“Good care changes how your body experiences what’s happening to you.” – Tami Stackelhouse

Have you ever felt tension as you walked into a medical appointment, already bracing yourself for a bad experience? Tami talks about a sort of “doctor PTSD that comes with too many experiences with practitioners where you had to explain your fibromyalgia symptoms for the hundredth time just to feel dismissed, minimized, or just passed along. After enough difficult experiences, it’s easy to start believing that good care is a bonus instead of something we genuinely deserve.

When you live with a chronic illness like fibromyalgia, care matters on a nervous system level. Feeling safe, informed, supported, and understood doesn’t just change your emotions. It changes how your body experiences pain, stress, fear, and recovery. The way you’re cared for can completely shape how your body responds to that experience. The same is true for how you care for yourself. Rest, preparation, support, comfort, medication, boundaries, asking for help – that’s support for a nervous system that’s already carrying a lot.

In this episode, Tami talks about why good medical care changes the entire physical, emotional, and nervous system experience for people with fibromyalgia, her fantastic experience getting a mammogram-assisted biopsy, how lived experience can deepen empathy in healthcare, practicing unapologetic self-care, the importance of planning for recovery time, recognizing the nervous system impact of medical stress, advocating for your needs with family, employers, and your support system during difficult periods, how the right care can physically change the body’s experience, whole-person care that recognizes both physical and emotional realities, practicing more self-kindness and challenging the harsh inner critic, and more.

Note: This episode is not meant to be medical advice. Every person and every situation is unique. The information you learn in this episode should be shared and discussed with your own healthcare providers.