In this episode, we'll dive into the emotional rollercoaster I've been riding this week. From the struggle with medical gaslighting to the quest for a compassionate and holistic healthcare approach, I'll be sharing my journey navigating the ups and downs of dealing with doctors as a fat person.

You'll hear about my strange new symptom(s) and because of that, I'm being referred to a cardiologist. I have huge anxiety about this because in the medical professional world, 99.9% of the time they equate weight with health/wellness.

Highlights:

[00:00:36] - backstory; medical gaslighting

[00:03:57] - working with a naturopath doctor

[00:05:01] - unexpected news from doc; cardiologist referral

[00:06:14] - why I'm struggling with waiting for a cardiologist appt (eating disordered, disordered eating related)

[00:10:23] - the biggest struggle right now (focusing on health without it being weight loss/body size related)

And hey, before I forget – I would LOVE it if you would take a few minutes to leave a review of the show on your favorite podcast app. And of course, don’t forget to subscribe too, so you get notified when new episodes get published. 

This is not planned, but I felt like I wanted to do this because I've been having a really rough week. I thought I would make it through without crying. Apparently not. And that's okay because feeling emotions is not a bad thing. Oh goodness. Where to start? I don't even know how to start. Yeah. This week has just been really rough.

I got some, I guess, not so great news from the doctor, to give a little bit of a backstory. So as a fat person, I've dealt with a lot of medical gaslighting. And what I mean by that, if you're not familiar, you know, or have never heard somebody talk about that, Everything was always related to my weight and, you know, being told that a common cold is because of my weight and if I would just lose weight. Or one time during a softball game, I twisted my ankle, went to the doctor, and again, I was told that it was because of my weight and if I would just lose weight. So there was, I don't know, like 3 to 4 years that I just even avoided going to doctors because, you know, when you hear that so often and you know that shit is not related to your weight, but that's what you're constantly told over why continue to go see a doctor when they don't wanna address the other things that are going on. They just want, you know, to focus on lose weight, lose weight, lose weight. So after having, you know, several years of not going to the doctor, I ended up when I moved out here to the West Coast, I knew that I needed to find a doctor and, you know, start doing, like, my regular checkups and stuff. So I found a doctor, was, diagnosed with high blood pressure.

That was not a surprise. Before I had stopped seeing a doctor, I had been on medicine for high blood pressure. Not the smartest thing to, you know, just go off that medicine and not see a doctor. But, again, medical gaslighting is a huge thing that, you know, fat people tend to experience, and it's fucking bullshit. But that's not what this is about. So I did find a doctor out here. It ended up being the same shit that I had dealt with in the past. You know, everything was all about lose weight, lose weight, lose weight.

Lose weight will solve everything even when something wasn't related to weight. And I was like, this is bullshit. I am going to find a doctor that looks at health as more than just focusing on my fucking weight and the size of my body because I know that there are so many nuances to health and I wanted a doctor that was going to, that was going to be willing to work with me on that with looking at health as the whole picture and not just solely focusing on that one thing. So I ended up making the decision that I was going to work with a naturopath doctor. Nothing against western medicine, things like that. I just wanted, again, a doctor that was going to come at my health from a, like, a a full health I don't even know how to explain it. So, anyways, I did a bunch of research. I ended up finding this naturopath doctor, and it has been amazing.

I've been working with her for a couple years now. She's always taken a weight neutral approach, never focused on, you know, the size of my body, and she never even had me step on a scale up until last year or maybe yeah. I think it was last year. I ended up dropping, like, a significant amount of weight, and we had to figure out, you know, what was going on. That was a whole thing, like, you know, we had talked about cancer. I had tons and tons of blood work. Thankfully, it was nothing, you know, serious. I was diagnosed with IBS d.

But so all of that to say that she has never once ever made me feel like I had to lose weight because that was going to solve anything that was going on. So, anyways, fast forward to this week. And so I've had some weird symptoms going on, some things with my left leg. I have this weird I don't even know how to explain it, but, like, I have this vein in my left hand that is bulging. But if I, like, raise it up above my heart, kind of like above my head, it just goes away. Like, the vein goes back to being normal and it stops throbbing. And then just some other, you know, weird things that are going on. So my doctor made the decision that I needed to be referred to a cardiologist.

And I'm really freaked out because I don't even know why I tried to make this because clearly I'm still having a hard time processing this. One of the things that I'm struggling with is I know going in to see a cardiologist that they are going to make this solely about my weight. You have to lose weight just like 98% of, you know, medical professionals out there. And when you have an eating disorder and a very unhealthy relationship with food, when doctors and medical professionals try to, you know, make everything be about your weight and, you know, weight loss is what you have to do to, you know, fix this, it really fucks with your head. I have been working really hard to, you know, kind of process everything that's been going on this week and to figure out how this can be approached from a health perspective, not a weight perspective. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but, again, it's really important for me that I separate the 2. And I I don't even know how to make it make sense for people that, you know, don't have, like, eating disorders and an unhealthy relationship with food because so many people believe that weight equals health. And again, there is so many nuances to health.

And the size of somebody's body and the number on a on a scale is, like, the least important thing about somebody's health. So I've been trying to just figure out, you know, going into I don't even have my appointment with the cardiologist yet. It's a referral thing, so I'm sure it's gonna take a little bit. I'm assuming that by tomorrow, which will be Friday, or, like, the beginning of next week, I'm assuming I should hear from the cardiologist's office and have an appointment, you know, get all that set up. But so just trying to figure out how I wanna approach it going in to let the cardiologist know, look. I have an eating disorder. You know, we need to approach this from a a different standpoint than it just being about my weight, and I don't know that the cardiologist is going to, you know, be open to that. Who knows? I'm making shit up in my head, and that's the other thing that I have been having a really rough time with this week is all the what ifs.

What if? What if? What if? And logically, I know. I have nothing to freak out about right now because I don't know what's going on. I won't know obviously until I see the cardiologist and he figures out what tests need to be ran. Oh my god. I've shed so many tears this week. I honestly don't know how I have more to shed. So just trying to keep myself calm this week, and I'm not doing a very good job of it. I have really bad anxiety, and that has just kind of been a 1000 times worse this week.

And I tend to be a huge worrier. So, you know, everything going on this week has not been a good combination. But aside from crying a lot, I've spent a ton of time in nature, taking my doggy for a walk. I just spent a ton of time in nature. I have spent some time crying. I've spent some time in bed. And, you know, I used to beat myself up for when things were going on, and I just wanted to cry, and I just wanted to be in bed. And this time, like, I've gotten a lot better about just allowing myself to do what I need to do to take care of myself.

I don't even know why I'm crying right now. I'm just really scared, and what I'm struggling with right now is, you know, how do I focus on my health without it being about my weight? But, you know, being in the body positivity space, oh god. I feel like my thoughts are all over the place. Anyways, I'm just having a really hard time trying to figure out how I protect the, you know, once something becomes about losing weight, that is when I so easily slip back into my eating disorder behavior. And even aside from the eating disorder, which is binging and purging, I just have a really fucked up relationship with food. I've been on so many fad diets in the past. I've done laxatives. I've been in the emergency room because of diet pills.

Like, I just have never had a normal relationship with food. And, but oh god. I don't even know what I'm trying to say. Trying to come at health from a, like, weight neutral, nondiet, no diet culture, like, approach is really difficult, especially knowing that I'm going in to see a cardiologist, and it's going to be about my weight. So I don't know. I'm rambling, and I'm not making a lot of sense. So if you've made it this far, I so appreciate you and, just kind of trying to comprehend the thoughts that I'm having. So once I know more and see the cardiologist and have some answers, I will do another, you know, update to share everything that's going on.