Episode Transcript
Eating Disorders in Chronic Illness
[00:00:00] Jill Brook: Hello, fellow POTS patients and beautiful people who care about POTS patients. I'm Jill Brook, your hyper adrenergic host, and today I'm excited to discuss a topic we have received so many requests for. The intersection of eating disorders and chronic illnesses like POTS, gastroparesis, mast cell activation syndrome, and EDS.
I was so excited to find the perfect expert to discuss this with us today, Krista Delow is a licensed clinical social worker, currently based in Kansas City, Missouri. She's the owner of Healing Roots Wellness Center. She's got a background in social work. She holds a bachelor's, master's, and clinical license focusing her expertise on the mind body connection, and leading a team of telehealth based clinicians who share a mind body focused approach.
Her journey began when she observed the impact of sleep, nutrition, physical activity, screen time with the children she worked with in her early career. Later, she would work at a residential eating disorder program and watch a close family member experience chronic illness. She now believes there is a profound link between chronic health issues and eating disorders.
And on this topic, she writes articles, leads seminars, and is a thought leader in this space. Krista, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
[00:01:23] Krista Day Gloe: Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk about this topic as it really is an area of passion for me because I feel like the intersection of eating disorders and chronic health issues is an ever developing field right now of study. And understanding the complex relationship between the two is something that I think once we have the understanding of it, we can really work at healing whatever is may be going on in our bodies.
[00:01:48] Jill Brook: Wonderful. And I know you come so highly respected by many of the top experts in the chronic illness space, so I'm really excited to have you here. And I wondered if maybe you could start by just elaborating on what you mean by the mind body approach that you and your colleagues work with. Like what does that mean in the eating disorder and chronic illness world?
[00:02:10] Krista Day Gloe: Sure Absolutely. So as a mental health therapist, I was trained a lot in the top part of our body and our head around approaches where our thoughts impact our actions and behaviors. And so a lot of the work that I did first often my career was helping people adjust their thoughts and adjust how maybe their thoughts maybe are creating behaviors around eating disorder, maybe behaviors. Maybe we have a fear of gaining weight and so we're trying to have some neutrality around some food, right? So we're gonna wanna say this fried food is okay and fine in my body. It will be absorbed fine and you know it, the nutrients will be taken into and all my body will be okay.
When I started seeing that, that was really helpful with many of my clients. But I started noticing that there was a much bigger component that was going on kind of at the lower part of the body. I think a lot about the mind body connection. We think of this mind that's right up here on our head and then this body.
And for me, I think about like we are one big system, right? We're not a separate head and we're not a separate body. These things are completely impacting for one another. So when we have a thought or fear about a food that turns into neurochemicals into our body, it might turn into oxytocin because we're excited about the ice cream that we're gonna have.
Or maybe it turns into cortisol because maybe we're fearful of that food reacting in our body, right? And so that is maybe gonna send down different neurochemicals that are gonna interact in our body, right? That's gonna have an influence on our digestion. Then vice versa, we're also gonna have that digestion.
We have this big Vagus nerve, right? That wanders all throughout our body. And that Vagus nerve, 80% of it goes upwards to me that that's gonna show that it's gonna take those signals from the heart, the lungs, the kidney, our stomach, our digestion, and it's gonna send all the signals upward to our brain to say, Hey, we're doing okay, or We need more food, or We're hungry, or we're thirsty.
Right. And this is where we have to think that our mind and our body are not separate beings, right? They're gonna send this interconnected highway of information through this Vagus nerve, right? 80% goes up and 20% goes down. And so all of these things in our body are interacting all at the same time.
And so when I work with people around the mind body connection, I'm helping them to learn how their body is interacting in these ways and learning tools to maybe take charge of that part of their nervous system.
[00:04:33] Jill Brook: That sounds so important, and I resonate with a lot of that. My big issue is mast cell activation syndrome, where I have had some scary encounters with some foods and you can't help but let that get to you. But now I'm wondering, I've spoken with a number of chronic illness patients whose illness has been mistaken by experts for an eating disorder or maybe made worse by the eating disorder treatment.
For example, I've heard from multiple patients like whose gastroparesis was mistaken for an eating disorder because they kept throwing up after they would eat. Or I've heard from patients with mast cell activation syndrome who enter a residential eating disorder program where they have to eat whatever's put in front of them.
They're not allowed to say no, and it can really cause some flares. Have you heard of this problem and do you think that there is a lack of awareness about these chronic illnesses in the eating disorder space? And I guess if so, What does that do to those patients who have maybe like POTS or MCAS or gastroparesis, et cetera?
[00:05:39] Krista Day Gloe: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Well, you know, I think I was one of those practitioners a few years ago. I was one of them before I really, truly understood the mind body connection. The way that I was trained when I was in an eating disorder facility is that we were really taught around finding neutrality around food.
Right. All food is equal is when I'm gonna kinda say in parentheses here, right? And so when we're in this typical treatment facility, with somebody that is gonna come in with a chronic illness like MCAS, where gosh, there sometimes is no rhyme or reason why we're having allergic reaction today to chicken when yesterday we didn't have a allergic action to chicken.
Right. It's very confusing when those patients are coming in with these histamine responses and when the entire treatment facility is trying to have neutrality around food. It's really hard, I think, for them to be able to say, well this person over here though, really is having an issue with his food and it really is fearful for them.
And so having two people at that same table and the milieu and a milieu is kind of a group of people that are in the treatment facility at one time. When we have that milieu, it's like a community, it's like a group of people that are, are getting good feelings off of each other. They're seeing each other, you know, work on their eating disorders and push through limitations and challenge eating disorder behaviors that they may have, right?
And so this milieu can really encourage one another, or a milieu can really bring each other down and they can be in a place where they can trigger each other a lot. And so I think these professionals like myself, right? I was taught back in the day that unless we have a Western medicine test that shows us that we are allergic to some sort of food, that it is not something we are allergic to.
Right. So back in the day I was taught that that was your eating disorder voice telling you that this was something to be fearful of when really, you are not celiac, so you must not have a reaction to this food. Right? And so I know for myself, I can look back on early parts of my career and kind of shiver into those feelings of knowing that I might have contributed to some of the feelings that a lot of these chronic illness patients feel minimized and unseen by these professionals. When again, I think that this vulnerable population, any population that we're working with, with mental health, right, it's a very vulnerable population.
And I think most of the professionals, when they were working with those people, they become very protective. And so I think in our eating disorder world, we become very protective over, I think this very small group of people that are coming in for what we call traditional eating disorder work, right?
Where we have anorexia or bulia. Where we maybe are in traditional viewpoints, we're doing this for thinness, or because we have this fear of being in a big body, right? And so when we're working with I believe, smaller population in these eating disorder groups. I actually believe many of the clients that I work with have chronic health issues that have been underlying the eating disorder for many, many, many, many years.
But the people that I think we're often seeing in the typical treatment facilities, they maybe are coming in with the viewpoint that it is about finding neutrality with this food. And so I think the professionals just get very protective over this group. And so they don't wanna have diet culture come in and they don't wanna have over-exercise movements and, and big marathons and pushing your body to these really big limits. And for a long time, some people can turn certain things like gluten-free diets into an eating disorder. And so I think a lot of times those professionals just get really Protective over that group. And so I think over time, that ends up leaving out this group of chronic health patients that they need the support as well.
Their body is reacting to these foods. They aren't able to tolerate these foods, but yet the eating disorder professionals, I think are really scared because it doesn't show up on the lab. Typical, maybe western lab that we're seeing here, right? And so they're not sure of how to treat it right? When we have diabetes, we have a number, we go and we get insulin, and we know exactly how to treat it right?
With POTS, with MCAS, with SIBO, it's so individualized for each person that I think that it ends up being really difficult for a lot of eating disorder facilities to help those individuals because of this.
[00:09:48] Jill Brook: Wow that does sound really complex. And so I guess as a practitioner, Can I just ask, how do you work differently with somebody, with some of these complex things going on? And I imagine it's much easier if they already have the diagnoses than you know, but I imagine sometimes now we always hear from experts, once you know this world of chronic illness, you start seeing it more in places that are not yet diagnosed. That sounds so complex for you.
[00:10:19] Krista Day Gloe: Mm-hmm. It is really complex and I think this is where, we wanna be able to look at what is the relationship between the chronic health issue and the disordered eating and vice versa. The disordered eating and the chronic health issue, where I think a lot of times we're coming at it with this viewpoint again of like the head and the body.
They're like two separate things that are going on where when I work with patients, right, it's so completely intertwined with this mind body experience. When you say, right, if you had an experience with a food that had a really bad symptom that came from it, that's going to produce a fear around that food, which is then also going to send out cortisol and adrenaline into your body, which is then gonna go into your stomach and create IBS symptoms or maybe shutting down of your digestive system.
And so with this, when I work with individuals, I'm really trying to tease apart. What is this relationship and how does the chronic health issue affect the disordered eating, or how is it that maybe the eating disorder has been created by the chronic health issue over long term feeling like, gosh, these foods don't feel good in my body, so I restrict away from certain foods.
Maybe that really limits me into a very small, limited amount of foods. Right? That. If we're looking at it with a regular lens of anorexia, we're gonna say that's a drive for thinness. Right? When I look at the lens of ARFID, which is avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. It's kind of the new kid on the block around here with eating disorders.
And this is where we're starting to notice that ARFID is when we have something medically going on in our body that is creating the disordered eating. And oftentimes when I really dive deep into most of the patients that are referred to me with eating disorders, oftentimes I am finding some sort of chronic health issue that is underlying the drive that kind of instigates the disordered eating along the way.
[00:12:15] Jill Brook: So, if I'm hearing you correctly, this relatively new eating disorder, A R F I D avoidant, restrictive, what is it?
[00:12:25] Krista Day Gloe: Food intake disorder.
[00:12:28] Jill Brook: Is maybe started by somebody who has a true underlying medical reason why certain foods are making them feel ill. And so it's not surprising that they would avoid those foods because who wants to feel ill. But then are you saying that that kind of snowballs into getting down to an overly restrictive diet?
[00:12:47] Krista Day Gloe: Absolutely. When I think of when my family member had his chronic health issue and what was given was one restrictive diet after another, right? To try a FODMAP diet, to try eliminating gluten, to try eliminating gluten, dairy, and all the FODMAPs right down to the part where when I was cooking for this family member, I think I could cook chicken the tops of the broccoli and rice.
And that's about all that this person was eating. And I think about he wasn't driving for a drive for thinness. It wasn't because he wanted to have a smaller body or have a beach body ready. It was because he was so fearful of every reaction that he would have in his body. And I saw those physical reactions, right?
I saw burping happen. I saw discomfort. I saw the constipation, right? Where bloating would happen. I saw all of these different things that were causing the restriction to happen. Not that the restriction was happening because the thought was was coming from, I need to be thinner or I need to restrict this food because it's going to make me gain weight.
It was because it really felt bad in my family member's body. Right? And I started taking that into my patients and started understanding, gosh, when we really say that we wanna listen to intuitive eating, I think this is really big. And the eating disorder rule of intuitive eating. And yet we say like, but only in the parameters that we tell you to intuitive eat.
Right? Not being able to say, well, gosh, You know, maybe you feel good eating this today, but even tomorrow you don't feel good eating this, and that's okay too. That's really intuitive, listening to your body. But I think it's really hard when we're trying to have neutrality around food completely.
When again, these patients, they're sitting and in distress all the time. And so oftentimes, let's go back to this mind body connection. So I'll teach my clients that when our body is maybe in this distress state, maybe we have a histamine response from MCAS, or we're having lots of digestive issues with SIBO or feeling dizzy, right?
With POTS, right? All of these things, they're gonna start sending out alert signals in our body and they're gonna start saying Something is wrong inside of us, something is going wrong. So, Let's talk about that Vagus nerve, and it goes upwards. And so it's gonna get to our brainstem and to order to pass through this brainstem, it needs to say, are we safe?
Or is this not safe? And those are our only two kind of options at this point, right? And our body is not safe, right? We're having maybe a histamine response, digestive issues. It's not safe. And so it sends up signals to our brain to say, we're not okay. This is in danger. We're really in danger right now.
And so it goes to look for danger then. And this is where I often see things that will happen, is that we kind of start symptom chasing. We start looking for what was it that caused this symptom And the last thing we put in our body was a piece of broccoli or it was a carbohydrate, it was gluten. And so that must be it.
That's the danger. When really maybe it's the danger going on inside of the body that we just can't see, right? Maybe we're having a fleeting torso rash or an itchy scalp or something, right? Our body can't really see that, and so again, it looks for those dangerous signs and then, Often food or medicine or the things we're putting in our body is what it looks like.
And so then that then turns into, again, it goes downwards back into our body and it turns into distress signals like, oh my gosh, this thing that we just ate was really, really scary. This might even end up in evacuating the food, right? It might say, evacuate this, this isn't okay. In our eating disorder world, we're gonna call that purging.
This is where for me, I'm gonna try and help that patient really understand what is going on in their body. Wow. My body felt really discomforted with this food and it evacuated it outside of me. And then when it comes off the top, we call it purging, right? When it comes out the bottom, we call IBS.
And so really helping to describe what's going on in the body versus labeling it with these kind of eating disorder labels of we're restricting, you purged and those behaviors and so often really helping teach what's going on in the body, I think can really help be the biggest asset in overcoming some of the chronic health issues and, and the intersection with the eating disorder at the same time.
[00:16:57] Jill Brook: Yeah, so I guess I come back to, this sounds so complex because some people have legitimate, dangerous, maybe anaphylactic reactions to some foods, and you certainly don't wanna encourage someone to just, oh, relax, just wait it out. But then other people can maybe take a small signal and turn it into a big signal or blame the food when it wasn't actually the food's fault. And that sounds like very tricky territory to be working in, but is that basically what you try to pick apart and do?
[00:17:30] Krista Day Gloe: Absolutely. You know, and I think it, it does feel tricky when we first start seeing it from kind of the sky view, but once we start getting into it and we start learning, gosh, well, when my heart is pounding, gosh, that's okay. It's sending up signals to my body telling me that something is wrong.
Okay. This is where maybe we can use cognitive behavioral therapy and saying, okay, my heart is really feeling really excited right now, but am I okay? Am I safe right now? Right. We can really add these. These more top-down approaches once we understand what's going on in the nervous system. But when we first come from this bottom-up approach and we are able to give language to our clients and help them make sense as to what is actually going on in their bodies.
It gives them much more tools to be able, again, to feel more in control, to feel like they are safe, which again, is gonna turn off the distress signals, at least the top part, right? That's gonna come down. We might still be having a histamine response. But at least we're not gonna also send out more adrenaline and more cortisol because we're also saying, oh my gosh, we are, this is bad and this is what are we gonna do? Right? If we are able to find maybe medications and tools even that also can help ease some of those symptoms. This is not gonna just be, we can just think it away, like you said, right? Sometimes we need the medicines that are gonna be H one N one blockers that are gonna help bring down those histamine responses in the body, right?
Because it doesn't matter how much, again, this 20% takes over when 80% maybe you're in a histamine attack.
[00:18:57] Jill Brook: Right, right now Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani is a well-known eating disorder specialist, and she is a physician who specializes in eating disorders. And she has written a blog post that made a big impact on me because she had written about how she believes that she sees people who maybe start with a chronic illness that makes their digestion bad or makes them have reactions to foods, but that in certain demographics maybe that can initiate a more classical eating disorder like anorexia. I know you've worked with her. Do you mind explaining how that can maybe happen?
[00:19:43] Krista Day Gloe: Yeah, absolutely. And I think. I respect Dr. Gaudiani so much because I feel like she is one of the leaders in this community really forging the way and helping to bring the mind, body connection really together. And so I believe what she's saying is very valid. And this is where I have a image that I can send you after this that we can even post for your listeners from Peachy Nutrition.
So this image that I have from Peachy Nutrition is going to break down the different types of arfid. So we have aversion, avoidant. We're also gonna get into what's called Arfid Plus, and this is where I think Dr. Gaudiani is really talking about where we start with Arfid and then over time, I might be working with somebody that maybe their chronic illness started around a really stressful time in their life. Maybe there was some issues with some marriage struggles, right? And so maybe we're seeing, again, this mind body connection is that it will start to maybe shut down our digestive system if we're shutting down in our marriage and in our relationships, right?
Our digestion might start to shut down over time, which then might start to aggravate some of our underlying MCAS symptoms, right? Then we end up losing weight over time, and so then when we're having these lower body weights, then we might start noticing, well, maybe the people that we were really feeling out of relationship, maybe it gave us an, an extra boundary around them.
Or maybe they're seeing us a little bit more and so maybe we start to see that Wow, when I'm not feeling well, maybe the person is able to meet me better or maybe I don't have to be around that person as much. And so then we start noticing that, wow, like it actually helps maybe to not eat because maybe that person doesn't desire us in this maybe very fragile body.
And so then maybe we start to notice that over time that this thinner body has some sort of kind of benefit parentheses around us, right? Where it's protecting us in some way, and this is where body image is going to come in. I don't know any person in our country really. I used to say any woman, but now I can say any person in our country that doesn't have some sort of body image distress.
That doesn't feel like they don't fit in in some way, or their hair isn't curly and they want it straight, whatever it is, right? We have some sort of body image stress that I think it hooks to this when we get at this stage. And so also when we're in a really malnourished mind, we're also in a brain fog.
And this is where I think brain fog over time. Again, we're not seeing things clearly, and so this is where I think that Arfid Plus, which Dr. Gaudiani is kind of talking about with it, it turns over into maybe some of the underlying traditional eating disorder symptoms that come up.
[00:22:23] Jill Brook: Right. Right. And I think some people have maybe simplified this. Tell me if this is correct, but the order of operations could be as simple as eating has become painful or uncomfortable because of true medical problems. So then you lose some weight. So then our messed up society basically rewards you for being underweight.
And I've been there, I, you know, had a time in my chronic illness point where even though I was eating normally, I guess I stopped absorbing nutrients or calories or something because I got down to a very, very unhealthy, lean state. But I could not believe how much society rewarded me for that.
Everybody saying, oh, you look good, or, you know, maybe people Acting more attracted. And I remember thinking how messed up that was. And maybe I was lucky that at this point I was pretty mature. I was happily married. I didn't need that from the world. But you could absolutely see how somebody who's maybe younger or insecure or something could say, oh, oh, this underweight thing has some benefits, just like you said. And so now I'm anorexic. Is, is that kind of.
[00:23:37] Krista Day Gloe: absolutely. Over time, right? It's really hard to find someone in our country that doesn't have some sort of impact from some sort of societal pressures about our body size being indicative of who we are. And so we see these reward systems that come in, and there is thin privilege. And so when we see that, right, that is going to give a reward system in our brain and say like, oh, that's desirable. We're being seen people are giving us compliments about our body, right? I can also say this in a bigger body I can kind of walk us through how ARFID can turn into also an eating disorder as well.
So I work with somebody that has been in a chronic health state since they were a young child, and over that time period they have been in just a bigger body. They haven't been in a smaller body. Their glucose has been dysregulated, their hormones are dysregulated, and they've lived life in a bigger body.
Well, When we have a chronic health issue, right? Let's say if we have some sort of MCAS or we have histamine response or IBS even . If we're feeling those symptoms, maybe we're not going to eat all day long at work. Because maybe we're fearful that we're gonna have an IBS flare, so maybe we're gonna restrict all day long because we don't know when we're gonna be able to use the bathroom.
Maybe we work outside. Maybe we don't know when we're gonna have access to a toilet, so maybe we restrict all day long. By the time that we get home from work, we're so tired, we're so hungry that it can result in binging. Right. Where now we're engaging and overeating in those time periods, and then maybe our belly doesn't feel good because we've overate, then maybe that creates a vomiting experience.
Maybe that creates nausea the next day, so then we don't eat again the next day. And so there's all of these things where, again, we can have this ARFID plus that we can talk about that. It can be whether we're in a thin body and we get the privilege from that thin body, or we're seeing that because our body just doesn't feel well. We eat in these behavioral patterns that end up producing dysregulated glucose and dysregulated nervous systems that our body can't absorb the food and nutrition. So maybe it holds onto that food and the evening time when we're eating it and it gets really scared during the day cuz we're not feeding it all during the day.
Right. And so I think there can be lots of different ways that this Arfid Plus can kind of take shape.
[00:25:58] Jill Brook: Wow. Yeah, so is there hope for people who have these things? There's probably some people listening right now who are saying, oh boy, I resonate with some of what is being said. What kinds of treatments can help people in various stages of this?
[00:26:16] Krista Day Gloe: Sure. Absolutely. And I There's so much hope, right? I love when I get to see some of my clients that I've worked with, with Dr. Gaudiani that are out there having babies again, and that their symptoms are really decreased and they've gone from eating kind of where my family member was of chicken, rice and broccoli to eating all foods again, basically, right.
We can definitely find healing and hope within this journey. One of the things I'm gonna definitely emphasize is this, this being able to find a multidisciplinary team approach. Being able to find professionals that understand the intersection of the two of this eating disorder, of the chronic health issues.
Practitioners that are also speaking to one another. What I love about the Gaudiani Clinic, right, is that when I send an email, I get a response back from the doctor that same day almost, right? It's a beautiful thing to be able to know that when a doctor sees my notes, they're reading those notes and they're seeing that mind-body connection and they're taking it into their sessions, right?
I think this multidisciplinary team approach is the biggest thing that I can say is that we can have C B T and we can do D N R S and we can do all of these things, but if we have a team of people that we feel really supported by, that's gonna be the number one best thing that we can work on. A lot of the other things that we're gonna look at are things that are gonna help us kind of with these bottom up approaches. And so this is learning somatic approaches, paying attention to our nervous system, doing things like neurofeedback. I love when my clients are able to go and get neurofeedback and learn how to regulate that nervous system so that maybe when they are in front of some food again, or when they are in a stressful situation. They're able to learn how to regulate that nervous system, which isn't gonna then create the cascade of inflammation in our body after chronic stress in our bodies happens over time. We can look at programs like D N R S that's gonna work on limbic system restructuring. We can work on things with supplements.
Medications. Right. There's so many things that we need to combine our western and our eastern medicine together. I had a doctor once kind of use the analogy that a lot of western care, he sees a lot of the professionals kind of staying in their own lanes on the highway. And his idea was to kind of merge together on the highway.
And my analogy takes that even farther of we need to carpool. And what I feel like when I work with nutritionists and dieticians and physicians and acupuncturists, that we're all communicating when together. I feel like we're getting in the car together and we're carpooling for that patient together.
Really looking at the whole system together, which I really appreciate. And I find that when my patients have a better understanding of what is fully going on in their nervous system, they're better able to feel in control and feel like, Hey, I wanna try those coping skills. And they make sense .
And it's not that just you're telling me that I need to, you know, work through this eating disorder or thought and not be fearful of this food anymore. It might be saying something like, wow. Your body's in a sympathetic state right now, so we're not in that parasympathetic rest and digest. Wow. I bet right now is probably not the time to try and put food into your body.
I wonder what we could do to try and calm your nervous system, bring some more of that calm state, parasympathetic state in there so that we can work on digesting that food. What do you think we can do to help get to that relaxed state a little bit more? Those are gonna be some basic ideas of how to work on just this intersection together.
[00:29:42] Jill Brook: Oh, that's wonderful and that vibes so well with so many other episodes we've had on this POTScast about trying to find that parasympathetic state and strategies for that. And so this almost starts to sound like just yet another problem of being in a chronic hyper adrenergic state.
[00:30:01] Krista Day Gloe: And I think this is where a lot of our chronic health issues come from, right? As we are in this chronic state of stress in our bodies. And once we understand what is going on in that chronic health state. Right. And once we find medical practitioners that validate that, I think a lot of the folks I work with too, they might go to a doctor and, and we're gonna get quotation marks normal labs here. Right? And we're gonna say, oh, Everything's okay. And we might even say, gosh, have you seen a therapist lately? Because we're gonna apply it must be all in your head. You must be making these things up.
And so that's something that for me, any of the doctors that are listening right now, one of the missions I wanna really help to start on this year is to really help doctors start to give more understanding of, gosh, this isn't being made up in their head. We don't have, again, a head and a body that are separate from one another.
There's an impact of what is going on in their body that is creating maybe fearful thoughts. And yes, it might be quotations in their head, but it's not really in their head. It's in their body and their mind is interpreting these signals and they're scared, and they're worried and they're fearful.
And again, that does maybe translate downward again. And so helping the doctors understand how to talk with those patients and give empathy at the same time while saying, and how are you working on decreasing your stress? Have you talked with a therapist about coping skills that can help you regulate your nervous system?
To help them understand that it's not just all in their head or just in their body. Right. Again, we are one big whole body together.
[00:31:33] Jill Brook: That's so great. How often do you find physicians who are knowledgeable about all this? Is it difficult to find that team, that carpool?
[00:31:42] Krista Day Gloe: It's very difficult. it's a unfortunate difficulty, I think, and so hopeful that Dr. Gaudiani and many of the other doctors that are part of this group, that they're the ones out there that are giving education and getting the word out there about these things. Cuz I do think that the more that we have information, the more knowledge that we have, right?
The more that we're gonna be able to help our patients help ourselves. This is where I think about many of us that are in this profession are in it because we're wounded healers, we've had experiences ourselves. We know and empathize what maybe be going on in your body. And I think the more practitioners like yourself, like Dr. Gaudiani, like nutritionists that I work with that are part of this group, right? The more that we get out there and share these things, the more that it is gonna become normalized to understand these things, to look for these tests, to understand again, that this relationship is a very complex relationship, but it's also a very simple one.
If we really kind of tease apart some of these things and come with it. I think if we view things a lot through the lens of ARFID that there is probably something going on underneath. This can be in the same view of if I have trauma, the body might be tense, it might be holding a lot of fearful states.
And so that fearful state's gonna send up signals. Again, it's gonna look for, for things to be scary. It doesn't have to necessarily be that it's a dysautonomic experience because of a chronic health issue, right? It could be anxiety, it could be depression. It can be trauma that's underneath these things, and the more that we get to the roots, the more that we'll have better control and understanding of how to actually heal.
[00:33:14] Jill Brook: That's wonderful. Okay, so what I'm hearing is that any patients out there, you might have to kiss a lot of frogs, but it's worth it to do the work to find that team so that you can get people who really understand this. And you used a term that was so fascinating to me, and maybe it's better left for a future podcast, but you used the term wounded healer.
[00:33:36] Krista Day Gloe: Yes,
[00:33:36] Jill Brook: I've never heard that before, but.
[00:33:39] Krista Day Gloe: Yeah. I believe many of us are out here in this world that we take our own personal experiences, and we have maybe our own pain, our own traumas, our own hearts in this world, and they inspire us to research more and to find out more about these things, and it leads us into our careers. I believe that for me, this is where early childhood experiences, the ways that my body was formed, led me into being a healer because I can have understanding and compassion for maybe what some of the people that I'm working with are going through.
[00:34:11] Jill Brook: That's amazing and that's beautiful. Yeah. To make it mean something like that. Okay. So I know you need to get back to your clinic. I just have one last question, which is At what point do you think a patient should start seeking help? What are some early signs that somebody's going down this bad path and what can they do about it at that point?
[00:34:33] Krista Day Gloe: Sure. Yeah. You know, I think anybody that's starting to have any sort of anxiety or fear around the foods that they're eating. Right. And this might just be simply of thinking like, gosh, I don't know how I'm supposed to eat. There's so many things around diet culture and like breaking fast is supposed to be at nine in the morning and we're supposed to intermittent fast, and we're supposed to like not eat eggs, but eat eggs.
And it's so confusing, right? And this is where I think about for anybody that's just knowing that they needed a little bit extra help. I think a lot of times, especially in therapy, the way that I give my patients this analogy is that, you know, we go to school for math and science and all of these different things, all of our life and many times we come around to these adult years and I'm like, why don't I know how to emotionally regulate myself? Why don't I know how to grocery shop or how to manage making a meal? Seven days a week for myself. These are really difficult things that go on in our daily lives, and so it's really just also humanizing that like we all need help, I think, right?
It's, it's that we all need a little bit of extra help, but when we're starting to notice that our body is starting to become anxious or our body is starting to have some sort of residual effects because of our fears, that's when I think taking a step and reaching out to, I think the first practitioner, again, we wanna find this multidisciplinary team, but most of us, I'm sure like you, you've got a handful of therapists, a handful of doctors in your pockets, right, that we know to refer to.
And so I think a lot of times it's just taking that first step and finding one practitioner and starting with that one practitioner. It can be a doctor, it can be a therapist, it can be a nutritionist. But it's just starting in one little place and knowing that it's gonna take, you know, a long time to get there. But if we start in these really small habits, and really small changes, we will eventually make our goals.
[00:36:19] Jill Brook: Wonderful. Wonderful. Okay, now I know what everybody's thinking now, which is, what is this woman's website?
[00:36:25] Krista Day Gloe: So y'all can find me at healing roots wellness center.com. You can sign up for my email list there, and we're getting ready to set out a webinar right now on mastering the mind body connection through understanding women's Hormones.
[00:36:39] Jill Brook: Wonderful. Well, Krista, you are such a wealth of knowledge and experience and wisdom and we so appreciate your taking this time with us today and for all the work you're doing, and I know you are working hard to educate more practitioners, and we just all have so much gratitude to you. Thank you.
[00:36:58] Krista Day Gloe: Absolutely. Thank you so much.
[00:37:00] Jill Brook: Okay, listeners, that's all for today, but we'll be back again soon. Thank you for listening. Remember, you're not alone, and please join us again soon.
