How Callie recovered from IC/OAB/IBS and manages OCD

[00:00:00] You put in that timeline after hearing that I suffered for 25 years, it's like yeah that's amazing.
[00:00:05] I'm the dietitian and here I am. People come in my program now and they're like expecting it to be
[00:00:10] diet and I'm like no, we're really not like we want you to eat as much variety as possible. I want
[00:00:16] you to be able to have the freedom to get a drink with your friends or have your morning
[00:00:21] coffee. My morning latte is like the thing I look forward to when I wake up. If I don't have
[00:00:27] that like I'd go back to bed like it's it's huge for me. So it's like you you don't realize how
[00:00:35] restricted you are until you start to get some of that back and you know socially you're able to
[00:00:42] say yes to plans again without worrying that you're gonna have to bail at the last second
[00:00:48] or you're gonna be scanning for the bathroom the whole time. Flights used to stress me out
[00:00:52] so much because I'd be afraid that either A gonna get a bladder pain flare or B I was gonna
[00:00:58] have an OAB flare which means like running back and forth to the bathroom and people like judging
[00:01:04] me that's what I thought. I don't know if anybody even judged me ever but it's very self-conscious
[00:01:09] and and now I don't even care if I'm assigned a window seat I'm good you know if I have to
[00:01:15] PLP but like it doesn't stress me out like it used to and that's such a like liberating feeling.
[00:01:22] Hey there and welcome to the heal with grace podcast. I'm your host Grace Secker and I'm a
[00:01:28] holistic licensed therapist and nervous system coach who believes that the chronic and often
[00:01:34] unseen symptoms you're living with are a sign of something deeper going on. A sign that your
[00:01:40] nervous system needs attention. In each episode I'll share the science behind the most common
[00:01:45] chronic health disorders plus holistic tips using mental physical and spiritual practices.
[00:01:50] You'll hear what I've learned in my journey and the true stories from our trusted guests
[00:01:55] so you can feel less alone in your experience and give yourself grace no matter what you're
[00:02:00] going through. So without further ado settle in and get cozy it's time to heal with grace.
[00:02:05] Hey Callie thanks for coming back on the heal with grace podcast.
[00:02:09] Hey I'm so glad to be here. It's been a while you were on in very early days of heal with grace
[00:02:16] but for everyone out there listening if you do follow me you most likely follow Callie or
[00:02:21] both of us or something like you you know you know of Callie if you listen to this podcast
[00:02:25] or you found me through her. So anyway you know that we do a lot of work together Callie
[00:02:30] does work with people with IC, OAB, pelvic pain and we've really come into an awesome rhythm with
[00:02:38] working with PRT pain reprocessing therapy the nervous system and next client. So I want to
[00:02:46] reiterate your story and how you've come because it's a it's a long journey and it's a really
[00:02:53] good story for people to resonate with so I will stop talking and I'll let you share a
[00:02:59] little bit about you for people that don't know you tell us about why you're here.
[00:03:03] Yeah do you remember when we recorded the last episode that I was on like has it been like
[00:03:09] one year or two years? Well this is year three of the podcast like the start of year three
[00:03:15] and so I think it's been if not one maybe a year and a half. Okay I ask that because
[00:03:22] everything just keeps changing for the better and true it always feels so dramatic but
[00:03:29] yeah let me just go through my story in like a cliff notes version. So hey my name is Callie
[00:03:37] Kreicher I am a bladder dietitian but I grew up with bladder pain so ever since as far back as I
[00:03:45] can remember it hurt for me to pee every single time it felt like I was peeing fire or like
[00:03:52] putting acid on an open wound like it absolutely sucked and like I got no help when I was a
[00:03:57] kid like my primary doctor was like what what and I'm like okay I guess I'm you know fine so I just
[00:04:05] pushed through the pain and when I was 18 went to a doctor a urologist and I got diagnosed with
[00:04:14] interstitial cystitis and overactive bladder. Well I didn't get diagnosed with OAB right away
[00:04:20] because I didn't have any frequency or urgency until I had a procedure called a hydrodistention
[00:04:27] or they like blow up your bladder with fluid so that actually caused me to get those symptoms
[00:04:33] and then get that diagnosis. So my path to diagnosis was not a fun one it took a really long time
[00:04:41] the lady who diagnosed me shamed me for a couple different things which I'm happy to explain
[00:04:47] but they're just odd and I went into the next like four years of my life which was in college
[00:04:54] and I struggled so hard with all of those symptoms I played volleyball in college you know
[00:05:01] there's there's parties every weekend there's new food there's new relationships so it was just a
[00:05:06] lot and then I basically had tried every treatment possible in my college years for relief nothing
[00:05:15] helped me and I kind of hit rock bottom at some point I don't remember when but I took a
[00:05:20] couple years off of treatment and just like tried living my life and it wasn't great but I pushed
[00:05:27] through and then one day I just was like I cannot live my life like this anymore there has to be a
[00:05:34] reason for my bladder pain there has to be a reason I developed it at such a young age
[00:05:41] you know long story short um I became a bladder dietician I started my road term
[00:05:48] program I started diving into the research I started meeting people like you and you
[00:05:53] were actually the first person who kind of really introduced me to the mind body nervous system
[00:05:58] work and that flipped a light switch on for me and ever since then that was like three years ago
[00:06:04] you were on my podcast yeah over the past three years I have truly transformed my symptoms were
[00:06:11] definitely neuroplastic and you know now I'm pretty much symptom free and I mean I got trained
[00:06:19] in pain reprocessing therapy I hope to get trained in the E A E T at some point so we're
[00:06:27] getting there you started to help yourself by becoming a dietician in working with food and
[00:06:34] diet right but you now don't necessarily prescribe the diet right so talk about that
[00:06:39] a little bit more yeah honestly I mean now that I can reflect I'm 30 and I can reflect back
[00:06:45] I became a dietician because I wanted to lose weight I wanted to learn how to lose weight for
[00:06:50] myself because I grew up with a mom who was very you know one of those and so that's
[00:06:57] why I fell into it I wish it hadn't been like that but I can recognize that that
[00:07:02] is the only way I could have really fallen into nutrition so yeah along the way like in my
[00:07:08] journey with my bladder symptoms they mentioned something called the icy diet which basically
[00:07:14] is this list of foods and beverages you're supposed to avoid if you have like
[00:07:20] bladder issues so that would be things like caffeine coffee alcohol carbonated beverages
[00:07:28] citrus tomatoes so like anything with a tomato pizza pasta anything chocolate things like that
[00:07:34] so like everything that's good in life and you I'm sure you can see how hard that was for me when
[00:07:40] I was in college getting so it was kind of a disaster ended up like there are a couple
[00:07:49] points in my journey where I developed disordered eating patterns um when I was like 23 I
[00:07:56] did have an eating disorder so it yeah it was a struggle for me and then one day I
[00:08:04] was on a support group like a facebook live type thing and it was hosted by somebody in the
[00:08:09] icy community and she was talking to someone who called themselves an icy dietitian and I was like
[00:08:17] what the hell I didn't know you could do that they never taught anything like that like in
[00:08:22] college we learned like diabetes kidney disease weight loss things like that I had never heard
[00:08:28] in our social status mentioned in college so at that moment I was like oh I know what I need to do
[00:08:35] and so yeah basically when the pandemic hit like I decided to do the thing left the hospital job
[00:08:44] which I absolutely was miserable at so I'm so grateful for this opportunity and yeah I started
[00:08:50] helping people with icy and yes like you said at first I was very pro icy diet and that was like
[00:08:59] six years ago because that's what I was given that's what my doctors told me to do but over the years
[00:09:05] as I'm working with my clients we're realizing a bunch of different things the main one is that
[00:09:12] most of our clients are not diet sensitive they're just being told to avoid these things
[00:09:18] or they're being told that these are bad for you they're not safe and they just assume that
[00:09:23] that's truth there are people who have some diet sensitivities but those people are usually
[00:09:30] able to overcome those diet sensitivities with time once they address some other things and
[00:09:36] there's a lot of like consequences that come along with following a long-term restrictive
[00:09:42] diet which would be developing nutrient deficiencies unintentional weight loss weight maybe weight
[00:09:48] gain depends on the person and then developing food fear food fear is such a problem in the
[00:09:56] IC and OAB community when you're struggling so much with a physical symptom and you're told
[00:10:02] that food can help yeah you're gonna be like cool I'll eliminate that if it helps it's
[00:10:06] gonna help fix me help me yeah totally but then the fear builds up so much in our systems and then
[00:10:13] actually as we know creates more symptoms because the fear creates the threat signal in the brain
[00:10:18] which then sends signals to the bladder yeah we're times where I was like in pain and I
[00:10:25] thought back well what did I do today well I ate strawberries earlier that had to be it
[00:10:31] or like drank a carbonated water last night it has to be that and it's like so easy to blame the food
[00:10:39] and they completely ignore everything else that's happening but yeah it's it's like a normal human
[00:10:46] response and you get so desperate it's like of course I can control food so I'll do it if
[00:10:53] that means I could get relief but there's so many people doing the diet and not getting relief
[00:10:59] like I just had a client today tell me she's been on the IC diet for three years
[00:11:04] and it's not helping it's but she's terrified to like add those foods back in so what was the
[00:11:10] point that you decided to shift how you work with clients yeah out of diet yeah we were starting
[00:11:19] our clients on an elimination diet for the first I mean we're at what the fourth version of
[00:11:25] rotor emission now I'd say the first three we enjoyed every couple years and so we would start
[00:11:31] them off with doing an elimination diet and then this past most recent version which I think we
[00:11:39] launched it in May of 2025 question mark um you know my team like me and and Beverly she's my
[00:11:47] support dietitian we sat down and we were like we're seeing so many of our clients struggling
[00:11:53] with the nervous system piece of this like we had you come in and teach like a three-part nervous
[00:11:59] system series which was really helpful for our clients but it came after doing an elimination
[00:12:04] diet and for a lot of people the elimination diet was an absolute train wreck because their
[00:12:10] nervous system was just so like oh my god another thing it's just overwhelmed and
[00:12:18] so we decided you know I think it's best for our clients to come in and when they start
[00:12:24] we're adjusting the nervous system right away and then okay if we need to address food down the
[00:12:31] line if there are food sensitivities we'll cross that bridge when we get there but like
[00:12:36] we really don't have anyone doing an elimination diet anymore well I mean that's a big shift
[00:12:43] as being a dietitian too right it's been a big shift honestly but it it feels really good I feel
[00:12:52] like I'm helping so many people get relief so much faster than like I don't know maybe clients
[00:13:00] that have been with me like five years ago or took our 20 years to get relief like I just
[00:13:05] want people to get relief a little bit faster than I did and we finally have found the formula
[00:13:12] that we feel is most beneficial and you know we've been running this program like this current
[00:13:19] version for almost a year now and the feedback really great are actually getting relief they're
[00:13:28] having these like light bulb moments of oh my gosh it is my nervous system like I've been
[00:13:34] looking in all the wrong places and now this makes so much sense and all the pieces
[00:13:39] kind of fall into place it's really cool it is really cool because when I go in there and I see
[00:13:44] people and they if you don't know I go and host a call every month and there will be people anywhere
[00:13:51] from like okay I'm just starting and I'm recognizing like I've kind of thought that maybe stress
[00:13:56] impacts me but you know I don't really know how or why and I'm still focused on either diet or
[00:14:02] whatever I can do to help myself and then once they start to get into it and they hear the other
[00:14:05] feedback of others they're like oh yeah oh my gosh this this is the this is the amazing piece
[00:14:12] that I knew there was something missing and now I get it that's really cool to see the community
[00:14:17] element does really help because when the other people getting coaching and like learning things
[00:14:22] about themselves and having these moments it's like I'm so similar to them maybe I should look
[00:14:28] into this maybe I should try that practice and yeah everybody really loves that community
[00:14:34] element to the program that's you said something that I'm like yeah that I get this question a lot
[00:14:40] from people there's a lot of DMs or just email whatever I get questions from people that I
[00:14:44] haven't started working with yet is is blank is this nervous system related is this nervous
[00:14:50] system related is this even I mean within your community all there's so many different nuances
[00:14:54] different types of pain different types of diagnoses different types of foods sensitivities
[00:14:59] right and they're like but is this nervous system but is this nervous system and one like yes it can
[00:15:04] help by seeing it and other people say yeah it is I've tried it and I'm working with my
[00:15:09] nervous system and it's helping the second part of this is that when you can recognize that
[00:15:16] actually your nervous system affects literally everything in your body you will not be hurt
[00:15:22] by going down this route you won't only help yourself now you and I are pretty confident
[00:15:27] to know that like especially with IC you know I be in pelvic pain so much of those are nervous
[00:15:32] or neuroplastic and so yeah it can help definitely but even if you're like is this that is it nervous
[00:15:40] system like will this help me is stress related 100 yes to all of it can you fit be fixed 100%
[00:15:46] first of all I don't like the word fixed but no I mean I talk about it you talk about it
[00:15:50] recovery is not linear I still have symptoms that pop up but doesn't run my life yeah
[00:15:57] so will you speak to that a little bit like what does recovery actually look like for you
[00:16:00] with IC maybe oh my god my journey I it's just so unique because it's been so long it's a lifelong
[00:16:06] journey every year I get like more information and learn more about myself where it's like five
[00:16:14] years ago nervous system work wasn't even on my radar and now it's my whole life and I love
[00:16:20] I love them now I'm not going yeah like I'm able to reflect back on my life and identify some things
[00:16:28] like I grew up with a mom who was like high anxiety who was somewhat critical and I I see a lot of
[00:16:37] things that I definitely like I don't want to sit like learn from her like there's some things
[00:16:44] that I took from that but then there's some things I I was like I am not going to be like
[00:16:48] so I guess my point is I'm identifying like when my bladder pain started when I also had really
[00:16:55] bad IBS as a kid so I think that was in that fight or flight state for you know as long as I
[00:17:02] can remember and I think that my public floor was just guarding the shit out of my bladder
[00:17:10] and then it the muscles were just tight for you know my teenage years and then I started
[00:17:15] to develop like vulvodynia that's something I don't really talk a whole lot about so it's pain
[00:17:22] vulva and that kind of presents usually with like tampon insertion or penetrative sex or
[00:17:29] things like that that sucked really bad because for me I never knew sex like without pain
[00:17:37] and that was crazy so you know when you have all of these conditions and these symptoms
[00:17:43] that start piling on it's so overwhelming and it's scary and then you get these diagnoses that
[00:17:51] you're told have no cure so then I'm like okay great so I'm just gonna live a crappy life
[00:17:59] is that what you're telling me like that's how so yeah I mean and in terms of like the work
[00:18:08] that I've done on myself like I've been in therapy since college I've done so much therapy
[00:18:16] I've done like EMDR I've done sex therapy done a lot of other stuff I just started OCD therapy
[00:18:26] you know I definitely think we should talk about that more but you know putting in the work
[00:18:30] in therapy has been important but it wasn't the only thing there's a lot of different
[00:18:35] pieces to this puzzle it's can I show up for myself every day and prioritize my health and
[00:18:42] well-being so instead of getting out of bed and like immediately scrolling tech talk I'm getting
[00:18:46] out of bed and maybe journaling or maybe doing a meditation before I pull out my phone like I'm
[00:18:53] like doing more throughout my day to really prioritize my nervous system and calm it down
[00:19:00] I was joked that I didn't take a deep breath until I was like 27 and like honestly that feels like
[00:19:08] the truth my because it sounds and yeah I it's funny like my PT was like yeah your back muscles
[00:19:15] are so tight there's no way you're breathing as deeply as you should uh yeah yeah so I mean
[00:19:23] that's that's a lot of the work I've been doing and I've done like nervous system courses
[00:19:27] here and there but you know that's that's what it looks like for me now and I still have the occasional
[00:19:35] symptom but I'm no longer like afraid of my symptoms I am like that's a bit of a sensation like
[00:19:43] okay let me just do some breath work this is my body telling me like something that you need to
[00:19:49] slow down or you need to give me something that I'm asking for so I will try to listen to my
[00:19:56] body more but yeah healing for me it has been a journey but I'm not a place where I do consider
[00:20:01] myself healed from a lot of these conditions but saying healed like that doesn't mean I don't have
[00:20:07] symptoms at all anymore I just want to be clear about that that's very important and I've talked
[00:20:13] about that a couple different times because there can't be a lot out there of like you can be
[00:20:17] healed right by doing this regulation and I probably use language like that in some way shape or
[00:20:22] form but you can like we are as humans are not perfect so you can't be perfectly healed and
[00:20:27] and furthermore symptoms are human condition like they are signals from our brain and we all
[00:20:34] happen in some way shape or form just some of us a little more chronic I want to I want to
[00:20:38] introduce the OCD part I want to talk a little bit more about that but first I had something
[00:20:42] that come up as you were talking that I think is important so you mentioned like
[00:20:46] having symptoms since you were a kid being in a anxious household being anxious yourself
[00:20:51] right and I was thinking I felt very similarly I was a like my whole family everyone around me
[00:20:57] described me as painfully anxious like afraid of literally everything like we would be there's
[00:21:03] this place called Burger House in our neighborhood and we loved Burger House and we'd go I'd sit
[00:21:08] with my brother in a booth I was so afraid to go ask for like ketchup like I couldn't do it
[00:21:12] I had asked my little brother to go do it those types of just like so scared of everything and
[00:21:17] your anxiety fear stress nervous system manifested and things like I see Volvedania OAB
[00:21:24] right that wasn't me my manifested in more as I was younger it was more like illness stuff until
[00:21:29] around 12th and it became physical pain and so I'm just highlighting that I don't have some
[00:21:34] answer I mean there's a whole other episode that could be on that but you are bodies take
[00:21:40] it on symptoms I mean it could be generational could be learned patterns it could be random
[00:21:46] we just don't even know but nervous system dysregulation shows up in so many ways so I wanted
[00:21:50] to point that out because it just kind of came to me yeah I was the same type of child I was nervous
[00:21:57] I was so self-conscious I guess tell me like I didn't talk until I met my best friend's family
[00:22:03] when I was like 12th and they brought me out of my shell but I was like mute as a kid and
[00:22:10] it's hard to hear you say that because I was just always so curious you know why was I that
[00:22:15] way and now you know I'm better without having conversations and doing stuff like this but
[00:22:21] yeah I mean I also want to note that I had an incident in first grade that triggered a phobia
[00:22:29] for me so that was another really difficult obstacle that I had to deal with for my whole
[00:22:36] life I'm still dealing with it and I think that also just like raised my stress level
[00:22:43] at baseline so I feel like that's relevant to talk about because I feel like I talked to a lot of
[00:22:48] people with pelvic and bladder issues that also have a phobia okay tell me more I don't know
[00:22:55] I even did a podcast episode with this girl we connected because she has IBS I've IBS she we
[00:23:02] both have a metaphobia which is a fear of vomiting and we got a lot of feedback from
[00:23:06] the episode and people were like oh my god I have you know IBS metaphobia and OAB or IC like it just
[00:23:14] it was crazy but then it starts to get me thinking like okay now about two years ago I was diagnosed
[00:23:21] with OCD and I've been learning more about it and I learned that it's somewhat or fairly common
[00:23:28] for people with OCD to have phobias and I was like okay maybe there's a connection there
[00:23:36] and then that leads me to think like okay how many people with bladder issues have OCD because that
[00:23:45] is something I really struggled with especially in college when I had the frequency and urgency
[00:23:50] like I felt like I had a pee all the time could not fall asleep until I felt like I had zero
[00:23:58] urine in my bladder if I had one drop of pee in my bladder I had to get rid of it and I
[00:24:02] can now identify that as probably OCD yeah it's just interesting to think about you know after the fact
[00:24:11] yeah I mean fear anxiety is very strong in this community it's one of the characteristics of
[00:24:18] neuroplastic symptoms having that high fear and anxiety if you want to go down I just thought
[00:24:22] of this the the Chinese medicine route like fear is a very common emotion of the bladder
[00:24:27] and so phobias fear is right underneath the phobia right so yeah and we see OCD a lot more
[00:24:34] and the ICOAB community and so it does all fit together and so there's two things I want to learn
[00:24:40] a little bit more about one is how do you work with your OCD now how do you manage what do you do
[00:24:47] yeah so I've been with the same therapist now for like three years and she was like yeah I think
[00:24:54] you have OCD so I went to see like had a virtual appointment with a psychiatrist and
[00:25:01] it was a really bad appointment she told me that there's no way I could have OCD if I ran my own
[00:25:05] business I was like I'm I'm pretty sure that's not true so luckily I should have complained but
[00:25:14] I know when I need to advocate for myself so I was like no I have OCD like I need to keep going
[00:25:20] so I got another practitioner to weigh in and and they did diagnose me and then referred me to
[00:25:26] a psychiatrist and over the past two years I've been shuffling through and trialing different
[00:25:32] antidepressants it has been absolutely I don't want to say anything really seriously it hasn't
[00:25:37] been fun let's just put it that way I have found a medication that really like makes a difference
[00:25:42] for me and so I now recently had a conversation with my psychiatrist because I was maxing out
[00:25:52] the dose of Prozac and this has been like a six month lead up to like titrate all the way up
[00:25:59] and before we're gonna abandon this because we thought we felt really good about trying
[00:26:04] Prozac like there's a lot of people that do really on that with OCD and anxiety and whatever
[00:26:08] I felt good so she's like okay why don't we have you try this OCD specialized therapy
[00:26:16] while you're on the medication and we'll see if that has any sort of impact so a couple weeks ago
[00:26:23] about two three weeks ago I started it's called NOCD it's NOCD so it's a company all of their
[00:26:31] therapists are specialized in OCD trained in OCD and I'm meeting with my therapist twice a
[00:26:38] week and we're doing exposure response therapy so basically like changing the way that I respond to
[00:26:46] certain trigger I guess it's all pretty new to me but we started the process and I definitely buy
[00:26:53] into it and yeah that's that's what I've been doing it is my OCD better no I'm still like in
[00:27:00] the weeds with all of this but I'm really glad that I found a specialized therapist who
[00:27:05] can help me with this specific type of therapy so exposure and ERP exposure response or ERT
[00:27:14] social response therapy is very similar to what we do with PRT right so like we're reducing or
[00:27:22] reducing our reactions and attachment to our symptoms to our bodies and changing our relationship
[00:27:27] with it so it all goes together it makes a lot of sense at least in my analytical brain
[00:27:31] looks a little different right depending on what it is but I think it's important to know
[00:27:36] the difference between anxiety and OCD right so like anxiety about our symptoms is so normal
[00:27:44] everyone has anxiety about chronic symptoms especially if you don't know what to do with them
[00:27:48] you've never had help and nervous system in my body like yeah totally but OCD thoughts about
[00:27:54] your symptoms your body or anything is different can you just grab that difference
[00:27:57] I mean you might be the better person to describe it your experience but yes I can
[00:28:05] okay I'm going to be really real with everybody here I have a specific type of OCD called
[00:28:10] relationship OCD where I question my relationship and if he's the one so that is something that
[00:28:18] like it's constantly on a loop in my brain I'm constantly looking for evidence that that's the
[00:28:23] truth and so that's the obsession and then the compulsion that goes along with that is like
[00:28:30] I will go look for reassurance or talk to my friends talk to my family about it or you know
[00:28:36] talk to my partner about it do therapy like I'll do something to make me you know feel less
[00:28:42] discomfort about it another easy example with my metaphobia is like okay if I'm feeling
[00:28:48] nauseous I'm gonna try to stop that by chewing gum or drinking something fizzy those are like
[00:28:56] my go-to things and so like that's kind of like how I explain it to people I don't know there's
[00:29:02] a better way to explain it well so I think the level of it is that yes you go looking for
[00:29:09] that reassurance and validation and it can help and you tell me if this feels right
[00:29:14] it can help take the edge off maybe but you still constantly seek it because there's still
[00:29:19] this part of your brain that's like no I still don't believe that I need more and more and more
[00:29:23] reassurance and validation yeah 100% it's like these things can give me short-term
[00:29:29] relief long-term I'm stuck in the same cycle over and over again yeah whereas with anxiety
[00:29:36] there's some nuance there that can still happen with anxiety too but it's not this fixation
[00:29:41] of it over and over and over right or like the person that cannot literally cannot stop
[00:29:48] googling and redditing and chatting there's some dumps and needs that reassurance over and over
[00:29:53] even if they're getting the same answer every single time so with OCD actually as a therapeutic
[00:29:59] intervention we try not to invalidate and reassure constantly because it's just a loop
[00:30:04] it's just a loop and you keep doing it over and over and over so instead you have to learn
[00:30:08] how to sit with the uncomfortability that you might not be 100% sure and that's life
[00:30:14] and that's where you gotta live with it yeah she's like when you do these exposures I'm not going to
[00:30:18] be there or be able to reassure you and anything so just know that I support you and cheer you on
[00:30:27] and say like I'm proud of you at the end of it but like I can't give you that because it's just
[00:30:31] going to feed into the cycle and you and I were just talking about this with one of
[00:30:36] our our members today in road to her mission which is something that comes up with a lot of people
[00:30:43] I would say it's it's common stuck in this this loop of you know is it this is it something else
[00:30:50] is there some medical condition I have that we just haven't tested before so I think all of it
[00:30:55] is valid but yeah it's that reassurance that like yeah it feels good a short term but like long
[00:31:02] term you're still going to stay stuck in that loop yeah exactly it's something I will even admit too
[00:31:08] early I didn't really understand or learn much about OCD especially in school for counseling and then
[00:31:14] continuation I think I just didn't seek out that training but since being specialized in neuroplastic
[00:31:19] symptoms and prd like yeah I've definitely understood it more and because I don't experience it
[00:31:25] like I said that since a child I've had high anxiety and I can see in certain times where I
[00:31:30] was in deep deep symptoms that for me it went more to like complete catastrophizing and total
[00:31:37] depression and I just collapsed maybe instead of the the hyper fixation but my point being is that
[00:31:44] yeah I've learned a lot more too not only personally but also as a therapist to understand
[00:31:48] that actually what I was doing before and really being empathetic with my clients and
[00:31:53] trying to help them and reassure them and tell them it's a brain response it's a neuroplastic
[00:31:56] symptom response over and over and over I might have been doing some of them in there in my early
[00:32:01] days of the service like not that I was hurting it I was trying to reassure them right but
[00:32:07] yeah I fell in that reassurance loop that's hard yeah yeah is there anything else around this
[00:32:13] that you feel is important to know for people to either resonate with or part of your journey
[00:32:19] no I mean I just really wish that this OCD had been identified sooner than
[00:32:27] eight years old like looking back I can identify it in so many pieces and parts of my life
[00:32:33] where it's hard to be like man if I had help back then maybe things would have been a
[00:32:38] little easier for me but I try not to think like that and yeah I mean I think just like the
[00:32:47] the mental health side of this with chronic illness is just so big and so important you
[00:32:55] know a lot of people at first will be like oh well you're just telling me my pain is in my head and
[00:33:01] it's like we're we're not I understand you know what where you're coming from I probably thought
[00:33:07] that at some point it goes so much deeper than that and you know if you know my story you know
[00:33:15] what I've been through it it took me years to come to this and I just hope that people
[00:33:22] find this work and believe in it as quickly as possible because it has given me my life back
[00:33:29] honestly and in a somewhat short period of time like when I learned about neuroplastic pain up
[00:33:35] until now it's like two three years like my symptoms used to be illy now I rarely ever
[00:33:42] have symptoms that's I mean yeah when you put it in that timeline it's amazing
[00:33:49] you put in that timeline after hearing that I suffered for 25 years it's like yeah that's amazing
[00:33:55] yeah that's huge huge and we hear stories like that all the time when people get into this and
[00:34:01] they learn about it and they start helping themselves like you really can make big changes
[00:34:08] lifelong big changes I mean I'm the same way I truly do not know where I would be how I would
[00:34:14] be if I would be here without understanding this because of like how quickly downhill I was going
[00:34:21] and I mean now it's my life I'm the dietitian and here I am people come in my program now and
[00:34:27] they're like expecting it to be diet and I'm like no really not like we want you to eat
[00:34:32] as much variety as possible I want you to be able to have the freedom to get a drink
[00:34:36] with your friends or have your morning coffee my morning latte is like the thing I look forward
[00:34:42] to when I wake up if I don't have that like go back to bed like it's huge for me so it's like
[00:34:47] you don't realize how restricted you are until you start to get some of that back and you know
[00:34:53] socially you're able to say yes to plans again without worrying that you're gonna have to
[00:35:00] bail at the last second or you're gonna be scanning for the bathroom the whole time you
[00:35:03] know it's it's like flights used to stress me out so much because I'd be afraid that either a
[00:35:10] gonna get a bladder pain flare or B I was gonna have an OAP flare which means like running back
[00:35:15] and forth to the bathroom and people like judging me that's what I thought I don't know if anybody
[00:35:20] even judged me ever but it's very self-conscious and and now I don't even care if I'm assigned
[00:35:26] to window C I'm good you know if I have to PLP but like it doesn't stress me out like
[00:35:31] it used to and that's such a like liberating feeling yeah that's huge especially because
[00:35:39] we're planning a trip together soon and whites need to be easy yeah I feel I I mean very very
[00:35:49] similar in different ways although I have had I still have not talked about it you told me to
[00:35:53] do this and I just like I don't know things happen and I forget to talk about all the
[00:35:57] things but I had my first I don't know what to call it OAB flare something post you post UTI
[00:36:03] syndrome yeah whatever it was for like three four weeks and flight sucked it was it was sucked hard
[00:36:10] but because I knew what it was and because I have done a lot of people pleasing work I was
[00:36:15] that person in the window where I asked to go to the bathroom like multiple times
[00:36:18] well like I don't know what to do here I just is what it is and you're gonna have to deal
[00:36:22] with it I went down a tangent there but my point being the fact that you can now do all the things
[00:36:27] that you want to do and not have to worry about your bladder or be in pain and it's only happened in
[00:36:34] the past two three years off of most of your life is just incredible and so I hope that people
[00:36:40] hearing this will really hear that and know from both of us yes we teach this work
[00:36:46] yes this is our career but we come to it from a place of personal like true personal struggle
[00:36:53] for many many years in different ways and so yeah it's possible yeah very passionate about this work
[00:37:00] and you know we are working with people every day who are getting relief from whatever symptoms
[00:37:05] they have and it's really powerful and I'm so bought into this like before it's like okay
[00:37:14] let me recommend people follow the icy diet because like maybe that helps people
[00:37:18] and that's like all we have to go off but now it's like I've seen people
[00:37:22] get the results there's proof there may not be like scientific evidence or research yet
[00:37:29] but I've seen it happen in you know hundreds of my clients now so I'm fully bought in and
[00:37:36] yeah that is what I have to say yeah the field is rapidly changing too like the information
[00:37:42] that's being pushed out the amount of press and research is slow but it's happening that's just
[00:37:48] research like there's a movement happening and more and more people are hearing about it or
[00:37:54] reading about it or it's on social media or something so it is really cool to see whereas
[00:37:58] even a couple years ago or when I first was in this therapy but I didn't know what it was was
[00:38:02] over 10 years ago and there's nothing out there so yeah it's out huge challenge for me is
[00:38:09] in the icy community just teaching about neuroplasticity I'm the vice chair of the
[00:38:16] inner social status association and we recently were together at like our board meeting in
[00:38:22] Washington DC and I just remember talking like kind of sharing my experience with the group of how
[00:38:31] I'm now pain-free and the second I said I consider myself healed I was like oh no this is
[00:38:38] not gonna land I should be right through them earlier than this because I just don't think our
[00:38:42] community is quite there yet but I think as people work with us and they get their lives back it'll
[00:38:48] start to trickle into the support groups and doctors I had a client today say that she saw
[00:38:55] a new urologist and he's not super familiar with this work but she told him what we do
[00:39:01] in our program and he was like so eager to learn about it and even like your t workbook to go read
[00:39:07] I'm like I wish there were more doctors like this it would advance us a lot quicker but
[00:39:13] I know we go with the flow you do a lot of advocacy work and I just have to say
[00:39:18] you're incredible at it thank you like you have such a fire beneath you which is really cool to
[00:39:22] see I see a lot of advocacy work yes but at the same time I'm also constantly bullied on the
[00:39:29] internet I mean yeah I think that's part of it it just is yeah I've learned to fill up a little
[00:39:36] bit of a thicker skin because I'm a highly sensitive person and you know doing my best
[00:39:44] it is totally part of it like people are gonna think this is crazy and irresponsible and
[00:39:51] give a lot of backlash because it's so different and humans inherently don't like
[00:39:57] different we don't understand it so yeah okay this is awesome thank you for coming on awesome to see
[00:40:07] anything else you want to say around this we're good on this topic I mean we could go a million
[00:40:14] different directions on other topics but we'll save that for a different day so yeah thanks
[00:40:18] for having me this was fun yeah and I'll have all of Kelly's links below for the program that
[00:40:23] we've talked about road to my mission where you can find her she has an awesome social media
[00:40:28] instagram she's her posts are like spot-on so we'll link it all below thanks for saying that I like
[00:40:34] to have fun with my content so yeah come join me it shows I love it all right thanks Kelly and
[00:40:39] I will talk to you all next week if this podcast means something to you it would mean so much
[00:40:44] to me if you could do these couple things one go to the heal with grace show page
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[00:41:04] sharing episodes that help you as well as others thanks for listening and I hope this brings you
[00:41:09] hope on your journey