Hungry2Live
Hungry2Live
Ep.12 H2L. Finding answers and fighting for her life with Hashimotos - Stacey Robbins author, speaker, coach
On today’s episode, Rachel talks with Stacey Robbins. At 27, Stacey was fighting for her life. Her musical career was out on pause, as chronic fatigue, uninvited weight gain and anxiety plagued every cell. After gaining 100 pounds and very little information from doctors, Stacey went on a 2.5 year personal journey near and abroad for answers. Today, she helps women better understand Hashimotos, the autoimmune disorder she herself had been battling with, with little to no support. Stacey is a coach, runs retreats and brings women together on social media to talk and help build community to those suffering with the debilitating disease.
@lovestaceyrobbins
Staceyrobbins.com
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Speaker 2:Don't care,
Speaker 1:But they say I came here to stay
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Speaker 3:Hi and welcome to another episode of hungry to live. My name is Rachel and today I will be talking with Stacy Robbins. Stacy Robbins is an author. She's a mother and she's a speaker who talks about her battle with an autoimmune disease. Stacy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much, Rachel. And thanks for bringing all these conversations to encourage others.
Speaker 3:You are so well welcome. So on the show, I like to talk to people who have overcome something. And I know before starting the recording, we talked a little bit about how you have lived a lot of life. And I was doing some reading about you. And when you were about 27 years old living that life kind of stopped. You were stopped in your tracks because you were super exhausted and all these things started to happen to you. And you gained a lot of weight and here in lies where you have your story, where your story didn't begin there, but that is kind of the plateau of where the climax of your story kind of takes place. So can you bring us up to speed to that point please?
Speaker 4:Yeah, sure. I had been a professional musician with my husband, uh, since I was 15 years old, actually I was a professional musician used to being on the stages and singing and speaking and uh, as a song writer and I was this sexy Herby thing, always being approached by other men. And Hey, can we take you on these trips and do these things like I had this really kind of fun life. Um, and then also beneath the surface a very stressful life that people didn't know because there's an inner life, right? That goes with our outer life. And people didn't know the trauma that I had been through in my, in my childhood and the things that I'd had to work through just to be as functioning as I was and to be as successful and creative as I was. So there were all those parts, you know, were never just one thing. I was married from the time I was 20 performed with music with my husband rock. And, um, we did all these great things and, and that inner stress was driving me. And around the time I was 27 years old, I started having these crazy symptoms and it was like, oh, my energy was getting lower. Oh my, uh, my skin was getting affected. I had perfect flawless skin. My hair was suddenly changing color and consistency. It started turning almost like bozo, the clown orange and getting really, really, um, I don't know if you remember Broo pads, but for my childhood, my mom would have a Broo pad on the counter to, it was like a steel pad. That's what my hair felt like. Um, my skin was getting dry. My stomach was getting upset when I was eating just foods that I normally could eat. Uh, my sleep changed. My moods changed. Just everything started progressively changing, including my weight. My weight started climbing. Well, of course, you know, as soon as vanity hits, you go to the doctor and you're like, Hey, I'm gaining weight. Like what can we do about it? And so, uh, the doctor was like, well, let's put you on all these different medicines because, okay, you've got this symptom of anxiety. You've got this symptom of high cholesterol. You've got this symptom of, uh, insomnia. You've got this symptom of pain in your body. Let me put you on all these different medications and we'll, you know, settle this. And then he put me on double the dose. So Fen, Fen, a weight loss drug. So, um, while I would like to say that nothing changed because of the drugs, the truth is that some of things did, like I started having heart palpitations. I started having different problems that were the side effects of all those medications. And so I kept going back to doctor after doctor specialist, after specialist. And they kept just saying, you know, they're, well, they ran a bunch of tests cuz it's unusual to be that, that age and have those problems. And so they listened to me, but then after the meds weren't working and after enough time had passed and I'm gaining more and more weight. So I'm looking uglier and uglier. It's almost like I seemed less qualifi in their eyes and more of a problem. And they would tell me, they went from, oh, it's all these things to it's all in your head. So I had that really fun experience of going into a doctor's and not being believed, um, not being respected, not being heard and then being dismissed. And so, and then I'd go home to my husband and we had been struggling for so many years with some real significant bumps. And um, and then he was having a hard time believing me. And so we're family members. I was starting to hear things like, oh, you're just being lazy. And I'm like, I work 80 hours a week. Like there's not one lazy bone in my body. I am like a workaholic. Um, and so, or you're just trying to get out of something or you're just trying to get attention. I'm like, I, I live my life on a stage. I don't need anymore attention. So it's just very strange. And then things progressed even worse. Rachel, I got to the point where almost about nine months, months in, I had gained over a hundred pounds. I was seeing hallucinations. Literally I was sleeping night after night in the parking lot of the ER at, at the hospital because I was so afraid because of the symptoms I was having and my skin, if you touched my skin anywhere on my face or my hands, little drops of blood started coming out. So I went to one of my doctors and he said, Stacy, we don't know what you have, but we just know that this is what happens right before someone dies. It's probably a good time for you to go home and get your affairs in order. So that's the point of the story that was the holy Crow. Are you kidding me? I'm 27. I've lived a vibrant life. I'm not ready to not be here. But what happened was as a result of all of those things happening and me hitting that wall, I had to sit down and ask myself some key questions. And that's where the real journey for healing started.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you. I'm I'm still trying to process all of that. It I'm glad that you lived through all those experiences. That sounds, I just, I can't wrap my head around your story. I actually have a couple questions about parts of what you just shared. Number one, I being a child of the nineties. I remember Fen, um, not for me, but like I remember, um, that was like the drug of choice for people that were about a generation older than me. And isn't it like speed.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. And I couldn't even tell you all of the specifics of the medication, but I can tell you that it can create a mitral valve prolapse, which is what it ended up doing with me and creating tachycardia and, um, palpitations and me on ended up having a thermonuclear cardio echocardiogram where they're injecting radioactive materials to check out your heart and do what this Thermo scan or whatever it was called. It's been a lot of years since then. And I had a halter halter monitor and I had, um, yeah, so many tests, so many tests, I can't even tell you were a result of some of the combination of what eventually was diagnosed as Hashimotos and autoimmune, uh, condition that affects the thyroid and the thyroid affecting the heart. And then those medications also affecting the heart. So yeah, that was a lot of not fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I was gonna say, um, I know it took them a while to get the diagnosis of Hashimotos and having Hashimotos myself. I was curious, did they ever do any blood tests prior to all of that? And prior to being diagnosed, it just seems very strange that it took all of those things. And then finally it was like, oh, maybe we test for this or how did that come about?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So they did those when you go in and you have initial work done, they're not looking for specifics. They're looking to see what your baseline of all of those typical things are like a regular CBC or lipid panel. And they could see that my cholesterol was slightly raised, but what they, you know, that is one of the key indicators we know now in the composite picture of homos, but then I'll say it this way in the medical institutions, in the, the universities, uh, the, they used to see before the 1940s, they would see high cholesterol elevated cholesterol as the, one of the key signs for low thyroid. And so they would give you poin, that was a treatment before the pharmaceutical companies started subsidizing the medical universities. Once the pharmaceutical companies came in, they started individuating all those medicines and going, oh, you're having an issue with your cholesterol. Take this statin. They stopped looking at the whole person of, oh, okay. You have some elevated cholesterol, some fatigue, some weight gain some dry skin and you're losing some of your eyebrows. Okay. That's a com Hait picture for, uh, a low thyroid. No, instead it was, oh, okay. Your cholesterols high. Let's give you this little drug. You're having some anxiety. Let's give you this drug. That's what was going on. So did they take blood tests? Yes, they did. And they probably weren't looking at the whole picture because we know better now because of experiences like mine from 25 years ago. But they, you have to know also that a diagnosis for Hashimotos sometimes takes up to seven years for them to see it because it doesn't always show up in a clear way. They're not always testing antibodies like your TPO or your TGA B they're not always looking there. Right. So at least not, then they weren't.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, thank you for clarifying that. Um, so how did you, after you got the diagnosis, I'm sure that was a little sigh of relief that you finally knew what it was. How did that play to your mental health and trying to overcome and figure out new ways to kind of live with this? Because I know how debilitating it can be. Your anxiety can be through the roof at times, if you're having a flare up your whole body, you just feel it literally radiating throughout your body. Um, so how did you overcome or how are you still working through some of those symptoms?
Speaker 4:So I didn't get a diagnosis right away. The, one of the things that we got clear on was it was an underactive thyroid, but we weren't clear about the autoimmune component for a while later. And the P C O S we weren't clear about that. And then when I found out about it, it had this name called hus. I asked the doctor, what is it? And he said, we don't really know. And I said, and he said, the best way we can describe it is that it's like, your body is attacking your own thyroid. And I said, okay, how did I get it? They said, we don't know that. And I said, how do I get rid of it? And they said, you don't, you're on medicine, the rest of your life. So you have to know there was no www dot, Google, anything. It was me going to a library and finding one book that contained information with one line in that book, it was Dr. Broda Barnes, the unsuspected thyroid, um, illness, I think is the whole title. Anyway, it was Dr. Broda Barnes. And there, I think there were one or two sentences about Hashimotos and it still didn't give me a picture. So I was going to the health food stores and pulling like little flyers off and going to across the country, flying across the country, calling people literally all over the world to try to gather information. And I was on a scavenger hunt for my health to know what this is, and to feel like Allison Wonderland, I was in this big dark room. And I'm going, if I could find the door in, maybe I could find the door out. If I could figure out how I got it, I maybe I can figure out how to, how to get rid of it. And that became a very spiritual journey for me to say this one key question is what I started with. If my body is attacking itself, that means it's at war and treating the body like an enemy instead of a friend, where am I at war with myself? Where am I not at peace with me? And those were the questions I started with to help my healing.
Speaker 3:And that's really deep. And I've done a lot of research on autoimmune and for the listener, autoimmune are diseases. As Stacy said that, depending on where it's essentially located in your body, it's your body attacking itself and that parts of, um, your body. So for example, Hashimotos is a thyroid, um, condition and your body's attacking its own thyroid. Um, is there anything else you'd like to add to that for the listener?
Speaker 4:Yeah. There are some people who don't believe that, you know, like that was the understood, and that is the primary knowledge that we still have, but there are other thoughts about it that perhaps it's not the thyroid itself, it's a protein within the thyroid that is being attacked. There are some other thoughts about, um, and, and I can't even go into all of them because honestly my brain hasn't held all of it. I just realized I just have to listen to what my body needs. So to answer your question that you asked is like, how did knowing what you had change your life? Well, I didn't have knowledge. I had a name and no information. And so I went on a spiritual journey and literally like, if you, Rachel came to me 20, all these years later, you know, I was 27, but I'm 53 now. And he said to me, Stacy, what do I do? I could tell you the things that are in my course, the seven key elements that I learned, but it took me 25 years and over$250,000 to learn them. And like, I didn't figure out that foods were an important component until God. I was probably diagnosed 10 years before I realized, oh, being gluten free is probably a good idea, but now that's one of the first things I tell people to do. Right. It took me 10 years, but now I can tell you in one minute that 70 or 80, 80% of the people who have issues with autoimmune Hashimotos they do better without gluten, right. So, or dairy, or it took me a long time to figure out dairy or what coffee does or alcohol does or how detoxifying the cells is an issue or all these things. So, yeah. How did my life change slowly?<laugh>,
Speaker 3:We're all a work in progress. And I didn't realize until about 15 years in, in, into my own diagnosis about the whole gluten thing. So, I mean, I was diagnosed at 11, so<laugh>, and that's very, very young to be diagnosed with Hashimotos uh, um, all right, well, so since you, you just spoke a little bit about how you have it, um, a course with seven parts, you're also an author. Can you talk to us a little bit about the books you've written?
Speaker 4:Sure. Well, the first one that, and the one that, um, has gone all around the world, which has been so great, and it's helped tens of thousands of people, and it's given me access and a platform to podcast and summits and conferences and all these great things where I've gotten to help literally hundreds of thousands of people with my message, but the book is called. You're not crazy, and you're not alone, uh, losing the subtitles really long, but it's so good losing the victim, finding your sense of humor and learning to love yourself through Hashimotos because I found that, um, really I had a victim mindset. Uh, I found that I had gotten very serious about life and I needed to find my sense of humor and really the biggest journey that I can say almost every one of us with this kind of, uh, expression of autoimmune condition needs to go on is a journey to love ourselves. So I've, I realized, this is how I'm gonna do it. This is my alarm clock. You know, I was maybe asleep about how important it was to go on the journey of loving myself, but Hashimotos woke me up. And so as a result of where I woke up, I wanted to help because my deal is, I wanna shortcut you to the place of your wellbeing. I wanna shortcut you back to your peace and feeling it home in your body and feeling like you again. So I know what it's like to gain over a hundred pounds. And I know, know what it's like to lose over a hundred pounds. I know what it's like to sleep in a parking lot of an ER. And then I also know what it's like to fly to Italy and lead Italian retreats that are gluten free and have other women with autoimmune conditions come. I mean, like, I know what it's like to be the before and the after, and I'm not done, but I'm different. And I love helping people to be in that different place too. So, um, my course is called the girlfriend's guide to Hashimotos and it's an online course, and it, it addresses the seven key elements that are so important, beliefs, food, supplements, movement, rest, or sleep, um, relationships and spiritual practices. Those were the seven key components that I really dialed it down to. That helped me to find this place of homeostasis and to continue growing and healing as well.
Speaker 3:I love how calm you are, especially when talking about this. I can, I, I can feel what it would be like if I was at a retreat with you, you're just very, you're talking from your heart. I can feel the love you have for speaking about this, but also just for sharing all of this information and knowledge you have. And I know there's tidbits of wisdom that you talk about all over or, um, your website. And there was an article that you were quote that, um, you were interviewed for and you had a bunch of different quotes. Is there a quote that you would like to share? That means a lot to you?
Speaker 4:Oh, you're so dear. Um, well thank you for those kind words. I do really feel it. And I love people so much, and I think we, women are amazing and I wanna help us feel like ourselves again. So thanks for, for hearing that in me. Well, with all my coaching clients, you know, I've been a coach for 26 years and, and an author now and, and leading retreats. Um, the thing that I, there are four key quotes. I remind women of all the time. The first one is you are the most powerful healer in your life. The second is you are the grownup in the room. I know many of us have gone through injuries in our past and abuse. And I wanna remind you that I know that someone might have failed you in your past, but I wanna remind you that you are, are going to bring yourself forward. So you're the grownup you're in the room. Three is you are the hero you've been searching for. There's no one who's gonna rescue you, but your highest self. And so hang in there and know that you're the hero. And the last one is my mantra is I am a hundred percent responsible from my life, health, happiness, and peace. So any one of those four, you can grab it. It will be of service and support to you as a mantra, an affirmation, and as a way to rise from where you are to where you wanna be.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing that. Um, all of those quotes are super inspirational. And I know from time to time, I get in my head sometimes within my own Hashimotos or I'll have anxiety and then at work. And then I just feel the flares coming. Like, even, even if I stop eating the gluten, um, I'm working on the dairy, but that's work in progress.
Speaker 4:I know me too. I love dairy. Take me to Italy. Give me all the cheese
Speaker 3:<laugh>. Yeah. And the, For me, it's like coming from, um, the lens of recovery of an eating disorder. I don't wanna restrict myself from so many things. And at one point I was dairy free and gluten free, and I'm just like, you know, I'm gonna listen to my body. If my body's craving something that has dairy in it, I'm going to eat it because my body's telling me it needs that I rarely CRA crave anything that has gluten in it. And actually, since I've cut out gluten, I have no more cravings for anything that's sweet, like no baked goods, nothing like that. And it's crazy. Cause I used to eat cookies and donuts and brownies all the time. I used to order dessert before I order my meal at restaurants. And now I don't even, I, I don't crave those things at all. Well,
Speaker 4:You not all of us have that.<laugh> I the,
Speaker 3:Um, so now is the time in, um, my interview where I ask my guest, what keeps you hungry to live?
Speaker 4:That's a good question. What keeps me hungry to live is really leaving a legacy of love in my life, through the lives of others. And especially my children, my boys, Caleb and Seth, I who are almost 20 and almost 18, who I homeschooled and every, and just really was very conscious about raising them without a TV and all of those typical things. Um, and really helping my clients in my community that makes me feel so alive and being in Italy. Those are, are my top three<laugh> how's that those
Speaker 3:Are all great. And so how can people reach you or find you your socials, your, um, website?
Speaker 4:Sure. You can find me@stacyrobbins.com. That's S T a C E Y R O B B I N S. And you can also find me on Instagram at love Stacy Robbins, and you can join my girlfriend's guide to Hashimoto's group on Facebook. We have over 7,000 women and it's a place to really support the mindset. You can get medical, a lot of places, but the mindset piece is really, this is where we play and when, or lose the game of our wellbeing. So I have a whole group that we support each other, and it's really a, a wonderful place for you to come back home to you.
Speaker 3:All right. Thank you. I write a poem for all my guests. So here's a poem I wrote for you.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Hey,
Speaker 3:A Renaissance, not always having a cushion travels, the world, helping women whose lives are unfurled. Hashimotos attacks all the cells of a body that was once. Well, Stacy helps others understand they are not alone, that there is hope and connection in the unknown. At one point in her life selling half of what she owned in order to find answers and leave her comfort zone, finding adventure, taking risks, no longer feeling, chronically sick and unconventional life where messes and magic collide. She is always looking for her next ride. Thank you so much, Stacy. And you can find me@hungarydotthenumbertwo.live on Instagram or Hungary. The number two live.com. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 5:All right. Place the wrong down on my luck there, dog. How to switch it up, make it okay. So I gave up on the rare race learned from a pastor. May days still got town never too late.
Speaker 1:No,
Speaker 5:I don't care
Speaker 1:What they say.
Speaker 5:I came
Speaker 1:Here to stay
Speaker 5:Through the day.
Speaker 2:He's the master is wasn't easy. Again. He never gave up OSA to God, God, Through the darkness, through the tears, turn the lights off face. My never gave up. Kasak God, God.
