Talking Chronic Pain with The Pain Game Podcast host Lyndsay Soprano

Tina: Hey everyone, I'm Tina,

Serena: And I'm Serena, and we are the Mental Health Mamas.

Tina: Welcome to no need to explain. We are so glad you're here.

Serena: First, as always, a quick disclaimer.

Tina: We come to you not as mental health professionals or experts in the field, but rather as parents with lived experience who are on a mission to normalize the conversation around mental health.

Serena: If you or someone you love is experiencing a mental health crisis, please seek professional support. You'll find a variety of resources in our show notes and on our website no need to explain podcast.com.

Tina: Today we have a guest with us who is going to share something I'm pretty sure we've never covered on the podcast before,

and that is chronic pain and her experiences with that. We often talk about how we've turned our pain into purpose and today's guest has done that in a very literal way.

Serena: Lyndsay Soprano was diagnosed with chronic regional pain syndrome CRPS seven years ago, which is one of the most painful diseases on earth. Lyndsay is a fellow podcaster with the

Pain Game Podcast, a podcast about the game of living with chronic pain and trauma and getting to the heart of how to heal. Lyndsay is a CRPS warrior while at the same time making the distinction

that she is not her diagnosis. Lyndsay, welcome to the podcast.

Lyndsay: Oh, thank you ladies for having me. I'm happy to be here to talk about all this.

Tina: And we're so happy to have you. So we'd like you to start

by talking about this syndrome, chronic regional pain syndrome. Our understanding is that it's relatively rare and enough said, incredibly painful, right? So tell us more and tell us what your experience is.

Lyndsay: Um, so yeah, so chronic regional pain syndrome, it sounds kind of fake, you know, like a fake diagnosis of like, yeah, chronic regional pain syndrome. What is that? Well, what it really comes down to is it's a central nervous system condition. Um, and it, it responds differently. There's two different types of it. One is full body, which is what I have and another is from an actual injury that happens. Like if, if you got in a car accident or you broke your wrist and you had surgery, sometimes people just get CRPS in a very localized area and then their hand like explodes or what have you. I'm full body. So mine moves, it's wiggly gross nasty pain throughout my entire body. And like you mentioned, I was diagnosed almost seven years ago with it. And it started with around the time that I was doing infertility treatment with my ex husband. It didn't have anything to do specifically from an injury. So it was really hard to get a diagnosis with that. And the challenge to get diagnosis as a lot of people in the pain community can relate to is it's like, wow, we're not really sure so we think it's

this. And so years of going through all of that, we found out this is what I have. And how I lived my life in the beginning of my diagnosis is very different from where I am today. And that is very important for my story because when I was diagnosed, I was in the middle of a nasty

divorce from an abusive husband. I lost my dog. I was moving from state to state. Like there were all kinds of things that were going on that were super emotional and super stressful. And so I didn't really give too much to myself, my pain, my self care. I was always caring about everybody else. And when you have an alcoholic abusive husband, you're always kind of taking care of them too. Like please don't die tonight. Like I've got to make sure that you don't die tonight.

But with that, the CRPS comes so much of it is stemmed from a lot of trauma that's happened. And it certainly fills my day with having to talk about trauma from the past, which is where that nuances is between how I felt about my diagnosis in the beginning versus now. So in the beginning, I was, I'm in pain. I have chronic pain. I have this rare disease, me, me, me. I was all all focused on the actual physical pain. And I wasn't approaching the topic of a trauma informed approach to care, which is huge. I was raped when I was a little girl. I was raped when I was in college. I've been abused by a lot of people in my world, both physically and emotionally, financially, all of that. And it took me until I started my show to be able to even say those words. And so for me, I believe wholeheartedly that trauma is what happened no matter how large or how small they are, they sit in our bods. And they sit here with us like an albatross, you know, like we just like keep dragging the bigger albatross with us. And it's super frustrating. But for me, it was

like, I'm not going to live my life anymore as a pain patient. I'm going to live my life. Like you guys said in the beginning, I'm going to turn this pain into a purpose. And so now instead of looking at the fact that I live 50% of my life in a wheelchair, every step that I take, then I push

through, I bite on a stick. I am that chick. Every step I take feels like I'm walking on hot coals, gravel, legos, ice, glass, broken glass. I mean, you name it. And it's all the same time and it's all the sensation that my brain is interpreting as pain. And I use interpreting very specifically because I believe in the brain, the brain pain connection as well.

So anyway, so I ended up having to really look at myself and face myself in the mirror in relation to the traumas that I had experienced at such a young age up until, you know, I mean, I divorced my abusive husband seven years ago. So, you know, and then of course, life happens and

stress happens and emotions happen and things, you know, life happens to you and you still have to find a way to get through it. And when you live in pain 24 hours a day, which is how I live, it ends up being it ended up just being, well, now this is my life. But now I got to do something awesome with it instead of only focusing on the pain part of it and working through trauma and finding healers. And that's one of the reasons why I started my show. And in the beginning, it was going to be gab, , gab, gab, like bitching and complaining about my pain and then, you know, like, feel sorry for me. Oh, man, not anymore. So I shifted my entire gear on how I wanted to talk about pain because I believe that mental health is at the core of a lot of it. I believe that

abuse and trauma is a lot of why people go into chronic pain. They go into, they go into chronic pain, not just physically, but emotionally when you think about like that show hoarders, which I watch all the time. It makes me feel a lot better about myself.

Tina: Well, you bring, you bring up a really good point, right? The idea that. So, so I think we're talking about a lot of things here.

And, and one of the important connections you are making is there are definite connections. I mean, isn't there a book serving a call The Body Keeps the Score?

Serena: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Tina: And so the idea that that chronic pain is maybe exacerbated certainly, certainly exacerbated by trauma and other things in your life. And the truth is our medical system is all about physical pain and not about like, there's no integration of that. So what I guess I want to hear have people here is that people who are in chronic pain are in real pain and it might have been something you experienced when you sought a diagnosis, right? But our medical system is really about pinpointing a part of your body and exploring that. It's like, nope checkbox, it?s not that one, not that one. And so it's a yes and thing, right? It's a yes and thing. Yes, there's lots of mental anguish that probably goes with some of this pain, but there is also real pain, right? Am I right?

Lyndsay: Yeah, you're right. Absolutely. Like I feel like my like my legs and weather changes affected it too. And I think that's pretty standard for anybody that's in pain, even if they like their leg or whatever. Like right now, I mean, I'm in Los Angeles and it's pouring rain here. It's been crazy and news and the weather out here. You know, as Californians are

such sissies. What stuff? What do we do here? But yeah, I mean, the trauma part of it is so incredibly impactful when I finally was able to swallow that pill because it was a it was a choker, you know, like it was like holy crap. I I have to face the music on stuff that I've stuffed and I've stuffed and I've stuffed like my parents don't know about any of this stuff. And I talk about I always tell my mom, I'm like, if you listen to my show, you're going to have some questions. And you might want to have a psychologist and a psychiatrist in queue, ready for you because it's going to be a lot. And one of the things that we didn't mean as a kid of

the late 70s and early 80s, you know, we we weren't talk about how to manage, how to talk openly about things that happened to us as kids. And my parents would, I mean, my mom would be in a straight jacket right now. I mean, honestly, because these things that happened to us, as soon as I started to swallow that pill that I needed to open up and I needed to be vulnerable and I needed to actually start sharing, that was that was the pivot point for me. It doesn't mean that I'm not in pain. I just approached it so differently. I approached with humor and depravity and my person you would never know. You would never know by looking at me. I mean, I'm pretty atrophied and pretty skinny because this disease just kind of eats you away. It's it's super gross. It's super gross, ladies.

Tina: You are not super gross. Stop it right now.

Serena: No!

Lyndsay: No no no no CRSP is super gross.

Tina: It is super gross. You are lovely. You are lovely in every sense of the word.

Lyndsay: Oh my God. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Serena: So actually, I want to go down that path, right? So so clearly our listeners can't see you, but they can hear you. They can hear you voice and they hear that you, you know, that you're your vibrant, you're laughing. I know you're smiling. And you are not what I might imagine if I were to imagine somebody, right, dealing with this level of pain all the time. It's not what you look like. And so if I didn't know your story, I would say I wouldn't necessarily have any idea that you were in constant pain. So how do you do it, Lyndsy?

Lyndsay: It is a decision that I make every morning. So in the morning, it takes me about, I don't sleep all that much somewhere between like two to three hours tops and night. So the fact that I do have the energy that I have and the way that I work because I run a marketing agency as well on top of my show and, you know, life and dogs and spouses and all this stuff. But I, it is a decision that I have to make cognitive decision as soon as my first alarm goes off because my first alarm goes off two hours before I need to get out of bed. And it takes me about two hours

to, I named my legs, Thelma and Louise. Yeah, because I kind of need to humanize them because I don't feel like they're attached to my body. They're like a separate entity. They don't feel like me. They don't feel like they're mine. So my acupuncturist actually is the one who's like, you need to name them. You need to give them a name so you can chit chat with them, you know, and I do. So every morning when that first alarm goes up, I'm like, all right, Thelma, all right, Louise, Louise, you were a real bitch yesterday. Can we, can we balance this out for today? And then it's like, okay, this is going to hurt. This is going to really frickin' hurt to put my feet on the ground right now. And as soon as I do

and I stand up, that's my empowering moment. And I'm like, all right, let's do this thing. And I'm very disciplined with my business. I always have been, I've run it for 24 years. I always have an alarm. I get up. I do my thing. I shower. I put mascara on. I do, no matter how crappy I feel,

I still show up. And that is my mantra is you're showing up today because today is another day. You made it through yesterday yesterday was awesome. Even though it hurt like hell, I still push through.

But a lot of that is, I mean, there's meditation involved. I read a ton. I meet empowering women like you two all the time. I meet, you know, and in doing my show as well. And you guys can, you know, agree with that to me. You meet just the most amazing people in this world. You're like, holy crap. Like I would have never met you guys. Like, right.

Tina: Because we live on an opposite coast, right? We would have never met.

Lyndsay: Never, ever, ever. And I think that the power of this positivity that we're trying to do to try to help others. That's what you guys are doing. That's what I'm doing. That part gives me a lot of fire and gives me spark and also helps propel me through my day to get through the pain. And I also just, you know, like yesterday, I was in the supermarket for example. And I'm in line. And this guy was so pissed off that the line was long. There are two registers open, you know, you're like, come on guys, open up another one. There's like lines down the aisles. Like come on, like old school COVID days, you know, we're like, wow, this is insane. And this guy was so infuriated with the person in front of him. And he was just pissed off at everything. And I just said, hey, dude, you know, there's a lot of things in life that you could get riled up about. And this is not one of them.

Tina: Yeah. No, I totally hear you. And first of all, I need to comment on your supermarket. We had a, um, we had a little nephew who grew up in California and he went to the supermarket. And I'm like, okay, supermarket, we call it the grocery store here, but that's all right.

You're small. I will agree with you. It's a supermarket. Okay. Fine. All right. So now,

Lyndsay: So I was at the grocery store.

Tina: You don't have to change it for us. It's fine. I love it. I just love

regional colloquialisms. So I love that you share this with us, which is you are hopeful. And you're right. We meet the coolest people because, um, yeah, because, and I think I said this on a podcast yesterday, Serena, I think we, I, I know so much that I would never have known, but I not gone through the pain that I have gone through.

Serena: Right, right.

TIna: So I want to circle back for a minute about the

trauma and then we'll leave the trauma part alone. Maybe I don't know if maybe not.

Lyndsay: I'm an open book, whatever you want.

Tina: The part that I, I guess, um, I want to highlight for people is, um, you can never take the trauma away for sure. What you can do though is deal with the trauma in a way that does not allow you to kind of go the self medication route. I mean, that's the part that I think is, okay, I can say this about food, right? When I am emotionally a wreck, all I want to do is eat. I do. And it's something I own. I know that. And I feel like when we don't, like we did not normalize trauma in our generation, although I think you're younger than me, but anyway, in the past,

let's just go the past. We did not do that in the past, right? I think we, um, are dealing with stuff in a different way. And I'm currently working very hard to not eat when I feel super emotional. Now, people do other things. I'm not saying they're worse or better, right? But we do know there's drinking, there's drugging, there's all kinds of things. And especially when it comes to chronic pain because when you're in chronic pain, Lyndsy, what did they say to you? How about some meds?

Lyndsay: How about some gabapentin for you? How about every kind of medication?

Tina: How about some opioid medication

Lyndsay: Oh, yeah. Right?

Tina: I mean, seriously, so it's almost when you're in chronic pain,

easier to self medicate, not deal with your stuff because people are handing it out to you.

Lyndsay: That's how, yeah, you're totally right on that. Like, if I wanted to get opiates right now, I could just, it's so incredibly easy and it's so gross that it is. And in the beginning, and this kind of, this supports, I'm glad that you brought this up because this kind of supports that whole pivot where I changed from when I was diagnosed and I started down the standard route, which was go to your neurologist, get your eyes, get CTs, go to a pain doctor, and I did all of these things. And then every single doctor was like, well, you've got to do this, you've got to do that. And I did all of those things that Western medicine has led me down the

road. And every single one of them caused me more pain, a couple medications that they put me on made me have suicidal thoughts like legitimate ways that I, what, how I was going to kill myself,

how I was going to prepare the people in my life. I called it writing letters. I wrote letters to everybody that I knew. And that's really crappy. I want to cuss, but I'm not going to.

Tina: Okay. Thank you.

Lyndsay: You're welcome. Yeah.

Tina: But crying is totally allowed.

Serena: It is. You're good. Yeah.

Lyndsay: So, you know, that that's really scary stuff, because it messes with your noodle. I mean, you're like, here, just take this. I'm like 110 pounds wet, you know, and they gave me, I had one doctor that gave me 120 milligrams of ketamine on my first dose.

Tina: Oh, my gosh.

Lyndsay: And thank God for my sweetie. He saved me because he caught me with a knife to my wrists. And I know I have no recollection of it. And so when you think about that scary part of big pharma, I don't take anything for it. And that was that pivotal moment where I was like,

holy crap, back this truck up here, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to approach pain in a whole different way. And as soon as that night happened, that's what shifted in me, because now the only

thing that I do for pain, like from a like ingestion perspective is THC and CBD. And I'm fortunate that I'm in Los Angeles and in California where there's like, you know, a dispenser meal every corner. But I've, but I've got it down to a science where, you know, it's really trial and error and you have to kind of like journal about it and write about it and how it helps. And one of the things that I do like about the cannabis side of my pain, my pain management is that it really doesn't necessarily take my pain level down. What it does is just kind of make my brain feel a little

happier about my situation where you're like, huh, right? I could watch two episodes of hoarders back to back and not cry about it. So it's in my care, the opioid thing was a big part of the beginning because that's all that that's all that they do.

Tina: It is the only tool you had right?

Lyndsay: Exactly.

Tina: It's the only tool you had. But I love that you are addressing the trauma part because I think it's something that people don't necessarily connect with pain. And so absolutely body keeps the score, good book about it. There are other books too that are really good

and anyway, I just thought I'd throw that in there because I think it's such a, you know, and I don't want to knock the medical system because there are lots of wonderful things about our medical system. And the integration of the all the parts, you know, Serena and I often

talk about the whole, the whole body, right? We have to think about the whole body and not put, not cover things up, right? We don't want to just say like, Oh, keep taking time on all every day for the rest of your life because you have a headache. No, no, no, let's find out why you have a headache, right? And then seriously,

Lyndsay: Yeah, did you drink two bottles of wine last night?

Tina: I did not by the way.

Lyndsay: I wanted to, I wanted to, but I needed to show up, right? Absolutely. It's really important from the mental health perspective because I've always had, I've suffered with anxiety from the time that I was nine years old. And so I understand anxiety being an only child being, I've always had a ton of energy no matter what, I mean, the first word that came out of my mouth outside of mom was extravagant by the way. Well, my mom has it in my baby book, which she just gave me like two weeks ago, by the way, I'm like, what was the rush on that? 45 years old. Now I'm looking at pictures of my stupid birth father. Great. But it's such an, it's a slippery slope that, you know, we, we get so desperate to get out of pain that it's like, Oh, well, if I just take a pill, well, then you just take a pill and then that pill causes 17 other things. That's why these commercials exist, right? Like, are you going to take any of these medications? We see on these commercials with the things that they list?

Tina: No, very frightening. Very frightening.

Lyndsay: And gross. I mean, but I had to make that decision

where it was like, okay, I had a failed spinal cord simulator implant into my spine complete almost paralyzed me, emergency surgery on that. And these are all the doctors, they're like, do this, do this, do this, do this, and then, you know, everything should be just fine without taking any inventory of how a we are contributing factors to what we put in our body, whatever that may be, we are in charge of our destiny. We are in charge of, if we are addicted and addiction is not just talking about coping mechanisms, it's not just about drinking and doing drugs, it's gambling, it's sex, it's shopping, it's all of these things that we do to cope to escape to not feel anymore to feel better. Shopping highs, holy moly, you go on, you're like, I'm going to drop a grand on shit I don?t need. You know, like, oh no. So, everybody has the way that they

go through and how they managed. And for me, it came down to I needed to make sure that I was in charge of my own self and not relying on other, relying on doctors to step in and be like, this is it.

Tina: Absolutely. And we have to be in feeling power to do that and we do and I don't know that many of us do. And I wonder if you noticed when I got really quiet about the shopping thing because I'm still looking into that. I still think I need to, I think, I think I need to admit

that I have a problem with that. So, I don't know. Serena, do you want to move to the next question?

Serena: Yes,

Tina: We don?t want to just start that down.

Lyndsay: Oh my god, before she bucked out

her credit card.

Serena: Okay. So, yeah, let's move on. So, you know, as I was researching for this episode, I discovered that the prevalence of chronic pain among adults in the US is one and five. And this is significant for one. It's just a significant number, right?

Tina: That?s a lot.

Serena: It is a lot. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. But here's the other piece of that, which, you know, kind of rolls right into what we've been talking about. One and five is also the statistic around the prevalence of mental health struggles in our country. So, are they the same? You know, I don't know.

But I can imagine that there must be a lot of crossover. So, Lindsay, knowing that so many people deal with chronic pain, what are some of the things that you found that help you? Knowing that, of course, it's very individual, but share with us some of the things that help you.

Lyndsay: Absolutely. I mean, the first thing that helps me is doing my show and also being on shows like yours, where I have been, I'm taking this, what I use to look at as a curse and turning it into

a blessing, giving my pain purpose, like you guys have talked about when we've talked about. So, for me, it's the showing up part. And it's, and I do things like acupuncture and physical therapy. I have an, we have an infrared sauna in our home. I infrared sauna every morning, and I meditate in there. And I have all of my, I use doTERRA for my essential oils. I've got essential oils everywhere. I've got every kind of rub and CBD and THC thing. I do a lot of meditation, which is really hard at first. But I, I encourage people to not think that it's super woo-woo and like you've got to sit there silent and quiet forever. No, meditation can be just listening some, like, bitchin' music. It can be, meditation is whatever you make it. And I, I encourage people

to do that because it is self-care. And for people that are in chronic pain, and not, you know, all of us kind of stink at self-care. You know, I'm certainly getting better, but we have our moments where we're like, wow, Lyndsay, you were the last person on your list today, and you

needed to be the first one. So I'm, I'm getting better with that. And the, the number one thing that I can say wholeheartedly and honestly is I created boundaries. And it was something,

Tina: I love boundaries.

Lyndsay: Yes. And I got rid of people in my life that were toxic, that weren't healthy for me, people that had been like, but my best friend on the planet for 25 years, I had to say goodbye to. And it was like, I lost somebody, you know, it was like a death, but I had to choose me.

And choosing me is the number one thing that I have to do every day, because then the rest is just going to be, you know, golden girls. Because if I'm the last one, and I'm eating breakfast at 10 p.m., you know, I'm not, I did nothing for myself today. I did everything for everybody else. And so that is something that I work really hard on. And I mean, I'm not perfect at it. God bless America. I'm never going to, I don't want to be perfect, but it is such an amazing thing when you

do the boundaries. When you, when you boundary the heck out of people, you know, it is so incredibly empowering. And you boundary yourself on what you're willing to do, who you're willing to talk to,

who you have in your life, the food you put in your body, the amount of alcohol you drink, or don't drink, or blah, blah, blah, blah, or how many credit cards do you bust out to buy a new shoes? All of those things combined. And it sounds like a lot, but it's actually just a little bit

of, it's, it's a lot of little things, you know, if you spend, even if you give yourself five minutes of meditation in the morning and five minutes of the little journal entry or something, that's 10 minutes that you didn't do yesterday. And I'm, that's kind of how I, I work through it. And also, I just, you know, I've a little bit of depravity of a good sense of humor. And I chose to, you know, use that to my benefit instead of to my detriment.

Tina: I love it. And I also think you are a great example of the fact that, and I'm not saying fake until you make it, but sometimes being

happier, sometimes being happier makes you happier. It just does, right? And you're funny and you're outgoing and maybe that's exhausting for you, but it also must give you some energy.

Lyndsay: It is exhausting. Yeah. Um, and I've been in Insomniac since I was nine years old, and I'm 45 to put that in perspective. So I haven't slept for most of my life. And I think that that also has some kind of, we always knew that at some point, like the absence of sleep was going to catch up with my health and wellbeing because you kind of need it. So now you add pain into it, the, my nighttime is just like, it's the worst because I am a busy body. So I keep myself busy all day, even if I'm willing in my wheelchair through the house, I do races with my dogs through the house. Like, come on, let's go. We're going on a walk because I can't walk them. I have a dog walker. So we do a wheelchair walk to the house and we do races. And it's really fun. So I mean, I do the best that they can with what I've been given. And it's not, it's certainly not where I thought it was going to be. But so what? Like, so what life happens to people, you know, and it's, it's our choice to make what we've been given. And it is given. It is a gift our life.

It is our choice to, you know, not sit around on the couch and feel sorry for ourselves, but get up and do something about it. So yeah.

Tina: So let's circle back to an idea you touched on. And I want to make sure our listeners understand and get some clarification. So we touched on trauma informed care, right? So according to the Institute on trauma and trauma informed care, trauma informed care understands and considers the pervasive nature of trauma and promotes environments of healing and recovery, rather than practices and services that may inadvertently re-traumatize. So tell us about how a trauma informed approach to care, tell us a little more about

how that's factored into your healing.

Lyndsay: Well, for starters, it, as soon as I started opening my mouth

about trauma, I realized what that actually meant. It meant that every doctor I've seen, every psychologist that I've talked to since I was a little girl, all of these people were not necessarily there to help me at all. And I, and not asking me questions about what happened to you, not what did you do, but what happened to you. And the, and some thing, I mean, hey, I was a total party animal in college, like there are things that I probably brought on myself in some certain situations. However, when it comes to talking about trauma and things that happened to me when I was a little girl, I never felt comfortable or vulnerable to even talk about them. So now that I understand the absolute connection between trauma and pain, I have to, without a doubt, always approach the trauma part of it. Because as soon as I start to kind of like,

go through the weeds, get a skeleton out of a closet, be vulnerable with somebody, share something with somebody that I'd never thought I would ever share. There is a, there is a lift, and there is a light, even if it's not super bright, that comes out of me, that makes me want to

make sure that I am always working on healing trauma, which means being honest with yourself about what happened, whatever that might be, being forthright and trying to be a better person, reading, you know, writing and just doing all of that because when it comes to trauma,

I don't care whether you think that you, if you've been traumatized in your life, it could be something so silly, you know, that that to somebody else, it might not be a big deal, but it's a big deal, you don't, don't feel shame, don't feel guilt. This is your life experience,

you know, this is your lived experience. And if it's trauma, then the trauma informed approach to care is we got to talk about the trauma, not about, oh, well, you, well, you have arthritis in your feet. So what's just, you know, like, oh my God, we got to try, like you said earlier,

we got to talk about the whole body and trauma comes from that, even if it's car accidents, my ex husband was in a car accident or like a dune buggy accident in the middle of the desert, he was left for dead, he broke his back, he was out there, he lives in my mind. I think a lot of

the reason why he was abusive in the alcohol and all of that was because he never faced any of the trauma of how scary that was for him. And I think that if we're honest with ourselves, then we can be more trauma informed in relation to our care because then we can be

honest with the doctors that we go talk to or the practitioners or your acupuncturist or your masseuse, whoever it might be that's going to help you with self care. If you don't tell them stuff that happened to you, they're going to give you gabapentin. They're going to give you an

opiate because you're not being honest. Now that doesn't give them a pass in not asking questions, women specifically, we're not probed upon, we're not like, oh my goodness, what happened? Like,

let's get down to somebody, men are like, oh gosh, you know, you know, so where I feel like we have to just be solid and honest with ourselves and be vulnerable to get the best care that we can because trauma absolutely lives in our bodies, 100%. No matter which way you look at it. In fact, somebody told me a couple months ago, I don't remember who I was talking to, it was the guest on my show and it was about how a lot of people that struggle with pain and movement issues and their

legs and their feet is because they're unable to move forward. And I'm like, cring up.

Tina: Yeah, as I said, that hits deep. Ding ding ding ding ding. I don't know.

Lyndsay: I was not happy. I was not happy, but it was kind of true. Yeah. And when you when you approach yourself and look at yourself

in the mirror and really go, oh, wow, we need to work on some things, you know, that is trauma informed in from my perspective, at least.

Tina: No, I love that. And I love that you're giving your perspective

on that. And I think there are two sides to that as well, right? So also to receive trauma informed care. And I love when you said asking the question, what happened to you being able to ask questions in ways that are non-judgmental, not like about your behavior or not, like about why the question, why is not a good question, right? It is about what happened to you. And I think that we have good tools. So if we go back to our toolbox, you know, you're talking about the tools that you have to be able to open up and get down deep with whatever that is. And I think it's the same thing for, you know, we have good tools. Professionals have good tools to ask these questions. Do they choose

to do that? Or are they not so trauma informed, right?

Lyndsay: Yeah. Well, I definitely see that with male doctors, especially in pain, the pain community, which unfortunately, the majority of the pain doctors, at least the ones that I've gone to are male. And it's especially when you have like a personality type like mine that I come in, I certainly people know when I come into a room. And it's not because I'm like wearing this gown from the Oscars. And I'm this like beautiful woman that people need a look at. I come in like the blazing saddles, you know, it's just my personality type. And there's an element of that that I think keeps doctors when you do have strong willed women that are successful that have just been faced with something like this or have pushed down their traumas. And it's one of the reasons that we are successful as well, at least for myself, I can speak to that. But I think that they get uncomfortable asking uncomfortable questions that they might not know how to handle the answer to what they're hearing instead of like, okay, great, you're in pain. I'm going to give you a nerve block. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. Okay. It was nice seeing you. I'll talk to you later. You know, like it's it's it's almost like they can't even make eye contact with deal. And I got to the point where I just had a sheet that I printed out. That was like, here's my story. Here's the whole things that I've done. Here's the medications that have been out of been given to me. These are the outcomes. All of which were bad. Read this before you come into the room and meet me. And until you do that, don't walk in here because I'm not answering these questions ever again. Like this is my sheet. It's my one sheet.

Tina: Yeah. Sure one sheet. I love that. So no, it's a really good perspective, right? And that's a really good suggestion, especially with people with complex histories. In fact, Serena, I think at one point, we had some of that stuff, right? I thought we had some good

tools that came from somewhere.

Serena: So that was from Dawn on the parenting with trauma, right? Yeah, she created some of those, you know, kind of sheets to fill in. And I have to say, as an introvert, like that is that's what a great idea. I love it.

Tina: Yeah. So Dawn Daum, parenting with PTSD, right? That was her, but that's her book. And she is one of our guests. I cannot remember what season, but we love her. So Lindsay, I can imagine after this episode, people will want to connect with you. Your story is very powerful. I think you are a connector. And we certainly felt connected to you. So how can people find you and connect with you?

Lyndsay: Well, you can go to the paingamepodcast.com and that has, you know, everything that you could need there. My episodes and show notes and all that. But Instagram is the best, you know, at the pain game podcast. I'm on Facebook, but I don't do anything really there. So

I quite frankly, I mean, come on, Mark Zuckerberg, please let me just use Instagram.

Tina: It is all about the Insta and the Gram, right? I mean, come on.

Lyndsay: It is. So I just like, I, my following is on Insta and that's where the best place to get me is to, you know, slip into my DM's. I am happy to talk to anybody about anything. Like, I am on a mission, even if it's, you don't want to be on an episode on a podcast like this one or even be on an episode ever anywhere. But you just feel the need to express something that you're uncomfortable doing with your loved ones or even your own psychologist or what have you, I am absolutely happy to talk to anybody about my journey and everything because I mean, this could be like a 20 hour episode if I really told my whole spiel.

Tina: We're trying to reel you in. And we love it. And we were trying to reel in a little bit, because we know we could talk. We could listen to you forever.

Lyndsay: Oh that is very sweet.

Tina: And we will.

Lyndsay: That's well, we don't need to re traumatize our audience, right?

Serena: No, I really appreciate everything you've brought today to our episode Lindsay. And I love that you are sharing your journey with the world and laughing your way through it. And I just have to say you're making a huge difference for so many people out there.

Lyndsay: Thank you. I mean, that's all I'm trying to do.

Serena: And so podcast friends, we are as always grateful for all of you listening and supporting us. We know you have like a million choices out there. And we appreciate that you spent some time with us today. You can help us out by visiting Apple podcast. Leave us a review

while you're there. Subscribe and please share our podcast with others. You will find more content on our website. No need to explain podcast.com. You can also sign up for a mailing list while you're

there. And you will get a free printable 100 ways to care for your mental health. And it's a great thing to put on the fridge.

Tina: Because we all need to do a little more self-care, right Lyndsay?

Lyndsay: Right!

Tina: This is your gentle reminder to take good care of yourself while you are also taking care of your people.

Serena: Thanks for listening.

Tina: Bye.