I don't really understand what that means.

00:20:21.586 --> 00:20:24.695
Hey, people are saying that this is helping with autoimmune diseases.

00:20:25.096 --> 00:20:27.846
Which is mostly inflammatory to my understanding.

00:20:27.895 --> 00:20:29.855
One, does that sound right to you?

00:20:29.855 --> 00:20:31.905
And he's yes, great.

00:20:32.155 --> 00:20:35.385
Do you think it, do you think that this is a worthy.

00:20:35.386 --> 00:20:38.695
Trial, right?

00:20:39.195 --> 00:20:41.516
And then he tells me what the risks are.

00:20:41.516 --> 00:20:44.546
He tells me what he thinks may or may not happen.

00:20:44.776 --> 00:20:47.355
And then we usually agree to try things for 3 months.

00:20:47.855 --> 00:20:51.665
And then I check in via virtual chart every month and tell him.

00:20:52.215 --> 00:20:55.355
Then I just give him a PT update, 25 percent blah, blah, blah.

00:20:55.855 --> 00:21:00.155
And to me, this is a time where the N equals one is the experiment there.

00:21:00.165 --> 00:21:04.476
You're not what RCTs like massive population RCTs or meta analyses.

00:21:04.476 --> 00:21:06.576
Are you going to lean on for, yeah, exactly.

00:21:06.576 --> 00:21:11.165
Like you have to create a clinical situation where this is an N equals one.

00:21:11.455 --> 00:21:13.955
Like you said, identify risks, be fully transparent.

00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:21.008
Makes some shared decision making and, give to, I think that's he's great example of somebody who's, exemplifying,

00:21:21.307 --> 00:21:21.738
I wish

00:21:21.800 --> 00:21:22.897
what it is person centered.

00:21:23.198 --> 00:21:25.458
I wish we could get him like on a teaching circuit.

00:21:26.008 --> 00:21:28.228
Just so that he could share things like this, right?

00:21:28.298 --> 00:21:30.157
We went through a bunch of different.

00:21:30.583 --> 00:21:42.623
Heart medications and I'm so healthy and my blood pressure is so low that all of the medications that we tried to lower my heart rate also lower your blood pressure.

00:21:42.633 --> 00:21:48.252
So I was like, darn near passing out because it was taking my blood pressure too low.

00:21:48.803 --> 00:21:53.762
That's also fun because there's others that do really well on those medications.

00:21:54.262 --> 00:21:55.073
But not all of us.

00:21:55.423 --> 00:21:55.613
Yeah.

00:21:55.613 --> 00:22:06.373
And that's, again the, let's give it a try and see what happens and be willing to, and I think it's probably identifies a lot of the healthcare folks that are really able to navigate that.

00:22:06.373 --> 00:22:10.292
That's just, great clinical reasoning, critical thinking to be able to.

00:22:10.923 --> 00:22:12.833
Navigate that and problem solve with people.

00:22:12.833 --> 00:22:16.772
And again to put the ego aside and Hey, I don't know the answers.

00:22:16.772 --> 00:22:17.730
Let's figure it out together,

00:22:17.730 --> 00:22:17.950
And

00:22:18.103 --> 00:22:24.313
and I'll use my expertise to make sure you're not doing something that's dangerous to yourself, I'm also gonna be flexible to say, I don't know.

00:22:24.313 --> 00:22:25.762
And yeah, maybe we should try it.

00:22:25.762 --> 00:22:26.123
I don't know.

00:22:26.259 --> 00:22:28.599
try it and see what happens now.

00:22:28.900 --> 00:22:33.990
I feel like it's my responsibility as a patient to be honest, give good feedback.

00:22:34.019 --> 00:22:39.730
And I think I think 1 of the interesting, the retrospective on it from my perspective is.

00:22:40.309 --> 00:22:46.400
When I got hurt at 18, my expectation was for medicine to fix me.

00:22:46.900 --> 00:22:49.769
I have no say, I don't know anything.

00:22:49.819 --> 00:22:53.869
I'm trusting every PT, every doctor, every, every medical professional.

00:22:53.869 --> 00:22:56.400
I saw their job was to fix it.

00:22:56.900 --> 00:23:01.650
time around, even though I have a diagnosis is that are outside of long coat they're right.

00:23:01.650 --> 00:23:03.839
It's, came.

00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:10.940
Long before did post exertional malaise, which I will eventually answer that question came long before.

00:23:11.299 --> 00:23:12.150
COVID, right?

00:23:12.170 --> 00:23:17.700
These are things that are known out in the metaverse, in the medical universe, right?

00:23:18.200 --> 00:23:26.420
But I wasn't expecting anyone to have any singular person to have the singular answer.

00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:34.599
And I also knew pretty early on after the first year, I was like, okay, I this is me?

00:23:35.384 --> 00:23:46.335
This is what's going on, and I can do what I did last time and waste another 20 years not living, waiting for somebody to fix it, or I can live my life with the limitations that I now have.

00:23:47.035 --> 00:23:54.585
And let's be real, Mark, those limitations were like, I couldn't drive 15 minutes to my partner's house.

00:23:54.805 --> 00:23:59.075
I had to be driven or be picked up because I couldn't drive a car safely.

00:23:59.575 --> 00:24:06.525
So the first year I basically laid on a couch and that was also when hospitals were super full.

00:24:06.894 --> 00:24:19.799
So I was like, okay, so if I turn blue, I need you to go to the dive shop with my dive card and I need you to get a tank full of air and then go into my attic and get my, like my scuba gear.

00:24:20.430 --> 00:24:23.220
And that's the way we're going to deal with Amy Needs Oxygen.

00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:25.400
And my family looks at me like I was crazy.

00:24:25.400 --> 00:24:28.049
And I said, PTAs are supposed to problem solve.

00:24:28.170 --> 00:24:29.079
I am problem solving.

00:24:29.650 --> 00:24:33.250
I'm not waiting in a hospital waiting room to die and get COVID again.

00:24:33.750 --> 00:24:34.089
Yeah.

00:24:34.340 --> 00:24:35.290
are no beds.

00:24:35.401 --> 00:24:36.840
Nobody's dealing with this.

00:24:37.131 --> 00:24:38.911
This is not a medical emergency.

00:24:38.971 --> 00:24:40.300
This is how we're dealing with it.

00:24:40.790 --> 00:24:47.161
So the creative thinking, the not waiting for a provider to fix me and saying, okay, I'm going to figure it out.

00:24:47.711 --> 00:24:49.820
I have to keep doing things of value to me.

00:24:49.861 --> 00:24:52.661
I can't let my life waste away.

00:24:53.121 --> 00:24:54.300
This just is what it is.

00:24:54.300 --> 00:24:57.590
And it was like radical acceptance early on,

00:24:58.090 --> 00:25:05.111
So if you could like, and I know you already do this, you coach people who are going through chronic illness and chronic pain and stuff, but what are your thoughts on people?

00:25:05.111 --> 00:25:20.661
Because I think I just, experiencing some people who might get way out in left field on the internet and on, a lot of conspiratorial and doing all sorts of like treatments that are almost sometimes putting themselves at risk and like way off of, but

00:25:20.867 --> 00:25:22.478
way off the beaten path.

00:25:22.951 --> 00:25:31.560
Yeah, which, and I, again I think we should give people the freedom to choose what they want, but in, when you're engaging with a healthcare, we have a duty to ascribe to some sort of scientific process.

00:25:31.560 --> 00:25:33.181
And not go way too far off.

00:25:33.221 --> 00:25:40.010
But yet I do think it's, I love the fact, you'd armed yourself with the knowledge and didn't wait for someone to give you the answer.

00:25:40.010 --> 00:25:56.421
So I think that's And I think that we, I would recommend that anybody who's especially dealing with chronic pain is like you need to study and get your stuff in line and not sit there on the sidelines because if you sit on the sidelines, healthcare ain't going to scoop you off, like you're going to have to pull yourself off and fight your way back onto the field of life.

00:25:56.472 --> 00:25:58.268
And you're really in quicksand.

00:25:58.438 --> 00:26:03.458
It's slowly pulling you under, like you're not benignly sitting on a curb.

00:26:03.958 --> 00:26:09.867
When we stop for the, for life altering medical conditions that don't have solutions, right?

00:26:09.867 --> 00:26:18.847
Which is so many of our autoimmune conditions, long COVID included and chronic pain you're not benignly sitting on a curb.

00:26:18.857 --> 00:26:22.557
You're losing your life because you keep making it smaller and smaller.

00:26:23.198 --> 00:26:27.137
Until you decide that you're done losing your life.

00:26:27.637 --> 00:26:34.667
They're like, That is the readiness point when the individual is has lost enough that they're done.

00:26:35.167 --> 00:26:37.978
And I don't know that you can expedite that.

00:26:37.978 --> 00:26:39.928
I

00:26:40.040 --> 00:26:41.020
always a question.

00:26:41.131 --> 00:26:42.260
I think I've asked you it.

00:26:42.260 --> 00:26:45.701
I've asked a lot of my lived experience or friends that, is there something.

00:26:46.391 --> 00:26:51.681
you think could have happened earlier on in your journey to have made you be ready earlier?

00:26:51.701 --> 00:26:54.381
Or did you need to get to that worth?

00:26:54.431 --> 00:26:57.371
You've lost enough to where it was time to change.

00:26:57.401 --> 00:26:59.111
What do you think of that?

00:26:59.611 --> 00:27:08.011
mean I think we're all individuals and we all have our own value system and the way that we take in information and for.

00:27:08.571 --> 00:27:10.352
Stubborn gets like me.

00:27:11.067 --> 00:27:14.047
I just had to get to the end of the road where I was like I've tried.

00:27:14.356 --> 00:27:18.527
When you hear somebody say I've tried everything, they're close.

00:27:18.951 --> 00:27:25.352
And that's some of the exercise we use with like act based things, creative hopelessness, where you let people walk themselves through their story to you've tried it all.

00:27:25.711 --> 00:27:27.461
Life still continues to get smaller.

00:27:27.922 --> 00:27:39.652
Do you think a different approach might be helpful and hopefully, but yeah, some people come to it on their own, like you did and others where, you know, I'm just done with, shrinking life and nobody helping me in my integrity, being challenged at every turn.

00:27:40.182 --> 00:27:43.251
You asked what PME feels like post exertional malaise.

00:27:43.251 --> 00:27:45.981
So anybody listening, if you've ever had mono.

00:27:46.961 --> 00:27:48.701
Feels an awful lot like that.

00:27:49.201 --> 00:27:58.541
If you haven't had mono, imagine not sleeping for three days, and then being told you need to go run a marathon, and then that you have to keep going to work.

00:27:59.092 --> 00:28:01.321
It is, it's not tired.

00:28:01.521 --> 00:28:03.692
It's beyond tired.

00:28:04.102 --> 00:28:06.922
It's, it is a beyond beyond tired.

00:28:06.951 --> 00:28:26.842
And one of the Analogies that I have used to describe the physical feeling is it often felt like my spine was filled with cement and I was just like glued to the surface that I was on be that my couch downstairs or my bed in my bedroom, but it was like the idea of.

00:28:27.342 --> 00:28:41.162
The idea of having the actual physical ATP to move my body was, I didn't have enough, like there, there was nothing that was going, it wasn't that my brain didn't want to get up.

00:28:41.211 --> 00:28:44.501
It wasn't that I didn't know movement is good for our bodies.

00:28:44.781 --> 00:28:52.511
It was this body isn't moving and it would usually come after a highly emotional experience.

00:28:53.011 --> 00:28:59.781
Highly stressful or I, the walking that I undertook trying to get myself better.

00:29:00.172 --> 00:29:08.662
And I eventually reached out to our dear friend, Sandy Hilton and was like, okay, I saw you mentioned something about heart rate pacing.

00:29:08.672 --> 00:29:10.781
What that tell me about that.

00:29:11.402 --> 00:29:19.211
And so she helped me get a handle on what heart rate pacing is and how I could use it and how part of the problem was energy production.

00:29:19.211 --> 00:29:21.696
Transcribed When it comes to post exertional malaise.

00:29:22.017 --> 00:29:23.307
So no, I'm not lazy.

00:29:23.626 --> 00:29:25.307
No, I haven't given up.

00:29:25.547 --> 00:29:36.737
It's I literally don't have the basic building blocks to continue to move, which is why it's bad to try to exercise your way out of post exertional malaise.

00:29:36.737 --> 00:29:38.567
You can't, you make it worse.

00:29:39.067 --> 00:29:40.876
So you mentioned heart rate pacing.

00:29:40.876 --> 00:29:51.997
Can you Discuss obviously we know exercise is shoving exercise down somebody's throat with post exertion, not a good idea, but like it now, if you could prescribe you've already had some good interaction.

00:29:51.997 --> 00:29:53.396
Sandy, we're trying to get her on the podcast.

00:29:53.436 --> 00:29:58.926
She's busy, but we're going to get her, bother her enough until she finally, Submits to my request.

00:29:59.356 --> 00:29:59.797
That's it.

00:29:59.807 --> 00:30:00.207
That's it.

00:30:00.416 --> 00:30:06.446
But what would you say if a clinician seeing it, they're uncertain, like what are, what'd you say would be a good approach to take on

00:30:06.797 --> 00:30:10.567
So I think the first thing, like the first thing is you've got to identify it, right?

00:30:11.116 --> 00:30:15.567
You've given the like supine, say it's a back patient, right?

00:30:15.757 --> 00:30:20.057
You've given the supine four way leg exercises, right?

00:30:20.146 --> 00:30:21.267
And heel slides.

00:30:21.517 --> 00:30:30.076
And they come in and they're like, I couldn't I was fine when I did them, but then a day or two later, I couldn't move.

00:30:30.297 --> 00:30:32.196
I was so tired.

00:30:32.696 --> 00:30:37.997
That should be making all kinds of flags fly around in your head.

00:30:38.267 --> 00:30:40.767
And you should be thinking that's weird.

00:30:41.017 --> 00:30:42.007
Because you're right.

00:30:42.067 --> 00:30:43.176
That is weird.

00:30:43.227 --> 00:30:46.646
Because we give those to geriatrics in hospital beds.

00:30:47.227 --> 00:30:50.977
So why is the 30 something in front of me struggling with this?

00:30:51.237 --> 00:30:53.997
But you'll note, the first thing you did was you believed them.

00:30:54.497 --> 00:30:57.017
Because that's what made the flags go around in your head.

00:30:57.567 --> 00:31:00.247
And then you poke around for some more information.

00:31:00.747 --> 00:31:03.106
Are they showering and then do they need to rest?

00:31:03.416 --> 00:31:08.586
If it's a woman, can they shower, shave, and wash their hair all in the same shower?

00:31:08.646 --> 00:31:10.027
Or are they breaking it up?

00:31:10.527 --> 00:31:15.467
Because a lot of times people will break these things down without realizing they're doing it.

00:31:16.106 --> 00:31:19.277
And then we ask questions like are you able to shower?

00:31:19.767 --> 00:31:25.396
Sure, but if you don't ask me the next questions, you're not gonna get the answer.

00:31:25.896 --> 00:31:27.717
You're not gonna get the information you need.

00:31:27.896 --> 00:31:29.527
Yeah, I can shower.

00:31:30.267 --> 00:31:35.307
I also need to sleep for three hours afterward because my heart rate goes up to 140, right?

00:31:35.807 --> 00:31:37.146
Can you do the dishes?

00:31:37.646 --> 00:31:45.267
If I sit in a chair, and I've worked my way out of a lot of this, but the heart rate pacing is to take your heart rate.

00:31:45.336 --> 00:31:50.596
We don't want to go above 40 percent of your max heart rate for Really anything.

00:31:51.267 --> 00:31:59.136
So the first thing I had to do was I had to be able to walk down my stairs and keep my heart rate under that 40%.

00:31:59.636 --> 00:32:05.557
And if it started to pop up, I had to sit on the stairs and wait.

00:32:06.356 --> 00:32:24.932
So there was a while that it was taking me close to 20 minutes to walk down my stairs while keeping my heart rate In the okay zone, Mark, that's not fun and it takes discipline on the part of the patient, but you know what, the more I did that, the less tired I was.

00:32:24.971 --> 00:32:28.182
So the more I got done, which meant I kept pot.

00:32:28.182 --> 00:32:37.761
We call them ping pong balls in restoring Venus, but the more positive ping pong balls, the more I wanted to do it because the more energy I had for other stuff I had to learn.

00:32:38.366 --> 00:32:50.227
I there's pacing, and then there's extreme pacing, and I feel like it's an extreme sport now that I can break down any task into the most infinitesimal points.

00:32:51.136 --> 00:32:51.547
Right?

00:32:52.047 --> 00:32:53.537
And I learned to do that.

00:32:53.537 --> 00:32:58.916
So like Christmas decorating that first year took me three weeks where normally it would take me a single day.

00:32:59.416 --> 00:33:06.396
Baking Christmas cookies, instead of being a single day activity, collect the ingredients, then wait several days, then make the dough.

00:33:06.791 --> 00:33:13.622
Then wait several days, then cut the dough out, wait a few more days, then decorate the cookies with the family.

00:33:14.152 --> 00:33:15.852
Yay! There's the, you finally get there.

00:33:16.402 --> 00:33:23.731
But you gotta plan this stuff so that you're not constantly draining your literal battery.

00:33:24.231 --> 00:33:28.132
And pushing through it is just gonna land you in bed every single time.

00:33:28.311 --> 00:33:32.592
I tested that theory roughly 4, 000 times and you know what?

00:33:32.632 --> 00:33:36.481
I was never able to push through because it's a mitochondrial issue.

00:33:36.981 --> 00:33:50.612
Do you feel there's any inroads to that experience through some of the stuff we all use for Mindfulness and things to where you can harness maybe some of your autonomic systems input into that situation through how did your experience with that go?

00:33:50.858 --> 00:34:01.308
So Jim Stark and I did some experiments with an Apple Watch, the Visible program, and then just my own interoception.

00:34:02.068 --> 00:34:10.759
And turns out I have highly honed interoception at this point, and that was a lot better than any of the watches.

00:34:11.259 --> 00:34:26.849
But if your client has no clue what it feels like when their heart rate raises or when they're starting to peter out or their energy level is getting low or like any like brain fog, so we haven't talked about this.

00:34:26.849 --> 00:34:34.768
Yes, the worst symptom for me was that I would go to do the things that I did during chronic pain, which was learn something, right?

00:34:34.768 --> 00:34:37.009
So I'm going to learn about post exertional malaise.

00:34:37.009 --> 00:34:38.268
I'm going to learn about long COVID.

00:34:38.768 --> 00:34:39.559
I couldn't read.

00:34:39.568 --> 00:34:41.219
I couldn't stay on the computer.

00:34:41.248 --> 00:34:43.768
I couldn't have screen time because it was drained.

00:34:43.818 --> 00:34:51.798
I didn't yet understand that all of these tasks are still draining my energy, even though they're not exercise.

00:34:52.188 --> 00:34:58.579
So for me, the hardest part was I couldn't read studies to get information.

00:34:59.539 --> 00:35:01.469
Which meant I had to ask for help.

00:35:02.009 --> 00:35:12.079
I knew a couple people that really wanted to help me, and were very good at that, and so I tasked them with reading the research studies and sending me snippets.

00:35:12.878 --> 00:35:22.278
And that went on for probably nine months that Carol was reading research studies for me, and she was just, she was a former patient of mine.

00:35:22.634 --> 00:35:34.943
She was a former client of my coaching services, had gotten better, wanted to be able to pay me back, and I was like, great, you are a crazy research queen, find the not crazy stuff for me, right?

00:35:35.054 --> 00:35:46.474
And she did that, and I think chronic illness and chronic pain were terrible at asking for help because we either feel like we've asked too much or that there's just this fatigue, right?

00:35:46.474 --> 00:35:50.403
We imagine that everybody around us is fatigued and they're tired of hearing about our shit.

00:35:50.903 --> 00:35:57.923
Maybe, but if we don't learn who the safe people are to ask for help, you, again, you're limited.

00:35:58.474 --> 00:36:07.534
You, we have to learn to ask for help to get through the things we need to get through to get to a point like, I'm at now where I'm back at work twice a week.

00:36:07.704 --> 00:36:09.284
I'm only it's only 4 hours.

00:36:09.503 --> 00:36:11.403
So I've got 8 hours that I.

00:36:12.184 --> 00:36:17.233
Am in clinic, and I need to really take care of myself when I'm done.

00:36:17.733 --> 00:36:25.914
But the visible app is good for those that like can't tell you anything, it just happens, right?

00:36:25.914 --> 00:36:26.364
I don't know.

00:36:26.364 --> 00:36:27.293
It just happens.

00:36:27.793 --> 00:36:35.373
The visible app is really good for that and it doesn't push you like the health watches that are like, you should get up and walk.

00:36:35.384 --> 00:36:37.833
You should, you've been awfully passive.

00:36:38.384 --> 00:36:41.313
And that's counter in that's counter helpful.

00:36:41.313 --> 00:36:42.253
It's counterproductive.

00:36:42.494 --> 00:36:46.304
I've been going deep down the act rabbit hole for the last, gosh, two years or so.

00:36:46.934 --> 00:36:54.063
And I think about these and I'd love, cause obviously your firsthand experience of this thing, part of it is like being able to handle difficult sensations, right?

00:36:54.063 --> 00:36:57.614
And your body's going to be sending you a lot of difficult sensations with us.

00:36:57.614 --> 00:37:01.954
So I'm wondering, do you feel like there was a bit of being able to accept?

00:37:02.239 --> 00:37:08.409
Those difficult sensations where you had to find a way when they showed up to modulate your response to them.

00:37:08.409 --> 00:37:12.079
They talk about what difficult thoughts show up for some of our chronic pain patients.

00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:13.938
We need to teach them diffusion skills so they don't.

00:37:14.358 --> 00:37:19.449
Tussle with them and ramp up everything because they're understandably dealing with some difficult things.

00:37:19.798 --> 00:37:31.148
I'm wondering what your experience with that type of thought was as far as like when these difficult sensations and things showed up, did you feel like you had to practice some skills to be able to not let your body ramp up with them or react to them?

00:37:31.148 --> 00:37:31.219
Or

00:37:31.219 --> 00:37:38.318
Yes, so I think the 1st thing to note is I have not had pain with this.

00:37:38.818 --> 00:37:42.228
That would be the thing that would freak me out the most.

00:37:42.628 --> 00:37:44.489
Because I have lived no more.

00:37:44.989 --> 00:37:46.338
I want none of that.

00:37:46.708 --> 00:37:51.639
Right but I have not had musculoskeletal pain.

00:37:52.148 --> 00:38:09.188
With any of this now, the heart rate that would jump up first thing in the morning before I even got out of bed was very deflating to me because it felt like I wasn't making any progress and then I could hear myself start that catastrophizing the ruminating.

00:38:09.199 --> 00:38:10.489
Like I did it all at once.

00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:12.559
And I was like, this is not helpful.

00:38:12.579 --> 00:38:16.568
This is, I don't know who I'm talking to in my own head, but I'm like, this is not helpful.

00:38:16.568 --> 00:38:18.588
You need to get yourself out of this.

00:38:19.329 --> 00:38:22.289
So my comfort is fact.

00:38:22.789 --> 00:38:26.329
So I Googled higher heart rate when you first wake up.

00:38:26.849 --> 00:38:33.338
Oh it turns out we all drop cortisol first thing in the morning to be able to wake up.

00:38:34.018 --> 00:38:36.818
So everybody's heart rate is higher in the morning.

00:38:37.318 --> 00:38:41.358
fact alone made my heart rate drop, and I did not have those spikes again.

00:38:41.858 --> 00:38:44.858
To me, that's a great example of it's just the safety, right?

00:38:44.869 --> 00:38:49.168
That this experience, when it, the uncomfortable experience and sensation wasn't.

00:38:49.811 --> 00:38:50.800
It's totally normal.

00:38:51.278 --> 00:38:54.179
it was your heart rate doing some wonky things.

00:38:54.179 --> 00:39:01.978
And when it enters a central nervous system that now conceives that, okay, this has made, it now makes sense to me why This is happening.

00:39:02.539 --> 00:39:13.088
I don't have to, the unknown and uncertainty and understandable, especially when it goes around the heart, I've worked with enough people with chronic chest and, difficult with exert, because of a lot of the anxiety that come whenever you.

00:39:13.543 --> 00:39:16.103
monkey, anything around the heart comes into play.

00:39:16.103 --> 00:39:18.793
That's a, mortality threatening thing for people.

00:39:18.793 --> 00:39:23.534
So understandably, it's hard to have those sensations and be able to modulate your response to those.

00:39:23.534 --> 00:39:30.873
But I think, like you said, getting good information to know that there's some normalcy of what your experience is versus what's going on in the uncertainty.

00:39:30.873 --> 00:39:32.023
So that's a great example.

00:39:32.356 --> 00:39:41.865
I think the other thing that fits that was as I was trying to make sure that what I was feeling in my body matched some kind of trackable data.

00:39:41.916 --> 00:39:48.096
Much like charting your pain and, the pain diaries that some keep.

00:39:48.596 --> 00:39:55.445
It's a double edged sword because you've got some people that can Intellectualize it and they can see patterns and then that's fine.

00:39:55.835 --> 00:40:01.536
And then there's the other side where no, that's really terrible because now they're just hyper fixated on everything.

00:40:02.496 --> 00:40:06.835
And I felt myself weaving in and out of that through my experience.

00:40:06.945 --> 00:40:12.806
And so because I was able to identify what was happening, I just, I would take the watch off.

00:40:13.155 --> 00:40:14.056
I need a break.

00:40:14.346 --> 00:40:20.135
But again And Jim said this when we were working together, and I was trying to give him feedback on the visible.

00:40:20.146 --> 00:40:23.766
He said, but Amy, I don't think you're the typical you're a typical, right?

00:40:23.896 --> 00:40:26.356
That you're aware that this is.

00:40:26.726 --> 00:40:30.425
The response that you're having that's where you need a clinician to come in.

00:40:30.456 --> 00:40:35.146
And again, you got to ask the questions you got to monitor, how does it feel to track these symptoms?

00:40:35.146 --> 00:40:35.626
Is it good?

00:40:35.626 --> 00:40:36.425
Is it bad?

00:40:36.436 --> 00:40:37.846
Is it giving you anxiety?

00:40:37.876 --> 00:40:41.166
Do you even know what anxiety feels like around this?

00:40:41.275 --> 00:40:46.106
We have to hone our questions if we're going to help the person in front of us.

00:40:46.989 --> 00:40:49.289
100 percent and especially with some of the wearables.

00:40:49.318 --> 00:40:55.418
I think definitely a place and can be very valuable for the right person in the right context, and maybe with the right.

00:40:55.989 --> 00:41:04.199
Preparation for the person too, that it, this shouldn't be something where you're staring at your watch and your app 24 seven in pure terror of what might show up on that app and things.

00:41:04.199 --> 00:41:16.869
Cause that, if anything makes the situation worse, can you use it as a valuable source of data to help inform your approach to budgeting, your energy budgeting, some of the things you mentioned as far as making sure you're keeping that heart rate pacing.

00:41:16.898 --> 00:41:17.139
Yeah.

00:41:17.139 --> 00:41:17.878
I think that can be

00:41:18.166 --> 00:41:20.356
And what to expect afterward, right?

00:41:20.425 --> 00:41:26.226
I have days at work when I've got, when I've got a caseload full of patients I know, I already know what I'm going to do.00:41:26.226 --> 00:41:28.635


I don't have to think about it.00:41:29.115 --> 00:41:33.766


Really hard in the moment because the squirrel doesn't run as fast as it used to.00:41:34.735 --> 00:41:36.356


My heart rate stays very low.00:41:36.880 --> 00:41:46.440


On those days when I've got a bunch of new patients that are, I first visit after eval and I'm like, scrolling back through the eval really quick, trying to figure out what's going on.00:41:46.490 --> 00:41:47.931


My heart rate gets higher.00:41:48.630 --> 00:41:55.221


I know the higher my heart rate is and the longer it's higher for I need to build in more rest.00:41:55.721 --> 00:42:04.411


I don't see it as a bad thing anymore, but having the data after, at the end of my shift, I can go, okay, and here's how I have to adjust later tonight and tomorrow.00:42:04.911 --> 00:42:05.920


you bring up a good thing.00:42:05.920 --> 00:42:08.990


Cause I think this is something I've had to do with my own practices when there's that.00:42:09.496 --> 00:42:15.175


When you get in a groove with somebody and and it's just smooth and you've got to know them well, there's good rapport and you got, you're really problem solving.00:42:15.186 --> 00:42:16.385


It's a really interactive thing.00:42:16.396 --> 00:42:17.826


The alliance is there.00:42:17.826 --> 00:42:18.326


It's great.00:42:18.326 --> 00:42:19.996


And I don't want to say it's.00:42:20.585 --> 00:42:23.076


It's effortless, but it's a lot less effortful.00:42:23.431 --> 00:42:25.961


it's a lot less mental effort.00:42:26.262 --> 00:42:55.266


Exactly, and I think the skill too as a clinician is to be able, in those uncertain situations, second visit or first visit for, maybe it's your first eval as a PT, to be able to manage those uncomfortable, one, things that are coming your way from the patient, because they're often, people have gone through some pretty terrible things, which, so understandably, there's, Emotions that enter the room, but also when you're hearing things that don't make sense from a traditional standpoint, it's just trying to be able to navigate that and say, it's okay.00:42:55.266 --> 00:42:55.916


I don't know this.00:42:55.956 --> 00:43:09.005


I'm, I, almost as clinicians and we're going to actually run a, an act for clinicians, a little mini course here for, so folks can learn to unhook from some of these on and be productive in this, in the face of this uncertainty, instead of.00:43:09.005 --> 00:43:09.150


Okay.00:43:09.460 --> 00:43:12.351


Either running from it or, pushing it back on patients, that00:43:12.452 --> 00:43:13.702


get curious.00:43:14.202 --> 00:43:15.132


yeah, a hundred percent,00:43:15.204 --> 00:43:16.393


Get curious.00:43:16.893 --> 00:43:18.373


and just, embrace it too.00:43:18.393 --> 00:43:22.293


I love the fact that I don't know what the heck it's going to go, how those sessions are going to go.00:43:22.293 --> 00:43:23.134


I'm going to do my best.00:43:23.134 --> 00:43:23.923


And I even.00:43:24.528 --> 00:43:31.148


I now love the most emotion laden, even cranky, grumpy folks, because I'm like, what is behind that?00:43:31.179 --> 00:43:31.818


I want to know.00:43:31.829 --> 00:43:31.838


I00:43:31.945 --> 00:43:32.706


I want to know, right?00:43:32.706 --> 00:43:33.065


I want to00:43:33.188 --> 00:43:38.938


And I want to see if I can, I want to see if I can get on the right side of that and see if I can see if I move it in a different direction.00:43:38.938 --> 00:43:42.338


No, I don't always succeed, of course, but I think, the ability to.00:43:43.108 --> 00:43:52.829


Be able to manage those difficult sensations instead of what, I've done in the past when I was early in my career, you go in the back room with the office, with your clinicians, did you see that person they're faking or blah, blah, blah.00:43:52.829 --> 00:43:56.798


When you just didn't have the ability to process that stuff and you would just, put it all back on the patient.00:43:56.809 --> 00:44:03.246


Cause of course it was too threatening to my precious ego earlier in my career to, Dare think I wasn't capable or competent.00:44:03.512 --> 00:44:08.621


trajectories since we met, we've both gotten intensely curious.00:44:08.623 --> 00:44:08.717


Yeah.00:44:09.266 --> 00:44:10.456


I don't know anything.00:44:10.717 --> 00:44:18.007


I I remember taking your beta class and being like, I'm hoping for not a flowchart but I called it a spider web.00:44:18.016 --> 00:44:21.186


I am hoping for a webbing that I can put these ideas into.00:44:21.686 --> 00:44:24.297


I, no, that's not, no, it doesn't work that way.00:44:24.487 --> 00:44:31.677


There's all of these skills that we garner that aren't medical, they're people oriented.00:44:32.257 --> 00:44:35.416


And then we learn to ebb and flow with the person in front of us.00:44:35.447 --> 00:44:43.077


And some days we're going to hit home runs and other days we are going to suck to the incapable telling of it.00:44:43.577 --> 00:44:46.757


And both of those things are fine because I'm going to learn from both of them.00:44:47.710 --> 00:44:48.320


Exactly.00:44:48.351 --> 00:44:54.320


Being willing to embrace the suck and just know that, Hey it's part of the natural course of interacting with humans.00:44:54.320 --> 00:44:55.001


It's going to happen.00:44:55.001 --> 00:44:55.351


You're going to00:44:55.387 --> 00:45:00.507


to happen and that's, I, that's really the way that I have approached having long COVID.00:45:00.516 --> 00:45:06.706


To those listening I had a former employer call and say, hey, I would love to have you back if you're willing to come.00:45:06.706 --> 00:45:14.186


And I was like, hey, maybe let's talk because I'm not the same person as I was when I last treated here.00:45:14.186 --> 00:45:16.336


And I don't mean all the cool stuff that I've learned.00:45:16.336 --> 00:45:28.336


My body's not really, Cooperating and as we talked, it turned out that they also had been experiencing symptoms of long COVID and brain fog and things.00:45:28.376 --> 00:45:32.666


And it also are not in the office 5 days a week like they used to be.00:45:33.027 --> 00:45:36.016


So they were more than willing to work with me.00:45:36.027 --> 00:45:40.157


And I said, okay let's just make a very low, like a very low ramp.00:45:40.206 --> 00:45:42.297


That almost looks like a flat line.00:45:43.117 --> 00:45:50.887


And I will give you what I can like my commitment to her was, I will give you what I can, but I don't know when we're going to be able to ramp that up.00:45:51.507 --> 00:45:55.766


If at any point that becomes not okay with you because you need more clinician hours.00:45:56.666 --> 00:46:00.527


Okay tell me to hit the road but I love being in clinic and I want to help.00:46:00.606 --> 00:46:05.677


I want her clinic to succeed because I like the fact that she takes care of patients.00:46:06.126 --> 00:46:07.746


Like she cares about the person.00:46:08.577 --> 00:46:12.817


And it's, it's privately owned and all that, but the fact that I've got a.00:46:13.427 --> 00:46:20.766


Clinician that gets it and is willing to work with me made it a lot easier to say, yes, I'm willing to give this a go.00:46:20.766 --> 00:46:23.206


Then,00:46:23.257 --> 00:46:41.686


And what an impressive journey from a year on a couch and a bed, which I've worked with my share of folks who've navigated a very, challenging to, work in part time and getting back you budgeted your trip to Disney world, like you said, we talked about that you were able to you're still living life and it's definitely different.00:46:41.737 --> 00:46:45.757


It's not met without challenges, but you're a great example of somebody who's.00:46:46.242 --> 00:46:47.612


Practicing what you preach, right?00:46:47.612 --> 00:46:49.012


You're somebody who's, and it.00:46:49.634 --> 00:46:53.434


keeping like relationships that are challenging.00:46:53.793 --> 00:47:07.224


I have had to dial back, delete limit because it's one of the things that I have learned through this whole experience is that there's things that interrupt our nervous system that we don't even realize.00:47:07.659 --> 00:47:22.559


I recently took my almost 90 year old dad on a cruise and anybody like, go listen to the first story and things will make a lot more sense about the SI journey, but we, he's silent gen, but we've got a boomer gen X relationship, right?00:47:22.599 --> 00:47:23.509


It is what it is.00:47:23.548 --> 00:47:33.778


I love my dad to pieces, but he's not the safest feeling person, especially when it comes to my health and my emotions.00:47:33.849 --> 00:47:37.018


I'm not allowed to be ill and I'm not allowed to ever be sad.00:47:37.088 --> 00:48:03.114


Being in a cabin with him for two weeks, while Experiencing long COVID flare ups was curious, and I noted within the first couple days that my heart, my resting heart rate literally went up 20 beats a minute, just being in proximity to him, no difficult conversations, nothing happening, just being in his presence.00:48:03.114 --> 00:48:06.173


And I was like damn, ain't that curious.00:48:06.673 --> 00:48:08.893


I honestly, I love my mom to death.00:48:08.974 --> 00:48:11.423


So mom, if you're listening, cause mom's one of my best listeners.00:48:11.423 --> 00:48:12.353


I'm sure she listens.00:48:12.364 --> 00:48:13.253


She watches on YouTube.00:48:13.253 --> 00:48:15.543


She likes my posts whenever I throw them on social media.00:48:15.661 --> 00:48:16.380


Thank you, mom00:48:16.403 --> 00:48:23.873


I guarantee you that my heart rate would probably, if I had some metrics on the old ticker when my mom, cause again, love her to death, but she still likes to mom.00:48:23.884 --> 00:48:25.164


Mom's never stopped momming.00:48:25.333 --> 00:48:26.954


Even, she's 81 years old.00:48:27.333 --> 00:48:33.914


And she hangs out and then, a couple of days in she's mom and me pretty heavy at times and it gets a little, stressful.00:48:34.090 --> 00:48:34.460


a thing.00:48:34.460 --> 00:48:34.911


It's a thing.00:48:35.510 --> 00:48:42.920


And I'm trying to navigate because we got dad in the wheelchair, and then I'm running behind him with both suitcases going, I should not be doing this.00:48:42.940 --> 00:48:44.251


Why am I doing this?00:48:44.331 --> 00:48:45.891


Why didn't I just I.00:48:46.266 --> 00:48:57.275


That trip through the airport, I just cast off everything I know about taking care of myself, about being safe, about standing up for myself, about setting boundaries.00:48:57.675 --> 00:49:01.076


I just threw them all away and was 18 year old Amy again.00:49:01.795 --> 00:49:06.286


So I'm like trucking behind him through O'Hare airport, huffing and puffing.00:49:06.286 --> 00:49:07.726


My face is bright red.00:49:07.786 --> 00:49:10.326


I don't even want, I don't even want to know what my heart rate was.00:49:10.326 --> 00:49:13.376


I think it was up in the one sixties for an hour and a half.00:49:13.876 --> 00:49:14.775


That's not good.00:49:14.940 --> 00:49:16.911


It's not good.00:49:16.911 --> 00:49:24.210


That is going to lead to a crash, which After I looked at the data, I was like, Oh, I'm going to crash tomorrow, day one on board.00:49:24.601 --> 00:49:26.820


And then my dad's going to have questions.00:49:26.860 --> 00:49:33.800


And so I'm like, keep it as dark turn, and he's got the TV turned up, so that four cabins down can hear it.00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:37.670


And I'm like, we can't do this.00:49:37.771 --> 00:49:59.391


And so I got real, which was also not safe telling him what's going on, because I've You know, you pick and choose your battles with all of our relationships and this was explaining to him how bad things were just wasn't on the list of things that made sense to do, but now he's face to face with it and it's what's wrong with you?00:49:59.391 --> 00:50:01.150


And I was like remember how we had long COVID?00:50:01.530 --> 00:50:03.110


This is just what it looks like.00:50:03.610 --> 00:50:15.721


great examples, clinicians of how you need to know what relationships are around the people that you're seeing that there might be some relationships that might be having an undue, not that we don't love our parents but that might be impacting the pain levels.00:50:15.731 --> 00:50:17.201


And I think it's helpful for people.00:50:17.570 --> 00:50:19.181


To explore that with a patient, right?00:50:19.190 --> 00:50:26.411


To see if there's some situations or dynamics around a relationship that might contribute to how their body behaves and how, different things.00:50:26.411 --> 00:50:27.981


So it's because it's definitely real stuff.00:50:27.981 --> 00:50:30.081


Like you said your metrics were definitely a00:50:30.101 --> 00:50:35.396


my metrics matched what I was feeling, but and we don't have to be psychologists to do that.00:50:35.800 --> 00:50:36.291


No.00:50:36.536 --> 00:50:43.867


I remember I, when I was seeing my physical therapist for the SI stuff, he would note that.00:50:44.226 --> 00:50:51.697


He he could literally tell because of the tenseness of my tissues when I had spoken to my mother on the drive to the clinic.00:50:52.197 --> 00:51:01.731


And there's, again, maybe wiggling the SI wasn't necessary, but yeah, I think there is a skill of being able to read with, physical touch and things when somebody Yes, there is.00:51:01.762 --> 00:51:02.942


And people get all freaked out.00:51:02.952 --> 00:51:12.291


Oh my God, this is like pseudoscience and all this stuff, which there's a human connection that we have that when you get to know somebody enough that you can read and understand something ain't right.00:51:12.302 --> 00:51:13.842


There's something different.00:51:14.039 --> 00:51:16.554


I will go even more scientific than that.00:51:16.594 --> 00:51:28.963


And I will say, if you were making progress on soft tissue work and they're starting to feel like a normal doughy human, and they come in and things are taught again, there's a reason for that.00:51:29.014 --> 00:51:30.264


The body is guarding.00:51:30.554 --> 00:51:37.443


Now, maybe you think it's guarding that anteriorly translated femur, or it's just guarding from the conversation they had with their mom in the car.00:51:37.943 --> 00:51:38.094


Yeah.00:51:38.963 --> 00:51:39.153


Yeah.00:51:39.213 --> 00:51:41.193


But just more importance to have.00:51:41.903 --> 00:51:42.184


Yeah.00:51:42.684 --> 00:51:46.204


to know what's going on in somebody's context beyond what's going on in their body, for sure.00:51:46.273 --> 00:51:47.164


I totally agree.00:51:47.514 --> 00:51:50.713


You and I could talk about this for another three hours and00:51:51.213 --> 00:51:53.284


Nobody wants to listen to that, Mark.00:51:53.918 --> 00:51:54.168


I know.00:51:54.168 --> 00:51:59.389


That's why I want one, because we have some patients that listen to this or clinicians.00:51:59.389 --> 00:52:08.588


If you have a patient who is needs like some support as they're navigating the world from persistent pain or chronic pain issues and needs like someone to coach and guide.00:52:08.909 --> 00:52:18.639


If you've listened to these two episodes with Amy, you can see she's got obviously the experience and the resume to be able to do this because she's been through it and she's seen it from both sides of the equation.00:52:18.639 --> 00:52:33.128


And, so can't recommend her enough to get your patients in touch with her so you, she can help them because Patients need folks to guide them and coach them outside of just a traditional physiotherapy or chiropractic or whatever practice it may be.00:52:33.259 --> 00:52:40.858


If you're a patient who's struggling and would like some guidance and coaching to start getting your life back, definitely we'll link Amy's stuff in the show notes.00:52:40.889 --> 00:52:43.498


Definitely give her a, a message or email.00:52:43.878 --> 00:52:45.079


Can't recommend her enough.00:52:45.079 --> 00:52:48.039


So where can folks find you online there, Amy?00:52:48.235 --> 00:52:54.835


I'm gonna I started something new since the last time you and I talked, and I have made a bunch of courses, and a number of them are free.00:52:54.905 --> 00:53:06.775


If you are in clinic, and you're like, I have tried explaining the whole pain sciency, your emotions have chemical signatures, and I'm just not getting buy in, use me.00:53:07.085 --> 00:53:08.226


It's a free course.00:53:08.255 --> 00:53:09.726


It's on education.00:53:09.726 --> 00:53:11.815


restoringvenus.00:53:11.815 --> 00:53:12.306


com.00:53:12.806 --> 00:53:15.956


Click the courses and it's chronic pain explained.00:53:15.965 --> 00:53:17.085


It's completely free.00:53:17.085 --> 00:53:19.326


It's four hours of education.00:53:19.835 --> 00:53:22.726


Basically, in patient ease.00:53:22.766 --> 00:53:26.016


Heck, you can sign up for it, watch it, and make sure you want to use it with patients.00:53:26.016 --> 00:53:30.065


But it, I've basically rewritten Greg Lehman.00:53:30.434 --> 00:53:37.304


Adrian Lau and Lorimer Mosley and David Butler, and then some other random stuff that I have pulled because I pull from everybody.00:53:37.925 --> 00:53:41.494


But it's from a patient to a patient in the way that it's explained.00:53:42.184 --> 00:53:45.635


So that is something that is at your disposal.00:53:45.914 --> 00:53:49.554


And I also have one on like boom busting and why that's such a bad idea.00:53:49.554 --> 00:53:53.644


And like how everybody tells us to pace, but nobody tells us what pacing is.00:53:54.144 --> 00:53:54.465


Right?00:53:54.954 --> 00:53:59.664


And then I do have some paid material that again breaks things down.00:53:59.684 --> 00:54:00.574


There's one on pacing.00:54:00.574 --> 00:54:07.775


There's one on bridging the gap between we've gotten discharged from PT, but we're not ready to go back to that 60 minute class at our favorite gym.00:54:07.789 --> 00:54:14.829


And then there's one on like, how to manage your emotions, which, which really dives deep into.00:54:15.534 --> 00:54:25.304


The chemical signatures, and how these relationships and these different things that we don't think about that connect to our pain can really influence it and gives patients practical ways to get through that.00:54:25.804 --> 00:54:26.565


Awesome stuff.00:54:26.594 --> 00:54:39.655


I think huge resources, definitely check them out if you're listening and definitely you should get those so you can push them to patients because again, there is something to be said about the credibility of somebody who's been in the shoes of a patient helping them versus.00:54:40.070 --> 00:54:52.900


Clinicians who, I have my chronic back pain stories and stuff that I can share with some people, but there's definitely, something to it when you have a patient or a some, a teacher who's been through it and the patient can see them having walked in the shoes that they're currently walking in.00:54:53.309 --> 00:54:56.239


Amy wanted to thank you again, as always, for your time.00:54:56.639 --> 00:54:57.909


I love the conversation.00:54:57.909 --> 00:54:59.190


We'll continue to catch up.00:54:59.539 --> 00:55:00.436


And thanks for all you're doing.00:55:00.737 --> 00:55:03.586


oh, thank you so much, Mark, and I am happy to come back anytime.00:55:04.086 --> 00:55:04.387


Love it.00:55:04.547 --> 00:55:04.947


Love it.00:55:04.956 --> 00:55:06.547


So all you listening, make sure you subscribe.00:55:06.547 --> 00:55:08.137


And if you have somebody who's dealing with.00:55:08.572 --> 00:55:12.891


Some long COVID challenges or dealing with post exertion and malaise and related things around that.00:55:13.262 --> 00:55:14.862


Don't hesitate to share this episode with them.00:55:14.862 --> 00:55:16.132


That can be a helpful thing for them.00:55:16.351 --> 00:55:25.952


And also if you can share it with a colleague that might need this as well, that would help and it would help us get the message out to more people, both clinical clinicians and patients, so they can better help some folks.00:55:25.961 --> 00:55:27.452


So we'll leave it there this week.00:55:27.461 --> 00:55:28.492


We'll talk to y'all next week.00:55:30.440 --> 00:55:34.389


This has been another episode of the Modern Pain Podcast with Dr.00:55:34.400 --> 00:55:35.309


Mark Cargilla.00:55:35.340 --> 00:55:39.530


Join us next time as we continue our journey to help change the story around pain.00:55:39.559 --> 00:55:42.670


For more information on the show, visit modernpaincare.00:55:42.690 --> 00:55:43.150


com.00:55:43.179 --> 00:55:48.619


This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment.00:55:48.650 --> 00:55:51.650


Please consult a licensed professional for your specific medical needs.00:55:51.949 --> 00:55:53.840


Changing the story around pain.00:55:54.119 --> 00:55:56.440


This is the Modern Pain Podcast.

Amy EIcher Profile Photo

Amy EIcher

Author, Pain Coach, PTA

Amy Eicher is a passionate chronic pain coach, author, and speaker dedicated to helping women break free from the cycle of chronic pain and reclaim their lives. Through her coaching programs, she empowers clients to understand their pain stories, rebuild trust in their bodies, and confidently return to the activities they love. Drawing from her own journey through pain, Amy combines science, compassion, and practical strategies to guide others toward healing. Since developing Long COVID in January 2022, Amy has drawn on her extensive education as a chronic pain coach to navigate her own healing journey, applying the same science-backed strategies she teaches to others. Please visit my educational site for free and low cost courses at: https://education.restoringvenus.com