Ep. 33 “It’s Not All in Your Head”: Advocacy, Intuition, and Better Doctor Visits

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Becoming a Health Coach. I'm Megan McCrory. I created this podcast back in 2018 when I was attending the Institute for Integrative Nutrition studying to become a health coach.Fast forward. It's 2025 and I'm taking a fresh look at my early episodes with fellow IIN Health coach extraordinaire, Adonna Levy Hoffman.

Hi everyone, I am Donna Levy Hoffman. I am a Functional Medicine Certified Health coach and Megan's co host on the so Freaking Healthy.

Together we are going to talk about what we learned and how our views and experiences have changed over the years. Or not.The original episode is still available for you to listen to, but I hope that this updated version provides a deeper understanding between training to become a health coach and actually practicing as a health coach in the real world. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and questions about Becoming a health coach.You can reach me via the podcast website hosted by the SwissCast Network. The link is in the show Notes. Now let's hear what 2018 Megan has to say about patient advocacy.

Module 18 started off with the impassioned lecture from actress Jennifer Esposito. You might recognize her from the show NCIS. Jennifer struggled with Celiac's disease for almost 15 years before it was finally diagnosed correctly.Some doctors thought she was just depressed, others had no idea what was causing her symptoms. Many of the health coaches I've studied with have similar stories.I recently watched a buzzfeed video where several women recount their experiences of begging doctors to help them, only to be told that nothing was wrong with them and it was probably all in their head. This video is called My Doctor Didn't Believe My Pain.Strongly recommend as a health coach or as a someone who wants to be a health coach that you go and check out that video. So it seems that this type of thing happens more to women.I don't want to go too far down this huge rabbit hole, but it is true to state that not a lot of studies have been done on women of childbearing age. Therefore, we still have so many unknowns about what causes many of the issues with women and specifically with their reproductive organs.The take home point is to listen to your body and take action when something is wrong. If you are turned away or not being helped, don't give up. Keep searching for answers because nobody is going to do it except for you.You are your own best health advocate.

So Donna, we're talking about patient advocacy.In the past, I don't know Couple years there's been a lot of talk in the press, in the media, in social media about women's health and lack of studies for women's health and women basically going years and years and years without being diagnosed or helped with whatever the condition is that they have.And I wanted to talk about this from a, basically from a patient advocacy standpoint because a lot of women or people in general tend to put a lot of their faith in doctors, Western medicine, doctors, and if they go to the doctor and something is not wrong with them or they don't get a diagnosis, they either feel like, okay, I should be fine and whatever this is is not dangerous or chronic, or they leave feeling like they haven't been heard, they're still in pain or having symptoms and don't know where to go. What's your take on patient advocacy? How would you explain this to your kids, for example?

Well, I mean being on both sides, meaning having had a lot of issues and going to the doctor to try to be heard and try to understand what's going on and being told it was all in my head and working with a lot of people, a lot of clients who actually have the same issue, I can say that what I would say to my kids is, you know your body best, right? So trust that intuition, trust that gut feeling that you have. Okay. Something is off and I need answers, right.And I will not just take any answer as a black on white given because as we've heard just now on your recording. Right on, from 2018 about Jennifer, a lot of women go to the doctor looking, as you said, looking for answers. And I was told it was all in my head.Now how can it be in my head when I'm losing my hair and I'm in constant pain and I'm, you know, all the things. So yeah, I think it is just important really to just trust yourself and not take any answer as a hundred percent sorry.Doctors are amazing, but they don't know everything. And we need to remember that they are humans as well.

And we need to remember that science and medicine is still evolving, right.I mean with the lack of studies that were done on women of childbearing years, for example, heart disease is very under reported in women because it doesn't present the same as male endometriosis. And anything to do with your reproductive system is staggeringly under researched.So from my point of view, when I see social media, the women that are probably about five to 10 years older than me, who are of a generation of making their voice heard and the fact that we have these platforms now to be heard and that they can start to share their stories, I.

Think it's just great.

There's a lot of women out there that are advocating and talking about, you know, hormonal shifts, hormonal cycles, perimenopause, menopause, or any way in, just in general reproductive issues. I think what you said is really good. I think everybody, you just need to keep fighting for yourself.I think nobody else is going to fight for you and you just need to keep fighting for yourself.And if you are alone, make sure that you have somebody who's got your back in case you are in a position that you can't make these decisions by yourself as well. Because that's also something scary.If you don't have kids, if you don't have a partner and you're out of it, decisions could be made without your understanding for life threatening things, you know.And so that is also I, I think included in the whole like patient advocacy thing is to make sure that somebody somewhere knows what you want when it comes to your body.

Yes, a hundred percent, 100%. And also, you know, I'm sure that most people felt this way before. When you sit at the doctor's office, you feel small.There's a person in front of you who has studied for eight plus years, who's been doing this forever and ever, and they often have this demeanor of I know best, you know, I know, I know better than you, you and you become small.And that is problematic because when we sit there and we could challenge the person in front of us by asking certain questions or bringing up something else that might contradict what the doctor is telling you, whether it's a man or a woman, we need to kind of take a deep breath and, and, and take that space back and just be like, but, and you know, like this is the situation. What, how can you explain to me that. Again, I'll give that, that very simple example.How can you explain to me, dear doctor, that it's all in my head and just kind of go through with your fingers through your hair and pull out a chunk of hair and go like, how is this, how could that be what I'm making? You know, I'm, I'm deciding in my head that I'm losing hair. So I'm losing hair. It doesn't really make sense, right.So there's a lot that you can do but just kind of like meditating a little bit before walking into the doctor and remembering what, you know, that you matter and you're a person. And that you will take that space and you will advocate for yourself in that moment is really important. They are humans.

And I think as well, the doctor is there. You are hiring the doctor for a service.If you think of it that way, like, if you were to hire someone to paint your walls, of course they know the best way to paint your walls, but you're. They're still doing a service for you.And I think a lot of people put doctors and lawyers into this bucket, like you just said of, well, they know best. Well, they don't know best. They know the law, they know medicine, but they don't know your body. And mentioned meditating before going in.And one of the things I always do before going to my annual gynecologist visit or to a doctor in general, if I'm going for a specific reason, is I try to keep dates, I try to keep information. What are my symptoms? How is this affecting my life? What are these things that I'm experiencing?And I pull my notebook out and like, okay, this is what I want to talk to you about. And this is what I want to talk to you about. And this is what I want to talk to you about.And making sure that you are informed and prepared when you walk in there is probably one of the first things you can do to show them that you mean business, that you're there. And if you don't like what they say, meaning if they are dismissive, if they say, oh, no, we don't need to run any tests. We don't know.You know what I mean? If they're not actively helping you figure out what's wrong with you, quit.

Find another doctor. Quit. Exactly.

And go to another doctor and just say, listen, I don't. That you're not trying to help me here. I'm gonna give you another chance. Do you want to help me? Otherwise, I go somewhere else.I mean, and it's hard to say that when you've had a doctor for your whole life or you're in a situation like what we are in Switzerland, where, you know, not necessarily, you know, English is not their first language or it's a different kind of healthcare system. Yeah. I think you really have to just pay attention and keep notes and say, no, this is. This has been going on too long.

I 100 agree. I change doctors like I change underwear.I mean, my kids in their first 10 years of life had 10 different doctors because I was not happy with the answers that they gave me, and I just quit them. And so I think it's so important. Listen to yourself.Like, if you walk out of there feeling hurt, feeling ashamed, that those are not feelings that you need to come up from going to a doctor who you reach out to to get help. So if you have any of these weird feelings, just listen to yourself and just be like, you know what? I'm gonna text all of my girlfriends now.I'm gonna ask them where they go and if they're happy with their doctor. And I'm gonna try them out and one of them will hopefully be a better, you know, better suited for me than this person that I just left the office.I, I definitely agree. And I'm, I always tell my clients, before you go to the doctor, make a list.Make a list of all the things, even things that you don't think are connected to what you're complaining about. If you have, if your little pinky hurts every other day, or when you. Only when you eat onions or. You know what I mean? Like, just note it down.These are all important things. This is how your body is trying to communicate. You need to note it down. If the doctor doesn't take it seriously, then there's a problem there.

What's your perspective on Dr. Google Dr. Chatgpt?Like, people getting so frustrated with the answers or non answers that they're getting from their physician or healthcare provider that they then turn to the Internet. I have a quick thought. One is that I think if you have symptoms or issues, I think it's totally a good idea to get into a community or group.Or like you said, like you just said, contacting your girlfriends and being like, hey, okay, this might be too much information, but I'm having these symptoms. Does anybody else have these symptoms?But if you find like a, like a group or a community online, I think that that's a great way to have a sounding board. Like, is this normal or is this not normal? And that's also very weighted. Right. Because what's normal for someone is not normal for someone else.

Exactly.

But at least then they can have like a sounding board. But what are, what are your thoughts about turning to the Internet for self diagnosis?

Yes, I totally agree. I mean, like, I have this love hate relationship with it.Because of course, when you know, when someone has something, depending on how you phrase your question on Google, everything might come back as cancer or something. Like very, very scary and very, you know, and so we need to understand that symptoms come. It, it's very individualized. It's very individualized.I can put a, a whole room 100 people in a room, and they will all have the same symptom. They all get migraines. And every single one of these, a hundred people will have a different reason why they get migraines.Some might be histamine resistant. Some might have the specific food sensitivity. It could be anything.And then you can put a hundred people that have different symptoms in a room together, and the. The source of the problem is all the same.So, yes, research it just so that you have an idea, because maybe Dr. Google will say like, oh, are you having a lot of dairy? Maybe you're dairy sensitive because you get this and that. And then you're like, huh, okay, let's try a couple of weeks without dairy.Omg, this actually worked. I don't get any sinus infections anymore. You know what I mean?But I do think that if you don't go too deep into a spiral of, oh, my God, I'm dying with every symptom that you check, then it could be a good source to come up with some ideas to the doctor and be like, could this be it? And then they can say like, look, your test results show X, Y and Z. That cancels out this option. Calm down.

Thanks, Donna. This was a awesome little chat on patient advocacy. Dear listeners, leave us a voicemail. We really, really, really, really want to hear your voices.And I'm so curious if have stories about situations and where you were an advocate for yourself or you had to be an advocate for somebody else, or if you have any tips or tricks like what we talked about. If you have any of that stuff, you can head over to our website and leave us a voicemail or leave us a message and we'll be happy to hear from you.And the link's always in the show notes. Thanks, everyone.