What's up?

Skirts up, squad.

Did you just take my wine?

I did.

It's Samantha and Melissa.

I'm going to actually tell you guys how it is right now.

It was so fun.

We couldn't even make it up.

I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna wear it in public.

And then she looks at me and she goes, that's what Jesus is for.

We are about normalizing things that are hard to talk about.

I was like deer in headlights.

Skirts out, but keep your pant.

Hey guys, it's Samantha and Melissa and we are going to keep this intro really short because we are going to be sharing with you guys a conversation that we had with an amazing woman.

And there was just not a single thing that was even worthy.

Yes.

I mean, not even cut worthy, like if that sounds bad, but like not even a single thing that like just could have been.

Like, it's just.

It was all so great.

It was nothing non inconsequential.

It was all like valid good information and she is just a genius.

Like, yes, she.

She diagnosed me, I swear.

And I know technically she wouldn't like it probably if I said that because she's like, no, I'm not your doctor and I didn't see you in person, but.

So I'm not saying.

But I'm saying, yeah, it was like a little.

Yeah.

But anyway.

Oh, that's so funny.

Yeah, it kind of reminded me of something that like Melissa Walker would say.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

That'S hilarious.

But it's true.

So.

Yeah.

So did you have any A fail this week?

We'll try to keep it.

Not really a fail.

It's.

We both have had a hectic couple of days.

My cat that I'm in love with, he passed away a couple of days ago.

So I didn't get a lot of time with him, which was a bummer because he was so cool.

But that's okay.

He just.

I don't even know what happened.

And that's okay.

We buried him in the front yard near my flowers.

And.

I mentioned last last week that we were going to see if Simon remembered our anniversary.

And I was convinced he did not remember it until last night before bed he made a comment.

Is today your anniversary?

Today is the anniversary, yeah.

Oh my.

Shoot, I see.

I said that already.

Happy anniversary.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So he did not forget.

And we are going to have.

I'm going to make a chicken.

Like a Cajun chicken Alfredo with like sausage and spinach tonight.

And then we're going to do a chocolate fondue at home with the kids.

That is so sweet.

That was his idea.

It was my idea.

But he did say last night, it's our anniversary tomorrow.

Yeah.

Because I was like, what do you.

What do you want to do.

Do for dinner tomorrow?

And he was like, I don't know.

What do you want to do for dinner?

And then I just, like, looked at him, and he, like, is looking at me.

And he goes, I asked you.

And I was like, why did you ask me?

Then I was like, okay, I get it.

You didn't forget.

That's cute.

That's cute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you had a really hectic morning.

It sounds like I did, Oliver.

We were at a friend's house, and we slept over.

And this morning, I was out in the living room just kind of, like, picking up my stuff, getting ready to go.

And he ate what I found out later was a roach trap.

A little bait motel thing.

And long story short, we're just gonna monitor him.

But it was a good two hours of stress and, like, phone calls and googling and.

Which you also learned the really, like, stupid, unfortunate part of when they're.

Poison control.

Yes.

Poison control.

I was gonna share that, but I was afraid of taking too long.

Okay.

No, I think that.

That a lot of people don't actually know, like, how shitty that whole thing is.

So.

Yeah.

So basically, I was talking to my vet, and she was just like, look, if it's this one ingredient, then this is what we would do.

But since it was this other ingredient, it's more toxins.

Toxic.

You should call Poison Control.

Or we can do it for you.

It is $95.

You can call them yourself.

So I called myself, and then on the phone, it was g. It was like a recorded message, and it said, okay, it's going to be $85.

And I was like, okay.

So I saved myself $10.

Great.

But then it said, but if you're not an actual vet, like, we in the state.

No, it said, if you live in the state of Georgia, we cannot talk to you about your pet.

We have to talk to your vet so we can start a case and send it to your vet.

And I just hung up.

Because I was like, this is ridiculous.

I'm not paying $85.

If I'm gonna pay the money, I'll just have my vet do the whole thing.

Right.

Because they won't talk to me.

Yeah, and you're gonna have to do a visit anyways.

Like.

Well, and that pissed me off, too, because it's an emergency number.

How is it, like, treating anything like an emergency if you're like, oh, we're starting a case.

Yeah, pay us.

Yeah.

It's bizarre.

I never understood.

I never understood it because there's poison.

Control for humans, and it's free.

Oh, yeah.

That's how I ended up in the hospital the very first time.

But that's another story.

You guys have heard that story, but yeah.

Yeah.

It's just crazy because it's.

It's your baby.

You're all stressed.

It's an emergency.

Poison control needs to be, like, a.

A 501C type.

I think so.

Yeah.

Because it's not.

If it's an emergency, it's an emergency.

We're not sitting here.

Pay for us to tell you if it's toxic.

Like, that's.

That's stupid.

Even if I had to pay, sure, whatever.

But don't say, like, I can't even talk to you.

We're just going to start a case, and then we'll start, like, a whole bureaucratic chain of events.

Like, that's just ridiculous.

Yeah, it's wild.

Anyway, I'm glad he's doing well now, and I hope that he continues to do well.

Thank you.

And I'm glad.

You probably need to tell us who you're holding in your arms, because you mentioned that Jinx has passed, but, yes, Jinx died.

And then the other kitten that had shown up, Karma, she just got really, really needy, like, loud, following us around, scratching at the door, meowing.

But then if we pick her up, she doesn't want to be held.

She just wants down and then just Merls at us again.

And it's like, I don't know what you want.

So Simon goes, I think she needs another friend.

And so he made me get another kitten.

And this is Cosmo.

I mean, Cosmo is freaking amazing.

I.

Most cats or kittens, yes, there's some cuddly ones, but it's more on the rare side.

Usually they're cuddly on their terms when they want to be held.

And I feel like you're, like, the one in charge of this, and you're like, hey, I want to hold you.

Come fall asleep in my arms.

And he did.

Yeah.

He's so sticky.

Cute, Sam.

He loves you.

Pretty sure he's out, so.

What do you mean out?

Oh, sleep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So anyway, well, I'm glad that you.

So we're.

We're all in a good place for a minute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Probably a good time to turn it over to the doctor, the professional.

That's right.

I don't think there's anything more interesting than neurology and the brain and, you know, how the brain and emotions work.

No, but it is mainly interesting.

Oh, I think she's being serious.

I am, Yeah.

I thought you were being facetious, and I was like, no, it is.

Yes, it is.

So riveting.

Had a neurologic symptom then, you know, and you've been down that road of trying to find a doctor.

Yeah, exactly.

You've got enough neurologists and some people wait three to six months to get a consult, and it's.

It.

It can be challenging.

Ooh, that's interesting you say that, because I forgot I was going to meet with a neurologist, and it was that.

Long out of a.

Of a weight.

In the end, my insurance didn't cover what I was hoping it would, and I didn't go, but wow.

Yeah.

I guess there's just not as many of you.

Yeah, there's not as many of us.

Right.

Is it because it's just so demanding and it's my.

Yeah, yeah.

I just remembered my cousin's a neurologist.

Oh, okay.

Well, you know, neurology is one of those fields in medicine where you either love it or you hate it.

And people often hate it because of the intricacy of knowing the whole nervous system and studying it.

And there's a certain kind of brain, I think, that is drawn to neurology.

It's people that like to solve puzzles and people that like to intellectualize concepts, as opposed to a surgeon that wants to do something with their hands and start something and finish it and then be done with it.

Right.

I talk about different personalities.

There's a dermatology personality.

There's a surgeon's personality.

There's a personality that likes more complex intellectual pursuits, where you're going to spend an hour just getting a history from the patient to put things together and more.

The oncologist, the rheumatologist, the infectious disease specialists, neurologists, they're people that are using their brains as opposed to being more procedure oriented.

Yeah.

Neurology would drive, for instance, a person with a typical surgeon's personality.

It would probably drive them crazy.

They just want to fix it and can always just fix it.

In neurology, it's interesting.

There's probably.

There's so much still research going on even that we don't know.

Right.

Tremendous amount of research going on.

Every day there's something new in neurology, and we're learning more.

And our MRIs are getting more and more sophisticated, so we can see things that we couldn't see before.

You know, we can see functional problems with the brain.

We can see where one part of the brain isn't lighting up as well when you do a task as another.

So you can kind of see connectivity in a brain, and not everybody's connectivity is the same.

Okay.

And whereas before, when we only had structural MRIs, like in the early years of MRIs, we could see if there was a structural abnormality, if there was a tumor, if there was a stroke, we could see those things.

But now with functional MRIs, we can see what part of the brain you're utilizing when you do a task.

Oh, my goodness.

The connectivity between parts of the brain.

And it's interesting when we talk about something like functional seizures.

These are seizures that occur that are not epileptic.

In other words, they're very real, just as real as any seizure.

They're out of the control of the patient like any seizure, but they're not due to an electrical disturbance.

And these are what, Sam, you were having, right?

I think so.

Right.

Psychological, Non epileptic.

Yes.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yes.

So.

But they are real seizures.

They're just not coming from, like, misfiring neurons or what would.

Maybe I just completely butchered that whole sentence.

Coming from abnormal electrical activity.

So, okay, filled with electrical activity.

And when someone has a seizure and there's a spark, and then the whole brain goes up in this electrical storm.

And if we are doing an EEG where we're recording brain waves, all of a sudden, instead of like this, it starts to fire like this, and it makes all the motor nerves in your body start to contract and shake and you lose consciousness.

When you say like this, you're talking like fireworks.

Yes, like fireworks.

So when someone has an epileptic seizure, which is a seizure due to abnormal electrical activity of the brain, our brain is filled with electrical activity.

So that's how we.

We function.

We have more electrical activity when we're awake.

When we're asleep, it slows down.

Okay.

And when someone has a seizure, there's a disruption in this electrical circuit.

And all of a sudden there's a spark.

Like a short circuit.

That spark happens, keeps going.

The whole circuit goes up in this electrical storm.

And that's not compatible with consciousness.

Interesting.

I actually would have.

I don't know why I would have.

Thought it would be the opposite.

Like, oh, there's a spark and then it goes dead.

Like, but really, it's like, maybe Too much is.

Yeah.

Electrical storm.

People start to shake and have what you see as a convulsion.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

What was really fun when I had the video EEG is like those things pick up every little movement.

So like if I picked up a pen, like you would see like changes in the, in the, I don't know.

The brain, the motor area.

Yeah.

Wow.

Every blink, like it would like make another like tick of some sort.

And I was like, whoa, that's interesting.

I don't know how anyone could read this.

That amazing burst of electrical activity, it stops and then the brain has to recharge.

So the electrical activity that was like this gets really slow because it's recharging.

And that's what we call a postictal state where after seizure people are very tired and they want to sleep.

Their brain is almost asleep, they're tired and they've got to recharge.

How come I experience that, like pre.

Precal brain, like where I'm very tired, I'm very cold, like I got to sleep it off, warm up.

That's a good question.

If it wasn't from neurons in your brain.

Yeah, well, it's.

They can absolutely mimic 100% a true epileptic seizure.

And we don't exactly know exactly why.

But getting Back to the MRIs, now that we have functional MRIs, they have shown that in.

People then manifest their stress in the form of something like what we call a functional or non epileptic seizure.

That's like a stress response.

We find in these functional MRIs that the emotional part of the brain where you feel emotions and you deal with emotions isn't connecting well to the area of the brain responsible for consciousness.

Okay.

You can be stressed and not know you're stressed.

You know, some of us will say, oh, I just feel so stressed right now, I just want to scream.

Or I'm going to go.

Or I'm going to find some other kind of coping mechanism.

People that would have this type of response, they don't know that they're stressed.

Or maybe they might, they don't realize they're at the brink of overload.

Overload where it's like a circuit breaker is thrown and they're, they're overloaded and they're not consciously aware of it because their emotional part of the brain isn't communicating well with consciousness.

Oh, that makes sense.

Because it did take a while to figure out before you get to this level, how can we de.

Escalate.

And I was like, I don't know.

I Feel calm.

I.

Like, I don't know.

Yes, exactly.

You don't, you don't know.

Whoa.

It reminds me of like, people who don't have the sense of like, touch and feel and they touch a burner or whatnot.

That's the, like, you hear that all the time.

Like they'll touch a burner and they won't know and they'll have a burnt hand.

And it's like you have no idea what's going on until it's already too dangerous.

Yeah.

No one has ever explained that because it was really confusing how, like, literally I'm calm.

But like, one of the things that I was able to pick up is even though I'm calm, is noticing that, like, if I'm at a table with a bunch of people, all of a sudden I realize that, like, everyone's moving slower than I know they're moving and I see their mouth moving, but I'm not able to process what they're saying.

And so I was able to start being like, oh, that's not normal.

Oh, I probably need to remove myself.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, you're not conscious of it, but something's happening to you.

And now you're recognizing the symptoms and signs as it's happening.

And you can try to develop other coping mechanisms.

Okay, I'm overloaded.

You might not even know why you're overloaded.

You might, you might be in a.

It's like when someone has a panic attack.

They're not, they don't usually have a panic attack when they're in the throes of an argument.

They're going to have that panic attack when they're sitting, eating popcorn, watching a movie with a friend.

So true.

Yeah.

And they were like before going to meet the person maybe you've had an argument with before.

Yes.

But they're overloaded for a variety of reasons.

It can be low grade stress in your life.

It can be old trauma that you never consciously dealt with, but it's still there.

It's, it's in, it's in your subconscious.

And it doesn't take much then to tip you off.

Some little thing could happen, something in traffic or.

Things didn't go well this morning with getting your kids off to school.

And it's just like the straw that broke the camel's back.

Some little thing happens and you.

Somebody might fly off the handle and why did, why are you so angry?

And they don't know, but it's.

They just got to the, the edge and they couldn't take anymore.

And so this person has.

We all have a circuit breaker that's going to tip us off.

And everybody has a different threshold and a different way of feeling it or manifesting it.

But most of us can consciously feel, oh, I've got to de.

Stress, I've got to do something else to remain calm.

But someone that has one of these reactions, we call them functional because they're.

It's functioning as.

Functioning as exactly.

That's, that's.

That's such a good way to say it.

Sam.

Yeah.

And so I was, I was.

Had a conversation with Sam the other day and I was, you know, sharing with her.

I've family members that I have.

I have a brother who has two children, three children.

And two of them have had this kind of reaction.

And so, you know, you might think one of them was the non epileptic seizures when she got stressed.

The other one developed blindness.

So he was functionally blind, but yet he wouldn't bump into things.

But he really couldn't see.

And he was in Afghanistan and saw his best buddy blown up by.

And it started after that and so he'd go through periods where he was doing okay and then all of a sudden he couldn't see.

That's awful.

It would be when he was stressed and I'm thinking.

And his sister would develop these seizures and she went for years and years without them.

And then she went.

Her father died and she went through a divorce and all of a sudden they started up again.

So she had these extra stressors and it wouldn't take much to tip her over back into these seizures.

But once you recognize it and you know, and I'm wondering if it isn't something genetic where both of them didn't have the right connectivity between their emotions and.

And their conscious awareness that they.

Yeah, because that's interesting that it's the same family.

Two children.

It is two children, but different reactions.

And they're both completely normal.

I mean they're normal psychologically.

They have jobs and families and everything else is normal.

Right.

Well, I feel like the sun makes sense because I feel like that is, you know, a normalized like big trauma.

And like I, I feel like that reaction makes sense.

But there's nothing that you know of in the daughter that would have been a normal quote unquote trauma.

Correct.

Except you did say divorce, father dying.

But that was the second round of it.

Got you the first round of it.

Her parents went through a terrible divorce like the war of the.

And I think the kids were kind of caught in the middle and she's the youngest and she just all.

She's a big stressor.

Yeah.

She just had started having these seizures and.

And I think, you know, there would be another argument or there'd be another, you know, having to go to court, and she would just have a seizure.

They looked real, and to her they were real.

She would lose consciousness and, you know, she ended up in Bellevue in New York.

And they did all kinds of tests on her, and they finally discovered doing the video EEG where she had seizures while they're recording the brain waves.

And lo and behold, there was no abnormal electrical activity.

Wow.

Clearly coming from emotions.

But they're real.

They're as real as the epileptic seizures.

The difference is you can't throw antiepileptic drugs at them and cure them.

They calm down the electrical activity.

What's going on?

You have to develop new coping mechanisms.

Yes.

And I shared with you how devastating it was when the neurologist was like, yeah, no, you're having seizures, but it's not epilepsy.

I guess, see a psychiatrist.

So, like, that's gotta feel so.

Like.

Like a unmoored boat.

Like what?

Yeah, like, Melissa, I think you saw me the day that I was told that, and I was just like a hot mess.

Like, we couldn't even record because I was just so devastated and crying.

I was like, I don't even know how to take this.

Like, I'm just crazy.

So how do you.

I'm hearing you say that it's more common, or at least in our first conversation, that it's more common than we realize.

So how do you deliver that message in a way that doesn't make us feel more isolated and more crazy and just more of something?

Well, I don't dismiss the patient.

I think there are situations where someone's had a traumatic brain injury or they have ptsd, like my nephew, from seeing something, or they have PTSD from something they don't remember because they're so good at dissociating their emotions from conscious awareness.

You hear that all the time.

Where someone had a traumatic event and they don't remember it because they dissociate.

It was so traumatic that their brain refused to remember or be consciously aware that something was happening to them.

They would put self somewhere else.

Like a woman who's raped and.

And she just dissociates and pretends she's off doing something else.

And then later she can even see her attack her and not realize.

She knows there's something about that person, but she doesn't Remember, and these people, they just have that ability to dissociate.

And so someone could have had a trauma that they don't remember.

They could have PTSD from something else.

It could be their personality where they're absolutely have to be in control of things and something happens in their life that they couldn't control and so they just dissociated from that.

I had a very interesting patient that would go into status epilepticus where she'd have a seizure that wouldn't stop, they'd go on for hours.

And she was admitted to an intensive care unit multiple times.

Because status epilepticus from epilepsy can kill you.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, this happened several times.

She was admitted to the hospital and nothing.

There was no, you know, confirmation that this was actually a seizure.

And.

But what's, what is it about this person?

She was in military, she was very highly functioning.

She was like in a high level of the military.

And what it turned out to be with psychotherapy was this woman was diagnosed years ago with an aneurysm in her brain that was inoperable because of where it was.

So this was something she couldn't control.

She had the knowledge that at any time, a certain percentage per year, it could rupture and your aneurysm ruptures, that could be sudden death.

And she knew this because she had a family member that died of a ruptured aneurysm.

She's diagnosed and then, well, there's nothing we can do about it.

We're just going to make sure your blood pressure never gets too high.

But this is something she had no control over.

And so she couldn't deal with that.

Not something that I can't manage.

I can't do this on my own.

And so she started having these seizures.

And so what happened?

And was found a neurosurgeon that would go in and try to attempt to oil that seizure, that aneurysm.

So she didn't have a risk of sudden death, but she has now.

She's aware of her personality of needing to control, to learn how to give up some of that control that you can't control.

Everything in life right about where I am.

Yeah, everybody's different.

So.

But you have to with, with patients that have these non epileptic seizures, some of them have real seizures as well.

And we're not capturing all the seizure events.

So neurologists will often hold on to them and work with them to be sure that, you know, there isn't anything else wrong.

Yeah.

While they're going through psychotherapy because ultimately, psychotherapy is the treatment.

Yeah.

I feel like when I talk to people, I tell them that I. I get that this is caused by some sort of ptsd, which I have been diagnosed with, and anxiety, with, on and off depression.

Like, I get it.

But what I found interesting was that the first time it happened, I was on a boat with the humpback whales, like, in the middle of the ocean.

That I can dream.

Yes.

I've been waiting.

I was trying to do that for, like, years, two years.

And so I was finally there, watching the moms bring the babies up, getting their first breath.

And, like, it was just magical.

And I just remember, like, just being in this, like, overload of awe.

And I remember crying and just being like, oh, my God, this was worth the wait.

Like, oh, my gosh, it's finally happening.

And then all of a sudden, I crashed.

And so I really.

I think that that was a real one.

Like, how could something so magical to all of a sudden be, like, crying and then, like, nothing?

Like, how could have that been an overload?

You were.

I watched that podcast.

I know a little about this history.

You were stressed.

You were thinking, you know, your marriage was over, and, you know, this was it.

You're going to be together.

And that was, you know, right under the surface.

Oh, so now you're letting go.

Oh, this is.

Isn't this wonderful.

But that stress is right there, just enough to tip you.

No, she was actually in touch with her emotions first for a minute.

Yeah.

Maybe because she trusted those good feelings.

And then the others came out.

Yeah, because they.

They were there.

They were underlying, and that was, you know, that was tipping you over.

Yeah.

Interesting.

A safe situation, because you're not taking care of your kids.

You're there with your husband, and now it can come out.

Okay.

Seizures are funny because they.

They are.

Your brain is going to protect you.

So I like to tell people that, like, the example of my nephew, that would get blind, and that you're not going to burn yourself.

You're not going to fall over something.

You're not going to hurt yourself.

Like someone who really can't see.

You can't see consciously.

Mind is seeing, so you're not going to be in danger of hurting yourself.

But we've got to find out why.

Why this is happening to you so that it stops happening.

I.

Can I share something really, really quick?

I had a situation probably, like.

Probably, like 15 years ago now, where it happened on two different occasions where I did went blind, and I was once this.

I was in Walmart and it.

It scared me then.

But the second one and I never until this moment when you were talking realized the second one happened when I was driving on a highway, like a back roads old highway, but it was still busy.

It was four lanes and I don't know how I pulled over.

And I think what you're saying is I could still see on an unconscious level and my brain protected me, I was able to get off the road.

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it, but that's insane.

Sounds like a migraine.

That.

That's what we figured out in the very end.

Yeah.

I had to go to a.

Yes, it was a lot of.

I went to every eye doctor and then they sent me to an eye neurologist.

Yeah, a what?

A neuro ophthalmologist.

Yes.

Thank you.

So many sub characters.

I love it.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Interesting.

Okay, so I know that we talked about this briefly and in that episode I also mentioned just how common epilepsy is misdiagnosed with these functional seizures.

So how can someone who's experiencing these in doesn't really feel like they're getting the results that they need.

Like how do we rule that out so that we're not on Keppra for eight years before we're like, oh, this just isn't working.

It's very important because the longer you go on with medication for seizures that are non epileptic seizures and they keep happening, the harder it is down the road to treat them with psychotherapy.

So you lose a little time just like someone that might be having symptoms of cancer and someone says, oh no, you're just stressed and then come back in a year if you don't listen to yourself and go see another doctor.

You know, you might have waited too long.

Whoa.

Is it because your body just starts to like it's just going through the motions in its habit?

Like why is it harder to treat something.

A seizure like that.

Those pathways get more ingrained.

Okay.

In your brain and you.

It's like you develop a defense mechanism.

Okay.

Or you do it that you more.

You just automatically revert to that defense mechanism.

Got you.

Wow.

It's a coping mechanism for stress.

And you don't want to learn that coping mechanism.

You want to understand.

Okay, I'm feeling it now.

I'm not going to be scared because I know what this is.

And like you're out with your friends.

You just.

I think I need to remove myself because I'm starting to feel that stress.

I'm getting Cold.

You know, things are starting to get distant.

I think I'm going to go outside and just take some deep breaths.

And what I think I'm learning also is so being overstimulated is a good, good trigger.

So, like, if I tell myself, okay, I'm going to a concert with my friends today, there's going to be a lot of flashing lights, a lot of people, a lot of noise.

Oh, I hope I don't have a seizure.

Like, that's already pre telling my brain, like, oh, when you hear all these noises and see all these lights, have a seizure.

And so it's trying to be conscious about.

I can handle this.

Exactly.

Someone has a panic attack in the grocery store, then when they go to the grocery store again, that's where they're likely to have a panic attack because they're thinking, oh, no, oh, no, I'm afraid to go in here.

Don't happen again.

Yes.

And so someone that's in an automobile accident, they're afraid to get back in the car because they're afraid in that car is when I might, you know, just freak out.

So it's putting yourself back in that situation.

And at certain point, you need to keep going into those situations to prove to yourself that, oh, I'm fine, nothing's going to happen.

And so a concert, bright lights, flashing lights, none of those things should induce a seizure.

It all has to do with your stress level.

And so doing everything you can to manage that.

And for someone like you, you've got to be.

Learn to be more conscious of what stresses you, because consciously, you're not aware until you.

That circuit flips.

So is psychology what makes you become aware?

Or, like, is it just something that will just maybe never connect?

Psychology.

Do you mean getting therapy?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Therapy.

If it's a.

A stress that you've had in the past.

So a lot of people, you know, you probably have no more stress now than you always did.

You know, you're managing, you have three kids and marriage podcast.

And, you know, life is stressful.

It's.

It just is.

But if there's something else going on, like you're not getting along with your husband, you think, this might be it, this might be the end of our marriage.

That's an extra stress.

And you might not be talking about it instead of talking about it getting out in the open, you're both thinking, you know, when is this going to end?

You know, what am I going to do?

For some people, you're just going along, and there isn't anything Extra.

But you might have had a trauma in the past or grief from the loss of something that you never dealt with.

Gonna come out.

It always has to.

That's in your subconscious.

Yeah.

Can I ask a kind of a para.

A close question, but it might not have anything to do.

I don't know.

You're talking about things happening in the past, us repressing them or not remembering them.

Is that the same thing?

Is like when a young child.

Something happens bad to a young child, and then like later they start having memories of it, of it as they get older.

And it's like, where are these coming from?

This happened to me.

And so.

Okay, it is the same because.

And it's not just because, oh, I was too young to remember.

No, no, no.

It's the same that happens all the time.

And patients that I deal with, and I'm.

I'm a neurologist, not a psychiatrist, but there's real interplay between two specialties.

And we're actually both psychiatrists and neurologists are double board certified in both fields.

Oh, we have to take.

We have to take.

Do our residency in both mine.

It's concentrated in neurology, but we have to do so much psychiatry and take a double board because there's so much.

There's so much interplay.

So when you have a trauma, you.

Especially kids, you know, they don't have the coping mechanisms yet to deal with it.

When you're really young, they will dissociate.

They will just brush it off, go somewhere else in their brain and not realize it.

Because you hear all the time, you know, a woman is more likely, for instance, to develop later in life, chronic pain, and they don't know where it's coming from or some other problem.

And they find out by intense psychotherapy that they were molested, maybe by their stepfather, by a brother, by someone that they trusted, and they had no memory of it.

They might be afraid of men, but they don't know why.

And it all has to do with something that happened to them.

And we know that that's more likely to happen to a woman than a male, although it has happened to males.

But this, this is common.

I talked to friends of mine that do therapy on college campuses.

And people come in, they're having trouble, and they have no memory that anything ever happened to them.

And it's only through intense psychotherapy or hypnosis that we.

I was about to ask if are you like, a big component of hypnosis?

Like, do you really believe that that's a Helpful tool.

I do.

I. I don't do it, but I do believe it.

It's a helpful tool.

I had this patient that I saw that was sent to me because he looked just like he had multiple sclerosis.

Mine suddenly.

And he's young, and this is the population that it comes in, and he's otherwise completely normal and healthy and psychologically healthy.

He had been engaged to be married.

He was.

Had a good job in.

In construction, and just.

Just happened.

And all of a sudden, he.

He couldn't walk, and he got more and more stiff, and his limbs were spastic.

And he woke up one day and he could barely move his legs.

And then he was having trouble moving his arms, and he was getting numb.

And when you watched him and walking and trying to function, he looked just like he had multiple sclerosis.

And so the bad thing was he had lost his job, and so he had no insurance.

And so I'm trying to figure out.

I'm calling the MRI facility where you just do this for free.

This.

This guy really need help.

We have to get a diagnosis right away and.

And get him care.

And we did all the tests.

Nothing was there.

Nothing was there.

And so, you know, one thing about.

People that would be devastating, too, I bet for him.

Because of play.

Yeah, it was devastating for him.

And so he.

He lost his job.

And so he decided he wanted to become a firefighter.

And he couldn't pass the.

The physical.

And he's a big, you know, healthy guy, couldn't pass the fiscal for firefighting.

So then he decided he was going to be a policeman.

And he went through all the training.

Couldn't pass the physical for a policeman.

It was crazy.

And then he started developing all these symptoms.

So I thought, you know, he's not as concerned as he should be about it.

He's like, has this dull affect.

You know, I'd be screaming up and down and, you know, help me.

Help me do something.

I can't.

I can't move.

I can't walk.

I'm only.

Yeah, so I'll do something.

He wasn't that alarmed.

And that's like a little tip off that maybe this is functional.

And so I talked to him at length.

What happened?

Did anything ever happen to you?

What precipitated this?

Well, nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

I just wanted to change careers, and I couldn't get anything.

So I sent him to this therapist that I know who's just fabulous, and they're hard to find.

Fabulous trauma at ptsd.

And she said, well.

And I said, you've got to see him for free.

And said, when you see him, you'll understand.

He's such a nice guy.

You got it.

You can't put any more stress on him because I'll see him once.

But then he's got to borrow the money or something, otherwise he won't appreciate the visit.

Exactly.

So I get this call from her.

Oh, I'm going to see him every week.

I don't care how much time.

He's such a nice.

I just really want to help this.

This kid.

And so finally, she was convinced, too.

Something happened to him.

He didn't know what it was.

Nobody knew what it was.

So she enlisted hypnosis.

And as it turned out, right before he quit his job, he was digging underground into a big sewer pipe was blocked, and they were trying to clear it out.

And as he got under in there, he got stuck.

Oh.

And he was stuck inside this little, dark, wet pipe.

And there were rats, and he couldn't move.

He was under there for eight hours.

Holy smokes.

And he totally dissociated.

He came out and he was okay.

And he, you know, he survived it.

But then a few weeks later, he said, you know, I don't want to do this job anymore.

I think I want to be a firefighter.

I think he didn't remember being stuck for eight hours.

No.

He just remembered he had a bad experience at work, and he just did not remember.

He blocked that out.

Wow.

And that's not like a long time gap.

That's just.

No, that was said just, like, two months earlier.

What?

Yes.

Yes.

And so with hypnosis, he remembered it because.

Hypnosis, your subconscious.

Yeah.

And as it turned out, this kid was brought up to, you know, you're a guy, be a man.

You know, don't talk about, you know, you have a headache or anything.

You don't get out there.

Yeah.

And it was the family dynamics where none of them talked much about their feelings.

And so he just learned to suppress those things.

And he had forgotten.

He had completely forgotten this event until it came out in hypnosis.

Wow.

Took months once he remembered it.

And in hypnosis, they said, you're going to remember this when you wake up.

And he remembered it, and it was frightening, but he then knew what was wrong.

Yeah.

That's amazing, because it was like he was in a tube.

He couldn't move his arms or his legs.

They were just stiff.

And until he remembered it and dealt with that trauma, those feelings didn't get better.

And he came to see me like, six months later, and he was walking and feeling great, and he.

I just.

He had a new girlfriend and he was going to be an EMT and got into school and.

Wow.

His hypnosis and psychotherapy really cured him.

Wow.

It's another.

Another example.

There's so many.

Yeah.

Things.

But it's real.

It's very real.

And if you don't get help right away and get to the bottom of it.

So if somebody said to him, okay, I think you have ms, but it's just not showing up on your MRI yet, we'll put you on Ms.

Drugs and we'll say, the rest of his life, the rest of his life, he would have been like that.

Oh, my gosh.

If you know something's wrong, if you feel it in your gut and you don't feel like your doctor is listening or your doctor's frustrated because they don't know what's wrong, you know, it's frustrating for the doctor, too, that they'll say, well, it must be this, and let's just proceed like it is that, because they did, too.

So that's how we end up on the drugs for so long.

Because even though it's not showing up, like, it has to be this, because that's exactly what it looks like.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Okay.

Your case, they thought, well, it could be frontal lobe seizures, too, because we don't pick those up as well on the eeg.

Yeah, that's what we thought it was.

Partial frontal.

Yeah.

And they are.

You know, these things are very difficult to diagnose because they look exactly like the real thing.

They really do.

And people manifest the same symptoms and they get the aura.

And you cannot differentiate these by symptoms alone or even someone.

It's just wild that you would get the same.

Like, I didn't know anything about seizures.

So it's really weird how they would manifest when I don't know anything about seizures or symptoms or, like, what they look like and what's typical or whatever.

So it's like, how does our brain just not make it up?

But how does our brain, like, act like that when they don't even know it's a thing?

It's kind of like your emotions short circuit the consciousness center and they feed neural input right into the.

The motor center, which causes you to shake and have seizures, beaten up and get all these feelings like you were having a seizure, but it's not due to an.

It's not due to an electrical disturbance.

It's due to an emotional disturbance.

An emotional.

Sounds scary because, like, well, I'm.

Are you telling me I'm crazy?

But no.

Yeah.

Emotionally.

Just short circuiting consciousness.

Yeah.

Your brain didn't make it up like your body was.

Yeah, yeah.

Taking on all the stress.

Yeah, I.

Yes, you're.

That is.

It's a lot.

It's still overwhelming and it's still like one of those things where it's like kind of something that you don't want to talk about, which, like, I feel like is probably going to add more trauma.

That's gonna have to get worked out.

When it's something that, like, I still am very uncomfortable talking about because it's like, it's still very uncomfortable to explain to people.

Like, yeah, yeah, I. I had seizures, but I don't anymore.

Are you on meds?

Sure.

Yeah.

Just drop it.

What I tell people is it's better not to talk about it to people because they don't understand.

Yeah, yeah.

Thing to understand.

And so if you tell somebody, it's like when someone is.

I tell people when they're first diagnosed with Ms. And they look normal, they look just fine.

And we're going to get them on medication and they're going to do well today because we have these wonderful medications.

If you get it early, I said, don't tell people right away because as soon as you do, they'll say, oh, I knew somebody, they were in a wheelchair in a year and my.

My aunt had it and she died of it.

And because they don't understand it and they're going to scare you, they're going to say suggestions, and you're going to get terrified because you need to understand it first.

Yeah.

Once you understand it and you understand you're going to be fine, then you can easily share it with people if you want to, because what they come back and say to you, well, you should be on medication or you shouldn't drive or you shouldn't do this because they don't understand.

Oh, that makes sense.

It won't bother you because you do understand.

It says, no, no, no, it's not that kind of seizure.

And she can educate them.

Yeah.

But until you're comfortable with it and you understand it, it's kind of just not let other people affect you.

Does that make sense?

Right.

It's like, don't go straight to Google and get all of the.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's not exactly the same, but yeah.

Okay.

So I'm sorry, I have got to run to the restroom really quick, but Carolyn has.

That's what I was gonna say, but then I was like, too soon.

Seriously, my friends, like, my best friend, she has always, always, always made fun of me for my tiny bladder.

And she's like, I just don't know anyone who has this, like, tiny bladder.

And I literally, when I start getting stressed or overwhelmed, like, I have to pee.

And I have to pee right now.

Cannot wait.

But, Melissa, I want you to hear Carolyn's personal story of how she had to fight for herself to get a correct diagnosis and how she now advocates for people and helps people advocate for themselves.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You hear that story?

I'll be right back.

Okay?

Okay.

Yeah.

Carolyn, please, because as we've been talking about, like, if you don't advocate for yourself, sometimes you're just going to get lost in the hole.

You are.

And it's so hard for someone who's doesn't have the medical background because you just, you know, there might be a little, like, smirk or a little just blank look on the face of the doctor talking to you, and they just say, no, no, you're fine.

Just lose weight.

Yeah, yeah, just lose weight.

You're just stressed.

Yeah.

So.

So as a physician who's been healthy all her life, I went for my routine gynecological checkup.

Okay.

That's probably the only doctor I ever saw I would see regularly was once a year I would go for my Pap smear and.

And just to take care of myself.

And I saw for many years, for 20 years, another female physician who was.

She was about my age, and we had a good relationship.

And so it's physician to physician.

Yeah.

Went to her, this is five years ago now, and said, you know, I have.

I'm not fine now.

I said I was.

I know I always come in for a routine checkup, but now I'm having a symptom and I have postmenopausal bleeding, which is not normal, right?

No, no, it's not.

We need to do a uterine biopsy for uterine cancer.

So it's a procedure you have in the office.

It's quite painful.

It is.

I had a different one, but it was similar biopsy up in there.

And it was painful, very painful.

And so I went through that, and she said, you know, I'll call you as soon as I have the results.

And results came back and they were normal.

And I was relieved.

I thought, well, fine.

And she goes, yeah, you're fine.

And it stopped.

Six months later, it came back.

So I said, well, I'm going to go back.

So I went back to see her and I Said, you know, you're not used to seeing me more than once a year, but the bleeding is bad.

So she said, well, do another biopsy and this time I'm going to get an ultrasound, okay?

Biopsy was negative and the ultrasound showed a polyp.

And she said, well, it's just a benign polyp, we don't need to do anything about it.

And the bleeding went away.

So I thought, well, I put this in her hands, I'm fine.

Okay.

Six months later, she's about to retire and leave here and I walk in and she wasn't prepared, wasn't prepared for this.

She's getting ready to go.

She didn't want to see anything that wasn't routine couple days.

And I said, I'm back because that bleeding is back.

And she said, well, I'm not doing another biopsy.

She said, you're fine, you're just stressed and you don't need to see a gynecologist again for a year.

I'm going to give you some names of other people you can see next year.

Here.

What?

Okay, I'm stressed.

We all live stressful lives, but no more stressed than I've ever been.

Yes, everyday life stress.

And I, and I thought, well, okay.

And I wished her well.

And I'm thinking about it as the week went by and I thought, you know, something's wrong, I know something's wrong and I'm just gonna take myself now to see somebody else.

So I went and saw someone else and they, they looked at all my records.

They said, oh, you should have had a hysteroscopy, which is a scraping of the uterine lining and removal of that polyp as soon as they saw that, which was now eight months ago, we're going to do that right away.

So she does.

And so it's another woman physician.

I'm thinking, yeah, if there's anything there, I'll get a call because I have a two week appointment call.

And nobody called.

So I went in for my two week appointment for the results.

And the interesting thing was the night before I went in, I had a dream that I was in the office with her.

You know, we'll often dream about something we're going to do the next day.

Anxious about it.

And I said, you were telling me that I had a malignancy and I know that I don't.

And she says, no, you don't.

And I said, he would have called me.

And she said, oh, absolutely.

And we were laughing.

And so she's looking at the computer as we're laughing and she said, oh, wait a minute.

She said, your results aren't here and they should have been on the computer.

So she had to call for them to get them faxed over.

So.

I'm so sorry.

Oh, no.

Yes.

She said, I'm so sorry.

You do have a malignancy.

That polyp was malignant.

Oh, my gosh.

I was in the or, like, within the week having a complete hysterectomy.

And the thing is that if that cancer, it's uterine cancer, if it gets through the wall of the uterus, then your risk of being alive, you only have a 25% chance of still being alive in five years.

It's a devastating cancer for women.

And if it hasn't.

If it's still stage one and hasn't gone through the wall of the uterus, then, you know, there's only.

There's a 95% chance you'll be fine in five years.

And I'm.

Five years.

I'm fine.

Yeah.

Wait a year.

And I'd already been symptomatic for eight months.

Whoa.

And so that's a woman physician treating a woman physician.

I mean, she was in a hurry.

I understand she was in a hurry.

She didn't want to be bothered with.

We've got to work this up more.

What am I going to do?

I'm leaving.

You know, so maybe a little bit of it was unconscious, but to say to someone, oh, you're just stressed.

I never, never say that to a patient.

Because we are.

You know, people can be stressed, but it doesn't mean that that's causing your symptom.

That's the common thing to brush it off, too.

It's stress or overweight.

And those are the things that doctors always say.

Yeah, they always say, wow.

Yeah.

Which makes it really hard to get treated.

How.

When do you know to push back?

Kind of.

Because I feel like there's the fear of doctors not listening to you and not reacting.

But then there's the fear of the doctors that are overreacting just because they want to make some extra money.

And so it's kind of hard to know where you fall.

Yeah.

And, you know, I don't think so much that they're trying to make extra money.

Some.

Some doctors overreact out of inexperience.

Younger doctors are likely to do more testing, whereas an older doctor that's got a lot of experience is going to be targeted right.

At the right test.

And we kind of sense when something is wrong that we can't quite figure out.

But we know that there's something to it.

And maybe that person is stressed, but there's usually something else there that's driving their symptoms.

And maybe they're anxious.

They're an anxious personnel.

So maybe they're really anxious because they have a symptom.

And how do you tease that out?

You have to find out what's causing that symptom, and you have to be sure you're not missing something.

That just reminded me that you.

You mentioned that you used your intuition a lot with your work and what you do, and that you used your intuition and listened to your dog one time.

Yes.

Yes.

What incredible story.

Should I tell that story?

Yeah, I know Melissa would want to hear about it.

When you said, like, you know, you have to.

You have this, like, knowing with your experience, I was like, oh, my God, I forgot about that story.

And that's, like, that's really cool.

Yeah.

I had this patient.

I had a therapy dog.

So Prancer is a golden retriever, and she started coming to work with me as a puppy because she was chewing up my house, and she had separation anxiety.

And so I thought I could just put her in my office.

She had toys, and she could look at the secret.

He'd be fine.

I could run in between patients and take her out every chance I got.

And then I'm doing that right now with a puppy.

He comes to work with me every day because he's so much.

Yes.

Yes.

So she would howl when I wasn't with her and all this.

And patients started hearing, what's that?

What's that?

Everybody heard I had a golden retriever puppy.

Everybody wanted to see the puppy.

So I thought, how am I going to stay on time?

Yeah, everybody's going to be playing with the puppy, and I'm trying to get an exam done.

So sure enough, she.

She sensed it, and she would.

Just as soon as I started talking to the patient and getting a history, she quiet right down.

She lay right by their feet and was as good as gold.

And before long, I couldn't go to work without her because my patients wouldn't come in if she wasn't there.

They'd call me.

Wow.

Answered there today.

If not, I'm rescheduling my appointment.

Oh, wow.

I took her and got her tested through Pet Partners, because you have to get official testing, and it's like a insurance umbrella where they.

They will cover your dog in case anything happens, and they have to have the right temperament.

And.

And we got all the testing done, so I could actually literally Bring her in the hospital with me.

I could have her legally in my office.

Yeah.

She'd been with me now, working with me for 10 years.

And I would always.

She'd always gently scratch at the door when I was with the patient to ask if she could come in.

Oh, wow.

I would ask the patient, and 95% of the time they said, yes, let her in.

Every once in a while, someone wasn't comfortable, and they'd say, no, I prefer not.

And then if I didn't answer the door, she'd just lay down outside the door.

But she didn't like it if somebody didn't want to see her.

Yeah, I'd walk out and she'd see the patient.

Then she'd get up and walk away.

She'd be like, it was you.

You didn't want to see me.

I'm going to walk away.

So I had this lovely patient one day from Africa.

She had emigrated here from Africa about a year or two earlier, and she had a book with her of all the doctors she'd seen, and little tabs.

And these are the rheumatology evaluations, these are the orthopedic evaluations, These are the rehab evaluations.

And I've seen all these doctors.

Nobody can figure out what's wrong with them.

And she said, you're the last stop before I go to psychiatry.

She said, and she's very intelligent.

And she said, I had a lot of sexual trauma growing up in Africa, and I know that I can put that into my body and that that could be what's wrong, but I just feel like somebody's missing something and I don't know her gut.

Yeah.

So I spent an hour with her, and I went through all the tests, and there wasn't anything neurologic, really.

Normal exam.

She'd had MRIs of her brain, spinal cord, everything.

And I went through everything very carefully, and I said, you know, I'm really sorry.

I wish I could be more helpful here, but I think maybe you should go at this point to psychiatry.

You've identified something else.

And I think all the testing really is complete.

And so she hadn't wanted Prancer in there, and she was very, very nice.

And she was leaving.

As she walked out the door and saw this dog, she said, oh, my, she's so beautiful.

I'm so sorry I didn't let her in.

And I pet her, and I'm thinking, oh, no, Prancer's gonna just run away.

Answer.

Let her pet him.

Pet her.

And then she.

We said goodbye, and she went out to the room, waiting room, to sit there with the patient coordinator and, you know, finish up, and Prancer just followed her out.

And I tried to call her back and get her back in, and she wouldn't come.

Wouldn't come to me.

She went underneath this woman's chair and did not leave.

This woman.

No way.

She said, you have to do something for her.

Something for her.

And I have lots of stories about.

This is just one.

So I knew Prancer.

Well.

Prancer senses something.

I don't.

So I went out and I said, you know, I changed my mind.

I said, you saw a rheumatologist six months ago.

And I said, why don't we do some of that blood work again?

Because maybe, you know, you weren't in a flare then, and you're in a flare now.

Maybe we'll pick something up.

Oh.

So I just repeated the studies, all the blood tests the rheumatologist did, and it came back.

She had florid lupus.

And when she had the saw, the rheumatologist, she just was in remission, so.

Whoa.

And that dog knew.

Told the woman.

The dog diagnosed her.

And you never did?

Because I didn't.

Because it wasn't.

It wasn't neurologic.

But I called her.

I said, we're getting you right back to the rheumatologist.

You've got something.

Wow.

All these symptoms.

And so that was.

That was my dog.

And she.

What a good girl.

I know.

But that's still.

You can take credit for, because it's still.

You're like, oh, I should listen to the dog.

It's true.

It was your intuition as well.

You're like, no, I need to listen to this.

Like, you aren't too.

I don't know, too prideful, I guess, to hear.

Hear the small people.

Yes.

Yes.

And I was so, you know, so glad that I did another story.

She was less Prancer story.

No, I love them.

She.

I was seeing this young man one day who was quadriplegic from his neck down from a motorcycle accident, and there's nothing I can do.

And his family, whole family was there, and they were bringing him to yet another doctor.

Is there anything you can do for us?

They knew I couldn't make them walk again.

But, you know, you.

You deal with their bowel and bladder issues and depression and make sure they have all the social services they need, and it's.

It's all very sad.

Yeah.

And that day, I hadn't closed the door to the exam room because there was all these people in there, and it was a little Claudic.

And this young man was sitting in the middle of the room in this wheelchair, and I'd forgotten to tell them there was a therapy dog on premises.

So all of a sudden, this young man looks past me, and I look and I see Prancer.

I go, oh, I'm so sorry.

I forgot to tell you.

And he.

He just stopped me, said, I love dogs so much, I would give anything if I could just pet that dog.

And with that, I didn't say anything.

Prancer just locked eyes with him.

She got up and she slowly walked over to him, sat down next to his wheelchair, put her muzzle right on his hands, ate there for the entire hour.

That's beautiful.

Everybody in that room was in tears.

He was in tears, I was in tears, and that dog just didn't leave him.

Oh, gosh.

So.

The power of animals.

I really, really believe it.

Yeah, I do, too.

I do, too.

Yeah.

That's why I'm so excited with what we're doing this year, Melissa.

Yeah, I am, too.

For people and provide for.

Did you tell Carolyn about Dr. Taylor?

About that?

I think we talked about.

It's a wonderful, wonderful idea.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, it was Sam's.

It skirts up.

I have, like, a. I don't know if you want it to be the closing question or not, but I have, like, one final, like, real burning question.

How do we source out a doctor?

Because you talked about, you know, there's some doctors that are inexperienced.

There's some who have been doing tests for years, and they're more tuned in.

But I also feel like there's some who've been doing tests a year that are jaded.

How do you just find the doctor?

How do you know?

What are the things to look for in a doctor?

To think, all right, this one's going to work for me.

Or is there just no way to know?

And that's why we have to be able to advocate for ourselves.

Well, you want to feel like you're being listened to, okay?

Very, very important.

If you don't feel like you're being listened to, if they're typing away and not asking you any questions or not letting you get it all out, then that's a bad sign.

So you want to feel like you're listened to.

You want to feel like they validate you, that they not only hear you, but they're present and they seem to understand how you feel.

Okay.

You don't want to be dismissed at all you don't want to say, well, this really isn't that serious of a thing.

To you.

It's serious if you're feeling some symptom, you're feeling pain or you're feeling weakness or.

Or twitching or something.

To you, it's very serious.

You want to feel validated.

You want to feel listened to.

It's very, very important that they examine you so often.

You will.

They'll won't even put a stethoscope to your chest or they'll er.

And they'll just maybe listen to you through a gown.

And, you know, you can't really hear that well if you dealt with this stethoscope to the skin.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

You want to be.

If you.

They didn't even examine you, or they just didn't examine you and they just ordered some tests and said, oh, well, we'll call you and let you know.

That has happened so many times to me.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Very.

It's very important.

And if you just don't feel like their answer made sense or you don't feel like you were listen to or they told you it's just stress without examining you or explaining to you why you have symptoms.

If I get to that point with a person, I usually try to say, you know, the twitching of your muscles or the tingling you're feeling is because your muscles are tightening.

And that might be tightening because you're stressed, but validate their symptoms because your symptoms are almost always real.

Okay, listen to.

In my case, I just knew.

I knew something was wrong.

And when someone turns to me, especially a woman, to a woman, because a woman should understand stressed.

Well, stress doesn't necessarily cause bleeding.

And I knew.

Right.

Much more stressed in my life than I had been then.

I knew in my gut something was wrong.

Yeah.

And so you, you don't have to necessarily call your doctor out.

They might be rushed, they might be frustrated because they don't really know what to do.

You get a second opinion.

Yeah.

And you don't have to be afraid of offending anybody because it's.

This is your life and your body.

And a doctor should never be offended.

You get a second opinion.

I'm glad you said that.

Someone says that to me, I'd say, well, you know, I think that's a good idea because I'm not finding exactly what it is.

And someone else might have different experience than I do, and they might have seen this before.

So I welcome a second opinion.

Okay.

Heads.

And the more brain power you put into a problem, the more Likely you are to solve it.

So it shouldn't be insecure.

They should welcome that.

Or they should say to them, to you, you know, I, I just not sure I want to present this at the next conference.

Oh, yeah.

Or I have a colleague that might have more experience.

Or.

Yeah, I'm going to give them a call and see if they would suggest doing an additional test.

And I'll get back to you.

You want to feel like.

And at the end of an exam or patient has a problem, I always say, do you have any other concerns or do you feel like.

I answered all your questions and if they have concerns, they don't feel like their questions were answered or they feel like they're dismissed.

That makes me feel bad.

I want to make sure that I've answered all their concerns because that's what they came to me for.

And you do actually care.

And so I think you're saying, just listen to yourself when, you know, when you're being heard or being dismissed.

Exactly.

You do.

And women get that so often that I think we're afraid to challenge them.

We're afraid to challenge to, you know, because women are at that.

Hysterical.

Yes.

Yeah.

Stereotype.

Yes, Stereotype.

You know, you're just being a hysterical woman and you're just being too anxious.

By small.

To the mic, my.

My son did that with his girlfriend and he was saying, oh, she's just anxious.

She, you know, she got these feelings and she gets this chest pain and she, I think this anxious mom.

I said, well, let me talk to her.

I didn't see her as a patient.

I said, yeah, and she'd seen all these doctors, mostly heart doctors, because she goes to the er.

She gets these chest pains.

Yeah.

She keeps going to doctors.

He keeps saying that things wrong.

They do echocardiogram.

She's young and healthy.

Yeah.

Oh, you're just, you're just stressed.

This is just panic attack.

And so I really listen.

She took her partner over for dinner.

I really listened to her.

I said, okay, stand up.

And I had her put her arms out and I took her pulse.

And I said, turn your head this way and turn your head that way.

And I said, I think you have.

Because I'm experienced too.

Yeah.

This isn't stress.

This isn't heart.

You have vascular thoracic outlet and it'll give you chest pain.

And when you're stressed, those muscles are going to tighten up and.

And decrease blood flow.

She's getting numbness and tingling down her arm.

That's what I get.

And I said, that's what it is.

She goes, well, I've seen all these doctors.

How could you do this in five minutes?

I said, trust me.

Go back, tell them you want a vascular thoracic outlet outlet study.

An ultrasound.

What can they do for that?

That's what it was.

Physical therapy.

But have a diagnosis and then you go to a physical therapist to know exactly what to do.

Interesting, because that's actually the thing I went to the neurologist for.

But then my insurance wasn't covering it.

They wanted to do some kind of a test, like to, I don't know, see what was firing.

What'd you say?

Nerve conduction study test.

Yeah, but you know, that's only going to be positive if you've got nerve damage, so symptoms are constant.

The nerve conduction test might show something, but if they come and go, it's not going to show anything interesting.

But it's vascular thoracic outlet, and a young person's underdiagnosed because there's nothing.

You know, X ray will look fine, your studies look fine.

But they have to do that ultrasound with provocative studies.

Turn your head this way because the muscles will, will, will.

Yes.

That's literally what happens.

Certain positions.

Yeah.

What is it called?

Vascular.

She was blown off by every doctor she saw.

And even my son said, oh, mom, she's just anxious.

I said, now let.

Let me listen to her.

Don't just say she's anxious before for you.

That's incredible.

Yeah, before, you know.

Okay, I do have to say one more time, what did you call that again?

Vascular thrust.

Vascular thoracic outlet syndrome.

Outlet.

Okay.

Because one thing that you said is stressed or tired.

And my chiropractor said, well, yeah, you stayed up working all night.

It's gonna.

You're gonna feel it.

And so that I started paying attention.

And it does come when I'm more.

It's with.

It's certain postures, certain people that have a certain anatomy to their neck.

Sometimes you're doing exercises wrong.

If you're sitting, like typing a lot, that can.

That can kind of make these muscles tighten up.

And if these muscles here tighten up, they can put pressure on the vasculature that feeds the arm.

Just get chest and get numbness and tingling.

It gets bad.

I'll drop things.

Like, I can't shave my legs sometimes or.

Yeah.

So that I.

First thing I would do with you is be that ultrasound.

The nerve conduction study would be the last thing.

Interesting.

I'm so glad I didn't go through with it then.

Just money because it comes and it goes.

So that's a possibility.

Interesting.

Women have abdominal pain and it could be a ovarian cyst.

And they don't look, they just say, oh, it's, it's your menstrual period.

Or they, they blow you off.

But you want to make sure you're heard, you're heard, you're examined.

If you're comfortable that they listen to you and you addressed all your concerns.

If you're not, they should be comfortable with you getting a second opinion.

Okay.

Well, even when they see assist, they just say, oh, yeah, it's just going to be painful, but it'll rupture eventually and it's just, you know, go with the flow.

So I don't know.

Well, it depends.

Sometimes they can operate on a cyst if it's really painful.

And you're in and out of the ER all the time.

Yeah, but you have to believe that that's what it is and know that they really looked and they're not just saying, it's just this.

Yeah.

And maybe ask more questions, like.

Yes, ask questions.

Yeah.

Like can you operate on this?

Or why do you say, is there a time when.

I don't know.

I guess just get more deep.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Okay.

Sometimes going in there with your questions in advance, sometimes you won't have any questions yet, but they'll talk to you.

And maybe later, if some question comes up, ask them.

Okay, my chart today.

You can usually email somebody if you don't have a follow up or if you don't, you still symptomatic.

You could contact them and say, I'm still symptomatic.

Do you want me to come back or should I get another opinion?

And they, they want you to take care of you.

They want you to.

Yeah.

That's good advice too, because Sam, I think you are kind of like that where you have to process things and then the questions come to you later.

So like, no.

Yeah.

And then I just kind of shrug.

I'm like, oh, it's too late.

Yeah, but it's not too late.

We can email them, I guess like.

You'Re saying, yeah, it's not too late.

And well, this has been a great.

The doctor wants to know if your symptom, because they, they're, if they think it's something and they're wrong, then they're thinking you're going to get better.

So if you don't get better, the symptoms get worse, then they would want to know that because they would probably want to do more tests.

Okay.

Okay.

You're helping because doctors help you, but sometimes they're rushed or they.

They really think it's something and they're.

They're missing the diagnosis.

And unless you come back with, well, it's still not better.

Doctor, they don't know.

And they don't know to keep looking.

Yeah, it's a partnership with your doctor.

You're both trying to figure out what's wrong.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

This has been so enlightening.

Oh, good, good.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you, Carolyn.

Or Dr. Taylor.

I'm so sorry.

I was probably too informal.

You.

You can call me Carolyn.

Okay.

Okay.

We're on BFF level now.

Are we, though?

I hope so.

Yes, absolutely.

So.

Thank you, ladies.

I really had fun.

Thank you.

And you have a beautiful day.

You, too.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

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