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Today I interviewed Renee Kammer, who has an amazing healing story. From 30 years of chronic pain and 5 years being bed bound, to now hiking, biking, and gardening.Renee had several diagnoses, including: Stiff person’s syndrome, Ulcerative colitis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Ankylosing spondylitis, Fibromyalgia, Headaches, Migraines, Back pain, Hip pain, Anxiety, Depression, Pelvic pain/ IC, Chronic fatigue, Chest pain and High blood pressure. Renee joined Alignment Academy and went through all of the exercises in Dr Schubiner's workbook to unlearn her pain. She got off 14 medications in the last year, and has been feeling better and better! She now has more joy and hope in her life, and is even starting a baking business with her new found time and energy.Listen here for Renee's story. And if you want to apply the work Renee did to your life this summer, be sure and check out my Book Club Integration Group! https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/book-club-integration-group Transcript- Automatically Generated: This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 131, Life After 30 Years of Chronic Pain with Renee. In this podcast, we learned to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.Become Unstoppable Body and Mind. Hello, my loves. Today we have an amazing episode, an amazing testimonial from Renee.I want you to listen to her story and apply anything that you can to your life, to what you're going through. Hi, everyone. Welcome.Today we have a special guest, Renee. She has such an amazing story. So welcome, Renee.Hi, it's good to be here.Great, great. It's so good having you. Renee has been in my coaching group, Alignment Academy.Oh, I was going to look up how long. Less than a year, I think, right?I think it's been since November, December.Yeah. So about like six months, seven months. And you've made such amazing progress.You were already on your way of this journey of like, getting rid of some medicines and some things. We'll go into your story, but watching your progress has been amazing. And I think it will be really inspirational for people.So let's just go ahead with maybe just a little bit about yourself and how you got to having chronic pain and the symptoms that you had.So my name is Renee. I live in Ohio and I grew up just across the river in Kentucky. I have two kids, a son who's 14 and a daughter who is going to be 17 next month.I've been married to my husband Justin for 23 years, and I love life.When I go to tell my story, it always starts when I was younger because as far back as I can remember, I remember carrying around Pepto-Bismol, because my stomach was always upset as a kid.As a kid, yeah.Yes, and it was kind of a family joke, you know, that she always has that Pepto with her. But my stomach was always upset, and I can see now that was just a lot of anxiety and worry. But there were just, there were several things that had happened with friends and in my life.When I was about 16, that I started getting chronic pain then. And so my story goes back over 30 years of chronic pain. It's honestly, when I think about it, it can be a bit overwhelming to see that the majority of my life, I've not known anything but pain.Right. Yeah. Yeah.We're getting deep fast here. But there's a happy ending though, you guys.Just very happy.But yeah, that's a lot, right?It's a long time. It's a long time. And so although I've had much easier years here and there coming and going, my body always managed to drag me down.And so I guess the relief that I feel now at being free from pain and not living in fear is just, it's so incredible. I have not felt like this the majority of my adult life.That is an amazing transformation.It's crazy. Yeah.Okay. So as far as your diagnoses that you've had or that you've been diagnosed with, do you have kind of a summary or a list so we can have an idea of what you were diagnosed with and how severe it was?So my latest diagnosis was actually stiff person syndrome. That was the last two years, which is a muscle disease, which they thought it might be autoimmune. But I think I proved that one wrong.I've been diagnosed with that when I have ulcerative colitis. I've been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis for years. I was treated for enclosing spondylitis, which is just another form of arthritis.I've been treated for years for fibromyalgia, for headaches and migraines, back pain, hip pain, anxiety and depression.There were years that I went through therapy for pelvic pain and intercistal cystitis, chronic fatigue, chest pain, high blood pressure. All of those were diagnoses that I've had.And years actually include a lot of autoimmune ones too, which is kind of on the rare side. That's an area where that can cause physical damage and physical disease, and also can be regulated by the nervous system, can be controlled by the brain's interpretation of safety or danger. So you really defied some odds here.You're kind of the unicorn.You know, when reading the book, I read what Dr. Schubiner had to say about those diseases, but I decided that maybe it wasn't true for everyone who had that. And I was going to give it an honest shot and see if it really, you know, if it helped me.Yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is fascinating. Like, how bad was it as far as like, what did your daily life look like at kind of at its worst?And then how did you come to this work where you were just like, I'm going to give it an honest shot and just see what happens.I have had a life that was very active. My kids were active. I had had jobs.I had had a life years ago that I loved, that I managed to do well in despite some chronic pain. And then about five years ago, when chronic pain took over my life, I went from being an active wife and mom and sister and friend and church member and all of volunteer to living at home in my bed. I was in my bed all of the time.The things that I needed, my extra water or snacks, were just a few steps out of bed, so I didn't have to travel far. People came to my house to see me, to visit. I didn't go visiting.I didn't attend very many of my kids' games, get-togethers. I stopped all my volunteer work, which was really heartbreaking for me. I used to teach.I wasn't able to do that anymore. I didn't get to do a lot of my work at the church, which really, it all just really made me sad. And there was just so much that I couldn't participate in because unless it happened from my bed or my couch, then it didn't happen at all.And I wasn't going to live that way the rest of my life. My kids had things going on, and I wanted to be a part of my husband's life, my family's lives. And so I started looking for a way out of that.Yeah. And then how did you come to this work, and how did that go for you?I had downloaded the Cureable app, and I think I probably got it when it had a couple months free. And then the subscription snuck up on me, and I thought come out of my bank account, and I was like, oh, you know, I've not even used that. I had better go try it out since I just paid for it.I better go see what's on there. And so I read some of it and thought, I don't know about this. This is different.Oh, really? Yes.In all of my years of being sick, I just had not come across any of this mind-body work, which really blows my mind. And so I was researching, I came across your Instagram. I was researching some ideas that I had found out from the Cureable app, and I listened to the success stories.And oh my goodness, if these people can do it, why can't I? I mean, I had tried everything, and I was just so done with being in pain. It absorbed my days.Yeah. And you were taking a lot of medications too, right?Yes.And have you already started getting off some of those medications? Because you came off quite a lot of medications. Was that all just since Cureable or was some of that before?Some of that was before. I went to the ER last spring with high blood pressure. It was extremely high.And they automatically put me on three blood pressure medications.Oh, wow.And I came home and had quite a few side effects to those. And I was like, you know what? This is not what I want.I had a friend because I have been in a wheelchair the last couple of years. I had a friend take me to my regular, my family physician, and we were going through the medications about a year ago, and she gets, oh, my goodness, you take all of that medicine? And I said, yeah.I mean, I know that they had listed off about 16 things. And I thought, you know what? This is getting kind of crazy.And I knew that I had a lot of side effects from the medications. And so I guess after getting other people's reactions to those and realizing how crazy it was to actually be on all of that medication, that I decided I was going to start getting off of them.Okay. So yeah. So you'd already started that, and then you found curable.And checked into it, and it didn't resonate really at first.Yes. And so then once I followed your Instagram and did a lot more research, I thought, okay, you know, maybe this is something for me. And in the course of the last, I would say, 14 months, I have got off of almost 14 medications.Yeah, that is amazing. It blows my mind. Like you guys, Renee's story, it's so incredible, and it just keeps getting more and more incredible.So yeah.Do you want me to tell you some of them?Yeah.Because these are hard hitters, I feel like.Oh my gosh.Oxycodone. Neurontin, I was on 2,400 milligrams of Neurontin a day.Effexor. 100 milligrams of Baclofen a day. Clonopin.Carvetilol. Welbutrin. And then I did Botox for my migraines every three months, as well as a monthly emgality syringe for my migraines.Yeah. And then, you know, a handful of other medications, but some heavy medicines.Those are some heavy medicines. Yeah, absolutely. This is so inspirational.So just including kind of a whole variety of different medicines that you've been able to get off of. And I'm sure there were some difficult times, I would imagine. And then also, at least from my perspective, it's looked like in a way it's gone easier than you might expect.How would you say that has been for you as far as getting off the medications?After trying one and feeling better, it kind of gave me a boost of just a little bit of like self-empowerment. Like, hey, this is good. You can do this.Then it was almost like I had so many, I couldn't wait to get off of them quick enough, you know. It takes a month to go off of this. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I want to be off of two in the next month, you know.Okay, amazing.My doctor didn't know what to think about me continually saying, and these are the next three that I want to get off of, and these are the next two.Yeah, that's probably opposite of the trend that they see. And, you know, might even cause some concern. Like, wait, you can't just get off of these kinds of medicines.You need them for this reason. But tell us more about what was helping you when you learned about this information. That was helping you get off of these medicines.So one thing that I learned, and before I started your Alignment Academy, I also went through and listened to all of your podcasts. I listened to all of the podcasts from Alan Gordon. I read a lot of information, and I felt like being educated with this information empowered me so that I could make, not only, I thought it was a good decision.I felt like it was a better decision since I researched it. It wasn't something I woke up and decided to do one day. Like, I put a lot of energy and time.The more I read and researched, listened to podcasts, I figured out that there was another way to exist, rather than the way that I had been existing. And the way I had been existing was not fun or easy.It was full of joy. It just wasn't.Yeah, exactly. Even with all of the interventions and medications, it wasn't like you were feeling better. You were probably feeling worse and worse and worse every year.Usually what happens is that it spreads, gets more progressive.Yes. And I lived in fear. I always lived in fear.For the past, I can look back for the past 20 years, anytime I would get to feeling better, enjoy it for the fear of worrying about what would happen when it came back.Yes.And it was almost as if it was something I didn't have control over.Yeah, right. Because your nervous system is subconscious and you're in this high alert, you're in this fear-based state, which we also know from neuroscience increases your pain, increases your symptoms. So it's just this vicious cycle.And that's why chronic pain and chronic symptoms are more like that habit of the brain and that feedback loop. So yeah, starting to realize you don't have to live that way. There's hope.It sounds like you had some hope that something could change for you.I realized I said to myself exactly what Dr. Schubiner said. I have my body syndrome and I can cure it.Yeah. And you would say that to yourself?I said that to myself all of the time.All of the time, yeah.I didn't order Dr. Schubiner's book until the beginning of 2024, and I threw it fairly quickly. I got off of my medications mostly in 2023, started the Alignment Academy, and then the more I heard you talk about research-based practices and the book, I thought, okay, I'm going to have to try that. And so once I went through Dr. Schubiner's book, that was kind of like the light switch.Yeah. And what do you mean by going through, like doing the exercises, doing the meditations, right? Not just reading, but like...I not only read it, but I worked through every page in that book. I found that the exercises are so relevant to people who have chronic pain, even anxiety and depression.Things that they had held on to. You know, some of the things that surprised me most about my bodywork was that like physical pain and emotional pain are processed in the same area.Yeah.That is really strange. You know, I had never heard that. I'm a highly emotional person.I have a lot of personality traits that go along with many people who have, you know, mind body syndrome issues. And when I started reading this, I was surprised that our brain is so powerful and that we have so much control over our bodies. I had thought that I was at the mercy of my body.Yeah.And I said things like, my body hates me and I hate it, you know. My body is just difficult. It likes to be in pain.It likes very negatively. And then I realized that I could switch the way I was thinking. And it's not my body that likes that.It's my brain.Yeah.That has made those neural pathways just almost in concrete, you know. Yeah.And then it's like, oh, it's not just a belief, because I have all this evidence. I have years and years of proof, but also you can learn from this work. That's predictive coding and your brain.Yeah, those are learned neural pathways that can be unlearned.And another thing that surprised me was that, I think it was in Alan Gordon's book, that he said when the pain becomes chronic, it shifted to parts of the brain associated with learning and memory.Yes.And I was like, that's really strange. Like, it's almost like I have memorized how this pain feels. You know, my body has learned it.Yeah.And it was very interesting. The more I looked at my internalized beliefs, and things I would say to myself, the things I had believed about myself for years, I realized they didn't have to be true.Amazing.And a lot of that was your v…
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