CRAMPED

Content warning: this episode includes a brief discussion of suicide attempts, please listen with care.
Melissa, known on TikTok as the Comorbidity Queen, has endometriosis, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, pelvic congestive syndrome, May-Thurner syndrome, Nutcracker syndrome, thoracic outlet syndrome, POTS, MCAS, Lyme disease, chronic anemia, and a first rib that doctors want to remove.
In this episode she tells us everything: the nine-hour emergency surgery at 17, the $65,000 in medical debt, the severe depression that pain and overmedication tipped her into, and the treatment that has done more for her in five minutes than any surgery.
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CRAMPED episodes are intended for informational and entertainment purposes only, and are not medical advice.

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PATREON-ONLY EPISODE TEASER
Join the CRAMPED Patreon to listen to the full episode: https://patreon.com/cramped
Did we need a data science professor to tell us why a study titled "Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis: a case-control study" is garbage? No, but it's more fun to tear this study to shreds with a professional.
This is a real study: university funded, ethics board-approved, peer reviewed, and published in a real medical journal in 2013. How did this study even get published? Were they even trying to help people with endometriosis? Is there ANYTHING useful we can get from this dumpster fire of a study?
Andrea Jones-Rooy: https://www.jonesrooy.com/
CRAMPED episodes are intended for informational and entertainment purposes only, and are not medical advice.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There's a very obvious gap in the healthcare market: millions of people in serious pain every month, and almost no companies trying to solve it. In this episode, Kate talks to Sushma Ravindran, founder of Ask Nomi, an app in beta testing that aims to help people with endometriosis track symptoms, find the right care, and figure out what actually works for their body. Sushma spent 18 years undiagnosed, paid $20,000 out of pocket to finally get answers, and then quit her job to build a solution. They also gets into the genuinely uncomfortable question of whether an app is an adequate solution to a healthcare system that has catastrophically failed people with period pain, or whether it's a Band-Aid over a gaping wound.
Join the CRAMPED Patreon: https://patreon.com/cramped
CRAMPED episodes are intended for informational and entertainment purposes only, and are not medical advice.
American Heart Association Journal article on endometriosis and heart disease risk: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.115.002224
Ask Nomi link to join the beta test: https://www.asknomi.ai/partners/cramped

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Your ears are pretty far away from your uterus, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY'RE NOT LISTENING.
Dr. Natalie Crossland, an audiologist who specializes in tinnitus management (and also has endometriosis), explains the surprising ways that hormones, hearing, and the nervous system are all in conversation with each other. Like why estrogen levels affect your ability to hear in background noise, why tinnitus might pop up during hormonal shifts, and what you can actually do about it besides being told to ignore it.

Join the CRAMPED Patreon: https://patreon.com/cramped

CRAMPED episodes are intended for informational and entertainment purposes only, and are not medical advice.

Dr. Natalie Crossland: https://www.newyorkhearingdoctors.com/team/natalie-crossland-au-d/
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Severe period pain doesn't care who you work for. Diana Falzone is a journalist and current host of EndoTV, whose endo story is tangled up with a breaking news story, an NDA, and a near-kidney failure seven months after giving birth. Kate researches the backstory she can't tell us, and then Diana joins Kate to talk about 18 years of dismissed pain, an infertility diagnosis at 32, and how her journalism skills became her most useful medical tool.
CRAMPED episodes are intended for informational and entertainment purposes only, and are not medical advice.
Join the CRAMPED Patreon: https://patreon.com/cramped
Jane Myer's 2019 New Yorker story: https://archive.ph/cW3jr

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