It was October 2023 and I woke up in a dark hospital room. I looked around for a person but nobody was there. I tried to read the clock on the wall but I couldn’t quite make out the time. I convinced myself it was about 10:30am and my surgery had only taken a couple of hours. In reality it had taken about 12 hours.

All of a sudden a wave of nausea hit me, and I knew I was going to vomit. I called out for the nurse, but nobody came, so I leaned over the edge of my bed and puked on the floor. 

My nurse must have heard the commotion at that point and came running in. She started asking me some questions to assess my neurological status. I answered them but I was annoyed, and super dizzy. The room was spinning because my balance had been severed during the surgery. I knew this would happen – the surgeon told me that ahead of time – but it was miserable. It would be about 36 hours before the room would stop spinning, so I tried to keep my eyes closed and hold still.

The surgeon came in to check on me, and I asked him if I still had my hearing. He compassionately looked at me and said no. A tear streamed down one side of my face. I don’t make tears on the other side anymore. 

This is the story of how I went deaf in my left ear during surgery, and what I learned about listening to my body. 

And really quick – if you know someone who would benefit from hearing this episode, please share it with them. And if you haven’t already done so, make sure you subscribe and follow the show, and give it a review for me. I’ve never taken a dime of advertising for this show because I want to maintain the integrity of the message that you’re hearing, but what that means is that for all 237 episodes now I have paid out of my own pocket to record, edit, produce and host the show on the streaming platforms, and it’s not cheap. So if you have ever gotten value from listening to this podcast, the best way for you to say thank you is to leave a rating and a review, and to share it. You can share it on your FB or IG stories, or text it to people you know. I appreciate it so much. That’s how we spread the message about dismantling diet culture one person at a time. More people need to hear these topics we discuss here, and you can make a huge difference by helping to spread the word to as many people as possible. 

Before we dive into our main topic for today, you know what time it is…We’ve got some Wellness Woo to talk about. 

Wellness Woo is the stuff that diet and wellness culture tells us we should do in the name of health, but it’s really based on pseudoscience, exaggerated claims, or just nonsense. 

Today’s Wellness Woo is: The supplement industry

• Money stats: global market $150-200 BILLION per year (US accounts for $60-70 Billion of that)
• Not regulated
• 3 categories: helpful, doing nothing, harmful
• A few examples of harm:
  • A 30-year-old Caucasian male presented to a hospital after he had walked off his job because of a strong urge to kill his boss and a customer while experiencing a visual hallucination of committing the act. It was determined to be due to to a performance enhancing supplement
  • a case of drug-induced liver injury due to turmeric that caused acute liver failure
  • A British man who was taking mega doses of vitamin D (recommended by a ‘nutritionist’ not an RD) who developed kidney failure
  • A man who needed a liver transplant after taking green tea extract
• You want to know what a supplement that is actually super effective becomes? A medication!!
• Often sold by quacks and people who want your money – I’ve never sold supplements and never will.
• A few examples of when I would recommend a supplement – but how rare this is

If you have an example of Wellness Woo that you want to share, send it to me at rebuildingtrustwithyourbody@gmail.com. 

Ok, that’s enough of that. Moving on to today’s main topic…What I Learned About Listening To My Body From Going Deaf In One Ear Overnight And Spending 2 Days In The ICU

So how did I end up in that dark room in the ICU? Well, to understand that we have to go back about a year…

• I had been having this weird sound in my ear…(what led to diagnosis)
• How this overlapped with my mom’s story (and not listening to her body)
• Losing my mom at the same time put it in perspective, having gratitude for my body (which is something we talk about a lot inside NDC)
• Vestibular rehab – lessons in doing the hard thing to help your body adapt, and trusting the expert to guide me on this (hard to know when to listen to your body vs challenge it)
• Body grief over loss of functionality – frustration at times, only half tears
• An incorrect assumption I made – how we jump to conclusions about our bodies that aren’t always accurate
• The lessons I’m carrying forward
  • Don’t ignore weird symptoms from your body – even if it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal
  • At the same time…don’t let this create health anxiety for you. 
  • One last takeaway for you: Not every physical ailment is caused by food or solved by food (or weight!!)
    • This is what I help my clients separate out inside my signature coaching program Non-Dieter’s Club. Part of having peace with food and having empowerment with your nutrition is understanding what YOUR body needs, and when there are nutrition changes that would be genuinely helpful (or necessary) for your health – and also what NOT to worry about. There’s so much wellness woo out there, that it can be hard to sort through what’s legit and what’s not. My clients inside NDC learn how to tease apart what they need to focus on for their health, and what they can let go of worrying about. They’re not choosing between having freedom with food vs their health. They get to have BOTH. 
    • One of the things that comes up a lot is what I was talking about earlier where I had assumed incorrectly that my nausea was from dizziness, when it was actually from anesthesia. A lot of times my clients will come to me incorrectly assuming that they had to cut out sweets for their blood sugar, or that their weight was causing their joint pain when really it was from hormone shifts in perimenopause, or genetically caused arthritis (which it turns out I also have, but that’s a story for another day). As a society we’ve been taught to blame food and weight for every health problem – and it prevents us from being able to take care of our bodies in more effective ways – which is what my clients are now doing. 
    • So if you want clarity on what actually matters for YOUR body and YOUR HEALTH – while also leveraging intuitive eating to give you total peace and freedom with food, and to feel comfortable, confident and at home in your body….then NDC is where we make that happen. Right now NDC is open for Spring Enrollment, so if you’re listening to this around the time it came out, DM or email me for details and a special bonus when you enroll before May 1. And if you’re listening in the future, reach out for current enrollment details. 

In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

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“I love Katy and Rebuilding Trust With Your Body.” <– If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people — just like you — who are ready to finally discover peace with their bodies. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, make sure to follow the podcast if you haven’t already done so. Follow now.